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Oh, that was twelve-step stuff Quaid did not need. “I’m fine. We’re good.”
He brought the car to a stop in front of the big Creole mansion they’d grown up in.
“We’re not,” Paul replied. “Not even close, and if I don’t do something about it, we’ll never have the kind of relationship we could have.”
What the hell was happening? “Don’t worry about that. Like I said, if you tell me who you owe money to, I’ll handle this and when you sell your house you can pay me back and we’ll be even. Now get inside. I have to go back into town. I have work in the morning.”
Paul opened the door and stepped out, but then turned to look back at Quaid. “I have to think about this.”
“No, you have to give me the name of the guy who is going to find you and break your legs if he doesn’t get his money,” Quaid returned. “That’s all you have to do.”
Paul slapped the top of the car. “No, I have a lot of work to do, and I’m going to fix this problem. I promise. I’ll talk to you tomorrow and we’ll figure out how to fix this.”
“I told you how to fix it.”
Paul stepped away. “Nah. You told me how to fix a temporary and, in the end, meaningless problem. I meant how to fix our family. You’re right. This has gone on far too long, and it’s my problem to fix.”
“I did not say that. At all. Not even once. Just give me the name and we all go back to our lives.” The idea of Paul trying to fix something was unsettling. Unbelievable, too.
“I think I need to reevaluate my life, brother. Starting here and now. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He began to walk away.
Quaid lowered the window, his panic rising the tiniest bit. “You don’t have to see me. You can text me that name.”
“Good night, brother,” Paul called out, not looking back.
Quaid took off for town again. When he got home, the lights were out and Jayna’s door was closed.
It had not been his night.
chapter six
Jayna yawned and rolled over, reaching a hand out to pet Luna. “I’m getting up. I promise.”
Then she fully opened her eyes and sat up because her dog was absolutely not lying on the bed next to her.
“Luna?” She glanced around the small bedroom and did not catch even a glimpse of her dog. The clock on the bedside table read 8:35 a.m. Luna never lasted that long without whining and licking her face to get Jayna to let her out and feed her some breakfast. Luna was better than any alarm clock.
Where the hell was her dog?
She’d been up way too late reading that book of Quaid’s, but that wouldn’t have mattered to Luna. Her dog’s bladder didn’t care that she’d needed to know if Armand Landry, Cajun private investigator, had been able to figure out who had killed his high school girlfriend at their twenty-year reunion.
He had, and she’d kind of fallen for the super-smart Armand and wondered if he was going to get together with the police detective he’d battled with over the course of the investigation.
None of which solved the case of her missing pup.
The door was slightly ajar. Had Luna learned how to open a door and decided to go wandering in the middle of the night? And if so, how many of Quaid’s belongings was she going to have to replace? Luna could be klutzy. That big tail of hers could do some damage, and Quaid probably had a bunch of nice stuff in here.
She wrapped her robe around her and prayed she didn’t look too bad before heading out into the living room.
The good news? The place didn’t look like it had been ransacked by pirates—or a curious dog’s massive tail. But there was no Luna.
“There you go, girl,” a deep voice sounded from the kitchen. “Here’s hoping that’s fairly similar to your usual food or we’ll be going for walks all day.”
She moved into the kitchen, and there was Quaid in athletic pants and a T-shirt. Luna’s leash was hanging over the old landline that was still mounted to the wall. “What happened? She usually wakes me up.”
Quaid sent her a smile that threatened to melt her. “I heard her scratching and figured out what she needed. I hope you don’t mind I opened your door and took her out for a morning walk. I promise I did not look inside. You want some coffee? I got a couple of cups from the café while we were out.”
She gratefully accepted the travel-size cup emblazoned with the café’s name. “Thanks, but you have a perfectly good machine downstairs, and by perfectly good I mean spectacular.”
