AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Angie Jones worked at the post office, and she’d gone to high school with Sienna. She’d barely nodded Jayna’s way when they’d stopped at her table to say hello. Jayna wasn’t sure if it was because Angie didn’t recognize her or because everyone here knew she was sleeping with Quaid Havery with no expectation of any kind of relationship with him outside of bed.
“People from school don’t like me.” She took another drink of her beer.
“That’s not true. You had plenty of friends, but they all left Papillon,” Sienna pointed out. “They’re all across the country now, and you didn’t keep in touch. It’s normal, youknow. Most of us don’t keep in touch with the people we knew in high school. I’m still friends with Angie because we live close by. Now stop procrastinating and tell me what happened with Quaid.”
She didn’t want to talk about Quaid. She certainly didn’t want to think about the way he’d looked at her when she’d walked away from him. He’d seemed genuinely surprised that she didn’t want to talk to him.
Likely because women didn’t argue with Quaid. Quaid was gorgeous and sexy and rich. He could have any woman he wanted, but he also lived in a small town where his choices were limited. That’s why he’d fallen into bed with her. She was a change of pace.
“Nothing happened. I didn’t want to spend another night in that tiny apartment, that’s all.”
Sienna’s fingers drummed along the table. “Liar. You know, you think you’re an excellent liar, but I can tell. Something happened with Quaid and it’s bothering you.”
She was an excellent liar and there was no way her sister could tell, but there was another way to get information here in town. “You heard we had a fight.”
Sienna shrugged. “I might have heard something about a disagreement at the courthouse that didn’t involve Geraldine’s state of dress.”
“It was nothing.” Like their relationship was nothing. That had been such a kick in the gut. She’d been thinking about how she was going to tell Quaid she was working for his brother. She was going to tell him everything, and then he’d opened his mouth and she’d actually felt her damn heart break.
She hadn’t thought it could break. Not that way. What Todd hadn’t managed to do with years of cheating, Quaid had done with a few careless words. He’d made her feel small.
“It had to be something or you wouldn’t have shown up on my doorstep,” Sienna pointed out. “You walked all the way from the courthouse to the trailer park. It’s two miles. If it was nothing, you would have had Quaid drop you off.”
She hadn’t exactly enjoyed the walk, but she also hadn’t wanted to listen to Quaid tell her she hadn’t understood him and he didn’t mean what he said the way it had come out. “I don’t think it’s working out between me and Quaid.”
“What happened?” Sienna asked again.
Her sister could be stubborn when she wanted something. “Paul Havery asked me to look through some contracts for him and Quaid objected. Quite adamantly.”
“Was that what you were doing earlier?”
While she’d waited for Sienna to get ready for the party, she’d casually browsed through the contracts. Not a deep dive, but she could already tell the agreement to sell Paul’s house was in order. He should be able to move forward with it, and in a few weeks he could sign closing papers and have the money he needed. He’d paid cash for the house and was making a tidy profit given he’d only been in it for a couple of years, but that was West Coast real estate.
There were a few things about the production contract she would like to check out. She’d like to read the suit surrounding production. Something was off there, but she would need to delve into the text to figure it out. Every instinct she had told her he was getting scammed and the proof would be in the details. She could figure it out.
And she wasn’t going to get that opportunity because she was meeting Paul in the morning for breakfast where she would hand it all back over to him and be done with the Havery family. Like Quaid wanted.
“Yes, I probably shouldn’t have looked through them since I’m giving them back tomorrow, but you know I can’t stand to leave anything that disorganized. He threw bothcontracts in the tote bag without separating them, so I had to put them back together again.” She wondered what Quaid was doing. Probably writing or hanging out with his actual friends. He’d been stuck in the apartment with her for days, so he was probably anxious to get out. Had it been hard for him to lock himself away from the world with her? He was too polite to go out without her. That was the only possible explanation she could find. Or he was enjoying the sex but Paul’s offer had screwed things up for him.
“Did Quaid want to look into it himself?” Sienna asked. “I would be surprised to hear that.”
“What’s surprising about it?” She knew Quaid didn’t intend to look into it for Paul, but she wanted to know why Sienna thought it would be surprising for him to.
Sienna straightened her blouse before waving to a friend walking by. She leaned in. “They don’t get along. At least that’s what I’ve always heard.”
“Why?” She knew what Paul had told her, but all Quaid would say was they didn’t get along. “Paul talked a lot about how Quaid was closer to their dad and he was closer to their mom, but I didn’t really get it.”
“Oh, I think it’s more than that,” Sienna assured her. “You know Paul got into a lot of trouble when he was younger, right? You might have already been in college by the time it got real bad. I know the old sheriff smoothed things over and Paul doesn’t have an arrest record here in Papillon, but I’ve heard rumors things went bad when he moved to Los Angeles. There wasn’t a friend of the family out there who could fix things for him.”
“Paul told me he had a drug problem.” Paul had seemed open and honest in their conversation. She’d been surprised since his brother didn’t talk about him at all. Well, beyond telling her not to fraternize with the man.
“A big one, from what I understand,” Sienna explained.“I think he had a couple of DUIs in California, and Quaid had to bail him out of jail. He’s been to rehab more than once. I don’t hang out with him, but I know some people who do. They all say he’s a nice guy when he’s not using, but when he is, life gets complicated around him. You know how that kind of thing can tear apart a family.”
She’d watched it happen. “I know what it did to our aunt, but she was willing to talk about it.”
“Because Mom got her some therapy, though don’t mention it to anyone,” Sienna said, her voice low. “You know how the rest of the family feels about therapy.”
Jayna sat back with a sigh, a weariness coming over her. “They think therapy is for rich people who can’t handle the world. I’m surprised Mom was willing to help her do that.”
