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“And at his age, it’s reasonable that he is just doing his own thing and that nothing’s wrong, if he does this often,” Nicole said.
“Which is why the police aren’t really working on the case. They have a lot of cases they know need to be solved. So the parents hired us to see if we could find him and ensure he’s all right.”
“Did you interview witnesses who saw him last yet?”
“Some. But others are next on my list. I’ve spoken to his parents, of course. You…wouldn’t want to come with me and do that, would you?” He figured she would unless her pregnancy was bothering her too much.
“Yeah, sure. I’m pregnant with twins, but it doesn’t mean I can’t do any more investigations. In fact, I’ll be taking up the slack while you go to the cabin with Kayla.”
Nate opened his mouth to speak, then closed his mouth.
“Don’t tell me you’re even considering canceling on staying at one of the pack’s wolf cabins with her for a week. I thought you were planning something really special for her birthday—I mean, beyond giving her the beautifully hand-carved wooden hope chest.”
“Yeah, no, I mean, I hadn’t planned to cancel the reservation, but this case—”
“Can wait. Have you… You haven’t even asked her if she can go, have you? I swear, dear brother, if you don’t ask her soon, I’ll do it.”
He ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah, I’m telling her, but I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Nicole sighed with relief. “I’ll keep after the case the whole time if we don’t solve it before you leave with her, but I’m not going to update you on it. Not while you’re with Kayla at the cabin.”
He smiled at Nicole and set the file aside and started eating his chicken. “Yeah. Kayla and I need this time together alone.” Especially because he was going to ask her to mate him and he wanted it to be a pre-honeymoon for the week. He finished his dinner and called Kayla. “Hey, it’s me. Listen, about tonight, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be,” Kayla said. “Roxie and I just finished eating rib eye steaks. They were delicious.”
He glanced at his empty plate. Steaks sounded good. “Well, it won’t happen again.”
“Yeah, it will. You have a job to do, and it’s no big deal.”
Nicole raised her brows at him, expecting him to say more.
“I’ve got to go. Roxie is pouring more bubbly,” Kayla said to Nate.
“Oh, girls’ night out.” At least he was glad theyseemed to be having a good time of it, but he hoped it wasn’t to cheer Kayla up because he’d let her down.
“It is. Unexpected too. Roxie was going to be at the lodge late, so we just switched things up so she could be here with me instead.”
Sure. That’s why Blake wasn’t here with Nicole. All because of Nate.
He rubbed his whiskery chin. “Hey, can I come over for breakfast?”
As soon as he said it, he knew he was in hot water with Nicole, who was shaking her head and looked perturbed. Yeah, he probably should have offered to take Kayla to breakfast, but if they ate at the lodge’s restaurant, he wouldn’t be paying for it since she co-owned the restaurant with her siblings. And he was certain she wouldn’t want to go into Silver Town to have breakfast because it would take too much time away from her work. He knew she would have turned him down, though he should have at least made the gesture. He was probably in trouble with Kayla. Maybe with her whole family.
There was a lengthy pause, and Nate got the impression his sister was right. Kayla wasn’t happy with him.
Kayla knew she had to expect that Nate would be busy with cases sometimes, but she still felt hurt that his cancellation had been such a last-minute thing, and, like usual, she just acted like it was no big deal. She was glad Blake took over for Roxie at the lodge and then their sister had been here for her instead.
“Breakfast,” Kayla said to Nate. “Yeah, I eat breakfast, so if you’re here when I’m eating it, you can have some too.” She wasn’t going to make a special breakfast date with him just so he could tell her he wasn’t coming. She understood that his cases could take priority. She just didn’t want to get excited about seeing him and be let down again.
Smiling, Roxie shook her head.
“Okay, it’s, um, a plan then. See you at eight?” Nate asked, sounding like he was in hot water with Kayla.
“Sure, see you then.” She didn’t want to make him feel bad, but he’d made her feel that way! After they hung up, she poked at her cauliflower. “Well, he wants to have breakfast with me, but who knows if that’s for sure or not.”
“Hmm, well, just in case, I’ll have breakfast at the lodge,” Roxie said.
Kayla looked up from forking up some more cauliflower. “No. Way. You were here for me tonight. He wasn’t. We’re not going to rearrange things every time he’s supposed to see me when he could just cancel on another date with hardly any warning.”
