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His tone implies the exact opposite of the words he's saying, but I shake his hand and pretend to take him at face value. "I'm absolutely no threat. Kaia has told me nothing but good things about you."
Kaia claps her hands. "Great. Everyone is cool." She pushes past me into my house. "Nice place, Grant. I see your decorating style hasn't changed."
I look around at my furniture, all from sustainable wood sources, the pictures on my walls all of nature. I step aside to let Kade in. "I guess it hasn't."
"Nope." Kaia lets the p pop. "You like what you like, Grant." She sniffs and her eyes widen. "Whatever you're cooking might be burning."
She's not wrong. There's definitely a charred scent in the air. I run to the kitchen, open the oven door, and pull out a veggie lasagna that is only slightly singed on the edges. "Saved it," I call back to them. "Why don't you both have a seat and I'll bring out the salad?"
"Honestly," Kaia says as I set another place setting on the table. "I thought Dani would be here, too."
I look from her to Kade and back again. Maybe this was a weird idea. I've been so busy and preoccupied this week, I didn't give this dinner much thought. I grab the salad from the fridge and set it in the center of the table. "Dani's not very happy with me right now. But this is a business dinner, anyway."
Kaia glances at Kade and back to me as I take a seat across from the two of them.
"Business dinners usually happen at restaurants, man." Kade leans back in his seat, hands loose on the table. He doesn't appear to be interested in the salad.
I look between them. "Shit. You thought I was making some romantic attempt to win you back?"
Kaia laughs as she dumps salad on her plate and passes the tongs to Kade. "The whole town knows about your fight with Dani, Grant. When you called and said you needed to talk to me, I figured you wanted love advice."
"I figured you wanted to make a play for my woman," Kade says as he drizzles his salad with ranch dressing.
"Um, no. Neither. I've narrowed down the list of possible Bigfoot suspects and I don't want to talk about it at a local restaurant where anyone might be listening."
"What about your office?" Kaia asks.
I shake my head. "Gary is on my list and he's in and out of the office all day. Besides, I want us to be friends, Kaia." I look at Kade. "All of us. Whatever romantic past Kaia and I had, I've always considered her one of my good friends."
Kade glares at me for a long moment before slowly nodding. "I'm open to that."
"Good. Great. We can look over my list after dinner, but my top suspect—"
"As your friend," Kaia says. "I want to talk about Dani. What happened there?"
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. "It's really just a big misunderstanding. There's an ex-partner of hers who's been making her life hell, and I was trying to take care of it for Dani. I'm still trying. This woman has made it so Dani can't get a job in Atlanta, and that's not right. If I can help, I'm going to do it. But Dani feels like I should have asked her before I tried to fix things and she's got some crazy idea that my only interest in her is as someone I can rescue." I shake my head. "It's ridiculous."
Kade snorts, his lips twitching up into a smile. "Guess I really do have nothing to worry about."
Kaia grinned at him. "I told you. He's a hopeless case."
"Hopeless? What are you talking about?"
"Do you know why I left you at the altar, Grant?"
"Sure. Because you didn't want to live in Catalpa Creek."
Kade chuckles. I'm questioning my offer of friendship.
Kaia doesn't laugh. "That was part of it, yes. The other part was that you never really saw me for me, Grant. You love hiking, so you believed I must love hiking, too."
I am not a fan of where this conversation is going. "We've talked about that, Kaia. You said it wasn't my fault you never told me you hate hiking."
Kaia nods. "That's a fair point. So, what did I enjoy doing? What was my favorite thing to do?"
"Go to parties I had no interest in attending?" Honestly, I have no idea what Kaia liked to do, and it's making me slightly sick.
Kade is digging into his salad and watching us like we're the best show on television.
