She thought he’d take off, dust flying, wheels spinning. Or that he might get cold and sarcastic. He surprised her by smiling.
“You do have a burr up your butt, don’t you?”
She pressed her lips together. “Yes, I do. And for good reason.”
He rested one arm on the door. “I’m sorry for my part in it.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, I really mean it. I don’t remember what all happened the last time we were together. I was pretty drunk. But I’m sure I was a jerk and I’m sorry.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted things to be good between them. Not romantically-she wasn’t foolish enough to think they could go there anymore-but as friends. She’d missed him for nearly nine years. It was horrible having him back and being so distant.
“You’ve tricked me before,” she told him. “You’ve acted all nice and then turned on me.”
“I want to keep you guessing.”
“You’re doing a good job of it.”
He reached across the space between his truck and her car. If she’d stretched out her arm, they might have touched. “Want to talk about whatever is bothering you?” he asked. “I promise to listen and not trick you in any way.”
There was so much going on lately. So much that she couldn’t control and that scared her. “I could lose the foundation,” she said.
“What? Why? Are you running out of money?”
“No. That would be easy to fix. We have funding. At least for now. It’s worse than that. It looks like someone is planting evidence that we’re spending millions on bonuses and vacations. It’s not true, but even the rumor could shut us down.”
He drew back his arm. “Come on. Follow me back to my place. We’ll talk and figure out how to make this better.”
She stared at him, wishing she knew if he really meant it.
“Give me a chance, Skye. Not because I deserve it but because you want to.”
She wanted a lot of things where he was concerned. “That’s not playing fair,” she whispered.
“I’m not playing. I mean it. Come on. We’ll find a solution together.”
He drove past her, turned around and waited until she put her car in Drive and continued down the road to the entrance to the Cassidy spread. She parked next to him and waited while he got his crutches.
“How bad was the hangover?” she asked as they walked toward his office in the barn.
“I’ve never felt that crappy in my life,” he told her. “Not even after the surgery removing my leg.”
“Good. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
He opened the door to his office and grinned at her. “You’re assuming I’m that smart.”
“You can be.”
“On a good day.”
There was a worn cloth sofa against the wall opposite the desk. Skye set her purse on the coffee table and settled in a corner. After kicking off her shoes, she angled toward him.
“It’s a mess,” she said. “Everything is confusing and complicated.”
“It wouldn’t be a quality problem if it wasn’t.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
He sat down and put his crutches on the floor. “Tell me more about what’s going on.”
Trisha had asked nearly the same question, but Skye hadn’t felt right telling her. Mitch was different-they’d known each other nearly all their lives and they were connected in a way that time and distance couldn’t break.
“Jed has a bastard son none of us knew about.”
Mitch reminded himself that he wasn’t supposed to know about Garth Duncan or his relationship with the Titans.
“When did you find this out?”
“A few months ago. Apparently all this happened before Jed married Lexi’s mother. The woman he got involved with is named Kathy. She works in the pet store in town. She’s…” Skye looked at him. “Something happened to her. She’s mentally challenged. We don’t know if it was a car accident or what and it must have happened after their affair. But we don’t have any details. Jed swears he set her and Garth up with plenty of money, but people get angry for all sorts of reasons.”
Mitch hadn’t known about Garth’s mother. Was that the reason the man was out for revenge? Did the reason matter?
“How did you find out about him?” he asked.
“Lexi’s fiance Cruz first made the connection. Lexi had borrowed money to expand her spa business. It was a great loan with excellent terms and only one tiny detail. The note was callable. At any time, Lexi could have to repay it back with only a few weeks’ notice. Garth was the lender and he called the note.”
Skye leaned her head against the back of the sofa. Her long, wavy auburn hair tumbled down the ratty fabric, making it difficult for him to pay attention to what she was saying.
“Next a couple of Jed’s racehorses tested positive for drugs.”
“No way,” Mitch said, drawn back into the conversation. “Your old man thinks he runs the world, but he would never dope a horse.”
“I know. Then the D.A. got a tip that we were using the foundation to launder money, so that was a mess. Lexi managed to fix her business and Jed can’t be hurt by very much. The D.A. investigated and we were cleared of all charges. Still, it was a lot of negative publicity.”
Garth had game, Mitch thought, both respecting the other man’s thoroughness and feeling guilty for agreeing to spy for him. It didn’t sound like Garth needed any help. Plus, this was Skye. Did Mitch really want to hurt her?
Not on a good day.
“There have been other things,” Skye said, sounding defeated. “A former client sued Lexi. It turned out she’d been working for Garth and had a huge crush on him. When Lexi pointed out that filing a lawsuit under false pretenses was illegal, the woman disappeared.”
Mitch remembered the recent headlines. “The rumors about mad cow?”
“We’re guessing that’s Garth. Now he’s after the foundation again. Somehow, someone got into our computer program. Financial records have been changed. They’re showing big bonuses paid to senior staff, but we don’t pay bonuses. They’re also showing that I wrote a lot of checks to myself and someone’s started rumors that I’m covering some bad investments.” She cleared her throat. “None of it’s true, but no one will care about that. Successful nonprofits survive because of their reputations. If we lose that, we could lose everything.”
He felt even worse than before. “Are you sure this is all Garth?”
“Yes. He said he was going to take us down. What we don’t know is why now. Did something happen to trigger him? Does he just now have enough influence and money? He’s thought this through. He has connections, money, means and plenty of motivation. We don’t know where the next blow will come from or how to stop him.”
“What does Jed say?”
“Nothing. Lexi tried to talk to him, but he blew her off. He says he’s handling it. Cruz suspects that Jed might even be proud of what Garth is doing. After all, Garth is Jed’s son. I don’t understand that. If Garth is angry, he should talk to us directly. I run a foundation that feeds hungry children. That’s all we do. Every dollar we have to spend on legal fees or an investigation over false charges is a dollar not going to a kid’s dinner.”
Okay, now Mitch knew he was officially jerk of the month. He’d thought Garth had some mild interest in screwing with Jed. But this was different. This bordered on evil.
“Are you sure there’s no way someone at the foundation has been playing fast and loose with the money?” he asked.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” she said with a sigh. “I’m starting an internal investigation. My CFO is bringing in some of the computer guys to pinpoint the charges in the system. Once we have that, we’ll figure out where it came from. I’m guessing Garth has paid someone to hack into our system. We have the usual protections, but they obviously weren’t enough.”
Mitch had seen Skye in nearly every mood possible, but he’d never heard her sound defeated before.
