Kylie set the dad badger next to his wife on the table. “I spoke with my sister, Lila, this morning, and she says she’ll be there. I asked what she’d do if a veterinarian emergency came up, and she assured me she’ll have backup. Our parents are on a trip, so it won’t be them. They’d have gone at a different time, but they planned the trip before I set a date for the party. I don’t want them flying in from Tuscany early.” She brushed at her fair hair, the heat and humidity already frizzing it up. “Even if it’s just Lila and us, we’ll have a great time.”
“I look forward to meeting your sister,” Felicity said.
“She’s amazing.” Kylie smiled at her husband. “You don’t have to be there if work comes up, especially in California—”
“It won’t,” Russ said. “I tied up all those loose ends when I was out there last week. Work won’t interfere. I’ll be at the party. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I’m an introvert. I have to angst about these things.” She spoke without any undertone of self-criticism. She turned again to Felicity. “Russ has a few things he wants to discuss with you. I’ll go inside and look over the work-back schedule. I can access it on my phone. You emailed it to me, right?”
Felicity nodded, and Kylie thanked her, jumped to her feet and dashed inside.
“It’s not as cloak-and-dagger as it sounds,” Russ said with a smile. “Kylie’s working on a new badger who does security at tall buildings in the city and visits Middle Branch to unwind. Her head’s in that world right now. He’s younger than Sherlock. Apparently they don’t get along at first.”
“Do you get approval on this new character?”
“Input, not approval.” Clearly that was fine with him. He sat forward, folding his hands on the table. “I wanted to talk to you about Nadia Ainsworth. She’s back in California. I checked. I don’t think she’s an immediate concern, and she might not be one at all.”
“But?”
“I did some digging on her.”
Felicity tried to ignore the twist of tension in her stomach. “Anything I need to know?”
“Maybe. Her history isn’t that different from what she told you and Gabe. She worked with him on an early start-up that didn’t go well and then continued with him on this latest one, which did go well. She put her heart and soul into the company, but she wasn’t in senior management or even an employee. Gabe then sold it to her husband, David Ainsworth, just as he—David—bailed on Nadia.”
“I know that much,” Felicity said. “Most of it, anyway.”
Russ nodded. “Bear with me. David’s new team brought in their own customer development specialist, so Nadia was out of a major client as well as a husband. Meanwhile her grandmother back East died. She told me she’s taking some time off to settle her grandmother’s affairs, regroup and figure out what’s next.”
Felicity welcomed a slight, cool breeze off the water. “What about event planning?”
“She oversaw several corporate events Gabe held to get everyone together. He did them at least twice a year given that his people all worked remotely, whether they were employees or freelancers. The last retreat was at a resort in Aspen.”
“Nadia probably coordinated with the resort’s staff planner who did most of the work.” Felicity frowned, considering Russ’s words. “She stretched the truth a bit on that one, didn’t she?”
“That’s correct,” Russ said, nothing light about his tone. “She has no business relationship or any other kind of relationship with Gabe at the moment. There was no logical reason for her to have contacted you the way she did.”
“I see.”
“My guess is Gabe was taken off guard by her sudden appearance here,” Russ added. “He strikes me as a decent guy, and it didn’t occur to him she’d try to get information from you, maybe get under your skin.”
“What does she want from him? Can you say?”
Russ sighed. “A bad divorce, the loss of a major client, not having Gabe in her life day-to-day—whatever her feelings toward him—and her grandmother’s death all at once is a lot. Then she finds out Gabe is presenting at Dylan McCaffrey’s first boot camp, and his childhood friend Felicity is organizing the day. I’m not sounding the alarm, but my guess is this woman is a bit jealous of you because you have what she wants.”
“Which is what? I’m not planning Gabe’s company retreats, I’m not a customer development specialist, I’m not married and my grandmothers are gone, too.”
“But you have Gabe’s attention and interest,” Russ said without skipping a beat.
Felicity grabbed the two badgers and tossed them into her tote. “Gabe and I grew up together. That’s it. There’s nothing else there. I organized the boot camp party for him because Mark asked me to—which made perfect sense since I was the planner for the rest of the day.” She sat up straight. “End of story.”
Russ’s eyebrows went up.
Felicity crossed her arms on her chest. “What? Go ahead, Russ. Say it.”
“All right,” he said, clearly reluctant. “You two might not realize it, but everyone else can see the connection you and Gabe have with each other. You two have known each other since nursery school. That’s something Nadia doesn’t have and never will have with him.”
“We weren’t speaking for a few years.”
Russ nodded. “Reconnecting could fuel her bitterness. Gabe’s happy. Nadia’s miserable. She doesn’t have to have a romantic interest in him herself to be obsessed with you.”
“Gabe and I were never romantically involved.” Felicity all but squirmed at her near-lie, but she would argue their one night together hadn’t been about romance. She wasn’t sure if Russ noticed her discomfort. Probably, she thought. “We were never a couple or anything like that. You know.”
“Yeah. I think I do.”
Felicity suspected he did know, but she
