Chasing River (Burying Water #3) (31 page)

“Look, can I give you a call later and—”

“Nope.”

I give River a shrug, because I don’t really know what to say, and unlock my front door to lead everyone in, kicking my boots off, my feet sweaty and sore and in need of a long soak in the tub that I’m not going to get.

“Drink, anyone?” Rowen pulls out a bottle of Jameson before tossing his canvas backpack to the floor. “Swung by the pub,” he adds when River looks questioningly at him. “Figured I’d need it after I let that cab driver bend me over the backseat and rape me.”

“He didn’t really,” River assures me, a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Rowen just has a thing with taxi drivers.”

“Yeah. They’re all thieving bastards! Who wants a drink? I know I need one. Ivy?” He passes her with a knowing smirk on his way to the kitchen. She merely watches him from her perch on the armchair, having somehow slinked past us all. Her lithe body looks ready to pounce.

And she’s entirely unimpressed.

“I need to take a piss,” River mutters, escaping her severe stare quickly.

It shifts, settling heavily on me. “What was that you said to me that first night? You ‘hate drama’?” She air-quotes the words.

“I do.”

“Huh. Really . . .” She hops off the chair, sauntering over, her eyes flickering in the direction of the bathroom. She drops her voice. “Because that message I got today? It was steeped in it. Seriously, what the hell is going on? Why would you be giving me the name of some detective garda to contact? Why would something happen to you?”

I try to shrug it off with a joke. “Were you worried about me?”

She rolls her eyes, but the wariness is still there. “Should I be?”

“No. I’ll be fine.” Physically, anyway. Although I’m not sure how much damage River will have done to my heart by the time Sunday rolls around.

“Okay.” She nods slowly, checking over her shoulder to make sure Rowen is still occupied at the kitchen counter. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I can’t, honestly. All I can say is that it’s bad.”

“Of course it is. You Welles kids, always getting into trouble.”

I snort. “I can’t believe it, but you’re right. I can’t just blame Jesse anymore.”
Which reminds me
 . . . “I need to talk to Alex. I should probably go and do that, seeing as that bottle of gasoline that Rowen’s pouring over there is looking pretty good right about now.”

“This must be really bad.” Ivy nods toward the stairs. “Go ahead. I’ll stay down here. I have nowhere I have to be.”

“Do me a favor? Keep them downstairs.” I’m not sure how this conversation is going to go, but I can’t have River pressing his ear up against the door.

Ivy reclaims her perch. On guard. “I’ll keep them occupied.”

She really is a fantastic wing woman. Though I’m not sure I want to know what “keeping them occupied” means. Hopefully it doesn’t involve spray paint.

Dismissing that worry, I run up the stairs.

Hey, Alex. How could you be with a criminal?

The second Alex’s pretty russet-colored eyes find mine on her laptop screen, I bite down on my tongue. Though I know that her husband was a bad guy and likely involved in plenty of illegal activity beyond what he did to her, we’ve never really talked about it. Alex seems intent on putting that all behind her, and focusing on her wonderful new life with Jesse.

Who I know has broken the law on more than one occasion.

She frowns. “What happened to your lip? It looks a bit puffy and,” she taps her own bottom lip exactly where the cut on mine used to be, “there’s a dark spot right here.”

“It’s nothing. I tripped on my way to the bathroom at night, did a face plant into the wall,” I lie, and then quickly try to push the conversation. “How are things back home? What have you been up to?”

“I’m fine. It’s been fine . . . good . . .”

Now it’s my turn to frown. She doesn’t sound like her normal, chipper self.

With a heavy sigh, she asks, “You know Jesse’s friend Luke, right?”

“Uh . . . yeah.” Troublemaker or not, he’s hard for anyone to forget. The first time I saw him walking into Roadside, with his gold watch and his expensive clothes and model-pretty face, he had my attention. I frown. “Why?” Alex and I have never really talked about Luke before.

“He was just here, checking up on the latest car. Brought a girl with him, who seems nice. But . . .” She rolls her eyes. “He was driving a brand-new Porsche.”

“Oh yeah? Those are expensive. Did he win it or something?” I ask casually, the wheels in my mind churning.

“No, Amber . . . You know he didn’t win anything.” She shakes her head with some unspoken thought. “Luke’s a good guy, with a good heart . . . who can be easily swayed by money. He doesn’t always make the smartest decisions. I’m really worried about what his uncle may have gotten him into.”

I know that the two of them have a close connection. Luke has popped in and out to the ranch a few times, shared a few beers with us, but he never stays long. It’s like his city-boy style can’t handle country for too long. But every time he’s visited, he’s never left without giving Alex a fierce hug.

Oddly enough, this conversation may help lead me in the direction I was hoping for when I dialed Alex’s number. “Do you think Luke and his uncle are doing something illegal?”

“I
know
they are,” she mutters, pushing her hair off her face, revealing the long, thin scar that normally hides behind a curtain of blond locks. “It has something to do with cars.”

This instantly raises red flags for me, my tendency to be suspicious of my brother impossible to ignore. “Like the cars that Jesse’s been fixing up for Luke, that he swore up and down were bought legitimately? Alex, he can’t be bringing that sort of thing right to my parents’ doorstep. It could—”

“Jesse’s not involved in what Rust and Luke are doing, Amber. Trust me.” She always defends my brother. Then again, if there’s anyone who knows him, and whom he trusts to tell the absolute truth to, it’s Alex. For a girl who’s been through so much, you’d think she wouldn’t want anything to do with a guy with his history, and yet it doesn’t seem to bother her at all.

“That’s not going to matter to the sheriff. If he finds out, he’s going to ban Luke from setting foot on the property. You do realize that, right?”

Her mouth twists. “He already knows. Or suspects, at least.”

My mouth drops open. My dad and Luke have actually stood in the garage together, drinking beer and laughing! “What are you saying? That he’s turning a blind eye to it?” No, that’s just not possible.

Alex shrugs. “He has a soft spot for Luke. We all do. Luke is one of the reasons I’m alive right now—you know that.”

“I know a bit about that, but I don’t know the specifics.” Not enough to endear Luke to me as he obviously has endeared himself to others.

She bites the inside of her lip. “He put himself in a lot of danger to make sure Jesse found me.”

“Wait a minute . . .” I frown. “I thought my dad found you.”

She simply stares at me. I’ve seen that look before. It means she slipped and said something that she didn’t mean to say.

“Alex . . .”

A burst of male laughter—Rowen’s—suddenly carries up the stairs and through my closed bedroom door. I find myself wanting to go down there and see what they’re laughing about. Somehow I’ve temporarily forgotten why they’re hiding in my house in the first place.

Her brow spikes in surprise. She heard him. “So . . . how’s Dublin?” Her voice, heavily laced with worry just a moment ago, suddenly lightens to an almost playful tone. She’s using this as an excuse to steer the conversation away from my father.

As much as I want to steer it right back, badgering her isn’t going to work. Maybe it’s time I give her a reason to divulge her own secrets by sharing mine.

“It’s definitely an experience,” I begin. “I met up with Ivy.”

Excitement fills her face. “Really? How did it go?”

“Strangely . . . good. She’s alright.” More than alright, in fact.

“I told you.” A pause. “So what have you been up to? Made any friends?”

I fall back in my bed with a sigh. Where do I begin? I’m so conflicted right now. When I get off this call, I’m going to head downstairs and . . . what? Pretend that everything is okay? Pretend that none of this matters? Kick River out and tell him to stay away from me? None of those scenarios sits quite right.

Alex’s voice floats into my bedroom. “Amber? Where did you go?”

I groan, reaching for my iPad, holding it above me. “I’m right here . . . confused. I don’t know what to do.”

Finally I see that patient, confident smile of hers. “Yes, you do. You always make smart decisions.”

“Not this time, Alex.” Our eyes meet and I know she sees my inner turmoil. “Where’s Jesse?”

“In town.”

I swallow. “I need to talk to you. Tell you stuff that you can’t tell anyone else. Not even Jesse, Alex. I mean it.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

Her annoyed glare reassures me. “You know you can trust me.”

I know I can. If anyone respects keeping a secret, it’s Alex. Her entire life is one big secret.

Here I go . . .
“So, you remember that bombing in the news recently? With the American girl who barely survived?”

Her jaw drops.

And she listens quietly, while I recount everything that’s happened over the past seven days. Everything.

By the time I’m done, Alex is curled up in her desk chair, her legs pulled against her chest, her fingers weaving into the back of her hair in that worried way of hers. “Wow. That’s . . . You’ve been busy,” she finally murmurs. “Are you safe?”

“Yeah. I mean, I think so. River would never hurt me.” This older brother of his, on the other hand . . . But he doesn’t know me and I never saw him, so I can’t imagine I’m much of a threat.

“This doesn’t sound like a fling with a bartender.”

I shrug. “I’ve known him for all of a week. And he lives in Ireland. And he’s a convicted felon. It can’t be anything else.”

And yet my heart is telling me it’s everything else.

Alex smiles softly, her eyes drifting off somewhere into the past. “Sometimes it can be.”

“Not for me, Alex. I’m not that girl. I don’t fall for a guy I just met, and I don’t let my emotions make decisions for me that my head knows are bad. It’s just . . . it’s weak! I’m better than that.”

She twists her mouth, hesitating for a moment before saying, “I fell for your brother the very first night I met him. I had an affair with him. A guy whom I should have stayed away from, but I didn’t. I
couldn’t
stay away from him. Our connection was so instantaneous, so deep. And Jesse was working for my husband, who happened to be a serious criminal. A man I was terrified of angering.”

I stifle my gasp, because she’ll think I’m judging her. I knew about the affair, but I had no idea that Jesse had been
working
for her husband.
Seriously, Jesse?

“So, does that make me a bad person?” she asks softly. “Does that make me weak?”

“You’re the strongest, kindest person I’ve ever met,” I whisper truthfully. “But your circumstances were unique. They don’t compare to this.”

“I don’t know, Amber . . . I’d say the circumstances surrounding you and this River guy sound pretty unique. And that other stuff is in his past.”

“Not entirely. His brother is IRA.”

“No one’s without fault if you’re judging them based on their connections. For God’s sake, Jesse’s best friend is a criminal!” Alex rarely raises her voice, so to hear it now is jarring. “You know that black car of Jesse’s out there? Parked in front of the barn every day?”

Jesse’s Barracuda. His child. I nod.

“It’s stolen.”

This time I do gasp. “What? He
stole
that car?” I remember joking about that once, but I never thought he’d actually stoop that low.

“No, he didn’t. But it’s not hard to figure out who did. Turning it in is more risky than it’s worth, though, so your father told him to keep it.”

My jaw hangs open for a long moment. “The sheriff knows about that, too?”

“There isn’t anything that your dad doesn’t know, Amber. Jesse doesn’t keep secrets from him anymore. My point to all this is that nobody’s without fault, and some of that fault can get pretty ugly. But you shouldn’t hold it against someone if it’s in his past. Jesse made his mistakes, but he learned from them. It sounds like this River guy did, too, if what he has told you is the truth.”

It would seem like it. River talked nonstop last night, answering all of my questions, offering information without my pushing. And every time I stole a glance at his face, and his eyes, I saw only honesty there.

But none of that really matters, in the grand scheme of things. “What do I do, Alex? I need someone to tell me what to do.”

“What do you see your options being?”

There aren’t many. “I can either say goodbye to him today or say goodbye to him on Sunday. Either way, it’s goodbye.” He’ll never hop on a plane and surprise me at the ranch. He’ll never see what my world looks like.

“Would you consider turning him in to the police?”

“No,” I admit, laughing bitterly. “And yet all I can keep hearing is my dad telling me to do exactly that. Even if it might get me into trouble.”