The Texan's Tennessee Romance (17 page)

Since he had met her, he’d seen Natalie defensive, guarded, amused, relaxed, even cautiously flirtatious. He’d watched her open herself to Buddy—and to him, in some ways. But he had never seen her looking defeated. Until now.

“I’ve had some trouble with trusting lately,” he said, his voice sounding a bit loud in the too-quiet room. “A couple of people I trusted let me down. Hard. I guess you could say that’s why I’m here, pretending to be a handyman. I needed to think some things through, put them into perspective.”

“I hope you’ve had more luck with that than I have,” she murmured, still looking away.

“I thought I had,” he replied. “I thought I’d gotten over it completely. Apparently, I was wrong.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Moving to stand behind her, he rested his hands on her shoulders, which went rigid beneath his touch. “I didn’t realize it until now, but I let my recent disillusionment color my reactions to what my cousins told me about you. I didn’t immediately jump to your defense because I didn’t want to have my trust betrayed again if I found out I was wrong about you. It was a stupid, cowardly response on my part. I’m sorry.”

“You’re saying you suddenly believe I’m innocent?” she asked, understandably skeptical.

“I’m saying that if I’ve learned anything about you during the last couple of weeks, it’s that you are honest. Almost to a fault, sometimes,” he added with a wry smile. “You asked if I trust you. I’m sorry it took me so long to answer. Yes, Natalie. I trust you. I don’t believe you sold your ethics for cash.”

“You can’t know that,” she countered, her head still lowered.

“I haven’t told you anything about myself. Even when you told me you’re an attorney, I didn’t tell you I am, too.”

“No. I can understand now why you didn’t.”

“It was too humiliating.”

“I know. I suppose I should confess that I was already aware of your profession when I told you what I do. All I knew was that you were a lawyer, and that you were between jobs.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “How did you know?”

His mouth crooked. “Molly let it slip to me, too.”

“I don’t think I’d ever share a big secret with your cousin Molly,” she resolved with a little shake of her head.

He chuckled. “I know it sounds that way, but Molly has been known to keep secrets. Anyway, I only found out your profession a couple of days ago. That’s why I thought I should tell you what I do, and then let you fill me in on whatever you wanted me to know in your own time. I swear to you, I made no effort to find out anything about you that you didn’t tell me yourself. I didn’t ask Andrew and Aaron to snoop. I would have ordered them not to if they’d bothered to tell me what they were doing.”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter now,” she muttered, sounding suddenly weary. “Everyone will probably find out eventually. Especially when I can’t find another job because no one will want to hire an attorney who’s been accused of selling confidential client information.”

He moved to stand in front of her, looking down at her dejected expression. He still felt like a heel for being partially responsible for the sadness in her eyes. “You didn’t do it,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

“No. But that doesn’t matter. I’ve done everything I know how to do to prove that someone set me up to take the blame for those leaks. I have a few leads, but no solid evidence. And without incontrovertible evidence, it’s my word against the firm’s. No one will believe me.”

“I just mentioned that several of my relatives are P.I.s. Despite my present irritation with him, I know Andrew’s very good at his job. Tell him the details, give him the names of anyone you suspect, and let him see what he can find out. Let us help you clear your name.”

She shook her head. “I already have a P.I. His name is Rand Beecham. You saw him leaving yesterday morning.”

A P.I. He didn’t want to admit how much it had bothered him to see a man leaving her cabin, how hard it had been for him not to ask who he was—or how very relieved he was to hear her explanation. This wasn’t the time to go into his feelings. For now, they needed to concentrate on facts.

“He’s a P.I.? From Nashville?”

She nodded. “An ex-cop. I, um, found him in the yellow pages.”

She looked both embarrassed and frustrated by that admission, as if she were less than pleased with her employee. “Has he found anything to prove your innocence?”

She twisted her fingers in front of her, looking down at her hands. “He’s pursuing a couple of leads.”

Watching her closely, he prodded, “You’re satisfied that he’s good at what he does?”

“I—” She spread her hands. “I don’t know what else to do,” she admitted. “I’ve tried doing some research on my own, but I’ve got to admit I don’t have the faintest idea where to start. I’ve typed dozens of names into search engines, but I haven’t found anything to indicate anyone I know would do this to me.”

“Would you mind if Andrew does some investigating on the side? Maybe a pair of fresh eyes will find something you and Beecham have missed.”

“I, um—” She bit her lip, not knowing quite how to say that she could barely afford one P.I., much less two.

“Andrew wouldn’t charge for his time, of course,” Casey added. “We don’t charge friends. Besides, he owes you this. Like you said, he had no right to invade your privacy. The least he can do is help clear your name.”

“I can’t ask him to do that.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll ask him.”

She drew an unsteady breath. “You haven’t heard the whole story. The evidence against me—”

“I don’t care,” he said evenly. “You didn’t do it.”

“There are plenty of people who believe I did. People who’ve known me a lot longer than you have.”

He shrugged. “Some of them are idiots. Others may not necessarily disbelieve you, they just don’t want to get involved.”

“That’s exactly what I got from a lot of them. As if my bad luck would rub off on them if they stayed too close to me.”

He reached out to cover her hand with his. “I’m sorry. You must have been feeling very alone.”

“Not so much lately,” she admitted, and he was pleased that she left her hand in his. “Thank you for that.”

“It was, quite literally, my pleasure.”

She released a long, pent-up breath. As much as she still obviously hated the way he’d found out, he wondered if she felt some relief in having him know the truth about what had happened to her.

“Let us help you, Natalie.”

“You don’t even know if your cousin would be willing to help,” she pointed out a little shakily.

“He’ll help.”

For the first time since he had arrived that evening, she smiled, though weakly. “Why do I have a sudden mental image of you putting your P.I. cousin in a headlock until he agrees to help me?”

“If that’s what it takes,” he said lightly, grateful that her tension was easing, if only a little. “I’ll bring the twins over first thing in the morning. You can tell Andrew everything that happened, everything you’ve found out since you left the firm, and we’ll see what he has to say. If he has any questions, he can tap the resources of our fathers’ firm. We’ll figure out what’s going on, Natalie, and we’ll prove that you had nothing to do with those leaks.”

She looked up at him searchingly. “Why would you do this?”

He smiled. “You really have to ask?”

Lowering his head, he gave her a long, achingly tender kiss. She was clinging to his shirt by the time the kiss ended.

As much as he wanted to keep kissing her, he knew this was the wrong time. She was too vulnerable tonight. For that matter, he was, himself, a bit. They both needed some time to regroup. He made himself draw back, and she didn’t try to detain him.

“You’ll let us help you?” he asked.

She swallowed and nodded. “I’m willing to try, if your cousin is agreeable. And if Beecham doesn’t come through first.”

He allowed himself one slow stroke of her cheek. “Get some sleep tonight, Natalie. We’re going to take care of this.”

“You’re leaving now?”

He nodded. “I’ve gotta go yell at my cousins some more for invading your privacy. And then I’ll tell them that to make up for it, they’re going to help you.”

“Don’t you want to ask me any more questions about what happened?”

“I’ll wait until you tell Andrew in the morning. There’s no need for you to have to go through it all twice.”

She drew a deep breath and nodded. “All right. I’ll tell Andrew everything I know.”

“Sounds good. See you in the morning.” He looked at her for a moment longer, then moved toward the door.

“Casey?”

Already halfway outside, he looked around to see her standing beside the couch, Buddy at her side as they watched him walk away. “Yes?”

“Thank you for believing in me.”

He smiled and stepped outside, closing the door behind him.

“Most.” She seized on that word. “The firm didn’t publicize why they let me go. That was kept secret—more for the sake of their own reputation than out of any respect for me,” she added resentfully. “You wouldn’t have found that just by typing my name into a search engine.”

“I made a couple of calls,” he admitted. “The very secrecy of your firing piqued my curiosity. You’d apparently been doing very well at the firm, steadily climbing the ladder, earning a name for yourself, keeping a high profile in the profession—and then suddenly you were gone and no one was talking. That usually indicates a cover-up of some sort.”

“Who did you call?”

“Just a couple of sources in your area,” he replied vaguely.

Which meant he wasn’t going to tell her.

Having stood back with Casey while Natalie raked his brother over the coals, Aaron stepped forward then. “It wasn’t entirely Andrew’s fault. I sort of nagged him into looking into your background. I mean, I could tell that Molly and Kyle like you and I know they think the world of your aunt and uncle, but Molly seemed to think there was something going on with you.

“Not that she said anything specifically,” he added quickly, loyally defending his cousin. “She was just very vague about why you were here, probably because she didn’t know, herself. With all the problems Casey’s been through lately, I was concerned about him getting mixed up in someone else’s troubles and risking his own reputation back in Dallas.”

“Sticking your nose into my business,” Casey muttered.

Aaron sighed deeply. “We had this talk last night,” he reminded Casey. “Extensively. I’ve apologized to you, and now I’m trying to apologize to Natalie.”

“You aren’t apologizing, you’re rationalizing.”

Natalie lifted a hand to ward off what sounded like an impending argument. “Okay, the thing is, I didn’t appreciate the snooping. But I am grateful for the offer of assistance, if you really think you can help.”

“I can help,” Andrew said. “But first, I think I should tell you what I’ve found out about Rand Beecham.”

She frowned at him. “Rand Beecham?”

He nodded. “When Casey told me last night that you’d hired Beecham and haven’t been entirely satisfied with his work, I made some calls.”

It was all she could do not to pull her own hair. “You mean you’ve made calls about me without my permission again? Even after Casey told you how upset I was with you the first time?”

Looking a bit surprised that she’d have any problem with what he had done, Andrew nodded. “Casey said you wanted our help. The first step was obviously to find out more about the guy who’s been working for you.”

She shook her head. “Has anyone ever mentioned that you have personal boundary issues?”

Both Aaron and Casey smirked as if they’d heard that accusation leveled toward Andrew before. Andrew, himself, merely shrugged. “I just think you should know that you can’t necessarily trust everything Beecham says. He’s been in some trouble before.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “But I’ve insisted on an accounting of the work he does for me. I didn’t intend to pay him without challenging some of the charges, which I could tell were somewhat inflated. And I told him I expected results within the next few days or I was terminating our professional relationship.”

Andrew nodded. “I wouldn’t hold my breath for those results, though you can probably expect another request for more money. Apparently, that’s how he operates. He dribbles out a little information while billing the clients for as long as they’ll let him.”

Because Andrew was making her feel a bit foolish, she spoke curtly. “I’d already pretty much figured that out. I just told you, I wasn’t going to let him get away with it much longer.”

“I’m not going to worry about stepping on Beecham’s professional toes while I find out what I can about your situation.”

She cocked her head to study him curiously. “Do you ever worry about stepping on toes?”

Andrew gave her a quick smile. “Not a lot, no. And speaking of which—you said you had nothing to do with the tabloid leaks?”

“That’s right,” she said firmly. “I had
nothing
to do with them. I would never violate confidentiality, not for my own clients and not for any of the firm’s other clients.”

“Then we’ll find out what happened,” Andrew asserted with a confidence that was strangely reassuring. “I just need to know the details.”

“Let’s all sit down and get comfortable for this,” Casey said, motioning toward the couch and chairs.

“I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee,” Natalie said, turning toward the kitchen. She needed just a few more minutes to prepare herself for what was coming.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Casey asked.

“No, I’ve got it. You might see if Buddy needs to go out before we start.”

“He’s a nice dog,” Aaron said, watching as Casey opened the door for Buddy to go out. “Have you had him long?”

“Actually, he’s a stray,” Natalie replied. “He showed up here a few days ago and Casey and I sort of took him in. I have inquiries out to find his previous owners, but so far no one’s called.”

“Hey, maybe Andy needs to investigate the dog, too,” Aaron quipped. When no one laughed, he sighed and sank into a chair.

A few minutes later they were all sitting around the living room with cups of coffee. Natalie held hers because it gave her something to do with her hands, but she barely tasted the hot beverage.

Taking a deep breath, she haltingly told the story of how she’d been fired from her position in Nashville. She confessed that she’d been a workaholic who’d spent nearly every waking moment either at the office or working at home. That she’d seen her efforts pay off when she began to move up in the firm, sometimes ahead of other associates who’d been there longer.

“I didn’t deliberately climb over anyone on my way up,” she added quickly, “and I tried not to make any enemies during the process. But in a fiercely cutthroat and ruthlessly profitable firm like Bennings, Heaton, Schroeder and Merkel, there are always going to be those who resent any accomplishments made by the people the associates regard as competitors.”

“Did you know about the tabloid leaks?” Andrew asked.

She shrugged. “Everyone knew that certain things were showing up in the press that shouldn’t be public knowledge. Everyone was beginning to whisper, wondering if anyone we knew was behind the indiscretions. Some people claimed the leaks couldn’t possibly have come from inside the firm, that the tidbits were being released by outside sources with connections to the clients, themselves. That was what I wanted to believe.”

And then one day three weeks ago, she continued, she had been called into a senior partner’s office and summarily dismissed for “flagrant indiscretions.” Despite her stunned protestations of innocence, she’d been presented with evidence of her guilt. She was fired with the warning that if she said anything about the firm or her reason for leaving, information that would be very embarrassing to the company that prided itself on the privacy it offered its wealthy and high-profile clients, they would aggressively pursue having her publicly disbarred.

She had tried to tell the story without emotion, keeping her voice steady, her expression blank, but apparently she hadn’t hidden her tumultuous feelings from Casey. Sitting beside her on the couch, he reached out to lay a hand on her thigh, just above her knee, his fingers squeezing lightly, supportively.

“What was the evidence you were shown?” Andrew asked, already making notes in a pad he’d brought with him.

“Several photocopies of checks made out in my name from a tabloid reporter. The checks were dated around the same times that the leaks occurred. Needless to say, I never received those checks. Someone had to forge my name to cash them.”

“Where did the senior partner get those photocopies?”

“He said they were provided by an anonymous source. Someone who had stumbled onto the truth and thought it should be brought to light. To me, that ridiculous explanation made it obvious that someone was setting me up to take the blame for the leaks, but Herb just brushed off everything I said. He refused to believe I’d been framed. He called that the oldest excuse in the book.”

“The photocopies of the checks were all the evidence he had?”

“No. There were also copies of e-mails sent from my computer at the firm to that same sleazy reporter. I didn’t send them, but they had my e-mail address on them.”

“Wouldn’t you have noticed if you’d gotten any return e-mail from the reporter?” Aaron asked.

“The e-mails I was shown instructed the guy not to reply to that address. Instead, they said he was to make contact ‘through the usual means,’ whatever that entailed.”

“Did you try to contact that reporter to make him admit he hadn’t been talking to you?” Casey asked.

“He wouldn’t take my calls. Nor would he talk to me when I tried to show up at his door. He said if I continued to try to contact him, he would inform the firm that I was causing trouble.”

“You’ve had more than your share of threats lately,” Casey muttered, and he sounded angry on her behalf.

She nodded. “That was all the so-called evidence my superiors had on me, but it was enough for them to believe I was guilty. And it was an easy solution for them. Get rid of me, sweep any potential scandal under the rug, go on with business as usual.”

“Have you been in touch with any of your former associates?”

She shook her head in response to Andrew’s question. “They act as though I’m in quarantine. If it hadn’t been for Amber, I wouldn’t know what was going on there.”

“Amber?”

“Amber Keller, my former clerical assistant. She’s still there, working for another attorney, Stephen Gilbert, but she calls me every few days to let me know if she’s heard anything. Amber stuck by me. She’s the only one who has believed me from the start.”

“As your assistant, Amber would have had access to your accounts, wouldn’t she? Maybe even your social security number?”

Natalie set her coffee cup down with a thump, frowning at Andrew. “Weren’t you listening to me? I said Amber was on my side. From the beginning.”

Andrew glanced up at her, and the expression in his dark eyes looked entirely too cynical for a man five years her junior. “Sometimes the people we trust most are the ones who do the most harm,” he said flatly. “If it turns out that she’s involved, she wouldn’t be the first to claim loyalty to deflect the blame from herself.”

Both Aaron and Casey were looking somberly at Andrew, as if they knew he spoke from experience when it came to betrayal, but Natalie shook her head. “That doesn’t even make sense. Why would she be calling me to give me updates if she’d had anything to do with it?”

“Maybe to see if you’ve made any progress in your research,” Aaron suggested. “You know that old advice about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.”

“I am not Amber’s enemy. Nor is she mine. She’s a friend. One of the few I have left after this debacle.”

“Sounds to me like you didn’t have very good friends,” Aaron muttered.

Natalie bit her lip, thinking she’d come to that same realization recently. Casey squeezed her knee again.

“You should check out Cathy Linski,” she told Andrew, and spelled the name for him.

He wrote it down, making notes about what Amber had said about Cathy’s recent windfall and about what Beecham had told her. “I’ll look into it,” he said. “Anyone else?”

She shrugged with the feeling of helplessness that had overwhelmed her every time she’d tried to narrow down a list of suspects. “There are so many people at the firm. I just don’t know.”

“What about men? Were you romantically involved with anyone at the firm?”

Casey shifted on the couch, muttering, “Andrew.”

His cousin merely glanced at him. He hadn’t minced words about Natalie’s friend, and he wouldn’t about this, either, his expression implied.

“There’s a guy I went out with for a short time, though it wasn’t really all that serious,” she admitted reluctantly. “We dated for about three months. His name is Thad Wolff, but I doubt that he had anything to do with this. He hasn’t been with the firm all that long and he’s definitely looking to move up. He dumped me like a toxic chemical as soon as there was the faintest hint that I was in trouble.”

“No one else?”

“No. I haven’t really had time to date much in the past couple of years. All I’ve focused on was my job.”

And now that was gone, she thought glumly. Leaving her with…what? A ruined reputation, no friends, dwindling savings, and a foolish heart that was about to be battered again when her reckless vacation flirtation with Casey ended, as it soon would.

“Is there anything else you can think of to tell me?” Andrew asked, studying her a bit too closely.

“That’s all.”

“Would you mind giving me your cell number in case I come up with any more questions?”