*
Nate leaned forwardin his seat, waiting for Bo to spit it out.He knew the kid deserved patience, but damn if Nate wasn’t out of it.
What could they have accomplished already if Bo could get his shit together andhelp?Where would they be if he wasn’t a bumbling coward?
Not fair.Nateknewit wasn’t fair.So he kept his mouth shut.
“This guy came to my hotel room Saturday night,” Bo said very carefully.“After we had, well, not dinner, but the whole… thing.”He gestured toward Glenda.
“Guy?What guy?”Sam demanded.
Bo chewed on his bottom lip, looking concerned and like he didn’t want to answer that question.
Nate knew for certain that Sam’s silent urging was what got Bo to keep talking.That Sam was the only hope to get through to this guy.
“Yeah, just some guy I’ve never met or known.He said… he said he wanted to help me.All I had to do was meet with him.I said no, but he kept insisting.Keeps… showing up, calling.”
“I wish you’d told me earlier, Bo,” Sam said, sounding distraught.“We could have tried to intervene in some way.We could have…”
“I keep thinking I should go home.I wasn’t sure I was going to stay.I wasn’t sure… I wasn’t sure all this was something I wanted to get involved in.So, I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”
“But now you are sure?”Nate asked carefully.
Bo looked at him.He had an assessing way about him, but it wasn’t sly or calculated.It was like he just never could be sure of himself.He didn’t look around the room.He kept his focus mainly on Sam, sometimes on Nate.But he tried not to acknowledge anyone else in the room.
He might be twenty-five, but he was clearly just a kid.Overwhelmed by the wrench a little truth had thrown into his life.Nate wanted to feel sympathy, but what he really wanted to say wasSuck it up and join the club, kid.
Knowing Sam wouldn’t approve was probably the only thing that kept him from doing it.
“Sure?No.I’m not sure about anything,” Bo said miserably.“But the guy won’t stop bugging me.I don’t like it, and I don’t want to meet him, but I don’t want him to follow me home or start bothering my family.So I need this one thing to stop.Can you help, Sam?Just… get him off my back or whatever.Is that too much to ask?”He asked this like a genuine question.Like if she said,Yeah, that’s beyond my paygrade, he’d understand.“I don’t know what to do.”
Sam grabbed her purse, pulled a folded-up piece of paper out of a file.“Does this guy look anything like this?”she asked, handing Bo the paper that Hayes had given her in court earlier this week.
“Yeah.Yeah, that’s him.”Confusion in his expression, Bo looked up at Sam.“How did you know?”
“He followed me around a while back, tried to break in at Honor’s Edge.We wanted to ID him.We know he’s got a connection to Bennet’s lawyer, and that he’s interested in you.”Sam’s gaze moved from Bo to Glenda.But she didn’t mention Glenda.
“Who is he?”Bo asked, frowning at the picture.
“A private investigator by the name of Kevin Roth.Out of Wisconsin.”
Bo studied the picture, but he shook his head while he did.“Why would a PI from home follow me here?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Sam said.“You can go home, Bo.I understand why you’d want to.But the truth is only going to follow you no matter what I do.I think we’ve come too far now.And wouldn’t you rather find the truth on your own timeline, rather than someone else’s?Because I think the truth, or at leastatruth is going to come out sooner rather than later.”
Bo didn’t have an answer for that.Nate wasn’t sure if it was disagreement he didn’t want to voice to Sam or simply not knowing how he felt about her question.
But Nate knew howhefelt.Knew whathewanted.And maybe it wasn’t fair to use Bo Lake to get it, brother or not.
Nate didn’t care about fair, couldn’t, until his father was sentenced and behind bars for good.Sometimes fair just didn’t exist in this life.
“I think you should take the meeting, Bo.”Bo recoiled, but Nate continued.Because he had an idea.“Find out what they want from you, and then maybe we can figure outwhy.”
“And stop it in its tracks,” Cal added.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Roadside Park between Marietta and Livingston
