She sighed. “You wouldn’t believe the day I had.”
“Does it involve my father?” Mick asked.
She chuckled wearily as she took the flowers into the kitchen to find a vase. “Do you really need to ask?”
He followed. “What happened today?”
She stood at the sink, adding water to a vase. He moved behind her, sliding his arms around her waist as he kissed her neck. Goosebumps rose all over her and she shivered.
“I missed you today,” he muttered as he moved his mouth to the hollow of her neck and kissed again.
“I missed you, but IthinkI was able to accomplish something today while we were apart.”
“Tell me,” he muttered against her neck.
She placed the flowers inside the vase, set the vase on the counter, and turned in his arms, threading her fingers through his hair. “If you keep kissing my neck like that, I won’t be able to tell you anything. I’d be too busy sighing with pleasure.”
He grinned. “Me, too.”
“But I do think I should tell you about what I did today. I’m still not sure you’re going to approve.”
His expression drooped as worry lines creased his forehead and around his mouth. “Why?”
“Well, I have good news and bad news.”
“Nicole,” he said in a warning tone, “just tell me.”
She’d always loved gazing into his gray-blue eyes, but right now guilt made her not want to look directly at him. She pulled out of his embrace and walked back into the front room.
“It all started,” she began, “when I noticed that black truck with the tinted windows following me.”
As she told him what happened, she sat on the couch. He sat next to her, his gaze fixed on her face. But as the conversation came to the crest of what had happened, his lips thinned, and his jaw hardened, but he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t hard to read it in his eyes, though. He was upset with her... but mostly scared.
When she finished, he blew a gush of air out of his mouth and raked his fingers through his hair. “What makes you think my father isn’t going to know you and Tara have planned something?” His voice was tight. “And how do you know we can even trust Tara?”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” she repeated the well-known quote. Cautiously, she slipped her hand into his. She was relieved when he didn’t pull away. “Mick, it really made Tara upset to think that your father was trying to pin the accident on her – and especially when she thought he was going to replace her as his love interest.”
Sighing heavily, he rubbed his forehead. “What makes you think Tara won’t talk to Carl?”
“I’m praying she doesn’t, but I think I added enough fuel and put enough doubt in her mind that she wouldn’t believe him even if he told the truth.”
He laid his head back against the couch and looked up at the ceiling. “What is your plan? How are we going to trap him?”
“I talked to Bobby about Jerry McClain.”
Mick rolled his head to the side to look at her, arching his eyebrow. “Who is Bobby?”
“He’s head of security.”
Mick nodded.
“I trust Bobby. He’s going to create a fake site for Jerry to access. Jerry will think it’s our spreadsheet for our sales.”
“Go on.”
“Anyway, he’ll see that Adkins has increased sales by a good eighty percent.”
Mick chuckled lowly. “That much?”
