Page 20 of Rescuing Carolyn

“Nothing. Not even a bad dream.” I’d been amazed at his resiliency, but then he’d had his daddy come into his life at the same time. Maybe the positive event had offset the negative one.

“We were lucky,” Charlotte said, giving me a half smile. We didn’t need to say that it all could have been a lot worse, although I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet. A late evening call from my IT company had confirmed that.

“I hope our luck holds. Did you see the ads I placed?” I had made sure to advertise our reopening, offering some good deals with the hope that customers would come in. I wanted to get back to business as usual despite my worry about the possible saboteur.

“Good choices. My marketing professor would give you an A-plus.”

I laughed. “Thank goodness for that.”

A knock on the front window drew my attention away. Zach waved to me through the glass, his smile disarming me as it always did. I hadn’t minded seeing him across my breakfast table that morning one bit, and Austin had been ecstatic about having his daddy with us right from the start of the day.

“You’ve got company,” Charlotte commented. “The good kind—right? We’re happy he’s here?”

So much had been going on that we hadn’t had the time to really talk about how I felt about Zach coming back into our lives, but I’d been texting her some updates…along with a lot of pictures of Zach and Austin being adorable together. Sue me—they were really adorable. So Charlotte had a pretty good idea of the direction things were taking between the two of us.

“The best,” I agreed.

Charlotte grinned at me but didn’t ask questions. “I’m going to prep inventory in the safe. Tell Zach I said hi.”

After my sister walked away, I disabled the alarm and let Zach in. He waited until I rearmed the system before drawing me into a hug. I half wanted to lean in for a kiss, but with my employees only steps away, this wasn’t the time or place to repeat anything like the kiss we’d shared the evening before. It had been all I could do not to demand a repeat of it myself when I invited him to stay at my house, but after inviting him in, it felt like taking too many steps at once. I’d told myself that I wasn’t going to rush—that I was going to make sure this was the right decision for all of us. I wasn’t going to let horniness make the decision for me, no matter how hot Zach was—or how much I’d missed his kisses.

“Thanks for letting me sleep over last night,” he said quietly.

He’d already thanked me, so I just nodded. “Austin was happy to see you.” His little smile had widened when I carried him into the kitchen where Zach was making coffee. And then my heart had melted as I watched Zach feed Austin breakfast. We belonged together, all of us, but I still wasn’t completely sure I could trust the fairy tale of the happy family. It had never worked out for me before.

No matter how hard I tried, how much effort I put in, my perfect life eluded me. I’d learned that lesson when my father ignored all my efforts to catch his attention. I’d thought if I could be perfect enough, he’d come home and be with the family again. It hadn’t worked. And as for Zach…I knew he’d never be as cold as my father. And I knew how seriously he took his responsibilities. He wouldn’t walk out on Austin. But could he really be happy with us? Were we truly enough of a reason for him to stay in this small-town life that was so different from what he’d always wanted? I didn’t want to get my hopes up despite how I felt about him.

“You’re doing me a favor,” I reminded him.

“It’s not a favor, Carolyn.” His eyes turned serious. “Can we talk in your office?”

“Sure,” I said and led the way. My heart skipped a beat with worry. What did he want to say to me?

Zach

“I got a phone call not long ago from a buddy of mine in the police department.” The call had taken me by surprise. A former high school classmate at last night’s poker game was a police officer in Springwell and had recognized Carolyn when she went into the station that morning.

“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow.

“We had a deal.” I gestured between us. “You’d let me be your sidekick during the investigation.” I was disappointed that she hadn’t told me about her plans.

“Sure, so I won’t go anywhere dangerous on my own. That’s why you went with me to Castle Jewels. But I wasn’t in any danger going to the police station, right?” She gave me an innocent look, all big brown eyes and dimples. She was beautiful, but I wasn’t going to be deterred.

“I want to know what information you shared with the police this morning,” I said.

She shrugged. “It’s not really a bombshell—just more proof lining up that all my problems haven’t been a coincidence after all. Late last night I got an email from my IT company. They found malware in my network, a particularly nasty kind that has to be implanted from the inside. This isn’t a random cyberattack. It’s personal and targeted at my business. I thought it might make the police take me seriously.”

“Did it?” I questioned.

“I got a ‘We’ll have our techs look into it’ response, which is better than nothing, I suppose. I just don’t know what to do now.” She paced in the small office as she spoke. “I can’t sit around and wait for whoever this is to come at me again. I’ve got to figure it out, and the police don’t seem eager to help.”

“Not enough evidence for them.” I understood that. The police had limited resources and couldn’t chase down every suspicion.

“I don’t know what would be.” She sounded exasperated, and I wanted to do something to assuage her worries.

“I know a top-notch tech guy. He’s a forensic computer analyst, some kind of expert in the field. He works with the police and other government agencies as well as in the private sector. I could ask him to?—”

She cut me off. “Thanks, but those guys charge a fortune, and I can’t lay out that much money right now.”

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