Page 80 of Christmas with Three Cowboys

“And I heard this place makes the best quiche in town. So, please, don’t prove me wrong,” I reply, smiling as my gaze wanders across the restaurant.

Ten minutes later, I leave Mitch at the table waiting for our food. I head out into the back garden. It’s too cold for anyone to sit here, and the terrace itself is cleared, the tables and chairsstacked in a corner under the roof overhang.

Lyle waits for me in the corner, next to the stack of rattan chairs and tables, looking rather nervous. His eyes keep darting back to the patio door.

“Hey, thanks for taking the time—” I try to speak but he cuts me off.

“Nobody here knows about my past, okay? Please, Melissa.”

“Whoa, wait a moment. Hold on,” I reply, my eyes wide. “I’m not here to cause you any trouble, Lyle, I swear. If anything, I’m just so glad to see you’re doing okay.”

“I am okay,” he sighs. “Better. So much better. I’m renting an apartment. Can you believe it? I can afford rent. No more jumping from one couch to another, no more twisted relationships for a bit of food and shelter.”

I give him a warm smile. “Good. You deserve it. And I’m sorry for bailing on you the way I did.”

“Oh, long forgotten,” he scoffs, almost smiling. “I figured Jake had you hooked on his loving. I couldn’t do anything about it.”

“You did try to warn me. I should’ve listened.”

“What happened to you?” he asks, and I bring him up to speed, as briefly as I can, without mentioning my relationship with Colton, Ethan, and Mitch, and without mentioning my pregnancy. The less he knows about the most intimate layer of my current life, the better. But as he listens to me talking, as the details sink in, I can see the color draining from Lyle’s face.

“Jesus, Melissa. That man is the fucking devil.”

I nod in agreement. “Right now, our working theory is that it was all a frame-up. He planned to screw me over the way he did. And I have been digging into my past, trying to find some common points, some leads to follow. You were around at the time. I’m hoping you might be able to remember something I may have missed.”

“Who were these witnesses again?” he asks, his brow furrowed.

“Laurel Buchanan,” I say, remembering my notes from the trial. “And Bruce Jonesy. I might have known Laurel, but—”

“Hold on,” he gasps, eyes wide as something clicks in the back of his mind. “Laurel. Tall and skinny? Long, black hair and tattoos everywhere?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I remember her. She had the word ‘Blessed’ tattooed across her neck. The guys at the cabaret and I used to make fun of it. We called her ‘Little Miss Limited Employment Opportunities’. She was a raving lunatic. Beautiful but dangerously dumb, that girl.”

My heart skips a beat. “You know her.”

“Yeah. Went around, bouncing from one sugar daddy to another. She made ends meet as a working girl sometimes. She was one of us, Melissa. And I think we were all in the same foster home at one point. I was fifteen, you were maybe sixteen. The Frampton house. Yeah, that’s it. We were in the same foster at the Framptons.”

The more he tells me about those times, the more memories emerge from the darkness of my past. Moments I left behind and decided to forget because they were too dark, too miserable andpainful. I didn’t want to carry them into my future, into my life as a free woman. But Lyle is right. Laurel and I did cross paths. It wasn’t for long, but we knew one another.

“What possessed her to lie in court about me?” I ask my friend.

Lyle offers a dry smile. “Isn’t it obvious? She was sweet on Jake Miller. And Jake Miller was probably sweet on her. Come on, Mel… The bastard can be charming; let’s give credit where credit is due.”

“Do you know if she’s still around? Or still in Lincoln?”

“No, but you could check the streets around the cabaret,” he says. “They’re still active. You might find her there if she’s down on her luck.”

“We’ll try that, sure… What about that Bruce guy? I really have no idea who he is.”

“Do you remember what he said during the trial?”

“Well, I remember Laurel saying she knew me from when we were kids, that we used to be friends, even though I couldn’t remember her, not really. But Bruce… I can’t for the life of me remember even meeting him.”

Lyle thinks about it for a moment. “What did he look like?”

“Bruce was a big, burly guy. Receding hairline, dark hair. Looked like the kind of guy who spent most of his time catfishing women on the internet. Unkempt. Didn’t have much regard for personal hygiene.”

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