Page 2 of The Negotiator

Not even close. A hundred questions filled her head. “Who could be satisfied with that? What’s the rest of the story?”

His body language and easy dismissal of how his terrible choices impacted her life only made her more determined to understand what his days looked like during the last few years. Then maybe she’d let him in, but probably not.

He waved her off. “None of that matters now.”

“It does to me.” His short nonanswers ticked her off even more, and she wouldn’t have said that was possible. “I deserve an explanation. A real one. All of the facts, not just pieces.”

He leaned in closer as his jaw tightened. “I said later.”

Wariness surged through her. She wasn’t afraid. No, scared wasn’t the right word. Carl had never been violent, never raised a hand or threatened her. But near the end he’d been distant and that had turned into flashes of meanness. Snide comments about how he’d married a woman but got stuck with a fisherman. Sudden outbursts of blaming her for the fact that they weren’t making more money in the boating business.

So much confusion swirled around him and his stories and all that deception. She’d convinced herself he ran off with his girlfriend. Not that she ever admitted that to anyone or said the words out loud. No, there had been too much at risk.

To save her house and business she’d needed the life insurance and a final judgment from the court about Carl’s fate. A confirmation that he was legally dead. She had to pretend to believe it. It had taken her almost two years to persuade the court and wrestle the business and house away from the legal no-man’s-land it had wound up in when he disappeared. The life insurance company had refused to pay on the claim. That meant she’d had to salvage what she could with him gone.

Now he was back, and as much as she hated it, they needed to talk. She tried, even as her brain screamed for her to slam the door. “I think we should—”

“I can’t believe you’re being a pain in the ass.”

Her head snapped back at the fury lacing his voice. “Me?”

“Jake warned me you’d gone from grieving to stone cold in a matter of months.” Carl shook his head. “I didn’t believe it. Not after everything we’d been through.”

She lost the thread of the conversation as soon as Carl mentioned his brother. “Jake?”

“That’s where I’ll be. At his house.” Carl started to shift away from the door. “But get your act together and do it fast, Lauren. I plan on being in this house and back at work by Christmas.”

“That’s two weeks away.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” He made a face that suggested he was sick of her again already. “Be over your shock and ready to talk by then.”

Lauren watched Carl walk back down the path to the car parked on the street. She recognized the dark sedan. It belonged to Carl’s brother, which meant Carl had gone there first.

Her mind spun with questions about where he’d been and why he was back. She had no idea how he planned to explain and argue his way out of this... or why he thought he could walk back into her life now without any real explanation or sign of remorse.

A gust of cold air got her moving. She slammed the front door closed and rested her palm on it. Tried to breathe in, to think.

Her usual calm detachment abandoned her. Jumbled thoughts crashed into her brain. Panic rose in her chest, threatening to swamp her. Finding a lost husband should be a good thing. For her, it amounted to a nightmare. Everything was upside down and all she wanted was to right it again.

Help. She never asked anyone for help. Not ever. She’d learned long ago that needing someone, depending on them, led to heartache and disappointment. But Garrett McGrath’s face kept flashing in her mind. Sarcastic, charming, sinfully handsome Garrett. They’d met in the summer and he’d asked her out for two months. Hanging around, texting, insisting he’d wait for her to be ready to date again.

The guy had honed his tall-dark-and-smoldering look and for some reason he’d decided to aim it full force at her. Probably had something to do with the thrill of the chase. That was the only answer she could come up with. Because once he knew her, really knew her, he’d back off. Any sane person would.

But right now, as the walls closed in and she struggled to hold on to a coherent thought, all she could do was think of his face. The dark brown hair and those big green eyes. That firm chin... and his uncanny ability to solve complex problems while making a joke and without breaking a sweat.

She glanced around her cottage. It had a beachy vibe with weathered white beadboard walls and overstuffed blue furniture. It consisted of two small bedrooms, a bathroom and a joint living and eating area. Her refuge. The place she’d rented when she lost everything else. The same place Carl for some reason thought he had a right to live in.

She grabbed her cell off the couch and dialed the number Garrett had put in there when they first met. The phone rang and his deep voice came on the line. Voice mail.

She waited a few moments. Gave herself a bit of a pep talk and mentally insisted she could handle this, just like she handled everything else.

Instead of leaving a message she texted him. She tried to think of the right thing to say. She went with the only words that made sense to her... You were right. Carl is not dead.

Garrett stared at the text message. It had come in a half hour ago. He’d missed it while he was parking his car in the airport lot. His flight to San Francisco left in an hour. He would have enough time to maneuver his way through security, grab a coffee and get to the gate, and even that was pushing it. Now this.

He’d been trying to win Lauren’s trust for months. With Christmas coming and her refusing to commit to seeing him, Garrett had booked a last-minute flight to visit with the only family he had left. His aunt and cousin, Lotti. The goal was to see his aunt before she left on a cruise then annoy Lotti for a few days before taking off on his own. That was about all the family time he could muster for this holiday.

His parents had died in a car crash exactly one month after he turned nineteen. Christmas Eve almost twelve years ago. He’d been in college and orphaned in a matter of minutes. Too much alcohol had accompanied what many suspected was a fight that had started at his dad’s work party and continued into the car... and then they were gone.

---