“She can continue to enjoy it,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  It wasn’t like him to make comments like that and Avery didn’t reply. She only sent him a soft smile and a wink. He wasn’t sure why that hurt that it was her only reaction.

  35

  His Family Now

  Almost two months later, Carter crawled out from under the hood of a car he was working on. He had the engine ripped apart and his hands were covered in dirt and grease. It always amazed him at how poorly people treated their cars. Some oil and filter changes could have saved this engine rebuild. But it was a job and money and what he did.

  “Carter!”

  He turned his head. He hadn’t realized someone was calling his name. There were all sorts of noises in the garage and music going on top of it.

  Alex was standing there in his captain’s uniform and a winter jacket, his white hat on his head. It was colder than a bitch out at the end of February.

  “Hey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was out doing an inspection and Griffin called me. He wanted to know if I was at the garage. He’s been trying to reach you.”

  “Oh,” he said. He never had his cell phone on him. He left it in his office. If someone needed him they called the garage’s phone. No reason to break his cell by having it fall out of a pocket or getting knocked around.

  “Thanks,” he said. He grabbed a rag and started to wipe his hands off. They never got clean enough this way so he walked to the sink to wash them. This time of year they were split and cracked more than normal.

  Avery always had such soft hands and she was washing hers as much. She’d told him the lotion she used and he’d tried hers and then got some for himself. Didn’t seem to make a difference, but she didn’t mind either.

  “You never said if you reached out to Griffin or not,” Alex said. “It’s been months.”

  “I did,” he said. He’d waited until after the holidays. After the conversation that Avery and he had about family and how Colleen never had anyone but Avery and her mother.

  Part of him said he did need to know what was going on with this guy.

  He had to protect the two of them in his life because they were his family now.

  Getting information wasn’t the end of the world in his eyes. That was how he justified it.

  “I’m glad,” Alex said.

  He was done washing his hands enough and went to his office. “Why are you following me?”

  “Because I want to know what he found out.”

  “You could ask him yourself,” he said.

  “Please,” Alex said, waving his hand. “He’d never tell me and you know it. You can’t get much out of the guy.”

  No one knew a lot about Griffin until he’d ended up with Penelope.

  That was a lie. He was positive Eli knew more than most, but Eli was loyal. Just like they all were in his family.

  Sure, there was drama and had been through the generations.

  But this generation on the island—they all had the other’s back.

  He picked his phone up and saw the missed call and then the text from Griffin saying to call when he had a minute.

  It had to be something important if Griffin was trying to track him down rather than waiting for the return call.

  He hit the button to call Griffin, who answered on the first ring. “Carter,” Griffin said. “Got some news for you that I figured you’d want to know right away.”

  “I figured as much,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Mike Coffey is on the island.”

  “What?! How do you know?”

  There was a sound on the other end that was like a snort. “It’s my job to know. But in this case, I knew he had a gambling problem. You said as much.”

  “It has to be bad for you to know,” he said.

  “I’ve seen worse,” Griffin said. “But I put his picture into the security system here for facial recognition. I’d get an alert if he showed up. I figured if he was coming to this island for any reason, this would be a stop.”

  “When did he get there?” he asked.

  “About two hours ago,” Griffin said. “He’s got a room here until Sunday. Not sure what his plan is but thought you should know.”

  “The fact he’s here and for days concerns me.”

  “Which is why I called,” Griffin said. “If you and Avery want to come see me I’ll fill you in more. I’ll let you know if he leaves, but my guess is, his type will stay put a day or so.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll talk to Avery and get back to you.”

  “He’s on the island,” Alex said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Need me to go with you to knock the guy around and find out what he wants?” Alex was laughing.

  “First off, I’m not you. I’m not a hothead.”

  “As we know,” Alex said. “But when it comes to the women in our lives, you find you can be.”

  “Second of all, I don’t need help if I’ve got to take care of someone.”

  Alex was still grinning. Carter wasn’t much of someone to be in a fight, but he’d hold his own and had. Growing up they’d been pushed around. He and his cousins. They’d all thrown punches when they had to. Then gotten read the riot act by their parents or Alex’s father who was the chief of police back then.

  “Plus, you know. Griffin is there. Enough said.”

  Carter made the same sound that Griffin had on the phone. “Whatever. Now I need to figure out what to tell Avery.”

  “She doesn’t know you did this?” Alex asked. That same damn grin was on his face.

  “No,” he said. “Would you have told Jennie?”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “Because Jennie’s entire life Griffin had been doing things without telling her. I wouldn’t do the same thing because I know how much she hates it.”

  “Avery didn’t have the same situation,” he said. “There’s never been much of a man in her life.”

  “Ever?” Alex asked.

  “Her father has been gone for years and she doesn’t talk to him. Her mother seems solid though. Stubborn to a fault and Avery gets it there. Her freaking ex was a piece of work.”

  No reason to go into details. Avery had told him how the ex was now expecting a child and she’d thought it was funny. Then she’d explained how Kurt was always prim and proper. No babies out of wedlock for him and it was happening.

  No one would ever say Carter was prim and proper.

  Hell, right now he hated that they didn’t live together and would love nothing more, but they each had homes and though his place was the same size as hers and it’d be fine, he didn’t want to uproot Josie.

  And Avery was close to the clinic. Just so many things in his mind that he wasn’t sharing.

  It was too soon anyway.

  “What are you doing now?” Alex asked.

  He looked at his watch. “Avery will be taking lunch in forty minutes. I’ll go over and talk to her.”

  “You’re not waiting until the end of the day?” Alex asked.

  “Would you?”

  “Hell no,” Alex said. “But I wouldn’t wait forty minutes either.”

  “Because you’re the hothead when it doesn’t come to work.”

  “You did what!?” Avery all but snarled at him in her office during her lunch hour.

  “I reached out to Griffin Zale.”

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  “He’s married to my distant cousin Penelope. He does all the security for Bond Casino and he’s Alex’s future brother-in-law. He can find anything on anyone. No one asks how.”

  “And you thought you could ask him to look into my life?” she asked.

  “Not your life. Mike’s,” he argued. “Don’t you want to know what is going on there? You said that you looked into him.”

  “I did,” she said. “And I didn’t find anything.”

  “Yeah. Well, he’s on the island.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re mistaken.”

  “I’m not,” he said. “And I know you’re pissed, but I’m glad I did what I did. No one wants to be blindsided and if I didn’t do what I had, you would have been.”

  “I don’t know that he will come see me,” she said. “He has my number and hasn’t reached out in months. No lawyer has contacted me either. I figured he gave up.”

  “No one gives up when they are desperate,” he said.

  She was pacing in her office. “What am I going to do?”

  “We,” he said. “Together. Be pissed at me all you want after the fact, but you aren’t doing this alone. Get that right through your head right now.”

  She stopped and stared at him. “Fine. And trust me, I’m going to be pissed. I am. It’s going to fester and then unleash like a big pussy wound. Be prepared.”

  He held back the laugh. It was a funny statement in his mind considering what was going on.

  “I’ll take it. For now, finish working. Griffin said he’d let me know if Mike leaves the casino. If you don’t have plans tonight, we should at least find out what Griffin found out, don’t you think?”

  “I guess,” she said. “But I’m not sure what to do with Josie. She shouldn’t go with us and I don’t think she should go to the casino either.”

  “Will Ava take her?” he asked.

  “Ava is back to work now and so is Seth. Adele goes to daycare after school. It would seem odd if she went there without an explanation. She’ll be here after school too.”

  “My mother,” he said. “She’ll love it. And Josie might too.”

  They’d gone to dinner at his parents’ a few times in the past two months on a Sunday. Josie always had a blast.

  “I suppose,” she said. “I don’t want to wait too long.”

  “We shouldn’t,” he said. “I’ll call my mother.”

  He pulled his phone out, his mother answered right away and said she’d take Josie, no questions asked. Of course he knew his mother would grill him when he got back to the garage too.

  “What are you going to tell her when you go back to work?” Avery asked with her arms crossed.

  Guess she figured out his family dynamics pretty fast.

  “That you and I need to take care of something. She won’t ask me more because she knows I won’t tell her.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I need to know what is going on. Somehow I’ve got to get through the rest of this day too.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “It’s going to be fine,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to either of you.”

  “Should I call my lawyer?” she asked.

  “That is up to you,” he said. “But as you said, we don’t know anything yet.”

  “I’ll wait,” she said.

  “Good. Now go play with some puppies and kittens.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, that is what I do all day. You go race the cars around the lot.”

  “I wish,” he said. “That would be more fun than going back to the engine I was working on.”

  She lifted her head and kissed him. “I’m still pissed and we are going to talk about this more.”

  “I expected no differently,” he said.

  36

  Sticks Together

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Avery said to Carter as they pulled in front of the casino.

  “At least Josie didn’t question anything,” he said.

  “No. It helped that your mother came and got her early and said she needed a baking partner. She’ll be wired with sugar when she comes home and it feels as if you are being rewarded today. Your mother is making your favorite cookies and showing Josie how to do them.”

  “Hey,” he said, his hand reaching over to hold hers in the truck. “Family sticks together. It’s what my mother does best. She bakes for her kids when she knows they are in trouble or might be in trouble.”

  “I’ll remember that,” she said.

  Avery was filled with such mixed emotions right now.

  Front and center was fear though.

  She knew legally Mike had no right to Josie. Not at all.

  She’d talked to her attorney in Danbury and in Boston back when Mike called her.

  Everything was in line and nothing for Mike to contest. Not without a lot of money and a big-time lawyer.

  But that didn’t mean he might not come into her life and make trouble.

  Sure, she could have restraining orders and everything drawn up, but she didn’t want to have to do those things and they took time.

  She even contemplated buying Mike off to get him out of Josie’s life.

  The money was there. It was still an option on the table, but she hadn’t told anyone she was thinking it.

  This afternoon she kept running it through her head and even found time to call her mother and then Laine and briefly fill them in. Laine was the first to mention the money and she brushed it off.

  It’s like her new closest friend could read her mind.

  “Do what you think Colleen would do,” Laine had said. That was all she needed to hear and that was what she was damn well going to do.

  Protect Josie the way Colleen would do.

  Carter parked his truck and they got out. The wind was nuts today and it was below zero on top of it. She hoped to hell Mike suffered on the ferry ride over.

  They walked into the lobby of the casino and over to the front desk. “Can I help you?” the woman said.

  “They are here for me,” a man said, coming over in a suit that cost more than her monthly rent, she was positive. She saw him at Bode’s wedding but hadn’t met him formally.

  “Hey, Griffin,” Carter said, putting his hand out. “Thanks for meeting us on such short notice. This is Avery Keegan.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “Thanks too.”

  “I don’t think you mean that,” Griffin said, smirking.

  “Oh, I’m thankful you found out what you’re going to tell me. Just not so thankful Carter did what he had.”

  Griffin lifted an eyebrow. “Not surprised it’s that. Let’s go up to my private suite.”

  They followed the big man with the military cut to a set of elevators where he swiped a badge, then put in a code, and they were riding up past the top floor to the penthouse.

  The door opened and there was a hallway. One door in front and another to the left.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “My old apartment up here. Eli and his family live next door. This is where Eli comes when he’s in trouble with Bella now, but I figured we’d be more comfortable here.”

  She looked at Carter and saw he seemed somewhat confused too, but didn’t say a word.

  They walked in and it wasn’t like an office but a living quarters better than any home or apartment she’d ever been in.

  “It’s a nice place to be in the dog house,” Carter said.

  “You might find yourself in one later,” she said sarcastically.

  Griffin laughed. “Have a seat. Can I get you guys anything to drink?”

  “We’re good,” she said. “I need to know what is going on with Mike. I’m assuming he’s still here?”

  “He is,” Griffin said. “Want to see him?”

  “I don’t want to talk to him,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “Follow me.”

  They moved back toward the front door and a panel came down. Griffin swiped a badge, entered a code, his eye was scanned, her jaw dropped. This was like out of a movie.

  The door opened and a whole room of TVs filled a wall with a computer and keyboard in the center.

  “Jesus,” Carter said. “Talk about no secrets in this place.”

  “It’s secure,” Griffin said. “And I take it this will stay quiet? I know you never say much, Carter.”

  “I won’t say anything,” Avery said. She was shocked this was being shared with her.

  “Good,” Griffin said. He started to punch into the keyboard and then bought up a guy sitting in front of a blackjack table. “There he is.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “He hasn’t changed much other than some weight on him. He looks pretty unkempt.”

  “He’s been there drinking for hours,” Griffin said.

  “I hope he loses his shirt,” she said.

  “I think he has,” Griffin said.

  They moved back out of the room and returned to the living room and sat. “What do you know about him?”

  “He’s heavily in debt. Gambling,” Griffin said.

  “So I see,” she said. “Does he have a job?”

  “He does,” Griffin said. “He’s working construction but is laid off right now for the winter.”

  “So he’s got time to gamble his unemployment away.”

  “Winters aren’t as harsh in West Virginia. He’s only been out of work for a few weeks. My guess is he’ll be back soon,” Carter said.

  “My thought too,” Griffin said.

  “Do you think that is why it’s taken him so long to figure out where I was? It’s not like I’m hiding. An internet search would show where my practice was. I’m not sure how he got my cell phone number, but he could have easily called the clinic or emailed me there.”

  “It’s not that hard to get someone’s personal cell phone if they don’t know how to hide it,” Griffin said.

  “I’ll take your word for it. I haven’t needed to hide it.”

  “I’m not sure why it’s taken him so long other than in the past month he’s lost more than he’s won.”

  “He actually wins?” Carter asked.

  “Everyone wins at times, but the house always takes it in the end,” Griffin said.

  “I don’t know much about gambling. Who the hell has time?”

  “Mike is maxed out of his credit cards. About thirty thousand in debt there. I was able to see that he owes some money to the bank for a personal loan of about twenty thousand.”

  “He had to get cash to come here,” she said.

  “He probably won it. He’s behind on all his bills. I’m sure he’ll be evicted from his place soon,” Griffin said.

  “So this is probably all about money,” she said. “It’s not like he has the means to get an attorney. Not from what you are saying.”