Kayla couldn’t have been more shocked. She glanced at Blake to see what he had to say, hoping he was going to continue to deal with the dogs.

  “They tore up the bedspread and a roll of toilet paper. Not to mention the room will have to be disinfected,” he said.

  “You’re going to take the dogs out of here and find the owner, right?” Kayla asked Blake.

  Roxie smiled at Kayla.

  “Uh, yeah. Of course.” Blake looked like he absolutely didn’t want to take on the bride, but Kayla’s job was to handle the banquet details, and Blake was supposed to be taking care of the dog situation. He moved in to take charge of them. “Do you know who the dogs belong to?” he asked the bride, since they seemed to know her so well.

  “Yeah, my cousin. Why?” the bride said, frowning at him, like he better not say anything negative about them.

  “We don’t allow pets at the lodge. All guests sign the paperwork spelling out the rules from the outset. No pets except for service dogs are allowed,” Blake said.

  “So what do we do now? My cousin is one of my bridesmaids,” the bride haughtily said, as if being queen for the day changed the rules for the lodge.

  “Your cousin will have to pay for the damages and the cost of cleaning the room. She can’t stay here any longer. The dogs can be boarded, but she’ll have to find other accommodations.” Blake was being a lot sterner than Kayla would have been.

  Sure, normally that was how this worked for sneaking in pets and causing so much trouble, but Kayla still had to handle things for the bride until she and her groom married and took off.

  Kayla would have said everything that Blake had except that the bride’s cousin couldn’t stay here any longer. Not in that room because they had to clean it up and she had to pay for the damages and such. But if the bridesmaid wanted to stay with another guest—then so be it. Though Kayla had to say that it was the first time she thought the bride looked human—when she was loving on the dogs.

  Then a woman came into the banquet room and her eyes widened to see the dogs. Kayla figured she was the owner. Sure enough, they whipped around to greet her with just as much enthusiasm as they had with the bride.

  “I take it you’re the dogs’ owner. You can either take them to the Silver Town Animal Clinic where they can be boarded, or you can pay to have them transported there,” Blake said.

  One of the men in the wedding party came over and petted the dogs. “I’ll take the dogs to the clinic. You got their leashes?” he asked the bridesmaid.

  “In the room.” She sounded mad and upset that she’d been found out. What did she expect? That her dogs would just quietly sleep in the room all day? She gave him the room key.

  “You’ll need to pack up your things also, miss,” Blake said. “I’ll go with you.” He glanced back at the others in the wedding party who were petting or talking to the dogs. “Just make sure the dogs don’t leave the banquet room until they have their leashes and are leaving the lodge.”

  Though Kayla knew Blake didn’t like seeing the dogs in the banquet room either. Well, neither did she, unless they were service dogs.

  “Do you need me to do anything else here?” Landon asked Kayla.

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, I’m returning to the sixty-year-old’s birthday party that I’m handling then.” Landon left after that.

  “Unless you need me, I’m going to take care of the bridesmaid and her extra charges,” Roxie said. “Blake can have someone clean up the room and change the linens.”

  “Sounds good.” Kayla was glad she didn’t have to charge the bridesmaid for all those expenses. The bridesmaid wouldn’t like it, but she shouldn’t have sneaked her dogs into the lodge like that when she knew pets weren’t allowed.

  “You have a dog in the lobby,” the bride told Kayla as Roxie left, her voice cutting.

  “He’s a rescue dog.” Kayla explained what he did.

  Surprisingly, the bride smiled. “Wow, that’s really cool.”

  But as soon as Blake returned with the man who had the leashes in hand and he escorted him and the dogs out of the banquet room, the bride turned into Bridezilla again and was snapping at her bridesmaids to get everything set up pronto. And to do it right.

  Kayla shook her head.

  In Green Valley, Nate and Nicole went to speak with Sarah next, thinking she might shed some light on what had happened to Phil. But when they arrived at her apartment, Everest opened the door to their knock. They should have expected that might be the case. “We don’t want any,” Everest said, not waiting for them to explain why they were there. Then Everest frowned at them. “Hell, don’t I know you?” he said to Nicole.

  “We’re private investigators hired by Phil’s family to learn what we can about where he has gone to.” Nate felt like he knew Everest too. From somewhere. He frowned. “Were you in the army?”

  Everest frowned. “I told you; we don’t want any.” He shut the door in their faces.

  “Hmm, so he’s guilty of foul play and doesn’t want to say anything or he’ll incriminate himself?” Nicole asked Nate as they got into his car.

  “Yeah, I’d say so. And he sure looks like someone I’ve seen before. Maybe in the army.”

  Nicole snapped her fingers. “He was the one who crashed into my car while driving a government van. I broke my leg and suffered a concussion. He went on the run, and when he was caught, they found he’d been drinking whiskey in the van and was DUI. He was kicked out of the service.”

  “Oh, yeah… I remember him at the post at some time when I was stationed there. He ran through a stop sign in the hospital zone and one of the military police stopped him. He did it right in front of the officer too.”

  Nicole pulled her hair back into a clip. “He sounds like bad news. The accident happened ten years ago, so I just didn’t connect the name with the soldier. They always called him Corporal Johnson. I didn’t know his first name was Everest or that he lived in Green Valley. I don’t know, but a man who would screw up his service career so bad over drinking and driving a military vehicle, who knows what else he could get himself into. Particularly with a powerful father who can fix things for him.”

  Nate rubbed his chin. “I agree, and I knew him as Corporal Johnson too.”

  “He ended up with a dishonorable discharge. At least while Everest was in the military, his parents couldn’t get him off. I wonder if they ever fought to get that changed so that he had an honorable discharge. But it indicates the guy isn’t totally honorable.” Nicole looked at the list of names and addresses of the potential witnesses they needed to talk to. “Okay, so we go talk to Randy and his girlfriend next?”

  “Ann first. Maybe she’ll break. If she knows anything.” But Nate couldn’t quit thinking about Everest and if he was involved in some criminal activity, especially if it led to making Phil disappear.

  “Right.” Nicole directed Nate to Ann’s apartment, and when they arrived there, they left the car and went to the door.

  “Watch Randy be at her place, and he keeps Ann from talking to us like Everest did with Sarah.” Nate felt they were coming up with nothing but dead ends and the friends would all stick together and stonewall them.

  Ann answered the door with a beer bottle in her hand and took a swig. “Yeah? What do you want?”

  “We’re private investigators hired by Phil’s parents to look for him,” Nate said. “Can we talk to you about the last time you saw him?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. We were at the Red Dog Pub. And then we dropped him off at his house on his parents’ farm.” Ann wiped a strand of black hair away from her face.

  “And the business with the fight at the pub?” Nicole asked.

  Ann’s lips parted, and he figured she was surprised that they knew about the fight there.

  “Oh, it was no big deal,” Ann said, trying to brush it off as though it was nothing important.

  “Witnesses who saw the confrontation said it was. And then the bouncer threw Everest and Phil out of the pub. That’s not nothing,” Nicole said.

  “All right, sure, they had a fight. I’m not sure what it was about exactly. I had to run to the little girls’ room, and when I got back, I saw Phil and Everest being escorted out of the pub by one big bouncer dude. And we all left then too. No reason to hang around, not to mention we had to take Phil home.”

  “No one said anything to you about what had happened during the fight while you were driving Phil home?” Nate imagined it would have been the sole topic of conversation.

  “Not that I can recall.” She flipped her black hair over her shoulder. “I’d had a lot to drink.”

  Which could be true, but it was also convenient that she didn’t know anything. “What about your boyfriend? Randy? Did he see what had happened?” Nicole asked.

  “Oh, he went to the bathroom at the same time I did.”

  How very convenient.

  “When we talked to the bartender, she said you all were there.” Nate figured it was time to make up a lie of his own and see how Ann dealt with it.

  “Well, that’s just her word against ours, now isn’t it?” Ann closed the door in their faces.

  Now that was telling. So she had been there and witnessed the whole thing.

  “You’d think Phil’s friends would want to know what happened to him, wouldn’t you?” Nicole said, as she got back into Nate’s car.

  “I’d think so. Unless they are covering up for someone else who’s a friend or they were involved and are covering up for their own role in Phil’s disappearance. We have one last stop—to see Randy.”

  They found where Randy was living and parked at his house. He was just pulling up into the driveway. “What do you want?” he asked, getting out of his car. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, and with a scruffy blond beard, he was the fairest of the friends.

  Nate explained who they were and that they wanted to ask him about the last time he had seen Phil. “Did he seem distraught about anything?”

  “Oh, you mean like he might have wanted to commit suicide?” Randy asked, his expression brightening as if he thought that was a way to deal with the fallout from this.

  “No, for having left without saying anything to anybody and worrying his parents,” Nate said, trying not to sound annoyed. “I was just wondering about his frame of mind after the fight at the bar.”

  “He was mad. Everest was mad. They get that way sometimes. Everest thinks Phil had some feelings toward Sarah, but Phil drinks and then pulls Everest’s strings. Anyway, so we all got thrown out of the pub and went home. That was the last of it. I was with Ann the rest of the night. I don’t know what the others were doing. All I know is Phil went into his house and shut the door. I don’t have a clue where Phil went after that. He was as drunk as us. I just figured he’d slept it off.”

  “Was Ann there when Everest and Phil started throwing punches at each other at the pub?” Nicole asked.

  “Yeah. Sure, where else would she have been? She doesn’t like seeing any of us fight. Not that she stepped in to stop it either. She doesn’t like confrontation. But she didn’t want to get hurt either. I didn’t bother trying to stop them. When they get like that, they just need to work it out between them. But we did take them home in separate cars.”

  “What about Phil’s sister?”

  “Oh, she shouted for Everest and Phil to stop it. She tried to pull Phil’s arm, and he shoved her aside. Then she got mad and just watched until the bouncer threw us all outside. She and her friend got in their car and headed for home. We were behind them all the way to the farmhouse. Vicki got out of the car and headed into her parents’ home, and then her friend took off. We pulled up and let Phil out at his house, and then we left. That’s all there was to it. We told the police Phil sulks like that when he gets mad. And getting thrown out of the pub before he was finished drinking made him mad.”

  “You don’t have a clue as to where he might have gone?” Nate asked.

  “Nope. Not in the least.”

  So that told them Ann had lied about seeing the confrontation at the pub. No wonder Phil’s parents were concerned something more was wrong.

  Nate straightened. “What do all of you do at Phil’s house in the middle of the night? His parents said you would land in on him at all hours. And stay for just a short time.”

  Randy’s expression darkened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s all I have to say.” Then he went inside his house and shut the door and locked it.

  “Wow, I hadn’t expected you to hit him up with that,” Nicole said.

  “He was thrown off his game, wasn’t he?” Nate said.

  “Yeah, he sure was, which is why he shut us down right away. So they were involved in something illegal. Have you checked on court records to learn if they were involved in any criminal activities?”

  “I have, but I haven’t been able to run anything down on any of them except that Ann had a couple of speeding tickets. Randy had one, but that was it.”

  “Do you think if Everest has done anything more, his parents have gotten him out of the trouble?” Nicole asked.

  “Yeah, possibly, if what the others told us was true.”

  Once they were done, they headed back to Silver Town. Whether Nicole wanted to lie down or not, Nate drove her to her home next to the lodge. It was time for lunch, so he’d make her some, and then she could rest. “You’re having a nap after I fix you some lunch.”

  She laughed. “Okay. I never expected to have my brother take care of me while I’m pregnant.”

  “Well, someone’s got to do it. Blake’s at the lodge. If you want, I can call him and have him take care of you, but you have to take a nap. I don’t want those babies to come too early.” Nate really was worried about her, which was another reason why they wanted to reduce their caseload before he was with Kayla for a week and before Nicole was much further along.

  “Thanks, Nate. How about if we call Blake to have him return home, and we can all have lunch together. Kayla too. And then I’ll lie down. I promise. But I’ll be back into the office later to help with the caseload.”

  “Only if Blake says you can.”

  “All right. I agree.” Then Nicole called Blake to invite him to have lunch with her.

  At the same time, Nate called Kayla. “Hey, I’m bringing Nicole home to have lunch with Blake and take a rest. Do you want to join us?”

  “Yeah, sure, let me tell Roxie she’s got to hold the fort down. She can go to lunch after I return.” Kayla sounded really relieved, like he’d rescued her from a pit of snakes.

  He wondered what she was doing, but she probably couldn’t talk about it while she was at the lodge. “Okay, great. See you soon.” Then he ended the call and smiled at Nicole. “See? Kayla and I are fine together.”

  Nicole sighed. “Yeah, but you have to keep after it or someone else is going to start asking her out because the two of you aren’t mating.”

  “We’ll get there.” He was certain Nicole realized he was going to ask Kayla to mate him at the cabin but was dying to know for sure. He wasn’t planning to tell anyone before he asked Kayla though. What if she said no? Or she wanted to wait a while longer? He adored her, and he was afraid she’d never want to mate him. He knew she was afraid of change, maybe of commitment. What if she just wanted to remain good friends? It would kill him. Besides, he knew she was afraid of shifting if she stayed overnight with him during the full moon, and he wanted to prove to her that he would be just fine with it. Yet he was afraid that she’d reject his plan to stay with her at the cabin because of the moon issue.

  “That’s what I want to hear.”

  When they arrived home, Blake and Kayla were already fixing chili for everyone. Nate loved seeing the siblings working together on the meal.

  Nicole did look worn out. Blake quickly gave her a hug and gently ran his hand over her belly. Then he kissed her, and they all sat down to eat and talked about their day.

  Nate couldn’t wait to be with Kayla like that. Kayla and her siblings treated him like he was family, but it would be different if they were mated. When Kayla started to tell him about the bride from hell, he wished he’d been there to straighten out the woman.

  “I was just glad Kayla was dealing with it and not me.” Blake served up bowls of chili for everyone. “I had to take care of a situation where a guest had sneaked two schnauzers into their room. The dogs were barking their heads off in there. I thought their owners were off hiking or something. Who knew when they would return? The dogs had torn up the bedspread in their room and the toilet paper roll.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t tell them the best part.” Kayla topped everyone’s chili with sour cream and shredded cheese. “Blake accidentally let them loose, and they went straight to the banquet room where the wedding and reception were going to take place.”

  “Oh, no,” Nicole said.

  Kayla explained how the bride’s cousin, who was also a bridesmaid, owned them.

  “So what happened?” Nicole asked.

  “We charged her for damages and a cleaning fee and kicked her out of the lodge,” Blake said.

  “No,” Nicole said, sounding shocked.

  Kayla smiled.

  Nicole frowned at her. “He’s just teasing me, right?”

  “Nope.” Kayla ate some more of her chili.

  “Then what? I know there are no rooms available anywhere during the height of the summer rental season,” Nicole said.

  “She’s probably staying with someone else in their guest room,” Kayla said.

  Nicole glanced at Blake. He smiled and shrugged. “What I don’t know can’t hurt anything.”

  They all laughed.

  “But if I learn she moved those dogs from the kennel to someone’s room—” Blake said.

  “I’ll bodily throw her out myself,” Kayla said, sounding serious about it.

  Everyone smiled at her.

  “I would.”