“But I can’t,” he said.
“Why not?” she asked, still interested, but the light in her eyes had dimmed.
He hated disappointing her, but he knew that he had. “That obligation runs pretty deep.”
So deep that he’d sacrifice himself for his father? He asked himself outright for the first time. Before now, he’d gone about blindly doing as his father asked, but Tyler wanted more for himself than a family business built on corruption and lies. More than a woman who didn’t love him—and whom he couldn’t love, if he was responding to Macy this way. So no, he thought, he wasn’t willing to sacrifice himself for his father.
But before he could extricate himself, he needed a plan. He even wondered if talking to Nicole’s cop was an option.
“Ready to go?” Macy asked, when he didn’t elaborate on the situation.
“Sure.” He pushed the idea of talking to Sam aside, to mull over before doing anything rash.
Macy headed to the back of the restaurant to get her bag. He was coming to know her routine as well as he knew his own, he mused.
As she returned, he couldn’t tear his gaze away. Her tanned legs were long beneath the cutoff shorts, and on her feet was electric blue toenail polish. Her white sandals had a heavy fringe. She was dynamite in a petite package, and he enjoyed every minute he spent with her.
They arrived downtown, parking and walking from far away. Obviously the festival was a huge draw. Macy liked art and so did he, which gave him a rush, thinking finally they had something in common. As they passed the various artists set out with their canvases and work, Macy’s eyes lit up and she paused at every landscape they saw.
And when she homed in on an artist and piece she wanted, she headed straight past Nicole’s food booth, barely waving at her friend.
Although Tyler knew he should stop and talk to Nicole, gauge her mood, and hope maybe she was having trouble with Sam, he focused on Macy. She was talking to the young man who’d painted the beautiful panorama of a small town at the base of a mountain range; he was caught up in Macy’s enthusiasm and excitement.
She’d asked about price when he caught sight of two men he recognized. Both blond, dressed casually so they would blend in with the casual tourists, but Tyler knew better. He’d met both men when they came to his Manhattan office to meet with his father. Tyler had sat in on the discussion, as they were new clients and he always tried to be aware of their investors.
On the surface, both men, L.A. art dealers, weren’t out of place at an art show, where they routinely discovered new talent. If he were to dig deeper, he knew that there were thousands of similar shows across the country and even in the northeast each weekend, and it was no coincidence they’d chosen the innocuous town of Serendipity at the same time both he and Nicole were here. If Tyler had to guess, his father had gotten tired of waiting and made a preemptive move by alerting them to possible trouble with Nicole.
Tyler tried not to panic, but he knew he had to alert Nicole to potential danger.
“Tyler, what do you think of the price?” Macy asked him. “It’s too steep for me, but do you think we can get him down?” she asked in a hushed voice.
Shit. He hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation. “How much did he say?”
She frowned at him and pulled him aside. “He started at two hundred. I can splurge at one fifty. I want to hang it in the hall when you walk into my place. What do you think?”
He wasn’t focusing, that was for sure. “Not too bad,” he said, thinking off the top of his head.
He turned back toward Nicole’s booth only to find she was gone. A look at where the men were standing told him they’d disappeared as well.
With a muttered curse, he grasped Macy’s shoulders in both hands. “I have an emergency. Don’t do anything until I get back.”
Her gaze shot from him to where Nicole had been, and the light in her eyes dimmed. “Sure. Go on.”
Heart in his throat, he left Macy and went in search of Nicole.
Ten
Sam scanned the booths at the art fair, looking for Nicole. Of course, this being Serendipity, he didn’t get far before someone in his family stopped him.
“I didn’t think you liked art!” Erin nudged him with her hip.
He glanced over to find her holding his niece, dressed in a pink frilly tank top dress and a floppy hat to protect her fair skin from the sun.
He smiled and held out his hands. “Come to your uncle, baby girl.”
Erin handed him her bundle and Sam settled his niece in his arms. “Did you miss your uncle Sam?” he asked, kissing her soft cheek.
He was rewarded with a baby gurgle and blowing bubbles.