“Hey, Amanda,” Tara said as the other woman was about to leave the counter. “After you deliver those drinks, are your tables good for a while?”
“Yep. Do you need me to cover for you so you can run to the little girls’ room?”
Amanda split her time between cocktail waitressing and bartending at Kincaid’s, depending on what was needed for the night. Wednesdays were the slowest evenings of the week, so Amanda took the waitress shift. “Actually, I’d like to go talk to Clay and it might be more than a few minutes.”
“Sure, fine. I can handle the bar and Gina can cover the floor for a while,” she said of the other bar waitress and part-time b
artender who was also working for the night. “Give me a sec to take care of these drinks, and I’ll be back.”
A few minutes later, Tara was heading toward Clay’s office. Deep, masculine voices drifted out into the hallway, and when she reached the door, it was open a few inches. She knocked lightly to announce her presence, then poked her head inside.
“You guys okay?” she asked as she slipped into the office.
“No, we’re not fucking okay.” Mason jammed his hands through his hair as he paced back and forth in the small space, his agitation coming through loud and clear. “We have a goddamn brother we knew nothing about, not to mention finding out our mother sold Clay’s twin for fucking drug money.”
She sucked in a startled breath. “Is that what Jackson told you?”
“Yeah.” Mason’s jaw hardened even more, and Levi and Clay remained quiet while their brother continued to rant. “I wouldn’t believe it if it weren’t for the fact that selling a kid is exactly something our sorry excuse for a mother would do. That bitch had no conscience.”
Her head spun as Mason’s words eventually sunk in, and she couldn’t imagine how Jackson had felt hearing that devastating news for the first time. And she was doing it again . . . feeling empathy for a man she’d just met.
“Then he comes in here with his flashy, high-dollar suit, and oh, hey, look, he’s a goddamn architect at some big fucking firm in Chicago,” Mason went on cynically while flicking his finger over the glossy business card he held in his hand. “Jesus, he looks as though he grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, while we barely scraped by every single day.”
“You don’t know what his childhood was like, and just because he might have money and a respectable job, it doesn’t make him a bad person.” She didn’t bother to point out that Clay had over a million dollars tucked away, a tidy sum of money, along with the bar he’d inherited from the old man who’d owned the place before he’d passed away. And no one was judging him based on his wealth and what he’d been given.
Mason crossed his tattooed arms over his wide chest, his stance defensive. “I don’t trust him.” And for a man who’d had very little reason to let other people into the Kincaid inner circle, it was as simple as that.
“I’ll see what I can find out about Jackson,” Levi finally said, his voice even and practical. “I have someone at the station who owes me a favor, and I’ll get them to run a thorough background check on the guy to see if he has anything glaring in his past. Or any kind of record or issues that we should be concerned about.”
“That’s kind of invasive, don’t you think?” Tara asked, the comment escaping her before she realized just how biased her question sounded.
“We have no idea who he is.” Clay was still sitting behind his desk, and he leaned back in his chair as his gaze met Tara’s. “Not really.”
“Or what he wants,” Mason piped in once more.
She laughed, but the sound lacked any real humor. “What if he just wants to get to know the three brothers that he was separated from at birth?”
Clay frowned at her. “Why are you defending him?”
The room grew quiet as three pairs of eyes studied her way too intently. “I’m not defending him.”
“Yeah, you are,” Mason said, his voice gruff as his suspicious gaze narrowed even further. “Did Jackson get inside your head before we got here? Is that why you’re on his side?”
“What?” She gaped at Mason, unable to believe that he’d just accused Jackson of brainwashing her. Exasperation and frustration made her voice rise a few notches. “Oh, my God. No, he didn’t get inside my head. He asked about you guys. He was genuinely interested in knowing about all three of you.”
“And what did you tell him?” Levi asked.
“Just general stuff that he could find out on his own if he wanted to.” That was the truth. She hadn’t revealed anything personal or private.
Clay scrubbed a hand along his unshaven jaw and sighed heavily. “If Jackson comes around again, stay away from him until Levi finds out more about who he is.”
She was used to Clay being protective, and normally she appreciated his concern, but there was nothing that Jackson had said or done during his short time in the bar that had led her to believe he was dangerous in any way. “He doesn’t seem like a serial killer to me,” she said.
“You don’t know that,” Mason said, bickering with her as if she were a sibling.
She gave him a barely tolerable look. “You’re impossible, you know that? How does Katrina put up with you on a daily basis?” When he smirked, she held up her hand to cut him off, knowing he was about to spout off something inappropriate and crass. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”
Her imploring gaze sought out Clay’s instead, because out of the three brothers, she knew he was the least likely person in this room to make assumptions about a person’s character based on outward appearance and one fifteen-minute conversation. She knew this because Clay had taken a chance on her when she’d had nothing and no one. When she’d been so lost and alone and needed just one person to believe in her. He’d given her that faith.