“So? I don’t care. Why do you?”
“With Dad.”
“What?”
“She’s sleeping with Dad! You know, what you did with the chick from the club last night?”
“I didn’t sleep with anyone last night,” Jordan growled. “I meant you were hollering so damn loud that she probably heard you all the way across town.”
Justin clamped his jaw tight to keep his anger in check.
The sound of a drawer slamming sounded through the phone. “What’d you do, follow them to some hotel?”
“No, I’m at that coffee shop down on Cypress.”
“Did you see them kissing?”
“No.”
“Well, what are they doing?”
“Having coffee, but—”
“Wait. Are you telling me you’ve deduced this whole affair from a simple cup of java?” Jordan asked.
“No, I—” Justin paused. Damn it. He kinda had.
“You know, she does work for us. Did it ever occur to you that they could be meeting for business?”
Justin thought about that angle and realized it certainly made more sense. Relief flowed through him. Until something else occurred to him and his anger spiked all over again. “What if they’
re working together? What if Dad’s up to something? He was really pissed off at the reading of Granddad’s will.”
He’d been angry enough that he’d made a complete fool of himself. That was something Dale Blake the Third never did. Appearances were everything to the entire Blake family. Yet when the lawyer had read the will, Dale had ranted and raved about the old bastard getting his revenge. Then he’d looked at their mother and said in a furious voice, “I never said a single word, Diana. And you know I could have.”
“Not here,” their mother had snapped.
“Hmmm,” Jordan said, bringing Justin back to the present. “Now that theory doesn’t sound so farfetched.”
“Damn right it doesn’t. Either way, she’s gone. Type up the paperwork today and have it delivered to her house tomorrow.”
“Me?” Jordan asked in surprise.
“Yes, you. Bonnie’s married to one of the guys on Marley’s team. She’s kept quiet about us so far, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“I know. I’ll clean out her office after work so she’ll have no reason to return to the site. Right about now, I don’t trust Dad any more than he trusted Granddad, and if Marley’s working with him, I certainly don’t trust her either.”
****
Justin barely had time to switch vehicles at Jordan’s apartment again before rushing to work. He wished he could change his stained jeans, and Jordan was going to freak over the coffee stain on the seat of his Lexus, but in the grand scheme of things, they both had more important things to worry about.
Marley and his dad. He still couldn’t believe it. He pounded his fist on the steering wheel as he turned onto the highway. But there was more than his anger over them conspiring together. He just couldn’t define it.
He shifted into first as he pulled into the job site, no closer to figuring out what bothered him most than when he’d first seen them together. He slammed his door closed when he saw Marley exit her trailer in her work clothes. On time, damn her.
Through the morning, after he’d snarled at a few of his co-workers, everyone began to avoid him, even Marley. Fine with him. She was the last person he wanted to talk to. It didn’t help that every time he glanced in her direction he thought about that kiss in the trailer yesterday, remembered her refreshing, perfume-free scent and the feel of her soft lips under his, instead of picturing her at the shop with his dad.