Tainted Heartbreak (Tainted Knights 3)

She took one of my cases, and we wheeled them to the back of the ATV. After they were secured, she handed me an extra helmet and showed me how to strap myself into the passenger seat.

As she started the ATV and turned it in the direction she’d come from, she started chatting. “Tell me about yourself, Amara Marks.”

I grimaced. “Nothing much to tell. I was at Caltech studying microbiology, but that was boring and not me. I met Emmie at a rock festival a few months ago, and she seemed to like me. Didn’t think she would ever like me this much, though.”

Kin nodded as she expertly maneuvered around trees, making her own path through the foliage up the mountain. “Aunt Emmie is amazing like that. If she likes you, you’ve found yourself a new family. If she doesn’t, you’ve made a pretty powerful enemy.”

“Aunt Emmie?”

“My best friend is Lucy Thornton. That’s what she calls Em, and so I started calling her that too just to tease her.” She lifted a shoulder in a small shrug. “But it kind of stuck.”

We were both quiet for a few minutes, but I could practically feel that she wanted to say something. As a small cabin appeared in the distance, she finally gave voice to what was on her mind. “You dated Cash?”

My heart clenched at the sound of his name, and I turned my head so she wouldn’t see the look on what little of my face she could make out through the helmet. After everything that had happened the day before, just hearing his name was enough to make my entire body ache. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I blurted out the news of the baby, but his reaction broke me even worse than finding Lindsey in his shower.

I never felt so alone in my life as I had when he asked if I expected him to help me raise our baby. I knew then and there that it was me against the world. Any lasting hope I might have had of us making it as a couple turned to dust and scattered across my bedroom floor.

“Yeah,” I choked out. “We dated. That’s over now, though.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry.” She sighed deeply. “I haven’t exactly been doing so great with my own breakup, so I understand.”

She stopped in front of the cabin and tur

ned off the engine. As she unbuckled her harness, I grabbed her wrist. “Look, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. We shouldn’t have to tiptoe over the ashes of our bad relationships. If you want to talk, I’m here. If you want to rant and rave and rage and eat all kinds of bad things, I’m your girl. I’d like for us to be friends. Lord knows I don’t have many of those right now.”

She gave me a small smile. “Yeah. We can do that. Just don’t complain when I take you up on the rant, rave, and rage offer.”

Once in the cabin, I wasn’t expecting to find the luxuries I encountered. The place looked so plain and ordinary on the outside that the inside took me completely by surprise. The air conditioning was blasting, making it blissfully cool. The living room was spacious with a sectional against one wall and a huge flat screen mounted on the opposite wall. A coffee table sat between the two, with sheet music and notebooks scattered across it.

The kitchen was a chef’s dream. The fridge blended into the walls seamlessly, but the thing was huge and stocked with enough food to last us for months. And my bedroom… Fuck, I was going to enjoy every second of sleeping in that soft-ass bed and soaking in the tub that was part of my connecting bathroom. My jet-lagged muscles were screaming for me to do just that, but first, I had to feed my growling stomach. If I waited too long, I knew the baby would get pissed, and I would be spending the rest of the day with my head in the toilet.

There was shitty service up here, so my phone was basically useless when it came to calling anyone. But the Wi-Fi was strong, so I could at least text Riley and Emmie to let them both know I made it. I got a thumbs-up emoji reply from my best friend just as I was putting together a huge sandwich, and I blew out a tired sigh.

Riley was still upset with me. Leaving wasn’t something that she did when she had a problem. Hell, it wasn’t something I normally did either, but I needed to clear my head and make decisions. Sitting around waiting for my life to magically fix itself wasn’t going to happen, however. I needed this job, and I needed the time away from Cash to figure out what I wanted. He needed the time too. Because if he couldn’t figure out what he wanted, then it didn’t really matter what I decided about us.

Kin came into the kitchen just as I was taking a hungry bite of my sandwich. “Cravings are a bitch.”

“What?” I squeaked around my overly stuffed mouth.

She smirked at me as she pulled out the jug of freshly made sweet tea and poured herself a glass. “Lucy is well into her pregnancy. You have the same glow about you as she does. And extra pickles on your ham sandwich with Hershey’s chocolate sauce instead of mayo or mustard is something she seems to be fond of right now too.”

I glared down at the chocolate sauce. “Why the hell does it taste so good?”

“I have no clue, girl. But I’m not about to experiment with it to find out for you.” She took a thirsty swallow of her drink. “You’re not too far along, though, right? I mean, Lucy is seven-ish months and already knows what she’s having. You don’t even have the telltale baby bump yet.”

“Two months,” I admitted before taking another bite of my sandwich. Picking up the chocolate sauce, I drizzled it over my sea salt chips and stuffed one into my mouth. “I just recently found out.”

She leaned on the island beside me, a thoughtful expression on her beautiful face. “What did Cash say when you told him?”

“Let’s just say his reaction left me a little wounded.” I stuffed more chips into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to tell her the rest of it.

She blinked at me in surprise. “Really?” I nodded somberly. “Huh. I didn’t expect that from him.”

“Do you know him well?”

“About as well as anyone could know Cash Mathias.” The sound of his last name made me stiffen, but from the way Kin was watching me, I suspected she was looking for my reaction. “So you do know. I was curious. I mean, he doesn’t talk about his name change to anyone that I know of. The guys all know, yeah, and Aunt Emmie, but he’s always wanted to keep his personal life separate from his family.”

“Y-you know his family?”