Perfect Fit (Serendipity's Finest 1)

“Yeah. No promises, no desire to make any. It worked for me.” He drew a deep breath. “Then Dad got sick and asked me to come home.”

“And you came back to Cara,” his brother said, looking at him with that all-knowing gaze he’d perfected as an interrogator.

Cara did it well too. Mike saw detective in their futures and felt a sudden pang of disappointment that he wouldn’t be the one to promote them.

“Cara’s…different,” Mike admitted. “Every time I’m with her, she unsettles me.”

“And it’s a beautiful thing to see,” Sam said with a shake of his head and loud laughter.

Unsettled was an understatement, Mike thought, remembering how Cara had shaken up his well-ordered life. She still did. Each time he made love to her—and he’d long since stopped trying to convince himself it was just sex—was a huge damned emotional reveal.

But Mike wasn’t going there in detail with Sam. Bad enough he sat here unloading his feelings like some damned girl. Because it was like Cara had unraveled him, piece by piece, leaving him at his most vulnerable, raw and exposed.

A place he’d never been. A feeling he’d never expected to have in this lifetime. And one, combined with the pressure in his career, that had him wanting to run.

“Don’t you get it?” Mike asked his brother. “If I say I’ll stay and I can’t back it up with action, it’ll destroy her.”

Sam let out a low whistle. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered, speaking low. “You love her.”

Mike met his brother’s gaze and didn’t answer. He couldn’t. It was one thing for Mike to think it, another for Sam to say it out loud, he thought, his brother adding to the panic his father had recently instilled.

“She know?” Sam asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“Hell, I barely know how I feel,” he gritted out, wondering how much more he could have thrown at him in a short time.

Mike looked down and realized he was flexing and unflexing his hand into a tight fist. The one thing Mike did know was that he’d always been up front with her. If he left, at least he’d know he’d never led her on.

“You two look awfully tense,” Erin said, suddenly beside them. She wrapped an arm around each brother’s shoulder. “Need me to referee?”

Mike forced himself to exhale and release the tension he was holding—or at least attempt to. It was hard enough to talk to Sam. He wasn’t ready to get into it again with his sister.

“We’re just catching up. Nothing serious. We’re finished now.”

“Sure, I miss all the good stuff,” she said, sounding like she did when they were younger.

Mike managed a laugh. He reached into his pocket for cash, tossed money on the bar for his tab, and rose to his feet. “I have to go take care of a few things,” he told his siblings.

He needed to leave here before Cara showed up. She was too in tune to him and would read things in his expression he wasn’t ready for her to see.

Sam eyed him with concern. “Don’t go off half-cocked and do something stupid.”

Mike shook his head. “I’m just going to wrap up a few things,” he assured him.

Sam muttered a curse but let him go.

Mike climbed into his truck and headed to a Holiday Inn just over the border in a neighboring town. He’d put out some feelers and discovered Rex was staying there.

For the life of him, Mike didn’t know why the man was hanging around and decided he needed a nudge to point him in the direction he needed to go. Nervous but refusing to let it show, Mike walked up the stairs to the third floor, needing to cloak himself in his righteous anger before facing the man.

He knocked twice and waited.

Finally, the door swung open and Mike found himself facing Rex. “Got a minute?” Mike asked by way of hello.

“Come on in.” Rex waved a hand.

Mike passed by and walked into the room. Rex, he noticed, was living out of a suitcase, his clothes strewn all over. The one thing that was in order was the makeshift bar the older man had set up on the counter.

“Whiskey?” Rex asked.