Close Up (22 page)

Sean was disgusted on Kristine’s behalf and worried that she was right. He knew she would be devastated both emotionally and financially if she lost her job. If Ebbe wasn’t out of reach behind bars he was tempted to strangle her himself. “Maybe you should just let her sit in jail until her hearing in a few days.”

“I’ll have to. I don’t have five thousand dollars. I don’t have five dollars. And I seriously doubt she does, either.”

It was risky to offer, because Kristine might take offense, but Sean had to. He had the money, and wouldn’t even miss five grand. “I can give you the money, if you want to bail her out.”

She instantly recoiled, pulling out of his arms. “Oh, no, no, I couldn’t do that. I can’t take your money.”

“It’s okay. I can afford to give it to you. Or loan it, if you prefer.” Though he would never ask for the money back, or take it if she offered.

He was trying to ease her burden. But she burst into tears. “What?” he asked. “It’s okay. It will be okay.”

“No, it won’t. I’m so
tired,
Sean. I keep trying to get ahead, but I never do. I have three dollars until I get paid next Friday. I have all these student loans and I feel like I’m drowning. Now my mother has forced me into homelessness.”

He had no idea what to say to make her feel better. He could offer solutions, but she probably wasn’t in the frame of mind to hear them. Not to mention, he found himself struggling with his own emotion. That she had been living in such a state of constant stress upset him.

“Maybe your boss calling was a coincidence. Come on, let’s pack up and head back and see what’s what.” Sean wiped her tears, his heart doing something that suspiciously felt like breaking.

“I’m sorry,” she said, cheeks flushing. “God, I’m so embarrassed. I’m such a hot mess.”

“Well, hot is definitely accurate.” He was joking, but she wasn’t in the mood for teasing.

She started toward the door. “I’ve been back in your life for like five days and I’m already disrupting it.”

He was about to protest when Liam appeared in the doorway. Though the truth was, she had disrupted his life, but in a good way. Even from a few feet away, Sean could see the high color on her cheeks, and he figured the best thing to do was just get her back to Minneapolis. “All right, let’s all roll out. Liam, I’ll leave the food here. You and Mary are coming out this week, right?”

“Yeah, we’ll be here tomorrow with the girls until Wednesday.”

“Cool.” He went into the bedroom and pulled on socks and a sweatshirt and zipped his overnight bag shut. He picked up her miscellaneous clothes from the floor and folded them into her suitcase.

“Can I brush my teeth before we leave?” she asked, coming in, nose sniffling, but tears gone. Rifling through her suitcase, she grabbed a plastic toiletries bag.

“Of course.”

As he carried his bag and hers out of the cabin and down the stairs, she stood on the deck aggressively brushing her teeth, then drinking from a water bottle before spitting with vehemence over the side onto the grass. She was clearly frustrated.

Sean filled two travel mugs with the coffee he had made, then they were on their way.

“I’m sorry,” she said for about the fifth time as they sped across the lake, after Liam departed in Sean’s boat. He was glad his brother had offered to trade with him for the trip back. It wasn’t a huge difference, but having a faster boat meant shaving ten minutes off the ride, and that could only be a good thing for Kristine’s anxiety level.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s my fault we got interrupted by my brother. Apparently I’m such a workaholic no one can believe I’d go off the grid for twenty-four hours. For real, anyway. I mean, I told my secretary I was coming up to the lake. I guess going totally incommunicado threw her.” He shook his head. That actually really bothered him. “I honestly thought that I’d achieved a certain balance in my life, you know. But on reflection, it seems I’m wrong.”

“I thought I was in control.” She gave him a wan smile. “It seems I was wrong, as well.”

It was a quiet ride after that, Sean not sure what to say. What happened when they got back to Minneapolis? It would be majorly selfish to press Kristine right now for information about their relationship status. She had enough to deal with. She didn’t need him being needy, asking for answers to their immediate future.

On the drive back, he called Helen. “I’m fine—sorry for giving you worry, but why are you working on the weekend anyway?”

“Because Ian Bainbridge is looking for you. It seems there was an incident at the gallery last night where a woman dropped her dress and starting accusing the artist of misogyny.”

Well, that might explain Ebbe’s phone call. “Oh, God. Were the police called or did our guys shut her down?”

“They called the cops because she slugged Jason when he tried to put his coat on her. I didn’t get the impression that Mr. Bainbridge was upset with the firm, especially since they wrestled a flamethrower out of her hand. But he still wanted to discuss it with you.”

“Jesus. Okay, thanks, Helen. I’ll call Ian right away and make it right with him.”

After he hung up, he held the phone out to Kristine. “Your mom assaulted one of my security guards when he tried to cover up her nudity at the exhibit last night. And it seems she had, um, a flamethrower.”

“Holy crap. She’s lost her mind this time, totally and completely.”

Kristine used his phone to call the county jail and see if she could get any information on Ebbe. After she found out there was nothing that could be done until Monday morning, she called her boss.

Even driving and only able to glance at her from time to time, he could tell from her various “uh-uhs” and “I apologize” remarks that it wasn’t good.

When she hung up, she carefully set his phone down next to the stick shift and didn’t say another word. He let her maintain the silence for almost five minutes, the suspense killing him. But he didn’t want to push or pry.

Finally, she said, “I’ve been fired, as expected. Yes, Ebbe did indeed show up last night to the second night of the exhibition and pulled a repeat performance, only it was actually in collusion with your security guard, who just confessed. I’m guessing that’s what Ian Bainbridge wants to talk to you about.”

“What?” Sean swore. “Are you kidding me?”

“Ebbe has particular powers of persuasion. So your firm has been fired, as well, and June said she expects a full refund.”

Great. Fabulous. He didn’t care about the money. Well, he did. But mostly his concern was about his reputation in the industry. If his staff was compromised and word got out...his business could be in jeopardy. “Goddamn it.”

“Tell me about it.” She cleared her throat. “Ebbe told them I was her daughter. June said between that incident and me being the one there when the vandalism occurred she’s just not sure she can trust me. Since I’ve only been there a few weeks, she has to let me go.”

It was actually worse than he could have predicted. Kristine was out of a job, which was her worst fear. He had to do damage control for the business. Ebbe was in jail.

“Geez, Kristy, I’m so sorry. I feel really bad about the guard. I had no idea he would do anything like this.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m not even sure it’s my mother’s fault, entirely. It’s just a culmination of a bunch of things and well, here I am.” She gave a hollow laugh. “Back to square one, I guess. Why don’t you give Ian a call? I know you need to. I’m going to bang my head against the window a few times, maybe cry, then try to figure out how to pay my rent.”

Reality had smacked them in the face as unexpectedly as that bass on the lake the day before.

Sean squeezed her knee. “You’ll get through this. I know you will.”

She just handed him his phone and didn’t reply.

Using voice command, he called Ian. “Hello, Mr. Bainbridge. It’s Sean Maddock of Maddock Security. How are you?”

“Christ, call me Ian. It’s been an interesting week, that’s for sure. Thanks for calling me back.”

“Yeah, I apologize for being out of reach. Took the weekend off up at the lake and I turned my phone off since reception tends to be spotty.” Sean tried to keep a confident tone as he drove and talked, gearing up for the apology and compensation he needed to offer Ian. “But unfortunately it looks like I chose the worst weekend to take off. It’s my understanding there was an incident at the gallery last night and I want to assure you we take that breach very seriously.”

“It wasn’t anything you could have predicted. Your other guard handled it superbly. I appreciate his quick thinking. I really wanted to talk to you because I am damn certain that I actually saw the woman you noticed in the shoots at the exhibit last night.”

That was interesting. “What? She was there? Did she attempt to make contact with you?”

“No. She was on the catering staff.”

“Really?” Sean found the whole thing curious and intriguing. “Did you tell the police?”

“Yes, I gave them a call, but they dismissed it. They’re not going to investigate the catering company because potentially one of the staff is a fan who wants to be in my photos, you know? But I think there is something sketchy going on.”

“Agreed. Would you like me to put a friend of mine onto this? She’s a private investigator.” Sean would love to look into it himself, but it wasn’t necessarily his area of expertise.

“That would be excellent.”

“I’m on the road, but as soon as I get to the office tomorrow, I’ll get you that information.”

“Thanks, man.”

Sean said goodbye and hung up, then immediately felt guilty as he looked at Kristine. Granted, he hadn’t spoken to June yet, but Ian hadn’t exactly ripped him a new one. He was not going to suffer the same consequences as Kristine from the whole debacle. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No. I want to stick my head in a hole, ostrich style, and pretend none of this is happening.”

It was the wrong time to be needy, but before he could stop himself he asked, “None of this?”

The look she gave him indicated it was poor timing.

And with that, he pulled into her apartment complex and that was the end of their weekend.

17

K
RISTINE WAS SO
overwhelmed she didn’t even know where to start, or which problem to tackle first. “I don’t know what to say,” she said, as they pulled into her apartment complex. The last thing she could deal with was figuring out what she and Sean were to each other after today. It was just too much to process. Ebbe in jail, unemployment...her thoughts were running in circles and accomplishing nothing.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything. This is on Ebbe and your security guard. Yet we’re both paying the price.”

“You’re right. You’re not responsible for Ebbe. My business will survive. I’ve had dissatisfied clients before. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan.”

That was putting it mildly. “Yeah.” She honestly didn’t know what else to say.

“Can I come in?” Sean asked.

The thought of him seeing her shabby apartment, with her extremely minimal furniture all from Goodwill on top of everything else, made her shake her head. “I don’t think so. I’m going to take a long, hot shower then a nap. I have to be at the courthouse tomorrow.”

The drive had eaten a large chunk of the day and she had a headache. She just wanted to be alone, to cry. To ponder how she was supposed to feed herself.

“Okay. Sure. How about I pick you up and go with you?”

“Oh, you don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

She shouldn’t lean on him, she really shouldn’t. But she couldn’t resist. “Okay, thanks.”

There was no way she could start a renewed relationship with Sean. Not where she was. Not when she wasn’t on stable footing. It would be too easy to fall into the old patterns of leaning on him, allowing him to fix her problems. Moving back to Minnesota had been the start of a journey to self-sufficiency, financially and otherwise, and she needed to see that through to the end.

She opened the door and got out and he came around to the trunk and lifted down her suitcase.

“Hey.”

His hand tipped her chin up to force her to look at him. Meeting his eyes was painful. “Yes?”

“I love you.”

She closed her eyes. She had to. She couldn’t look at him. If she did, it would be far too easy to give in and accept the help he would offer. “I love you, too,” she murmured.

But then because she was so humiliated and unsure of how to proceed with her life, she shook her head. “On second thought, don’t come tomorrow. I need to do this.”

When she opened her eyes again, he was studying her. “Okay. But let me take you to dinner tomorrow.”

“No. I can’t. I can’t do this, Sean. It’s so wrong of me to take advantage of your generosity. I can’t.” Her words sounded frantic and desperate even to her, but she was starting to panic.

“What if I say I want to be with you? That when you love someone their problems are your problems?”

It was wonderful and oh, so tempting. “I would say if you stay on the boat to bail it out with a bucket, you’re going to end up on the bottom of the ocean along with it.”

“Or maybe, with two hands, you make it to shore.”

Kristine could feel herself wavering. He was so determined, and she wasn’t sure she could resist him. “I need to be on my own, Sean. I need to fix my life myself. Please understand that. It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s that I won’t respect myself if I let you rescue me.”

His jaw was set, his hand rubbing across it. “I guess there’s nothing I can say, is there?”

“No.” She went on tiptoes and kissed the back of his hand, brushing over his knuckles. “Thank you. And take care of yourself.”

No response. He just stared at her, eyes searching. He wanted a different ending—she could see that.

Grabbing the handle of the suitcase, tears streaming down her face, she ran for her apartment, not daring to look back. If she did, she would run into his arms. She would kiss him repeatedly and allow her love for him, her passion, her exhaustion at being broke, coax her into giving up any personal success or independence. Sean would never hold that against her, but she would regret it forever, that she hadn’t thought enough of herself to become the woman she knew she could be.