“You okay there, lady?” he asked in a Southern baritone.

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry, yes, please, thank you.”

Scrambling out of the mall, she rushed into the fresh air, and quickly located the trash bins on either side of the entrance … because there was a good chance she was going to throw up the leftover lasagna she’d had when she’d gotten home from the funeral.

“Oh … God…”

Abruptly, she thought of her last conversation with Thom, the one that had revealed a truth that made things easier, not harder, to live with.

This shit with Duke in there?

It was so much worse than Thom falling in love with the woman he would later spend the rest of his life with. That had hurt, yes, but at least that particular ex of hers had proven to be the good guy she’d always believed him to be.

No family, she thought bitterly as she went out to her car. Duke must have a very different definition of the word.

Getting in, she slammed the door and gripped the wheel, and blinked hard—although whether that was from hurt or anger, she didn’t know. Wrapping her arms around her stomach, she couldn’t believe she’d invited that liar over to her house … welcomed him into her bed … woken up next to him just this morning with all kinds of delusions of intimacy…

Snagging her phone from her bag, she went into recent calls and hit the one that was at the top.

G.B. answered on the second ring. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t think so … actually, no, I’m really, totally not.”

“Cait—” His voice broke. “Cait, I’m really sorry. If I’d known you were seeing him, I would have told you. He’s evil … he’s an evil guy.”

Holding the phone up to her ear, she didn’t fully focus on the parking lot in front of her, or the sun that was just about to set behind the JCPenney up ahead, or the couple who were walking hand in hand in front of her.

“G.B., I need to know something,” she said in a dull tone.

“Anything.”

“I need to know where he lives.”

She was absolutely going to confront him, but it was going to be in person, not over the phone. She wanted the satisfaction of seeing his reaction when he found out that he’d been caught in his lies.

“Where am I … where … am I…”

As Cait heard the words leave her lips, she thought … God, she’d said the same thing the night this had all started. Instead of being in search of a hair salon, though, she was out in the boonies, driving along rural roads that were not marked, in search of a farm.

Didn’t exactly narrow things in this kind of neighborhood—

Cait slammed on the brakes, the Lexus grabbing onto the pavement and stopping just before a turnoff that had a mailbox reading, RR 1924, next to it.

Swallowing hard, she wondered if she was really going to go through with this—namely, wait for Duke to get home and confront him in person.

The decision was made once and for all as she thought of G.B.’s expression when Duke had come out of nowhere at the grave site. G.B. had been shocked not just because she’d been seeing someone else—but rather because he’d known what it meant; he’d known the man she’d been fooled by.

Someone capable of lying about whether or not he had a kid? A brother who was alive and well?

Nothing was out of bounds.

She turned in and started down the dirt path, going past acres of shorn cornfields that would no doubt imminently be turned over for planting season. The farmhouse that first appeared was quite large, a brick construction of sturdy, ageless style. She went by it, as she’d been told to do, and kept on the road, eventually coming up to a squat ranch that had a decade-old car parked off to one side and a picnic table underneath a pine tree on the other.

Stopping right in front, she got out and looked around. Then she marched up to the windowless door and knocked.

Heart pounding, she had no idea who was going to answer the—

The stench of pot smoke that greeted her was enough to make her cough. And sure enough, as she looked past the skinny, happy-looking guy between the jambs, she saw two different bongs, a plastic bag full of weed, and enough lighters to start a bonfire on a pitted coffee table.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd he did drugs.

What a f**king winner.

“Hi,” the man said. “Are you Cathy?”

Like he’d expected someone by that name.

“No.” Anger sharpened her tone. “Does Duke Phillips live here?”

“Yup, this is his place and I’m his roommate—what can I do you for?”

Lies, drugs, and a roomie.

You know what, she thought. This was bullcrap. Duke didn’t deserve some confrontation. The best thing she could do, the only thing she should do, was take care of herself.

Cait just shook her head. “Nothing, actually.”

As she pivoted away, he said, “You here to see Duke? He’s due home any minute. You want to wait? I’ve got some cold pizza.”

“No, thank you.”

“Who should I tell him was here?”

“Nobody. I just took a wrong turn, but I’m going to fix that.”

Cait went back for her SUV, and was rather proud of herself. No tears. No sobbing. No hysterics.

She did, however, feel like the stupidest woman alive—

“Wait! Hold on!”

She closed her eyes as she put her hand on her door. “Yes?”

The guy came loping over. “Seriously. You came here to see Duke, right? I mean, no one comes out here without a reason.”

Cait cocked a brow. “Actually, fine. You can tell him that the joke’s up. His brother told me all about him, and I’ve just come from the mall, where I saw Duke with his son. So he’s not to call or come by to see me ever again.” She opened her door and hopped into her seat. “Oh, and you can throw in a ‘fuck off’ in there somewhere while you’re at it.”

As she started her engine, the pothead backed off with his palms up, like he was afraid she might mow him down in her bid to get back to civilization.

Clearly, he hadn’t smoked out all his brain cells.

Chapter Fifty-four

When Duke pulled his truck up in front of the Appaloosa Way condo, he put things in park, but didn’t cut the engine.

Nicole had been entirely too grateful when he’d called her on the way home from work and offered to take the kid out for a mall crawl and a talking-to. And maybe because of that, he didn’t want to go inside even though she wasn’t due home from her shift for another couple of hours.

Some lines, he didn’t want to cross.

Others … might be okay.

He looked across the seat. The boy was sitting there like a bump on a log, lanky arms linked across his pigeon chest, his long hair in his face.

“So do we understand each other,” Duke said grimly.

“What,” came the grousing response. “Like you takin’ me out for a burger’s gonna make me—”

Duke reached across and clamped a hard hand on the kid’s shoulder. As Tony’s wide eyes swung to his, he dropped his voice. “You’re gonna stop bullying that kid, are we clear? I hear anything more about you picking on him? The next visit will not be about an early f**king dinner.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “I can do what I—”

“Not while I’m around, you can’t.”

“You’re not my father!”

“Well, there’s no one else stepping up, so it looks like you’re stuck with me.” Duke put his face in close. “No more. Do you hear me—whatever the hell is wrong in your own life, you do not take it out on some poor son of a bitch in your class.”

The kid’s momentary flash-in-the-pan aggression didn’t last in the face of a grown man getting up in his grille. But Duke wanted this to be about more than ripping Tony a new one.

He sat back. “Look, I know I haven’t been around much, but I was wondering if maybe you and me, we could start getting together. My night job doesn’t start until late, and you’re just f**king around here in the afternoon. No reason we shouldn’t kick some hours together.”

Wow. Parental figure of the year over here, dropping the f-bomb. Whatever. He’d never done this before.

After a period of silence, Tony glanced over. Looked away.

Looked back.

The suspicion and mistrust were a ball buster, they really were. But like the kid hadn’t earned the right to be cautious?

“You’re a bouncer, right?” Tony asked.

“Yeah.”

“Do you beat people up at work?”

“Only when they deserve it.”

“Cool…”

“Not really. Dealing with stupid, drunk people is no way to make a living.” Duke shook his head. “I wanted to be a doctor, actually. Now, that is cool.”

“Why aren’t you one?”

Because your mother and I were…

Fuck that. “I quit college.”

“Why?”

“I was a pussy.” Yeeeeeeah, he probably shouldn’t be using that kind of language around the kid, but the truth was the truth. “I didn’t even apply to medical school. I pulled out two credits shy of what I needed to graduate. Biggest mistake I ever made.”

His head had been too fu**ed to keep going, although in retrospect, he knew that was more about the evil that his brother was than anything he’d felt for Nicole: The concept that he’d shared a womb with someone capable of such casual cruelty had crippled him, shut him down … essentially infected him.

A chance meeting with Cait seemed to be turning that around, though.

And now he was going to try doing the same to Tony.

Trickle-down wasn’t just about economics.

“Monday,” he said. “Five p.m. Be in your gym shorts with a towel and a bottle of water on you. We’re going to go play basketball. Deal?”

Tony narrowed those eyes again. But after a moment, he nodded. “Okay.”

Duke nodded back. And stayed around to watch the kid walk to the door and disappear inside.

Before he could even put his truck in drive again, his phone went off—for the third time. Answering the call, he barked, “Rolly, what the hell is your problem?”

“You had a visitor.”

Duke rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, do not tell me you’re dropping acid again. The last time, you were convinced Bob Barker was staging an intervention.”

“Okay, that was just a bad trip.”

“Yeah, because you didn’t listen to Mr. Price Is Right and put up your damn bong—”

“It was a woman. She was talking all weird, something about your brother? And, um…”

A blast of cold fear cleared his head and then some. “What. Rolly, what did she say?”

“Something about seeing you with your son?”

Duke exhaled in a rush, a swift pain hitting him in the gut sure as if he’d been kicked by a steel-toed boot. “When did she come by?”

“’Bout an hour ago? That’s why I’ve been calling you. You never have visitors, and she looked pretty upset—”

“I gotta go. Bye.”

Stomping on the accelerator, he skidded out as he turned around and flashed down to the exit of the development.

“Jesus f**king Christ,” he bit out as he called a number he’d never expected to dial.

Five rings later, like the phone’s owner wasn’t in any goddamn hurry, a voice drawled, “Hellllllo.”

“You f**king asshole.”

“I’m sorry, who is this?” G.B. mocked.

“You know exactly who it is. What the f**k are you doing?”

“God, how rude are you, my dearest, darling, long-lost brother? We don’t speak for how many years, and you don’t even ask how I’m doing before you—”

“Do not try to play me. I know what you are, and I know what you’re capable of.” He’d just evidently forgotten that—why the hell hadn’t it dawned on him that his brother was a liar, too? “Leave Cait out of this.”

“Oh, but see, I can’t do that. You were the one who brought her into it.”

“You don’t even know her!”

“And neither do you—or should I say, neither will you. Duke, you’ve just got to understand something—you can’t keep women from me. Didn’t work with Nicole, not going to work with this new one.”

Duke’s hand cranked down so hard on his cell that it let out a long beep, like it was going into cardiac arrest. “Listen to me. You stay the f**k away from her—”

“Not your call. And do yourself a favor. Don’t try to win her back—you don’t have a chance.”