Chapter 98

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, it should not be this difficult!” She threw down the coffee scoop in her frustration.

“Do you need help with that?”

She jumped at the sound of Nolan's voice, startled to see him standing in the doorway to her kitchen.

I

“What?” Then she noticed he was looking from her to the coffeemaker with an expression of mild confusion on his face. If only all her frustrations in life could be blamed on Mr. Coffee, not the inscrutability of men. “Oh,” she muttered dumbly, picking the scoop back up and resuming the task. “No. I’ve got it. I assume I’m going to need caffeine for this.”

Nolan's lack of response was answer enough. She watched him, waiting for him to cross the tiny kitchen and pull her into his arms. To offer her the solace of his embrace, even if the news he had to share would bring no comfort at all. But he didn’t move toward her, and with each passing second the gap between them seemed to grow wider.

Nolan scowled. He stood with his hip propped against the cabinet and with his hands curled around the edge of the counter. “Candace, about your brother…”

“Yes,” she prodded, clutching the handle of her empty coffee mug.

“Tell me how you first found out he owed money to the Blackstone Cartel.”

“It was…I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago, I guess.” Her brain was sluggish, on top of feeling jittery. To help clear her thoughts, she turned back to the coffeemaker and pulled the carafe out to pour herself a cup mid-brew. “Andrew came to Rosehill to visit my grandparents and my mom, but then he was always acting strangely. Nervous all the time. I knew something was up. I questioned him until he caved.”

“What exactly did he tell you?”

“Not much,” she admitted, adding a generous dose of sugar to the mug.

“Just that he owed some people a lot of money. That he’d been gambling again and that he’d lost badly.”

“Again?” Nolan asked.

“When he first got out of college, he floundered for a bit,” she admitted ruefully. “and instead of finding a job or going back to school for his masters he started gambling professionally.”

“Professionally?”

“I don’t know.” Her cheeks flushed, not liking to admit that she purposefully turned a blind eye to her brother’s behavior. “He was always away from home and I had Michelle to deal with. I assumed it was like poker tournaments and that kind of thing. Like you see on TV. I think he thought it was glamorous.”

“And he made a living at this?”

“Not a very good one.”

Nolan seemed to be eyeing her mug, so she busied herself fixing him a cup of coffee, sipping her own between sentences. “He called to borrow money a lot. But then after a while, things settled down. He started doing better, I suppose. He stopped talking about it. Didn’t call to borrow money for a long time. I just assumed he was doing okay.”

She handed Nolan the cup of coffee and laughed nervously. “More than okay,” she admitted. “He moved from one condo to the next, each one more tony than the last. His clothes got nicer. His cars faster. Then he moved completely to another state and communication reduced so much that we barely heard from him,” She didn’t want to admit that she’d ignored his spending. Pretended how he made his money wasn’t her business. “Obviously I should have paid more attention.”

“Your brother is a grown man. You’re not responsible for this mess he’s in.”

She smiled wryly at Nolan's attempt to comfort her, even as she wondered if he really believed it himself. He might be willing to make excuses for her, but that didn’t necessarily translate into forgiving her for her part in this.

“So he finally broke down and told you about the gambling debt…” Nolan prodded.

Was that sarcasm in his voice when he said the words “broke down?”

“That was a couple of weeks ago. He was so upset. He didn’t want my help,” she insisted. “I had to beg him to let me help him find the money.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“He was humiliated at having to ask for help. But I told him I’d do anything. That I’d take out a loan. Anything.”

She shook her head. Clutching her mug in both hands, the heat from the coffee seeped through the ceramic, almost too hot to hold. But she clung to it anyway, needing the sting to keep her grounded.

“Whose idea was it to come to me?”

“It was my idea.” Was this it? The reason he was being so cold? Did he hold her responsible for getting him into this mess?

“He didn’t suggest it?” Nolan asked.

“No. I thought of it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” But suddenly she wasn’t sure. Suddenly she desperately wanted him to hold her. But he stayed steadfastly on the other side of the kitchen. “I mean, I think so. Your name just came up in the conversation. Once it did, I just knew how to get the money he needed. He certainly didn’t ask me to come to you.” Which was all true, but thinking back, she couldn’t remember which of them had mentioned Nolan's name first.

But of course, it had to have been Andrew, didn’t it? She never mentioned Nolan. Refused to think about him. Never let even the barest hint of him creep into her mind for fear he’d take up residence there. That her longing for him would nestle in deep. Burrow into her soul and she’d never banish it again.

But she couldn’t think about any of that now. Because Nolan was here, in front of her, impossible to ignore. And she was in more trouble than she ever dreamed possible. Not just her heart was in danger, but her brother’s future, as well. And that needed to be dealt with before she could even consider what this all meant to her emotional health.

“Please,” she all but begged. “No more questions. Just tell me what you’ve found out.”

After a moment more of studying her, he nodded. “So far it looks like there was only one person responsible for the actual theft—that is, the person who cracked the safe and physically removed the diamonds from the premises.”