Fall to Pieces (20 page)

Since Molly had to bartend in a couple hours,
she'd told Sadie to meet her at Adele's. The strain in her friend's
voice was enough to put Sadie on alert, but she reminded herself
she'd already dealt with enough issues facing the ranch, surely she
could handle whatever else got thrown at her.

She walked through the dining room, empty
this time of day after lunch service ended and before the bar
opened. Molly was in the back, in the glorified closet that served
as the restaurant's office.

At Sadie’s greeting Molly turned from the
computer and looked up at her with a strained smile as she reached
for a stack of papers.

"What are you so stressed about?" Sadie said
and flopped down into a wooden dining chair in front of the
desk.

Molly opened her mouth to say something, then
snapped it closed, her gaze narrowing on Sadie's face.

After a few long seconds she finally said,
"You did it! You finally did it and you didn't even tell me!"

"Did what?" Sadie mumbled. She studied the
toes of her boots, as if that could make up for the blush she knew
was coloring her cheeks a vivid red.

"Please. When did it happen?"

Knowing denial was fruitless, Sadie lifted
her gaze to meet Molly's. "Tuesday night."

"You had a date with Tucker on Tuesday!"

"Yeah, well, after..."

"Shut up! You left your date with Tucker and
went home and had sex with Dylan? You dirty girl." Molly’s lips
curved in a sassy smile. "So what's going on? Are you guys dating?
Is it serious? What about when he leaves?" She lowered her pitch on
the last word and leaned toward her.

Sadie felt her own smile droop around the
edges. This, she acknowledged, was why she hadn't gone home that
first night and called her best friend. She didn't want to face the
questions, didn't want to have to explain.

She shrugged, hoping it came off as
nonchalant. "We're just having fun."

"Really?" Molly sat back in her chair and
gave her a probing look. Of all people, Molly knew that Sadie had
never had sex with a guy just for "fun."

She braced herself for a barrage of
questions, for Molly to demand to know why now she was suddenly
indulging, if she was sure she knew what she was doing, if she was
sure she wasn't going to get hurt.

Instead, Molly shocked her by quirking a
delicately arched brow at her and said, "Well from what I can tell
he must be showing you one hell of a good time. So?"

"So, what?"

"So, what's he like?" Molly leaned forward
eagerly. "Are the rumors true? Can he go all night? Is it true that
he's hung like a rodeo bronc?"

"Molly!" She said with a startled laugh. "I'm
not going to tell you that!"

"Come on." Molly pouted. "We're best friends.
We're supposed to give each other the play by play!"

"Maybe when we were eighteen"—or in Sadie's
case, twenty two when she'd finally lost her virginity. And the
play by play had taken all of five minutes. What happened with
Dylan? There weren't enough hours. "Besides, it's not like I'm
bugging you for details about what you and Josh are doing. For all
I know he's asking you to spank him while you tell him he's a bad
baby."

"I wish it were that interesting," Molly
said, slumping back in her chair. "Come on, how am I supposed to
get my jollies if not vicariously through you!"

"Uh, how about with your fiancé?"

Molly wrinkled her nose and waved her hand.
"You know how it is with me and Josh."

"No, I don't," Sadie said quietly. To be
honest, she didn't understand anything about their relationship.
Like, how despite their engagement, Josh never seemed to be around,
there was no date set, and this was far from the first time Molly
had alluded to a less than satisfying sex life.

Truthfully, she didn't understand why Molly
was with Josh at all. But she knew better than to push the issue.
She knew if she asked, at best, Molly would brush her off with a
fake smile and reassurances that they were "just fine."

"Josh and me... sex has never really been the
most important part of our relationship. I mean, it's not like we
never
have it," she continued hastily. "But sometime I just
wish someone would put that look you're wearing on my face, you
know?"

Sadie wondered if Molly was aware she'd
substituted the pronoun "someone" for her finacé's name.

"I wish," Molly continued, a far away look in
her eyes, "someone would, like, throw me down on the bed. You know?
Just pin me down and have his way with me."

Remembering Dylan kneeling behind her last
night, his palms gripping her hips like he was never going to let
her go... yeah, she knew exactly what Molly was talking about.

The sound of a throat clearing in the doorway
startled both of them. Molly's gaze darted to the doorway, and
Sadie knew from the hot flush staining her cheeks exactly who it
was.

"Hey Brady," she said as she turned. Now
this, this was a man who could give Molly exactly what she claimed
she wanted. And if she wasn't mistaken, Brady was more than willing
to take on the task.

Too bad Molly was so stuck on Josh, Sadie
doubted she'd ever give Brady a chance.

###

Did Molly have any idea how much she was
fucking torturing him, Brady wondered?

Not that he wasn't equally to blame. He
should have walked away as soon as he realized Molly was occupied,
instead of getting caught in the tractor beam of their
conversation.

If he had he wouldn't be standing there like
an idiot, trying to keep his tongue from hanging out as he imagined
giving Molly exactly what she wanted.

What they both wanted, he amended as he
shifted against the sudden tightness of his fly.

He could make her feel so good, send her all
the way to the fucking moon and back, given half a chance.

A chance he'd never have, he thought, thanks
to a single phone call.

Brady, I need you.

A summons he couldn't possibly refuse.

"Did you need something?" Molly said
tightly.

Even with the heaviness dragging at him, his
lips tugged at the sight of her trying to compose herself, looking
all uptight and proper despite the flush riding high on her
cheekbones.

"Sadie and I are kind of in the middle of
something."

He cocked an eyebrow. "So I gathered. Sorry
to interrupt. When you're finished here, I need to talk to you
about something."

###

Even in her flustered state, Molly could hear
something in his tone that sent a wave of uneasiness through
her.

"Sounds serious," Sadie echoed her
thoughts.

Molly shook her head, reassuring herself that
Brady was always prone to surliness. "I'm sure he just wants to
fight with me about installing a new oven. He's got his eye on some
combo thing that steams and roasts and..." She shook her head,
stemming the babble. "Whatever it is, he can wait."

Sadie nodded and reached for the stack of
papers Molly had put in front of her. "We should get on with it,
anyway, since I still have about a hundred things to do before
dinner time."

Molly watched, dread growing in her belly as
Sadie started to scan the papers. "So have you figured out what's
going on?" Sadie asked. "Did you figure out where the money
is?"

Molly licked her lips, trying to figure out
the easiest way to tell her best friend in the world that while she
was busy working her ass off to get the business back on track,
someone she trusted had been undermining her nearly every step of
the way.

In the end, there was really no option but
the brutal truth.

"That's the thing, Sadie. The money didn't
just get deposited to the wrong accounts. It's gone."

"What do you mean? How can it be gone?" Sadie
shook her head in disbelief.

Molly licked her lips. "From what I can tell,
someone has been moving money into a brokerage account for at least
the past two years—that's as far back as the paperwork you gave me
goes."

Sadie slumped back in her seat, feeling like
all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. "You mean, like
embezzlement?"

"Exactly that."

Sadie shook her head again. "No, no. Who
would do that?"

"Who has access to the accounts?" Molly asked
softly.

"Right now just me. But before that, Dad,
June, and Pete."

"I seriously doubt it was your Dad," Molly
replied.

But that left... no, Sadie didn't want to
believe it. If not for her own sake, for her father's. Pete and
June had worked with him for decades. They were like family. Were
either of them truly capable of such a thing?

"How much is gone?" she said, dread twisting
her stomach at the grim expression on Molly's face.

"In the last two years, it looks like over a
hundred thousand dollars."

She drove home on autopilot, her mind
churning as she struggled to process this latest bombshell. Along
with the devastation, came frustration. With her father, for his
stubborn refusal to ignore Sadie's advice to have Molly or another
professional go over the books on a regular basis.

I'm capable of running my own damn
business,
he'd said.
I don't need some outsider poking
around, questioning how I do things.

But while her father knew more about breeding
and training quarter horses than anyone west of the Mississippi,
when it came to the finances he didn't care as long as the money
kept coming and he paid his taxes on time.

Over a hundred thousand missing. And that was
just in the last two years. Who knew how long it had been going
on?

She pulled up to the house, parked her car,
and just sat there as if paralyzed from the devastating blow. She
heard the low rumble of the tractor and looked up to see Dylan
pulling up along side the barn. She hadn't realized how late it had
gotten, that he was already coming in from the hay meadow for
supper.

Even the sight of him wasn't enough to break
through the dark gloom settling over her like a wet wool
blanket.

She watched as he climbed down from the cab
and started towards his cabin, doing a double take when he noticed
her sitting in her car.

He started over and she forced herself to
unbuckle her seatbelt and open the door with fingers that had gone
numb.

His wide smile was quickly replaced with
concern as he caught sight of her face, and he quickened his pace.
"Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

All she could manage was a shake of her head.
"I need to talk to you."

The groove between his eyebrows deepened.
"Okay."

Just then she spotted Pete, emerging from the
barn. Anger rushed through her as she wondered if her father's best
friend and right hand man had betrayed them. "Not here," she said
and started for his cabin.

He'd barely closed the door before the story
came spilling out.

"Oh," he said looking oddly relieved.

Her head snapped back. "I tell you that
either Pete or June has stolen at least a hundred thousand dollars
from my father and all you can say is, 'oh’?'"

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that," he said
quickly. He settled his hands on her shoulders and gave them a
light squeeze. "It was just, the look on your face, I thought you
were going to tell me you had cancer, or were pregnant or
something."

Sadie gave a shaky little laugh. "Interesting
that you'd lump those two together."

He chuckled too, then quickly sobered. "Are
you sure?"

She nodded.

"Have you told your dad yet?"

"I can't, not yet," she said with a violent
shake of her head.

"You don't think he should know?"

"It will break his heart, maybe
literally."

"You can't have people working here who are
stealing from you."

She shook her head again. "I've already set
it up so I'm the only one who can move money in or out. We have to
wait until we finish with the hay harvest and can pay down the
loan. I'll tell him once things are more stable."

And then... would they be able to recover the
money? Would her father press charges? A lump rose in her throat at
the thought. "I knew things could be worse, but I never expected
this."

He pulled her into his arms, and through the
soul crushing betrayal, she felt some of the tension ease from her
body at his touch.

She let herself melt against his chest,
inhaling the scents of hay mixed with honest sweat. "It's going to
be okay, Sadie. We're going to get through this."

We.
It was such a small word, and yet
it made her feel like an anvil had just been lifted off her
shoulders, knowing she wasn't totally alone in this.

He brushed a kiss on her cheek as a knock
sounded at the door.

He went to answer, and Sadie cringed when she
heard June's voice announcing dinner would be on the table in ten
minutes.

Was that really the voice of a thief?

"Sadie and I are going to have dinner at my
parents' house tonight," he said.

"You could have told me before," June
replied, sounding miffed. "Would have saved me from wasting
food."

Dylan apologized. "It was a last minute
thing."

It was certainly news to Sadie. He closed the
door on June and turned back to her. "I hope that's okay. I figured
you'd want a little more time to cool off before facing them across
the table."

"It's great," she said, happy for the
reprieve. "But will your mom be okay with us just showing up?"

He took off his ball cap and scrubbed his
fingers through his hair. "She's been after me all week,
complaining she never sees me since I moved out here, but I keep
putting her off."

"I don't want to intrude on your time with
them. You can just drop me at Adele's—"