It Had to Be Fate (An It Had to Be Novel Book 3) (11 page)

It was his manager. Just who he wanted to speak with about the barrels. “Excuse me, guys.” He slowly stood and made his way to the living room. “Hey, Kip.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Okay. I was just about to call and ask you to arrange something for me.”

“We need to talk first. Do you know a Sarah Benson?”

Zane raced through all the Sarahs he knew in his head. “No. Should I?”

“She says you’re the father of her newborn baby. It’s a blond-headed boy named Zane. Her lawyers are demanding you take a paternity test. I’ll text you their pictures.”

When his phone dinged with the text, Zane swiped the screen. It was a blond-headed, cute baby as promised.

He swiped again. The Sarah person was a pretty redhead he’d never met. “Nope. Don’t recognize her. Tell her lawyers to take a hike.” It always amazed him what people would do to extract money from him. “Wait. Maybe Nick slept with her. Can we stall until we can find out from him? How about we ask her to show some sort of proof?”

“Her lawyer says she has plenty of proof. Namely a picture of you passed out in her bed.”

Zane closed his eyes. How much more trouble could his brother create? That’s all he’d need. To have his fans, and worse, Casey and her boys, think he’d ever treat a woman, much less a child, like that. “Can you go to the rehab today and show Nick the picture? See if he remembers sleeping with her?”

“I can try. He’s still pissed we busted him for sending Mandy that e-mail. He might not see me.”

“How about you tell Sarah’s lawyers it’ll take a few days to contact me because I’m on vacation or something?”

“That was the first thing I tried. Her lawyers threatened to go to the media this afternoon if we didn’t send proof that the test was sent to the lab by noon today. Then they want the results expedited. They’re giving us seventy-two hours after the lab receives the sample.”

Seventy-two hours? That was a ridiculously short deadline, but his reputation couldn’t take many more hits. “I’ll see if I can ask the doctor here to do a swab and send it in. We need to do whatever it takes to keep Sarah from going to the media with this. Get Nick to see you so we’ll know if this woman is telling the truth—and so I’ll know how much damage control I need to do here.”

“Okay. But even if Nick did knock her up, then sending your DNA should get us off the hook, right?”

He wished.

Why had he ever covered for his ungrateful brother? “Our fingerprints are different, but identical twins have virtually the same DNA. The usual tests aren’t accurate enough to differentiate me from him.”

“So, Sarah could take us to court and demand you pay millions in child support?”

“Yep. But if it shows a match he’d be my nephew, so I’d absolutely support him.” He’d never make a child suffer for his parent’s actions. But he refused to be taken advantage of by a gold digger either.

Kip huffed. “When Nick’s stint in rehab is over we need to send him back to the hole you found him in!”

If only that could happen. Unless Nick really underwent a change in rehab, Zane had no doubt his brother would destroy all that Zane had worked for.

A
fter Casey tended to the morning “emergencies” at the hotel and made sure the boys were taking good care of Zane, she slipped down to the shore and headed toward Grandma’s house. Her grandmother had texted earlier,
#NeedToTalkASAP!!!

Casey smiled at Grams and her love of dramatic, strange hashtags. It had been a major mistake to give her grandmother a smartphone. She’d quickly learned how easily she could summon her grandchildren with her dire missives.

She’d texted her grandmother back and said she’d stop by in a few minutes, but those minutes had turned into an hour. She was probably going to get reamed out good for that.

She tugged open the screen door and called out, “You rang, Queen Ruth?”

Shuffling of chairs sounded in the kitchen and then Zeke, the tall, way too thin town handyman who’d had a crush on Grandma for years, appeared in the living room. “Hiya, Casey.”

“Hey, Zeke. What brings you here?” Had Grams had a real problem for once? She might have to start taking those texts more seriously.

He blinked at her. “Well . . . um . . .”

The thump of Grandma’s cane preceded her. “’Bout time you got your skinny butt over here, Casey. What if I had fallen or something?”

Relieved her feisty grandmother was okay, Casey replied, “Then I’m sure you would’ve texted,
#GetYourSkinnyButtOverHereBecauseI’veFallen!!!!
”

“True enough.” Grandma chuckled. “Zeke was just leaving.”

Zeke frowned at Grandma, but didn’t argue. “I guess I’ll see you gals later, then.” He pushed the screen open and called out, “And even I know you don’t have to put hashtags in front of texts, Ruth!”

Grandma harrumphed. “He doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about half the time.”

Casey was tempted to tell her Zeke was right, but thought better of it. Grams hated to be wrong. It put her in bad moods. “Was Zeke here to fix something?”

“No.” Her grandmother quickly looked away and then headed back toward the kitchen. “He was just being a pest, as usual. Yak, yak yak. Can’t shut the man up!”

She followed her grandmother into the kitchen. Looked like Zeke had stayed for breakfast.

Interesting, since Grams claimed to be annoyed by Zeke.

Grandma plopped herself down at the kitchen table while Casey swiped the dishes up and rinsed them off.

Casey asked, “So what was so dire that you needed to use three exclamation points in your text?”

“I can do my own dishes, Casey. And I probably should’ve used six exclamation points so you’d pay me some mind and come quicker!”

Casey loaded up the dishwasher with two sets of plates and coffee cups. It was difficult for her grandmother to stand very long, though she’d never admit a weakness. Best to just ignore her complaining. “I came as soon as I was able. And you know that if you really need something you just have to add ‘911’ to the text like we told you. Or you could call—that still works too, you know.”

“I like to text. It makes me feel . . . relevant.” Grandma crossed her arms over her chest. “And speaking of that, I used that number eight app thingy and looked this Zane Steele fellow up.”

“Number eight app? What are you talking about?” Casey started the dishwasher and then joined Grams at the table.

“This one.” She pulled her phone from her apron. “Right here, see?”

Casey laughed. “That’s not an eight. That’s a small letter ‘G,’ for Google.”

Her grandmother pulled the glasses from the top of her head and frowned through them at the screen. “Oh, I see that now. But anyway, this Google doesn’t have nice things to say about your guest. And when Ben stopped by to see if I was still breathing this morning, he told me you spent the night with Zane. In the same bed. And that Ty knew about it. What’s up with that?”

Ben had a big mouth. “I fell asleep after I checked on him is all. And how many times have I told you not to believe everything you read online? Zane is actually a really nice guy.”

“Uh-oh. You’ve got that look in your eyes. You’re going to sleep with him, aren’t you?”

Her grandmother was hard to fool. “It’s none of your business.”

Her sister, Meg, appeared in the doorway. “You’re going to sleep with Zane? I’ll expect all the deets.” Meg slid a chair out and joined them. “Who would’ve ever thought it’d be the good sister, Casey Anderson, who slept with a rock star instead of me?”

Casey withheld her sigh. “I haven’t made up my mind yet. Why are you here, Meg? Don’t you have a lodge to run?”

“Yes. Grandma texted me and said to come over and talk some sense into you. But she forgot to ask me what side of the fence I’m on. I say, he’s hot. And he looks at you like you invented warm chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven, so I’d go for it.”

Grandma’s eyes narrowed. “Well, he did save Ty, so he’s not all bad. But I don’t know if you can trust a musician, Casey. I understand having an itch only a man can scratch. I’ve had to deal with that since your grandfather died, but I didn’t have two young boys to consider like you do.”

The last thing Casey wanted to do was talk about sex with her grandmother. It made her want to slink under the table and hide.

Meg’s eyes grew wide. “Wait a minute! Are you saying you’ve slept with a man since Grandpa died?”

“Not
a
man, multiple. I’m not a nun, Meggie.”

Now it was Casey’s turn to gape. She and Meg said at the same time, “Who?”

Grandma’s lips tilted into a smug grin. “A lady never tells. But listen to an old woman who’s been there, done that for once, will you?” She reached out and laid her soft hand over Casey’s. “You’ve always been the most responsible person I know. You’re great at your job, you’re a fantastic mother, you stepped it up when
your
mother died and took good care of your brothers and sister. Heck, if anyone deserves a hot fling with a good-looking guy, it’s you. But what you’re not good at is having casual relationships. Your heart is too tender. Zane will hurt you. Mark my words.”

“And I disagree.” Meg leaned closer. “You
can
be annoyingly perfect, Casey, but I say no pain, no gain. Do something wild and unpredictable for the first time in your life. Trust me, it’s fun!”

Casey looked back and forth between the two women, just as undecided as before. Meg had been notorious in her childhood for pulling pranks and certainly knew how to have fun. But her grandmother knew her like no one else. She still didn’t know what she’d do.

She said, “I can’t even think about Zane until I figure out how you kept your wanton ways secret in Anderson Butte, Grandma!”

Grandma smiled. “If I told you that, then how would I ever find out about
your
secrets?” She slowly rose from her chair, grabbed her cane, and thumped her way down the hall. “I’ve said my piece now, so get out of here, you two. It’s time for my morning nap!”

Meg stood and opened the cookie jar. While leaning against the counter and munching on a sugar cookie, she said, “I think she was making the sleeping-with-men thing up.”

Casey stood and helped herself to a cookie too. “Maybe.” Then a thought hit her. “Zeke was here for breakfast today. Do you think they . . . ?”

“Stop! I don’t want that visual in my head, please.”

Casey shrugged and had another cookie. “Well, I hope it’s true. Why should they both be alone? I like Zeke.”

“I do too. And I guess you’re right about the being alone part. But the rest I can’t think about.” Meg threw an arm around Casey’s shoulder as they walked toward the front door. “But please don’t listen to her when it comes to Zane. Be a
wanton
woman yourself and go for it!”

She’d done that with Beau and look how that’d turned out. And while it seemed her boys were going to keep their mouths shut about Zane to their father, there was still a chance they’d slip. “Since when do you give
me
advice?”

“Since I finally figured out I had to risk being hurt to be with the man I love. See you later.” Meg walked beside her to the end of the dock where a Jet Ski waited to take her back to the other side of the lake.

“Bye.”

Meg started the engine and then roared away. Her sister had finally gotten her life back on track. There were times no one believed she ever would. Maybe it was time Casey figured her own life out.

Since the divorce, she’d been running on autopilot. She’d been so hurt she’d tried to shut off her feelings.

Tomas, with his French accent and charming ways, had fooled her so completely. She’d thought he was the one who might take her away from Anderson Butte one day and off to exotic places he liked to tell her about. But then she’d gotten pregnant right away, and as the responsibilities had grown, Tomas had become more and more distant. Mean, really. And then he’d run off and left her with all the responsibilities to deal with on her own.

But Grams was right; she wasn’t wired for casual relationships. If she decided to sleep with Zane she probably
would
be hurt again. So why was she even considering it?

She slowly walked along the sandy shore beside the quiet lake hoping the answer would miraculously come to her. When she tugged on the hotel’s back door and headed toward her quarters to check on Zane, she caught herself smiling at the prospect of seeing him.

She had it bad for him. Whether she liked it or not.

Zane opened his mouth to have the inside of his cheek swabbed for the DNA test.

Casey’s brother said, “Bet you’ve done this a time or two, huh?”

Zane withheld the sarcastic remark that burned to escape. Casey was close with her brothers so he’d restrain himself. “Nope. My first time.”

“Really? I’d think this would happen pretty regularly to a guy like you.”

“A guy like me?” He knew what Ben meant; most made the same assumption about him.

“You know. Must be nice to have any woman you want.”

“It
was
nice when I was a geeky nineteen-year-old. Now it’s rare I meet a woman who can see past the fame.”

“Is that what you see in my sister?”

“Yeah. That, and she’s drop-dead gorgeous.” And he also admired her. She was a good mom, and a genuinely sincere person. When he’d offered to buy bikes, she’d made it clear she didn’t want his help or especially his money. That was a first for him.

“I guess.” Ben frowned as he sealed the sample in a bag. “I’ll take this to the lab in Denver myself. I have to check on a patient in the hospital there anyway.”

“It needs to be there by noon, please. And will they send the results to my lawyer or to you?”

“To me. I’m leaving for Denver now and I’ll ask them to put a rush on it.”

The e-mail Zane had gotten from Kip earlier said Nick had been with the Sarah woman, but claimed she was lying about the baby being his. Most likely it was his brother doing the lying. “I need to ask a favor, Ben. I don’t want Casey to know about any of this.”

Ben stopped packing his things and met Zane’s gaze. “Unfortunately, I took an oath and
can’t
tell her about this test, or believe me I would. It might prove to her that you’re not the guy she thinks you are.”

He wasn’t the guy any of them thought he was.

Ben picked up his bag and started for the bedroom door.

Zane would have to keep the secret for just a few more weeks. Then he should probably hold a press conference with Nick. That’d hopefully put a stop to his brother’s impersonations. That is, if Nick didn’t go to the press first with his lies.

At the door, Ben stopped and said, “If you hurt my sister, I’ll be sure you regret it.” He slammed the bedroom door closed behind him.

Zane lay back against the pillows and closed his eyes. How he wished he’d never covered up the truth in the first place. His brother would be in jail where he would have hopefully learned his lesson, and he’d be free to live his life.

But then, he wouldn’t have met Casey. Maybe fate had done him a favor after all.

A knock on the door startled him awake. He hadn’t realized he’d dozed off. “Come in.”

The door slowly swung open and Casey appeared. “Hi. I’m going to run to the store, and it’s Dax’s day off, so do you want me to bring you some lunch from the diner on my way back?”