Wild Irish (Book 1 of the Weldon Series) (17 page)

“
Alexi, are you feeling all right? You look upset.” Benny leaned toward her, looking closely at her face.

Alexi pressed her hands to her cheeks to hide from his scrutiny. She probably had hot sex written all over her forehead. “I’m fine.” Her voice sounded strangled and drew Jesse’s attention her way. She nodded her head toward the pictures across the room and he followed her direction. She knew the second he saw her problem and she wished she could smack the smirk off his face. She gave him a pointed glare and then took the folder Benny held out to her. “Let’s take a look.” She spread the folder open on her desk. “Karin, since you’re going to be helping set up the exhibit you might as well tell me what you think, too.”

Karin stood to Alexi’s left and Benny to her right, both focused on the paper she unfolded. “This looks good,” Alexi said without seeing a single detail from the paper in front of her. She was too busy watching Jesse snatch her bra from the picture and stuff it into his pocket. Alexi sighed.

Karin pointed to the paper. “I think that we should separate the pottery display from the sculpture display with paintings.”

Alexi focused on the paper, seeing it for the first time. “I agree. Why don’t we move the oil paintings there and put the photographs in the center of the room.”

“That works well,” Karin said.

“What do you think, Benny?”

Benny shrugged. “You two are the experts. I’m just the gopher in this project.”

“A very good gopher,” Alexi said pulling open her desk drawer to get a pencil.

Her white lacy underwear was front and center. Both Benny and Karin saw them. Alexi thought she was going to die. She snatched them out, her mind scrambling. “That’s where they are! I changed my clothes earlier and uh, lost them.”

Across the room, Jesse had a coughing fit and Alexi thought she’d kill him, provided she didn’t die of mortification first. “Here,” she handed Karin a pencil and stood up. “You make the changes while I put these with my other clothes.”

“I’ll pick this up later after you and Karin have a chance to look,” Benny said. “I’ll stop by tomorrow.” He turned to leave.

Oh, Lord. Alexi could tell by the tone of Benny’s voice that her friend was uncomfortable. He probably felt torn between her and Roger. “Benny,” she called out. He stopped and glanced her way, but didn’t meet her gaze head on. “Thanks for helping. I appreciate your hard work.”

“No, problem. It’s for a great cause.” He shrugged and turned away. At the door, he stopped, and looked at Jesse then back at her. “Alexi, where are you staying? I might need to get in touch with you about the charity auction and about your dad, too. You know he didn’t leave his office at all today. He didn’t each lunch. He cancelled all of his appointments and just sat in his office staring at your mother’s picture.”

Alexi sighed and walked to the door to speak privately with Benny. “He’s bad off?”

“The worst I’ve seen in a long time.”

She’d continued to live at home all of these years because she’d felt the need to be there because her mother wasn’t and maybe that had been a mistake. Her father needed to move beyond his grief and anger just as much as she needed to establish her own life apart from the needs of her family. “I’ll go see him soon. I’m staying at Nan’s so you can reach me there.”

There was no mistaking the relief on his face. “Good.” Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Alexi, you and this guy here. Are you…hell, there’s no easy way to say this. Don’t put yourself in danger just to get back at what Roger did. How do you know this guy is safe to be with?”

“Jesse? Of course he’s safe. I’ve known him since high school.”

“You have? Then where has he been all these years?”

“He was in the military…I know his mother.” As she tried to explain, she realized there weren’t any logical reasons for why she trusted Jesse. She just did.

Benny shook his head. “I’m worried, okay. You aren’t being you. Whether you realize it or not, I think you’re with him because of what Roger did. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but Roger is sorry. He says it just happened. He made a mistake.”

“It doesn’t matter, Benny. There isn’t anything that Roger can say that will change things.”

“Hell. Things aren’t supposed to be this way. Your dad. You leaving home. Everything is messed up.” Benny scrubbed his hand through his hair, leaving it a mess.

The look was so uncharacteristic to Benny’s usual smooth persona that Alexi had to comfort him. She gave him a quick hug. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’ll work things out with my father. I’m realizing I should have moved out on my own a long time ago. It would have been better for all of us.”

Alexi felt Jesse’s nearness even before he spoke.

“
Everything okay?” Jesse stopped at the doorway and Alexi half turned to him.

“
Fine,” she said.

“
Just worried about her father,” Benny added, then looked at his watch. “I’ll see you later, Alexi. Think about what I said.” Benny left.

“
Benny works with your father?” Jesse asked.

“
You didn’t know? Yeah. Benny’s like a son to my dad. It just sort of happened. Him being an only child and me too. When we were little we were always either at his house or mine.”

Jesse frowned. What’s Benny worried about? Is your father ill?”

Alexi bit her lip, trying to decide what to tell Jesse. Benny’s distrust? Roger’s regret? Out of her whole conversation with Benny the most important fact had been her father. “My father spends too much time dwelling in the past and what might have been. To put it frankly, he gets depressed. I should go see him.”

“
Maybe you should have a talk with Atlas first.” Jesse placed his hand on her shoulder.

His warmth eased her tenseness and she leaned into his touch then blinked with confusion. “Atlas?”

“
Yeah, he tried to carry the world on his shoulders, too. You can’t solve everybody’s problems.”

She sighed. “I know.”

Karin came up. “I’d better be going, too. I’m sorry I interrupted you two.”

“
You didn’t.” Heat flamed Alexi’s cheeks. She might as well be wearing a sign on her forehead that said hot sex in progress.

Karin cleared here throat and blushed, too. “After what happened last night, I was worried that—”

“
Last night? What happened?” Jesse asked sharply.

Karin jumped. “It wasn’t anything much. Probably just my imagination, I stopped by here after tucking Lucy in for the night. I wanted to finish cataloging those jewelry boxes so that I could work on their display Monday morning and I swear that I heard someone trying to break in through the back door. I called the police. They came, but there wasn’t anything for them to do.”

“
Show me where,” Jesse said. Alexi blinked at the seriousness in his voice. Had Karin had been in danger?

Alexi shivered as she went to get her purse. Only then did she realize that she still had her underwear balled up in her fist. Groaning at the depths her life had sunk to she stuffed her underwear into her purse and dug out her keys. All the way to the rear of the gallery, she kept feeling as if this evening wasn’t really happening. She didn’t get caught with her underwear in her desk drawer, she didn’t let Jesse pretend to be the artist and she his nude model, and she wasn’t on her way to the back door of her gallery to look for evidence that someone had tried to break in. Someone hadn’t broken into the hotel room she was supposed to be staying in either. These kinds of things never happened to her. They were things you saw in a movie or read in a book. They weren’t real life. She shook her head. “Jesse, all of the entrances to the gallery are wired to alarm if someone tries to open the doors when they shouldn’t be.”

“
Which is when?” Jesse asked walking beside her. Karin followed behind them.

“
What do you mean?”

“
When do the doors alarm if they are tampered with?”

“
When we set the alarm when we leave…oh!”

“
Bingo. Your security system doesn’t do a thing if you’re in the store with the alarm system off, right?”

“
No. But really, the crime rate is very low. No one has ever been robbed in broad-daylight. Besides, there are so many other shops around us, a robber wouldn’t chance it.” Alexi reached the steel door and unlocked it.

“
Desperate men would chance anything.” Jesse pushed the back door open. “And Karin wasn’t here in broad daylight. She was here at night and she was alone. How often have you stopped by at night to attend business when the shop was closed, Alexi?”

“
A lot.” She swallowed the lump of fear in her throat.

“
Not anymore if you’re smart,” Jesse said as he squatted down and examined the outside of the door. “It’s too big of a risk for either of you to come to the shop alone during off hours, even after you have your security system updated to protect you while you are here. Once you disable the alarm, you’re a sitting duck. I could have hidden in the shadows, attacked the moment you put the key in the door, and you’d have been at my mercy. I could have done anything I wanted to you.”

“
But—“

“
No, buts. Come look.” Jesse motioned to the door.

Alexi leaned down.

“
See the shiny scratch marks against the metal? Whoever was out here last night tried to pick the lock.”

“
But why? It’s not like I have the Mona Lisa inside.”

“
You must have something someone wants. I don’t think the break in at the hotel last night was a coincidence, either.”

Karin gasped. “Are you all right?”

“
Yes. I never went back to the hotel after I left the wedding.” Alexi felt her cheeks heat as she recalled what she had done. “I, uh, spent the night at Nan’s.”

“
Thank God,” Karin said.

Jesse stepped back inside, examining the door and the alarm system.

“
I agree,” Alexi said, “but I’m also thanking God that you’re all right. You were in more danger than I was. Jesse’s right about coming to the shop alone after hours.”

The sound of scraping metal in the alley snagged their attention. Whipping around, Alexi saw Andy Larson, her part time helper walking their way. She immediately knew his new project wasn’t going well. He looked rough as if he’d been walking around for days rather than eating or sleeping. His hair was standing on end and his clothes were wrinkled and stained.

“
Hey Andy,” she called.

He looked up waved and started their way, smiling.

“
Andy who?” Jesse asked, coming back into the alley.

Andy stopped, stared at them a moment, then looked down at his clothes. “I’ll see you later,” he said and made a quick about face, hurrying away.

“
You want to explain who he is and what that was about?” Jesse asked.

Alexi rolled her eyes. “That was Andy being Andy.” She explained how her part-time employee, a struggling artist, had creative binges and dry spells. “He looks as if things aren’t going well at the moment.”

“
He did come by yesterday asking if you were all right and wanted to talk to you,” Karin added. “He was wearing the same clothes.”

“
The man looked more than just upset,” Jesse said. “In my book he looked dangerously unbalanced.”

Alexi shook her head. “I’ve known him for years, believe me. He’s just being Andy. You’ll understand once you’ve met him and had time to see how he operates as an artist.”

“
She’s right. Once you know him you understand him,” Karin said. She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to get back to the hospital now. Is there anything else?”

“
No,” Alexi said. “Just no more late nights, okay?”

“
Got it, boss.” Karen thanked Jesse again for Lucy’s balloons and left.

Alexi and Jesse returned to her office. She sank into her desk chair, totally perplexed.

“
Alexi, we have to talk.” Jesse turned to her. “I need a few answers. How many employees like Andy do you have hanging around. And are you positive there isn’t anything donated that someone would break the law for?”