Kylie waited until Collins was out of the driveway before turning to the agents. “I assume that with the offshore account explained that I’m off the hook?”
“Yes, yes you are,” Ren said quickly. “And if Cooper’s lady friend alibis him for last night he’s off the hook, too.”
“So our business here is finished. Gentlemen, I would say it’s been a pleasure but it really hasn’t.”
“Not so fast,” Sawyer said when Kylie started to stand. “You and your brother may be cleared, but there are still drugs being sold out of your establishment, and we need to find out who is selling them. Plus, we still have the issue of your late husband’s murder. Now that we know you aren’t dealing, was your husband equally innocent or was he dealing without your knowledge? And if he was, where is that money now? We need access to the club to get answers. We have to have access to that club, damn it.”
“You have to have access to my club, you go get a warrant. You go get a warrant for every time I let you in the door. No more illegal searches like you’ve been doing. The senator’s right. You play by the rules. Or you can go to hell.”
Sawyer looked at Kylie with frustration. “What part of ‘we need in that club’ do you not understand? It’s not about you.”
“What part of ‘you sent your partner in to screw me and you think it’s all right and maybe that doesn’t sit well’ do you not understand? And yes, as far as I’m concerned it is about me.”
“But it’s not just about you, Kylie,” Ren said quietly. “It’s about Cooper, and your son and his daughters, and every other innocent person involved with Acoustics. You’re pissed right now and I get that, but in your anger and your embarrassment you’re forgetting just how dangerous drug dealers are. A drug dealer most likely killed your husband, and the reason I’m here in Tennessee and not home in Texas is that a San Antonio drug lord, the same one who tried to kill my cousin and his girlfriend, put a price on my head. You need us around, if for no other reason than some plain old protection.”
“We’ve been perfectly safe to this point,” Kylie argued.
“But with drugs involved it could go south in a heartbeat,” Ren argued.
“Kylie, as much as I hate to admit it, Prince Charming is right.” Lexi took Kylie’s hand. “If Tommy’s murder was drug related.” She glared at Ren and Sawyer. “Even if they’re a couple of immoral lowlifes themselves.”
Jarvis looked at Kylie. “He does have a point.”
Cooper pushed himself up from the sofa. “Mom’s right. Under the circumstances the protection couldn’t hurt, and as much as I despise you two bastards I hate the thought that our club is being used that way. It’s obvious that if we kick you out now you’ll never nail the dealers. But before we say yes, I have two conditions. First, these two immoral lowlifes are going to tell my sister how deeply sorry they are for the distress they caused her this morning and for that bastard sleeping with her. I think the consumption of a little crow might be called for.” He smiled evilly. “And I believe we’ll let Mr. Ellison go first, since it was his idea in the first place. Well?” he added when Sawyer hesitated.
“Fine. I’m sorry,” Sawyer snapped.
Cooper turned to Kylie. “Is that acceptable?”
“He doesn’t mean it but I guess it will do.”
Cooper looked over at Ren. “Kylie, unlike Sawyer I really am sorry.”
Kylie turned disdainful eyes on him. “Whatever.”
“Now, the second condition is simple. Navarro, if I see you within a country mile of my little sister, you’ll both be out the door so fast it will make your heads swim. Got that?”
“Won’t be an issue, Cooper. The only reason he was getting it up for me in the first place was for the investigation. Oh, and as far as the investigation? I will bow to Mom and Cooper and let you stay on, but any pretense of Ren and I being an item stops right now.”
“But people are going to wonder,” Sawyer protested.
“Let ’em wonder.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, may I suggest a condition of my own?” Jarvis broke in. “The Lone Ranger and Tonto here need to start keeping the locals in the loop. I would like at least a weekly update, preferably in person so I can ask questions.”
Sawyer nodded but didn’t look too happy about it.
“Folks, I hate to break up the party, but The Barstows do have a set at the festival this afternoon, and if you’re keeping up this charade we need to get ready and get ourselves to Bristol,” Lexi said.
Sawyer and Jarvis nodded and headed down the stairs. Ren stopped at the landing. “We’ll talk later, Kylie.”
“Why? So you can lie to me some more? Don’t you think you’ve lied quite enough?”
“It wasn’t all lies. Do you remember what I said last night, Kylie? What I asked you to remember?”
Remember what you do to me when we make love.
Kylie shrugged. “You’ve lied to me since this whole thing started, Ren. What’s one more prevarication out of your mouth?”
***
Kylie watched as Jarvis’s unmarked and Ren’s crossover pulled out of the driveway. She turned around to find Cooper and Lexi giving one another go-to-hell looks before Cooper turned furious eyes on Kylie. “You’re sure mad at lover boy for lying to you, when you’ve been telling just as many lies of your own. Why in the hell didn’t you ever tell me the truth?”
“About the money? You heard him, Cooper. If Mrs. Wentworth finds out about me, that marriage is history and the money comes to a screeching halt. Money that’s helped you as much as it did me.”
“About the whole thing, damn it! How long have you known Collins Wentworth was your real father?”
“Collins isn’t my real father. The senator is my biological father. Johnny Barstow’s my dad and always will be. And I didn’t know myself until the day of Tommy’s funeral. The day after Tommy was shot I went to the bank and found out he’d cleaned out every penny of our savings. I told Mom and was trying how to figure out how to break it to all of you. She contacted the senator and he came through for me—for us.”
“Why didn’t you at least tell me that?”
“It wasn’t my story to tell.”
He looked over at Lexi with contempt. “Did Dad even know she wasn’t his?”
Lexi shot Cooper a look of disdain. “Since I hadn’t slept with him in months, it wasn’t too hard for him to figure it out.”
“He knew you were a whore and he stayed with you and raised your child by another man? Jesus, he was a better man than I would have been.”
“Better man? That’s a damned crock.” Lexi got up on Cooper’s face and shook her fist. “You want to call me a whore? Fine. But your father was a bigger one, and frankly I’m tired of you putting him up on a pedestal he flat-out doesn’t deserve. The bastard was having an affair of his own at the time, and it wasn’t the first time he’d stepped out on me.”
“Dad wouldn’t do something like that.” Cooper’s face turned white.
“The hell he wouldn’t. I caught him in bed with his sweetie that time. Good-looking fella, a college football player out of Knoxville, I think.”
Cooper flinched. “Dad wasn’t gay. No. He wasn’t gay. He couldn’t have been.”
“Oh, yes he could,” Lexi hissed. “He swung both ways, actually. He cheated with anybody out there, male or female, who’d slow down long enough. And everybody knew it. Why do you think he and your Uncle Joe never got along?”
“But, but—” Cooper turned stunned eyes on Kylie. “Did you know about all this?”
Kylie lifted her chin. “Actually, no. Wasn’t any of my business. And it’s not any of yours, either.”
“Good God, I can’t believe it. My mother gave birth to a bastard, my father was a queer, and the good senator abandoned his own child. What kind of a trio is that?”
Kylie’s hand snaked out and she slapped Cooper hard. “Bastard, huh? Thanks for the endorsement.” She looked over at Lexi and the tears in her mother’s eyes. “Would you rather she would have aborted me? Would you rather Dad have kicked us out? Would you rather the senator had told Mom ‘no’ when I needed his help?”
“Kylie, I—”
She poked Cooper in the chest. “How can you say any of them are immoral? Mom had the courage to go ahead and carry me instead of taking the easy way out, Dad raised another man’s child with so much love I never even suspected I wasn’t his, and the senator cares enough thirty-four years later to risk his marriage to help me. That’s a hell of a lot more important than what they do in their beds. And speaking of beds, you don’t get to throw stones. You’re the randiest man-whore on the bluegrass circuit.”
Cooper looked at them both resentfully. “Fine. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, Kylie. It’s just—oh, hell, why not admit it? I thought the world of both of my parents and it hurts like a son of a bitch to learn they don’t deserve it.” He stomped down the stairs and slammed the front door behind him.
“Welcome to the real world, Cooper,” Lexi said dryly.
***
Kylie breathed a sigh of relief as the band played the last notes of “Tennessee Waltz” with a flourish and took a bow. Thank God that was over. They had been badly off this afternoon, her and Cooper and Ren, so badly off that Jake and Bradley had looked askance at them more than once and Timberlynn had raised her eyebrows in question. Kylie wasn’t sure if the crowd picked up on it, but she knew Ken Meacham, listening in the crowd, surely had. They took another bow and Kylie packed up her mandolin and got off the stage as quickly as she possibly could, taking her seat at the autograph table as far down as possible from Ren. She would sign the requisite autographs, finish her day at the club and go home, change the sheets that smelled like Ren and sex, and go to bed. And then she would get up in the morning, go teach her classes and face the fact that the man she was starting to care for had slept with her as part of a damned undercover investigation, that every word out of his mouth to her had been a lie, and that he had stripped her of whatever fragile sense of trust she was regaining.
Apparently the audience had not noticed anything amiss and crowded around to chat and buy CDs for the better part of an hour. The crowd was beginning to thin a little when Kylie felt a hand on her back and turned to face an unsmiling Ken Meacham. “Is everything all right? The band seemed a little off today.”
How about that? “We’re just tired, I guess. Long weekend.”
“Are you sure?”
Kylie made herself put on a big smile. “Absolutely. And unlike us, you did a bang-up job this afternoon at the club. Danny and the girls loved your set.”
A smile touched Ken’s lips. He leaned down and kissed Kylie on the cheek. “You look like you needed that.”
“Thanks. I did.” She looked over and, surprised, found a go-to-hell expression on Ren’s face. Too bad, Ren. You and I were nothing but a lie.
The band trooped back to the club. The younger members disappeared and Cooper took his girls and Danny out to hear the final sets on the outdoor stages, promising she could leave as soon as he and the kids got back. Sawyer was back behind the bar in his role as Sam Jenkins and Ren was waiting at the door to the break room. “Kylie, we need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.” Kylie pushed past him and put her instrument case on the table.
“Yes, damn it, we do. There are a few things you don’t understand, and I’d like to tell you who I really am and why I agreed to do what I did.”
“You know, I might be interested in having that talk if I thought I could actually believe you. But with the first-hand knowledge I have of your ability to lie, I think I’ll pass.”
Ren sighed. “I’m not lying now.” He took a step closer to her and lowered his voice. “And what we had in that bed together wasn’t a lie, either.”
“Tommy and I had great sex, too. Didn’t make up for his lies and doesn’t make up for yours.”
Ren flinched. “Just sit down. Please. I’ll make it brief and then you can hate me or no.”
“Whatever.” She sat down at one of the tables. Ren shut the door and sat down across from her.
“Okay. My real name is Reynolds Campbell Navarro. I’m one of the third-generation scions of the Navarro Corporation based in San Antonio and Monterrey, Mexico. Lots of construction, lots of businesses including multiple restaurants and nightclubs. I have two business degrees from UT Austin and am being groomed, along with my cousins Lalo and Alex, to take over the corporation someday. No wife, no kids.”
Okay. He was rich and probably the playboy the senator accused him of being.
Ren paused but continued when Kylie said nothing. “At home they call me ‘El Gringo’ because I look like my Scots-Irish mother, Katy Campbell, from Pike County, Kentucky. She met and married Dad in Texas and died from cancer when I was fifteen. She wanted me to understand and love her culture as much as Dad’s, so every summer we spent a couple of months at my grandparents’ mountain cabin, and that’s where I picked up the accent and the music. Granny and Granddaddy made every jam session in a three-county area.”
That much was probably the truth. The accent and the music both rang true. “This is all well and good. But it doesn’t explain why you were part-timing it in my bed for the DEA.”
Ren ran his fingers through his hair. “I play music back home, too. Mariachi.”
“With the funny suits?”
Ren spared her a look. “With the traditional charro suits, yes. Anyway, almost two years ago one of Sawyer’s and my best friends, Jerry Moreno, died of a drug overdose. Not sure if it was accidental or deliberate—Jerry had the PTSD from hell—but Sawyer was pretty sure Jerry got the drugs from someone in his mariachi band. Sawyer was with the local police at the time and persuaded me to join the band and investigate. To make a long story short, we nailed two mid-level dealers, and if my cousin hadn’t blundered in I would have gotten the big cheese, too. But El Espectro found out who I really am and put a price on my head and I had to get out of town for my own safety. Sawyer persuaded me that going back undercover for him was better than twiddling my thumbs in Kentucky until El Espectro was arrested.”
“Since when does the DEA use amateurs to do their dirty work for them?”
“They don’t, usually. It was highly irregular for the DEA to send me in, but we’d been successful in San Antonio and they agreed to Sawyer’s scheme.” He held up his hands. “So here I am.”
Kylie looked Ren in the eye. “How much of that is the truth and how much of it was bullshit?”
Ren’s lips firmed. “It’s the truth, every damned bit of it. And that’s also why I did what I did. The DEA honestly thought you were guilty. A drug dealer took out one of my best friends, Kylie. I’ve missed Jerry every day for the last two years.”
“And that justifies what you did to me? Sorry, Ren. Not buying it. And I don’t care what your reasons for lying were, a liar is a liar. And I can’t stand liars.”
“I get that, Kylie. Look, obviously we blew it, and I’m just as sorry as I can be that I hurt you.”
“If you can be believed, which I seriously doubt.”
“I do mean it. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
“I am, too, Ren. I was just beginning to have a little bit of faith and trust again and you very effectively managed to take that away from me. Congratulations. I will probably never trust another man as long as I live.”
“Aw, Kylie, no.” Ren leaned forward. “Look, I know there is no way I can take back the lies I’ve already told. But I can promise you this. I will never, ever lie to you again about anything.”
Kylie shrugged. “And now I’m supposed to believe that? Ren, I’m sorry. The damage is done. The trust is broken. Kind of like Humpty Dumpty.”
“I understand. But Kylie, I’m going to tell you the truth from now on whether you believe me or not.”
“Knock yourself out.” Kylie looked up as Danny poked his head in the door. “Are you ready to go home, Danny?”
“I guess so. Say, Ren, you want to work a little more with me and the girls on some fiddle-dulcimer duets?”
“Absolutely. Love to.” Ren shot Kylie a look when she started to object.
Danny disappeared. They stood and Kylie gathered up her instrument case. As Ren opened the door, they spotted Bradley letting himself out of the instrument room and beating a hasty retreat out the back door. “What the hell was that all about?” Kylie muttered.
“Damn. Sawyer and I need to search that room again.” He got out his phone and sent off a text.
Sawyer appeared almost immediately. “Do you want to stay and watch?” Ren asked Kylie quietly.
“What the hell?” Sawyer ground out.
“I’ve promised Kylie I won’t lie to her again and I mean it. Kylie, you can stay and watch if you like.”
“No, you two can have at it. I’m going.”
She marched down the hall and let herself out the back door. Well, Ren certainly told an interesting story, if any of it was to be believed. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? She couldn’t tell whether or not he was telling a lie. She couldn’t tell if she should believe him or not. And if she couldn’t tell, she wouldn’t trust. Which was sad. Because the way she felt now, she’d never believe Ren, or any other man, ever again.
***
“What the hell was that all about? You know we never involve civilians in investigations.” Sawyer pushed open the door to the instrument room.
“That is a crock and you know it. You involved me for over a year in San Antonio. And you’re forgetting something. We are now here on her forbearance—one word from her and this investigation is history. Besides, I promised her I wouldn’t lie to her again.”
Sawyer shut the door. “So?”
Ren pawed through the instrument bags and unearthed one of the Johnny Barstow cases. “Sawyer, I realize that you don’t give a shit, but I hurt that woman and destroyed the faith and trust she was just beginning to rebuild after what Tommy Richards did to her. Maybe I’d like to try to restore a little of that trust by the time this is over.” He unzipped the case and whistled. “Somebody restocked sometime today.”
“Probably while the senator was chewing our asses out.”
“Either that or just now. Bradley was certainly trying not to be seen.”
They pulled and checked the rest of the Johnny Barstow cases and found that the supply had indeed been restocked. “So Bradley Barstow just jumped to the top of the suspect list,” Sawyer said. “What have you learned about him?”
“Other than what I told you, nothing. He was adopted by Joe, who clearly favors the birth son, and doesn’t appear to be the player that Cooper is. Quiet, keeps to himself.”
“In other words, does nothing to draw attention to himself. Which, if he’s our guilty party, is a very smart way to be.”
“So we watch him like a hawk.”
“We watch him like a hawk.” Sawyer hesitated a minute. “Just so you know. I still think we did what we had to do with the investigation, but I take no pleasure in the fact that we hurt an innocent woman this morning. But sometimes when we’re chasing down the bad guys the innocent get hurt. Kind of like fighting a war.”
“So what does that make Kylie? Collateral damage?” Ren almost spat the words.
“In a manner of speaking.” Sawyer glanced over at Ren. “Aw, hell. You fell for her, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I fell for her. I fell for her damned hard, and now she sees me as evil incarnate. You may think we were doing what we had to do, but she hates lying and liars with a passion, and I lied to her.” Ren turned and looked Sawyer straight in the eye. “So now I’m going to do everything in my power to restore her trust in me.”
Sawyer gave Ren a go-to-hell look. “I hope to hell that doesn’t compromise the investigation.”
“I do, too.”