“It’s not like that, kitten. I would never betray you. I was trying to help.”
“Help? In what way?”
If it were up to him, she’d never know about Spike’s rude offer.
“I thought I was doing the best thing for you and Toby. Wanted to make sure you were taken care of. Just trust me.”
She shook her head and stood. “I’m not sure I can. Connie, what’s his bail set at? And Stephen’s?”
“Thanks, sis, you know I’m good for it.” Stephen sank into the chair beside Seth and gave him a punch in the arm as acknowledgement. “Sorry.”
“Welcome to the club.”
“The what?”
“It’s an elite group,” Seth said in a flat voice. “My friends seem prone to public fisticuffs. Grant currently holds the record for longest abstinence from fighting, and I guess Curt just slipped into the number-two spot.”
“I’m really more of a lover than a fighter,” Stephen mused. “Speaking of love, I gotta go.” He straightened up and called to Connie, “Can I go?”
“Come sign these forms, then get the hell out of my station.”
“Great.” He jogged up to the desk, signed, then made a beeline for the door. He stopped just before opening them.
“Uh, actually, Seth picked me up from the airport. Can you drive me, Meg?”
Meg cast him a glare that could have wilted a cactus.
“Please?”
“Let me finish bailing my husband out, okay? That all right with you?”
Stephen shrugged. “As long as you leave the other one in his cell to rot.”
* * * *
Seth didn’t say a word all the way from the police station to the airport. Stephen ran off after leaning across the front seat and kissing her cheek, twenty minutes before his plane was due to board.
“My car is at the restaurant,” Seth said as Meg navigated out of the maze of Raleigh-Durham airport roads.
“Anxious to get home now so you can cower and hide, I bet.” She locked her fists firmly at ten and two, and stared at the traffic ahead.
“I’ve got nothing to hide from.”
“And yet you’re keeping big secrets from me regarding my ex-husband. He’s my ex for a reason.”
“I observed a few of those reasons. Megan, listen, all that’s important is that I wanted to pacify him. Make him go away. If he wasn’t going to step up and do right for Toby, then he needed to move out of the way.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer.
She steered her car eastward and chose to bypass the exit toward the restaurant at the last minute. “It’s late. You might as well spend the night at my place, and I’ll take you to get your car in the morning.”
“Thank you, but I’ll take the bus. No need to disturb Toby.”
“He’s not at home, remember? Sharon came to get him. I can certainly manage to set an alarm clock for a respectable hour so you can get your car before it’s towed.”
Besides, she wanted to grill him. That yellow-bellied brother of hers may have gotten away, but she had one more prisoner of war to interrogate. She planned to make him crack before the night was over.
What the hell had he been thinking? And what had she been thinking, fantasizing that this thing—whatever it was—might work?
Earlier, Sharon had come upstairs looking dole-faced, with her hands folded behind her back. “Sorry, honey,” she’d said.
Meg had jabbed a finger at her and said, “See? Shit like this isn’t supposed to work. People who don’t know each other aren’t supposed to get married and expect a happily-ever-after.”
Sharon had cocked one eyebrow up and smirked. “You misunderstood me. I’m not apologizing for Seth and Stephen getting arrested. I’m apologizing because I know you’ll do anything to sabotage your own chance at happiness. Incurable pessimists, you Scorpios. Good to know you wanted a happily-ever-after, though.”
“I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist.”
“That’s just a nice way of saying miserable fatalist. And you’ll die horny and alone. You married a putz and divorced him. Time to cleanse your palate with an individual who happens to be a decent human being. So…take your time. Don’t worry about Toby. Ariel has some new action figures courtesy of her uncles she’s been dying to show off. Tell Connie I’m bringing rolls to Sunday dinner.” She’d winked and called out for Toby, who’d come running, the little traitor.
Meg sighed. “Did you have dinner before you pounded my ex-husband into a pulp?”
Seth, who was fiddling with the vents of her air conditioner, looked over at her, but said nothing.