Katie held Jessie back. “What if Trent didn’t know she was married?”
Jessie froze. “You think that’s possible?”
“Does every cheating wife tell her lover she’s married?”
Jessie blinked a few times.
“I’ve known men who said they were single just to get laid when they had a wife back home.”
“That’s awful,” Jessie said.
“If men lie, women lie. And if you were Trent and you thought Monica was ready to marry someone else and playing around in Jamaica, wouldn’t you run far, far away if you felt bad shit happening again?”
“We don’t know if that’s true.” But there was doubt hovering over Jessie’s mind.
“We need to find out, hence my thought that Jack needs to talk to Trent’s brothers.”
He sure did.
They were nearly back at the apartment when Katie stopped Jessie again. “One more thing.”
There’s more? Her poor sister.
“Monica’s having nightmares. Woke up last night screaming for Trent and didn’t settle until I turned on the light. Then wouldn’t go back to sleep without the light on.”
Jessie bit back tears. “Oh, Mo.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Trent hesitated when he answered the knock on his door to find Jack Morrison standing on the other side.
“Morrison?” The knowing smile in Jack’s eyes told Trent the man was there for a reason.
“Fairchild!” Jack glanced behind him and nodded outside the room. “Can I buy you a drink?”
It was noon. “Sure.” Trent retrieved his wallet and key, left his room, and followed Jack.
“How’s your stay?”
“Everything I expected, Mr. Morrison.”
Jack chuckled, tipped his Stetson farther back on his head. In the elevator, he waved a passkey over a sensor Trent didn’t see and instead of the elevator taking them to the bar on the ground floor, it ascended.
Saying nothing, Trent rocked on his heels and waited for his host to lead the way.
They reached the penthouse level and stepped past a private foyer and into the suite. The room had every amenity Trent expected, plush carpet, hardwood floors, and stone countertops in the open suite, which hosted a kitchen to one side. By Trent’s guess, the suite housed a minimum of two bedrooms, maybe three. Impressive.
“What’s your poison?” Jack asked as he made his way to the wet bar.
“It’s early. How about a beer?”
“Dark or light?”
“Dark.”
Jack passed him a beer and twisted a cap off one for himself, took a swig.
“What brings you to LA?” Trent cut the ice with his question.
“Monica.”
Trent drank from the dark longneck bottle, hardly tasting the hops and barley the company making it wished he’d taste. “Funny. That’s the same name that’s keeping me here.”
Jack tilted his beer back again, crossed to the plush couch, and sat.
Trent followed.
“Yesterday was brutal,” Jack stated as if he was there. “Larry gave me a blow-by-blow.”
“If you need help paying for those lawyers—”
Jack waved off his offer with a flick of his hand. “After yesterday I might have to insist that Larry take the check. Seems everyone has a soft spot for a nurse.”
“He’s a lawyer, he’ll take it.” Though Trent thought perhaps Jack could be right.
“My sister spent the night with Monica.”
Trent hung on Jack’s word.
When Trent didn’t say anything, Jack continued. “Then this morning my wife calls me, tells me to call your brothers.”
That got Trent’s attention.
“I couldn’t exactly tell my wife that men didn’t work that way. And she better not find out from you that I didn’t bother with a call to your relations.”
Trent held up a hand. “Man code is safe with me.”
Regardless of how women might operate, men simply did it differently. Women might go behind, around, over, and under others, but men went straight to the source.
Jack hesitated, acted as if he wasn’t going to continue.
“What did your wife… it’s Jessie, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What did Jessie ask you to find out from my brothers?”
Jack drank his beer a little quick for just after noon. He obviously wasn’t sure if he should say anything to Trent.
“Monica’s having nightmares.”
Trent gripped his bottle and lowered it to his lap. “What kind of nightmares?”
“The kind that make you scream, wake up, and chase away all the bad with a bright light.”
The half smile that had been on his face the entire time he’d been in Jack’s presence slid, as did Trent’s gaze. He drew in a shuddering breath.
“I don’t think Jessie wanted you to tell my brothers that.”
Jack set his empty bottle to the side, crossed one ankle over his knee. “The girls are smart. Wicked smart.”
Trent knew Monica was sharp already.
“Somewhere between scoops of ice cream and glasses of wine, my sister decided you ran from Florida because you were spooked.”
It was Trent’s turn to drink his beer.
Jack continued, staying within the man code of not making the other guy talk about his feelings. “Katie asked Jessie, who asked me, to find out the details about your parents’ unfortunate passing.”