My mom looks like she’s going to be ill. “I don’t know about this, Cara. What does she want with you? We have nothing do to with any of them.”
“So you have another sister?” Natalie says, more to herself than me. “I don’t know how I feel about this.”
“I do. I don’t fuckin’ like it,” Dad announces, shaking his head. “These are not good people, Cara. I wouldn’t trust her.”
“She might not be anything like Wade,” I say, standing up for her. “I mean, she might, and yes, he actually stuck around to raise her, but don’t you think I should at least give her a chance and find out? And Wade is dead. He doesn’t have any influence over her anymore.”
“He’s dead?” Mom asks, eyes widening. “I had no idea.”
“It doesn’t matter if he’s dead, he still brought her up,” Dad continues, sharing a look with Mom. “What do you think? She wants money?”
“I don’t know,” Mom replies, still looking a little shocked at my announcement. “I think I would have just preferred this meeting to be about her dating Decker.”
I roll my eyes. “I know you guys are wary. I am too. But I am going to meet her and form my own opinion. Her name is Constance, and I already set up a meeting next weekend.”
Silence.
“I don’t know—” my mom starts.
“Cara, are you sure?” Natalie asks.
“You sure as fuck aren’t going alone,” Dad booms over the other two. “You have a kind heart, Cara, and I won’t have anyone taking advantage of that. It seems I already fucked up by thinking Rhett would do right by you, and he hasn’t. No one else is hurting you now—no one is going to get the chance.”
“So what, you all think that she has bad blood and is going to screw me over? You know I have that same blood, right?” I fire back, scowling.
“You are nothing like Wade and his family,” Mom says gently, reaching out to take my hand.
“And she might not be either,” I point out. “I had Decker do a background check on her. I’m not going into this blind. She’s fine. She’s not hiding anything. She has a few debts but nothing out of the ordinary.”
“We just don’t want anyone to hurt you, Cara. I’m sure you can see it from our perspective,” Mom says as she puts a hand on Dad’s arm to calm him.
“I know, and I love you all for it, but this girl is my half sister, and I want to meet her, at least once, to see what she has to say. Clover will be with me, so I’m going to be safe, all right?”
“Decker did a background check for you? Who hasn’t he done a check on? Are you sure we can trust him?” Dad asks, frowning. “I’m going to do a damn check on him, see how he likes it.”
I’ve already decided that I’m doing this, with or without their approval, because it’s something I need to do for me. I’m the one who is related to Constance, not them, so they don’t know how I’m feeling. I’m not stupid—I’m not going to do anything I’m uncomfortable with, and if she ends up not being a good person or having an ulterior motive, then simple. I won’t see her again.
Everyone deserves a chance, and she might be nothing like Wade.
I know I’m not.
I trust Decker’s opinion, and he thinks that I should meet her too. I need to do this and they don’t have to understand, but if they were in my situation, they would do the same thing.
I know that they would.
I turn to my dad. “I’ll be fine. Know that you both raised me to be smart enough to know red flags when I see them, all right? And Clover will be there. You know she won’t let anything happen.”
I’m an adult now and this is my call.
They don’t like it, but they agree to support me.
And I suppose that’s what family is all about, right?
Chapter Eleven
Decker
When Felix and Clover show up at my office, I’m eating a doughnut and having my third coffee of the morning.
“Working hard?” Felix asks, smirking. He pulls out a chair for his wife and then for himself.
“You’re not a cop anymore, yet you still eat doughnuts and drink coffee. Be more original, Deck,” Clover chides.
“I like doughnuts. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable?” I tease, closing my laptop and giving them my full attention. “To what do I owe this unscheduled appointment? No work today?”
Felix nods. “It’s my day off, so I’m being dragged around by my wife.”
Clover glances around the office. “We were in the neighborhood and I wanted to drop in and ask you a few questions about this whole situation with Cara.”
“It wasn’t even you that wanted to see me?” I ask Felix, feigning sadness. “That hurts, bro.”
Felix chuckles and shrugs. “My wife wanted to interrogate you regarding this whole long-lost-sister fiasco.”
“Do you think that she has good intentions?” Clover asks, wrinkling her nose. “Because if not we’re going to have a problem. Cara is a good person, and I’m not going to let anyone fuck with her and take advantage of that.”
Usually due to client confidentiality, I wouldn’t discuss a case with anyone who wasn’t directly involved—but I never charged Constance, so technically she was never my client.
And, well, whenever it involves Cara, the lines seem to blur for me.
“I can only go by my own gut feeling, which is that she does genuinely just want to meet and get to know Cara. I did a background check on her, and I asked all of the right questions. I know that Cara’s biological father is bad news, but Constance said he passed away and that’s how she found out about Cara in the first place, so it’s not like he’s there to influence her or get her to do his bidding,” I tell them.
“Does Cara know that Wade is dead?” Clover asks.
“Yes, I told her.”
Clover nods, studying me. “You run background checks on all of your clients?”
Felix looks away, but I don’t miss his amusement.
“If I feel the need to,” I reply with a straight face.
Clover leans back and grins. “Whatever. You like her.”
“I like a lot of people.”
Felix outright laughs this time.
“I’m having a dinner on Friday night when Cara gets here—you should come,” she suggests.