Amber turned to gaze at her friend and saw the glow in Katie’s eyes. She raised her brows in a question, and Katie nodded, wiping a single tear with the back of her hand.
Surprised, but not the least bit unhappy, Amber wrapped her arm around Katie’s shoulders. “You do realize what this means, don’t you?”
“What?”
“I get to wear the maid of honor’s dress.” Amber paused. “You know, I always liked that one better anyway.”
“Take it,” said Katie. “It’s yours.”
Amber drew a deep sigh. “Wow. Does Hargrove know?”
“That I slept with him?” There was a strengthening thread of laughter in Katie’s voice.
“That you came here to confess.”
Katie shook her head. “He thinks…Wait. I almost forgot.” She bounced off the bed to her small suitcase. “I found something for you.”
Hunting through her things, she extracted a manila envelope. “Pictures of Norman Stanton. And his brother, Frank. Also a sister and parents-the three of them died quite a few years back.”
Amber accepted the envelope, her thoughts going to Royce. Now it was her turn to feel guilty.
“What?” Katie asked, gauging Amber’s expression.
“There’s something you don’t know.”
“About the investigation?”
Amber shook her head. “About me.” She shut her eyes for a second. “Oh, hell. I’m sleeping with Royce.”
Katie drew back. “Whoa. You cheated on Hargrove?”
“No.” Amber swatted Katie with the envelope. “I did not cheat on Hargrove. I broke up with Hargrove. Lucky for you.”
“True,” Katie agreed. Then she sobered. “This cowboy dude? He rocks your world?”
“And how.”
“So.” Katie cocked her head toward the bedroom door. “What are you waiting for?”
“I didn’t want to be rude.”
“Unlike me who slept with your fiancé.”
“Ex.”
“Whatever. Go see your cowboy. I’ll catch you at breakfast.”
“You sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I don’t want to sleep with you.”
Amber grinned, came to her feet and headed out the door.
On the way across the hall, she slit the envelope open, sliding out some eight-by-ten photos.
First one was labeled Norman. He had receding hair, dark, beady eyes and a little goatee. Yeah, she could see him as a blackmailer.
The next was Frank, an older picture. This was the guy who’d broken up Royce’s family. He wasn’t bad-looking, but not fantastic, either. He seemed a little on the thin side. But maybe that was a generational thing.
She flipped to the next picture, raising her hand to rap on Royce’s door. But she froze, hand in midair, the picture of Frank and Norman’s sister stopping her cold.
The young girl had a trophy in her hand and a broad smile on her face. Amber stared for a long minute, then slowly turned to the next picture. It was the parents, and the next one was a thirty-year-old family portrait. The final picture was another headshot of Norman.
Amber paged back to the picture of the sister for a final look. Then, stomach twisting around nothing, she rapped on Royce’s bedroom door.
His voice was muffled and incomprehensible, but she opened the door anyway. He was lying in bed, a hardcover book in his hands, the bedside lamp glowing yellow against his natural wood walls.
“Hey.” He smiled, letting the book fall to his lap.
“Hi.” She clicked the door shut behind her.
“Something wrong?”
She nodded.
His smile immediately faded. “Katie?”
“Kind of.” Amber moved across the room.
His eyes cooled. “News from…home?”
Amber sat down on the bed. “We have a problem.”
He tossed the book aside. “You’re reconciling with Hargrove.”
“What? No. How could you say that?”
Royce didn’t answer.
“This has nothing to do with Hargrove.” She wanted to be annoyed with Royce for even thinking that it might have been Hargrove, but there wasn’t time for that. Instead, she covered his hand, trying to prepare him. “I have pictures of the Stantons. And it’s not what we think.”
“What do we think?”
She slipped the pictures out of the envelope and spread them on the bed. “Look.”
Royce clenched his jaw as he leafed through them. “I’ve seen Frank Stanton before. He lived on the ranch for a while. Worked with the horses. That’s how they met.”
“Look at the sister,” Amber whispered.
Royce shifted his gaze. “She was into horses, too,” he surmised. The trophy was obviously equestrian.
“Look at her chin,” said Amber. “Her eyes, the hairline.”
Royce glanced from the picture to Amber, brows furrowing.
“Stephanie, Royce.”
“What about Stephanie?”
“Stephanie is the spitting image of…” Amber flipped the picture over to read the handwriting on the back. “Clara Stanton, Frank and Norman’s sister.”
“No.” He glanced back down. “She doesn’t look anything like…” Royce’s breathing went deep.
“He’s not blackmailing you over murder.”
“Son of a bitch.”
She didn’t want to say it out loud.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Shh.”
Royce turned to her with haunted eyes. “This can’t be right.”
There was nothing she could say to cushion the blow.
“It can’t be real.”
It was real all right. Stephanie was Frank Stanton’s daughter.
“Who else knows?” he demanded.
“No one.”
“Katie?”
Amber shook her head. “Not even Katie. I only figured it out in the hallway thirty seconds ago.”
He glanced back down at the picture. “We can’t tell Stephanie. It’ll kill her. She was two years old when they died. She doesn’t even know about the affair.”
“I won’t tell Stephanie.” But Amber realized that meant paying off Norman again.
Royce rolled out of bed, pacing across the floor, photo still gripped in his hand. He was stark naked, but the fact didn’t seem to register.
He strode past the bay window, raking a hand through his hair. “We…”
Then he turned at the wall, glanced at the picture and threw it down on a dresser. “I…”
He stopped dead, fisted both hands and glared at Amber. “There’s got to be a way out.”
“I’m sure there is,” she agreed in the most soothing voice she could muster.
He crossed back over to the bed, sat down and uttered a crude cuss. “That bastard’s got us by the balls.”
Amber didn’t know how to answer. It was true, but agreeing seemed counterproductive.
“We can’t tell Stephanie,” he reaffirmed.
Amber nodded.
Royce snagged his phone from the table. He punched a couple of numbers and put it to his ear.
“Who-” Amber stopped herself.
“Jared.”
She knew Jared had been out of touch for several days now.
It appeared he still was.
Royce’s voice was terse as he left the voice-mail message. “Jared. Royce. Call me now. Right now.” He punched the off button then leaned back against the headboard.
She dared to reach out and touch his bare shoulder. It was hot, hard as a rock. “Anything I can do?”
“Short of fixing a deal with the Chinese, finding a sailboat in the middle of the South Pacific or giving Norman Stanton a fatal disease? Not really.”
“Right.” She slipped across the bed to sit close beside him, curling her arm around his tense back. “Moral support doesn’t really cut it at the moment, does it?”
He wrapped one of his arms around her and then the other. Then he bent to kiss the top of her head. “Moral support is better than nothing.”
She struggled to find a smile. “That’s always been a dream of mine. To be better than nothing.”
He gave her a gentle squeeze and whispered above her head. “Will you stay?”
She nodded against his neck, knowing she was falling fast and hard. His troubles were her troubles, and she’d be by his side just as long as he needed her.