Free FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) by Kassandra Lamb Page A

investigating who might be sending the notes, and
Skip’s going to stay here with Maria and the baby whenever I have to be away
from home.”
    After a brief pause,
Rob said, “Well, that’s a relief to know they’re going to look into this. Did
you call the police?”
    “No. What could they
do? There’s no direct threat, only an implied one, and Maria willingly let the
woman into the house.” There was a slight tremor in her voice.
    “Are you okay?”
    “No, not really. I mean
I’m better than I was last night, but... I feel kind of helpless. How do I
fight this, Rob, when I don’t even know who’s doing it? Or even what they’re
talking about!”
    Rob felt his own surge
of frustration that he had no answer for her. He knew how she hated standing on
the sidelines, while others dealt with something that was important to her.
And, as she had pointed out to him in the past, helplessness was the hardest of
all human emotions to deal with.
    “Give Skip and Rose
some time, sweetheart. They’ll figure it out,” was all he could think of to
say. “I’ll call you later to touch base.”
    Rob had been walking to
his car while talking to Kate on his cell phone. Now he sat in the driver’s
seat without turning the key, trying to sort out what the hell was making his
stomach queasy and his chest hurt. Last time he’d ignored those feelings, his
knee-jerk reaction to them had almost done permanent damage to his friendship
with Kate.
    Something had
threatened her child and she had turned to Skip first, not him. On a logical
level, that made sense since Skip could actually do something about the threat,
while all he could do was provide moral support.
    But Rob knew that
wasn’t why Kate had called on Skip instead of him. The main reason was that
Skip was now her... her what? They weren’t lovers yet. Saturday night, they
hadn’t touched each other the whole evening, even though the sexual energy between
them was almost visible to the naked eye. Nonetheless, Skip was becoming her...
partner?
    Okay, the queasy
feeling was worry for her. Rob didn’t totally trust Skip Canfield, even though
the man had never really done anything to merit that distrust. It was his
looks, Rob finally decided. Kate was an attractive woman, but Canfield was
movie-star handsome. Rob couldn’t help wondering if the man had some ulterior
motive.
    And the ache in his
chest, he admitted to himself, was because he wasn’t first in Kate’s life
anymore. Which was really pretty selfish of him, to expect to be first in two
women’s lives. But, as Kate had also pointed out to him on several occasions,
feelings aren’t always logical.
    He was truly happy for
her, that she had found love again. That is if this guy turned out to be on the
up and up.
    Rob shook his head and
started his car. He needed to get to his meeting with his client.
    The bottom line was
he’d better get used to being a close second in Kate’s life again, because he
was fairly sure Skip Canfield, for better or worse, was going to end up a
permanent fixture.
    ~~~~~~~~
    A udrey was Kate’s last
client before lunch on Thursday. By that point, Kate was already dragging. She
hadn’t slept well Tuesday night, despite the fact that Skip was sleeping right
outside her bedroom door, or perhaps because he was sleeping right
outside her door. Then Wednesday night, she hadn’t slept well because he was no
longer sleeping outside her bedroom door. Even with the security system and
bars on the windows, she was nervous being in the house with just the baby and
Maria, whose bedroom was all the way up on the third floor.
    But once Audrey’s
session began, Kate quickly forgot her own fatigue.
    As the young woman
settled into the client chair, she was obviously avoiding eye contact. In
response to Kate’s routine inquiry about how she had been since last they’d
met, Audrey said, “I blew it.”
    “Blew what?” Kate
asked.
    “Actually, I blew up .”
Audrey finally made eye contact.