“Come on. Give me more credit than that. I won’t accuse anyone without finding out who actually did it.”
“Good. Thank you.”
“But just so you know, regardless of her participation or not, I’m also not turning over her contact information without asking
her
permission first, not even for you. Are we clear on that point?”
“Crystal clear. Yes.” Kendall wanted to kick a hole in the nearest wall, but he controlled himself. Clay was very adamant about his role as protector of women. Kendall understood that if Jocelyn didn’t want to contact them, Clay would never, ever reveal her address.
“So let me ask,
if
it turns out to be Jocelyn who invaded your security system, what will you do?”
“I’ll want to know why she did it.”
And if she seduced me and Logan to get inside our home or because she was actually interested in us.
She couldn’t have faked that desire and the round-one experience, could she? Kendall didn’t want to contemplate that scenario.
“Fine. I’ll do some checking. Keep in mind that it may very well
not
be her, Kendall. Unique name or not, she could be innocent of this.” He appreciated his brother’s confident attitude.
“Right. I’ll keep that in mind.” He wanted to believe that notion with all his heart. But Kendall
knew
it was her. On some level deep down inside his very soul, he knew she’d been the one to slip in and access their system both times, the moment Clay simply uttered her name.
After promising to get back to him in a day or two, Clay hung up. Kendall was left with the queasy feeling that he’d allowed another woman to fool him. Logan would totally flip out if it turned out she’d only used them for sex to gain something or to use them for some other purpose.
Kendall had been best friends with Logan since the seventh grade. They’d spent a lot of quality time together over the years. They had even gone into business together with this Old West Town over a decade ago. After so much time together, none had been more poignant as when Logan broke up with his ex-fiancée and retreated to this house to stay with Kendall not quite a decade ago.
Logan had been bitterly betrayed by his ex-fiancée several years ago. Brittney lied to keep Logan in her life after learning he was worth quite a bit of money. Beforehand, she’d been of the opinion that a mere stable master in the Old West Town park wasn’t a prestigious enough job to lower herself to for a lifetime.
Heart filled with love for her and only her at the time, Logan had asked her to marry him. Brittney had not said yes or no, at first. She’d wanted time to consider changing her life to live in Montana. Logan had planned to give it all up and move anywhere she wanted. But then she discovered his true bank balance.
Their bitter, contentious breakup once Logan overheard her true feelings about him during a callous phone conversation had scarred his heart to anyone else. At least until Jocelyn kissed her way into his life a week ago. Logan had changed after she left.
Kendall looked at the staircase. He needed to tell Logan about the conversation with Clay. But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to break his spirit, but Logan didn’t like having secrets kept from him, or being protected from bad news either.
If Jocelyn turned out to be the hacker and only interested in them to get inside the compound, Logan would never forgive her. Kendall wasn’t sure if he would be able to forgive duplicity like that either. But he wouldn’t give up Logan’s trust.
Kendall climbed the stairs and headed for Logan’s room with a heavy heart ready to tell him what Clay had said. For as much as he wanted to see Jocelyn again, Kendall hoped it would be under more desirable circumstances, and not the taint of betrayal.
* * * *
Jocelyn had agonized for an entire week over leaving Montana, and more specifically saying good-bye to Logan and Kendall. There was not a waking moment since she’d driven out of the Old West Town parking lot that she didn’t think about them and wish for a different life so she could join them. But that was not her current reality.
Her parents had been incensed that she’d dared to return at all without Jenna in tow. Apparently, she was supposed to stay gone and ignore her life forever until her sister was located then dragged back to her parents’ home for a lecture on what they’d decided was best for her future.
Jocelyn spent another several days in fruitless searches getting nowhere. Then a friend of a friend that her father had bullied for information had mentioned an old acquaintance of Dean’s having moved to New York City recently.
Convinced that Dean had spirited Jenna off to the most crime-ridden location on earth, as he called it, her father pointed Jocelyn in an easterly direction. He was adamant in his zeal for her to go immediately to New York, and to not come back until she had Jenna with her.
Jocelyn, in a moment of foolish bravado, tried to explain that she had already ignored her business for too long. She further told them that if Jenna wanted to come home, she would.
This was completely unacceptable according to her parents.
“You have the nerve to pretend to work when you sister is out there somewhere alone?” her father currently railed. “You don’t have your priorities straight. You need to get back out there and keep looking for your sister. If you don’t, then I don’t know what I’ll do. Your mother was far too lenient with both you girls in my humble opinion. It’s no wonder you’ve both turned out to be a huge disappointment.”
Jocelyn closed her eyes, but truly wanted to hang her head in sorrow. She’d graduated summa cum laude from a prestigious state university with a degree in computer science, and was independently well off as a result of her own hard work and superior skills at a self-owned business for the past several years. However, because she hadn’t found a man, gotten married, and promptly subscribed to the “keep house and get dinner on the table by six” club, she was considered an utter failure in life by her parents.
No amount of persuasion or awards or money in the bank would ever convince them otherwise. And the unspoken obligation they expected her to perform was to be at their beck and call every second of every day, since she didn’t currently have a man in her life to order her around.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but going to New York on what amounts to hearsay from someone too far removed to be helpful is a waste of time. I’d be better off to head back to Montana and try to find Dean’s old address again.”
Her father shook his head and paced in front of the television. Her mother simply sat quietly, nodding at every word her father spoke, and repeatedly wrung her hands as if that was all she was capable of adding to the discussion.
Jocelyn wished her mother would stand up for herself, but knew that would never happen. Her mother and father lived by strict old-school rules. He worked outside of the home, and her mother kept house and put dinner on the table promptly at six every night. They’d never understood her desire to have a job, to work for herself, or the sincere lack of desire to get married and let a man control her life, since the second she graduated from college.
In fact, she was certain college had only been provided for her so she could scout out a rich husband and get married. They’d never expected her to actually graduate, but instead to find a man, settle down, and quit college the moment some nameless man put a ring on her finger and started ordering her around.
Jocelyn enjoyed her independence. She liked that she controlled her own life. She also liked that she had means and a hefty bank account to show for all her hard work. In her chosen field she was very well respected and possibly even revered. At home, she was forever a huge disappointment.
“Montana is a waste of time,” her father grumbled, pulling her from the desolate reverie of her disappointing life to date. “I firmly believe that New York is where you need to center your search. Jenna needs to be brought back home.”
“Why does Jenna need to be brought back home?”
Her father whirled around with a positively demonic expression. “What do you mean? Why?” Certain he was angry because she’d dared to question him, Jocelyn took a deep breath and tried to take a calmer approach.
“It isn’t like she’s ten, Dad. Jenna is nineteen years old.” Jocelyn tried one last time to explain her limitations. “New York has upward of ten million people. I wouldn’t know the first place to start looking there.”
“How do you know until you make the least effort?”
“I
have
made an effort. But I’m not a private detective. And I have a life to tend to. I know you don’t approve, but I do have my own business to run. One that I’ve ignored for weeks to try and find Jenna as per your demand. But enough is enough. I’m not going to New York. You’re going to have to resign yourself to that fact.”
Her father rolled his eyes and tilted his gaze to the ceiling as if seeking guidance from the heavens above about what to do with his horrible, misguided daughter, who refused to play by his last-century rules of the way life should be lived, and the duty he felt she continually owed.
“Jocelyn, please,” her mother said with a whimper. “Do as your father wants. Just go to New York and try to find Jenna.”
Her father snapped his fingers in her mother’s face. “Don’t beg her, Joanna. If she can’t be bothered to do this small task for us, why then she’s no longer welcome here.”
Jocelyn slammed her eyes shut to keep from letting them see her roll
her
eyes this time. Getting under control, she opened them slowly.
Meanwhile, her mother’s response was to wring her hands harder and faster as she hung her head and sobbed softly to herself.
With her father’s standard threat, and her mother’s standard reaction to go with it, the time had come to either bow down and promise to keep looking or finally stand up for herself and tell them to let her be.
The melodrama was a mainstay in the home she’d grown up in. As annoying as she found it, Jocelyn wasn’t prepared to test her father. At least not today.
“Fine. I’ll keep looking. But I’m not going to New York. I’ll go back to Montana.” The only joy in that statement was the thrill that she’d get to see Logan and Kendall. And the true reason she was willing to keep up the search for Jenna.
Her father adjusted his glasses and frowned. “I believe you spent quite enough time in Montana wasting your efforts. This New York lead is much more promising.”
Jocelyn didn’t comment. Hating to mislead her parents, she simply said, “I’ll leave in the morning.”
Her father almost cracked a smile, but likely only because he thought he’d swayed her to his demand. He was wrong. But it would be a waste of time and breath to tell them.
Her father’s final decree made her blood boil. “One more thing. Do not turn your phone off again. It was very rude for you not to get our calls and messages for an entire day when you were wasting your time in Montana.”
Jocelyn had to physically clamp her teeth onto her tongue to keep from telling her father to kiss her ass. She’d answer her phone or ignore it whenever she wanted.
She slept for a few hours, then packed a few things including her work computer, and headed out before dawn the next morning to arrive in Enclave, Montana, by early evening. If the hours at the Old West Town park hadn’t changed, then Logan and Kendall would be closing the park and they’d possibly be off for the next few days.
As a nod to finding Jenna, she would try to get back inside the compound walls of their private home, and attempt to access their computer for that file listing of Dean’s name. This time she’d get it onto a flash drive. It probably wouldn’t provide any useful information, but her true reason for coming back had more to do with the two men who’d turned her libido on its ass than the desire to discover any information about her sister’s boyfriend anyway.
Likely Jenna wouldn’t be found until she and Dean ran completely out of money and came home on their own. Thus making this or any trip to find her completely useless.
Jocelyn had done some research last week and found a surface road leading from just past the city limits of Enclave to the walled compound she’d visited via the underground tunnel previously.
She took the road marked every few yards with privacy signs, ignored them, and drove all the way to the private compound gate. Rolling down her window, she pushed the intercom button that would hopefully put her in touch with either Logan or Kendall. A streak of desire ran down her spine at the audaciousness of just showing up. She hoped they’d be happy she returned to finish what they’d started.
“Yes,” an unfamiliar voice came over the intercom.
“I’m looking for either Kendall or Logan.”
“And
you
are?”
“Jocelyn Demarco.”
“Hold on.”
She hoped the surly-sounding guard would put her through to them. Likely she should have called ahead, but had wanted her visit to be a big surprise.
A giddy rush of pleasure raced through her veins at the possibility of finally discovering what Kendall’s version of round two would entail.
“Ma’am,” the voice said, startling her. A glance at her dash clock and she realized she’d been waiting over five minutes.