had nothing.
Maybe their next meeting would go more smoothly—in his office, Stanley would be ready to swoop in and save Nate from himself as needed. “And again—sorry about the coffee.”
She waved him off and retrieved her large check from behind the chair. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be too splattered. “I’ll see you on Friday in two weeks.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” That got him a nice smile, warm and friendly and comforting—like she realized exactly how socially awkward he really was and was rewarding him for doing a decent job.
Nate watched her figure retreat from the coffee shop and disappear into the foggy darkness, the check glowing white. Trish Hunter. Yes, Stanley would have to do some due diligence on her charity. And on the woman herself. Nate wanted to know more about her—a lot more.
He sent for a car to take him home and was picking up the coffee cups—his mother had always taught him to pick up after himself and being a self-made billionaire hadn’t changed that—when his phone rang. Not the chime that went with a message, but the ring of someone actually calling him.
His mother. She was pretty much the only person who called him, anyway. She was too old to learn to text, she said. That was her story and she was sticking to it.
“Hey, Mom,” he said, heading out to the sidewalk.
“Nate? Oh, honey.” She was crying. Nate froze halfway out the door. Instantly, all thoughts of Trish Hunter and large checks and coffee were pushed from his mind.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Nate—oh, God. There’s been an accident.”
“Dad?” Panic clawed at him. His parents were only in their fifties. He didn’t want to lose either one just yet.
“He’s fine. Oh, Nate...we need you to come home. It’s Brad and Elena...”
“Are they okay?” But even as he said it, he knew the answer was no. His mother was crying. Something horrible had happened to his older brother and his sister-in-law. “What about Jane?” When his mom didn’t answer right away, Nate nearly threw up. “Mom—is Jane okay?”
“The baby is fine. We were watching her so they could go out... Come home, Nate. Come home now.”
Dear God in heaven. “I’m on my way, Mom. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up and called Stanley. This was one of the benefits of being a billionaire. He didn’t have to deal with emergency flights. He had an assistant—and a private jet.
“Stanley, get the plane ready. I need to go to Kansas City. Right now.”
Trish had spent a good deal of time on this outfit. Wearing the Wonder Woman shirt again would be too obvious, even though it had washed clean. Trish had decided to go a little more formal for this meeting. She had on a coral skirt that came to midcalf. She’d paired it with a white shirt that was as crisp as she could get it in a public Laundromat and a denim jacket from Diesel—another major score from the thrift stores. Her only pair of cowboy boots were on her feet. Once they’d been black, but now they were a faded gray. Which was trendy enough, so she figured she was okay.
She was wearing the one good piece of turquoise she had, a teardrop-shaped pendant that hung on a thin silver chain. She’d twisted her hair up into a professional looking knot and had put in a pair of silver hoops that looked more expensive than they really were.
This was her being a business-professional Lakota woman. This was not her dressing to impress a certain billionaire. Not much, anyway.
She didn’t have a cleaning bill to give him and she had the distinctive feeling that he wasn’t going to be happy about that. What could she do? Tell him she needed $1.25 in quarters for the Laundromat?
The skirt had necessitated the bus, however. She hadn’t wanted it to get tangled up in her bike spokes. So, at 5:08—after almost an hour and a half—she finally arrived at his address in the Filmore district.
The Longmire Foundation was on the fourth floor of an austere-looking office building. On the ride up, Trish swallowed nervously. Yes, the conversation with Nate at the coffee shop had been pleasant and encouraging—but who knew what might have changed in the past two weeks? Because of how the event had played out in the press, she was worried that he might have changed his mind. The news reports had caught the look he’d given her when he’d asked her to meet him backstage and rumors about something else happening backstage had already started.
Trish had fielded a few phone calls, which was good. Sort of. Yes, any attention she could draw to One Child was good attention—but the quotes reporters had been looking for were much more along the lines of whether or not a romance had sparked.
Which it hadn’t. Really.
So Nate Longmire was tall, built and twice as handsome in person as he was in photographs. So there’d been something between them—something that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since the moment she’d walked out of that coffee shop. It’d almost been like...like she’d belonged there, with him. For just a little bit, he hadn’t been some unreachable Boy Billionaire and she hadn’t been a dirt-poor American Indian. He’d just been a man and she’d just been a woman and that was—well, it was good. With the potential to be even better.
And that potential? That’s what she’d been dreaming about almost every single night for the past two weeks.
Well. They were just dreams. And she needed to stick with reality.
And the reality of the situation was that Nate was not her type. She didn’t have a type, but whatever it might be, a Boy Billionaire clearly wasn’t it. She would probably never have a total of five million dollars in her entire life—and he was the kind of guy who spent that on a comic book.
At least the Wonder Woman shirt had done its job, she figured. Now, in her fancy clothes, it was time to do hers.
She’d done her best to avoid answering any questions about her supposed involvement with Nate Longmire by throwing out every single stat she could about poverty on Indian reservations and how even a five-dollar donation could make a difference. In the end, unable to get a juicy quote out of her, the press had left her alone.
She’d noticed that, in any report, whether online or on television, Nate Longmire had always been “unavailable for comment.” She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
Trish found the right door—suite 412, The Longmire Foundation written in black letters on the glass—and tried the doorknob, but it was locked. A growing sense of dread filled her as she knocked.
A minute passed. Trish didn’t know if she should knock again or...what? She had no other options. Nate said he’d be here—that Stanley would be here. He hadn’t forgotten, had he?
She knocked again.
This time, a man shouted, “Jeez, I’m coming. I’m coming.”
The door was unlocked and thrown open. Instead of Nate Longmire’s well-dressed form, a man in a white tank top, oversize corduroy pants held up by bright red suspenders
