AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Reynolds threw him off and took a step back. “I just wish I’d followed you more closely once I tipped my fed friends off to your activity. Would have made sure you never left the state.”
If Spencer hadn’t known that Reynolds was responsible for the tip-off to the authorities, he did now, and his anger pushed him forward, where he faked an uppercut and took a swing into Reynolds’s side, the blow knocking the wind from him but not enough to lose his balance as he threw the guy off and took a few steps back.
“How is Waverley doing these days? Is she everything you dreamed of?” Spencer asked, back to baiting Reynolds. “Sorry to say she’s looking a little worse for wear. You should have seen her back in the day, though. So lovely, so eager to please.”
“Enough,” Reynolds said and bolted forward, slamming his hand into Spencer’s gut. “Waverley deserves better than you, you worthless sack of shit.”
“Yeah? And you think you can give that to her? Some nobody PI who spends his time peeking through people’s windows for money?”
He wasn’t going to take the bait. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? How the only reason all this happened was because you were two-timing your mistress? Had you kept it in your pants, she wouldn’t have ever hired me and you would still be back home in Boulder, lying and stealing, and no one would know. What is it with guys like you who have everything but still want to take more? Do you think your buddy Ronnie knows you’ve been sleeping with his wife for the past ten years?”
There was a rush in the bushes to his right, and Ronnie and Bryant came running into the clearing, stopping short. Hell. He hadn’t realized that Ronnie was close by, or he might have tempered his verbal attack.
Any doubt he had that Ronnie had overheard Reynolds’s last statement was confirmed as Ronnie ran at his friend, completely taking him by surprise as he fell with him to the ground. “Tell me that’s a lie,” Ronnie said as Reynolds and Bry barreled in and pulled the men apart. “Tell me you didn’t sleep with Tracie.”
Spencer didn’t even have the good sense to lie, instead smiling in apology. “Sorry, man.”
Ronnie answered by ripping free from Bry’s grip and punching Spencer in the face, then punching him again, only stopping as Bry and Reynolds got a better grip on him and pulled him away.
Having heard the commotion, more people were coming toward them, and he spotted Waverley in the lead. She looked relieved when she saw him, and he nodded to her in reassurance as he wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand.
As the group surrounded them, uttering their shock and surprise, and Greg started shouting questions to the men, Reynolds pulled out his phone and dialed the agent’s number from last night and gave him their location.
“Come on, guys. We’re friends,” Spencer said, his voice rising above the din. “We’ve been through a lot together. The last thing you want is to be responsible for me going away. Let me go. Greg?” he asked the man who was standing there looking torn as he assessed the situation. “You’re not really going to stop me from leaving, are you? We’re friends.”
“Friends?” Greg shook his head. “You took information I told you in confidence and used it to steal money, not even giving a second thought to whether there would be fallback on me. That’s not what a friend does.”
“A friend also doesn’t sleep with his friend’s wife,” Bry added and looked over to Julie, whose mouth dropped open in shock.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Waverley said. She shook her head as she studied her ex and then Julie and Tracie. “Is there anyone you didn’t sleep with?”
“He didn’t sleep with me,” Staci offered quietly and shrugged her shoulders.
Julie and Tracie were now looking at each other with accusation and anger to suggest neither of them had known Spencer was sleeping with them both. It would have been comical if it weren’t for the pain that this had to be causing Waverley.
Best to get this show over before anything more hurtful could be said.
“I think you’ve got your answer, bud,” Reynolds said. “You ever hear that saying, you reap what you sow? Enjoy the harvest.”
“I don’t need any advice from a guy who’s been lying to everyone about who you are,” Spencer said, sneering. “Tell them, Waverley. Tell them how RJ is really Reynolds Cavanaugh of Cavanaugh Investigations. The same guy who spied on me last year and tipped off the police. He and Waverley tricked you guys so they could find me.”
If he expected to see stunned surprise or anger, he was wrong as there was only a long uneasy silence and sympathetic glances thrown Waverley’s direction from most of them—at least those who hadn’t been sleeping with her husband.
“Come on,” Bry said, pushing Spencer forward as he met Reynolds’s gaze. “Let’s get him back to the house.”
The rest of them followed as they led Spencer, his amusement gone as he started to realize it was the beginning of the end for him.
He turned and met Waverley’s gaze, who, from the soft smile on her mouth, seemed to be thinking the same thing.
* * *
“Even though we missed our first flight, we should still make our connection to Denver,” Reynolds said to Waverley as they reached the rental car a couple of hours later.
“The sooner we’re home the better,” she said.
She seemed to be in better spirits now, that confrontation with Spencer maybe putting to rest some of her anger and pain she’d been holding onto.
“Hey. Hold up,” someone called, and they turned to see Staci and Lexi rushing down the steps.
