LoDo was pretty quiet on Mondays, which was one of the reasons the shop was closed on that day. It took me a second to find the law building where Sayer worked because she had never actually given me the exact location, and when I found it I was a little stunned and admittedly intimidated to go inside the elegant brass-and-wood doors.
This was no tiny law practice. This was a giant operation with multiple partners, and everything screamed wealth and opulence as soon as I hit the lobby. There was a security guard at the desk that gave me a curious look when I asked if I could see Sayer.
“Do you have an appointment?”
Did I look like I had an appointment? I bit back a sarcastic comment and smiled, making sure all of my teeth showed.
“No. But if you tell her Salem is here to see her, I bet she’ll have you send me to her office.”
He shook his head and turned back to the monitor in front of him. “No one goes up without an appointment.”
I wanted to growl at him and I was considering just going to the coffee shop and stalking her until she showed up like she seemed in the habit of doing, when I heard my name called from somewhere behind the guard and his massive desk.
I took a few steps back and noticed Sayer coming out of the elevator with a young woman that was in tears. Sayer was telling her everything would be fine, that she just had to trust her, but her soft words seemed to have little effect. The woman had mascara running all over her face and was oblivious to the scene she was causing, but she repeatedly told Sayer “thank you” and accepted her hug on the way out the lavish front doors.
Sayer made her way over to where I was standing and I noticed she twisted her hands together. Good. I was glad I made her nervous.
“Do you have a minute?” I made sure that my tone indicated even if she didn’t, she better find one for me real quick like.
She nodded. “My next client isn’t until one but I have a conference call with opposing counsel for a divorce I’m working on that I have to make before then.”
“I won’t take up too much of your time.” I would take as much time as I needed to tell her what I had come to say to her.
She nodded again and walked over to the desk and smiled kindly at the security guard. “Marvin, can you sign in Salem Cruz for me and give her a visitor’s pass?”
The guard obviously had a soft spot for her because he didn’t grill her about who I was or why I was there, he just did what she asked and soon I was following her to the elevator. We took an uncomfortable ride up to the top floor and I realized belatedly that Sayer wasn’t just a lawyer, she was a partner in this well-established firm and her very classy and plush office reflected that.
“You’re kind of a big deal? Aren’t you?”
I settled myself in one of the leather wingback chairs across from her mahogany desk and declined her offer to grab me a cup of coffee or some water.
“My dad was one of the founding partners. I was grandfathered in. They do a lot of pro bono work and tend to be really active in the different communities the firm sets up offices in.”
“How influential were you in getting them to branch out to Denver?”
She flushed a little and leaned back in her chair. “When the proposal to open a new office came up I might have suggested Denver as a location, but there is a board that has to vote, so they could have picked Santa Fe or Phoenix, which were the other two options on the table.”
“You know you could have explained who you were and avoided the trouble of coming into the shop.”
She closed her eyes for a second. “After my dad passed away it took a while to track Rowdy down. The entire time I kept thinking it was one last ‘screw you’ from a man that had never loved me. I thought it had to be a joke or some scheme to keep me from inheriting his estate. Once I knew Rowdy was a real person—really my brother—I couldn’t stop thinking about getting to know him. Once I got to Denver and settled in, it took me over a month to work up the courage to even look up where the shop was at. It took me another two to walk in the doors. When I saw him—when I saw how much we looked alike . . .” She exhaled loudly and opened her eyes back up. “I knew it was real. I played out every scenario there was on how to tell him. I had nightmares about what his reaction would be. It went about as well as I expected.”
“Can you blame him? He had no warning, no way to prepare himself for that kind of news. He’s always been on his own, never had a family until he got here and Phil wrapped him up in the Marked family. All of a sudden he has a sister and a dad that didn’t want him. What would you do in his shoes?”
She just stared at me for a minute before finally looking away. “I don’t know. I never meant to hurt him, but I couldn’t keep it from him any longer either. I have to settle the estate. I only had one more week until my dad’s attorney was going to move to contact him if I didn’t reach out myself.”
I sighed and scooted a little closer to the edge of my fancy leather seat. “You need to understand something about Rowdy St. James. He has a huge heart. He’s a good man but he has suffered so much loss in his life it’s really hard for him to let anybody get too close. You being family—actual blood family—has him scared out of his ever-loving mind.”
Her blue eyes were identical to the ones I had been gazing into all weekend.
“I came across the information on his mother’s murder when I tried to track him down initially.”
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg. His mom, and then me. We were really, really close growing up and I left him without a backward glance because I was selfish and young, and then there was my sister.” I bit down on my lower lip and powered through. “Rowdy adored her, claimed to be in love with her, and even went as far as to ask her to marry him.” My voice cracked a little and I had to clear my throat. “And then there is Phil Donovan. He’s the man that started the tattoo shop. He saved Rowdy. He brought him to Denver and gave him a dream job, fostered his art, and let him be the man he was always supposed to be. He gave Rowdy the one thing he always wanted, a home, and he passed away from cancer not too long ago. Everyone Rowdy loves has let him down or left him in some way. That’s why he froze you out, why he wouldn’t hear anything you had to say to him.”
She sucked in an audible breath and put her palms flat on her desk. “That is a lot of loss.”
“It is. He’s been kicked around a lot by the people that were supposed to take care of him and he’s just trying to keep himself safe.”