Page 2 of Twice in a Lifetime

My voice came out in a croak as I spoke softly. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

“If there’s anything we can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Actually, that’s why I’m here. I want to hire you to find some information for me.”

His forehead creased as his brows pulled into a frown. “Blythe, honey, have you talked to your dad about this? Maybe he could help you?—”

I shook my head, cutting him off with a desperate look. “I need to do it this way. I’ll pay. It doesn’t matter how much.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to?—”

“Please, Lincoln.” The pleading quality of those two whispered words brought the huge man up short. “Please. I just... I need to do it this way.”

I could see the indecision warring on his face, and despite the time that had passed, I knew him well enough to know he was struggling between wanting to help me and concern he mightsomehow be stepping on Trick’s toes. If there was one thing I knew about Lincoln Sheppard that wouldneverchange, it was his loyalty.

My heart started to sink at the thought that he might turn me away. But after a handful of excruciating seconds, he let out a heavy sigh and said, “All right.”

The relief I felt was so profound that my shoulders sagged forward, and it was a wonder my knees didn’t give out from under me.

Lincoln looked in Naomi’s direction, saying, “Can you call?—?”

“Already on it,” she assured him before he even finished his sentence, picking up the receiver on her desk and tapping against a few of the buttons.

“Come on, then,” Linc said to me, stepping to the side and extending his arm, guiding me toward the office off to the left. “Let’s talk in private.”

My legs felt wooden and stiff as I crossed the threshold and moved to one of the two chairs in front of the large wooden desk. The door clicked shut behind me just before Lincoln rounded the desk and took a seat in the leather executive chair, bracing his elbows on the arms and steepling his fingers. “As soon as my partner gets here, we can start.”

A flutter of panic filled my chest. “Partner?”

He leaned forward, his features growing tender. “It’s okay, Blythe. He knows the rules. Discretion is the name of the game.”

I nodded, trying to ease my racing heart. I trusted Lincoln. If he said this guy was trustworthy, I believed it. “I didn’t know you’d taken on a partner,” I said, trying my hand at casual conversation.

Lincoln smiled warmly. “It’s more of a mentorship and training deal than a partnership, really. Eden’s been on my ass about retiring for a while now. She wants to travel, and I want togive her that. I brought him on so I could teach him to take over before eventually handing over the reins.”

“Oh wow.” That was huge, him teaching someone how to replace him. Alpha Omega was Lincoln’s baby. He’s built it from the ground up when he moved to Hope Valley after his time in the military. He’d handpicked the entire crew, hiring mostly people who’d left the military behind and were looking for something to do with their lives. It could be hard to reacclimate to civilian life after serving your country for so many years, and Alpha Omega was a place where they could belong.

For Lincoln to hand over the keys to the castle like that, this guy had to be like family, and it spoke to how much he cherished his wife to say goodbye to everything he’d created just because she wanted him to. “That’s huge.”

He smiled again, nodding. “It is, but it’s time. How about you tell me what brought you in while we’re waiting. He won’t have any problem catching up.”

Okay. I could do this. I could say the words I’d yet to say out loud in the months that had passed since my husband died.

I pulled in a centering breath and opened my mouth. The words spilled out right as the door to the office swung open and the very last person I would ever want to confess my shame to stepped inside.

“I want you to find out how long my husband was cheating on me.”

Chapter Two

Rhodes

Ididn’t know what I was stepping into when I grabbed the knob to Lincoln’s office and twisted. All Naomi told me when she rang my office was that Lincoln needed me for a consultation.

This had been happening more often lately, ever since Linc decided he was going to step away from the business and wanted me to take over. Anytime a new case came in, he called me in on it, basically giving me lead to handle it the way I saw fit.

To say I’d been surprised when he told me he wanted to hand Alpha Omega over to me would have been a serious understatement. I’d wanted to work for the man for as long as I could remember. Lincoln Sheppard and the guys who worked for him were legends in our small town. They were so good at what they did that they were frequently hired by famous actors and actresses, singers, athletes, and millionaires all across the country.

I’d idolized the guys from Alpha Omega. To a kid like me—a kid who’d been forced to grow up on the wrong side of thetracks because our parents had taken off on us, leaving my older sister, Gypsy, to try and keep a roof over our heads—they were the closest thing to celebrities I thought I’d ever get a chance to see. Then everything changed when Marco came into our lives.