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The wariness slammed abruptly into suspicion. “There’s only one lady I want to talk to you about. What the hell did you do to my girl?”

He blinked. Felt a rush of heat as the memories of what they’d done in his bed slammed through him.Damn near everything is your answer. And she did the same to me.But he didn’t speak it, because he knew that wasn’t what Nick had meant.

“Where is she?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“You know, then. Where? She’s not at the most recent address I found.”

She hadn’t been answering her cell, so he’d had Cody run a check. He’d been relieved when he’d found an apartment address. But the relief had vanished when he’d gotten there and found she’d moved just under a month ago, and they had no forwarding address.

“Maybe she’s off on a world cruise,” Nick said, and Ry knew the snark was intentional.

“She’s not. She wouldn’t spend money on herself.” The snark faded. That had obviously been the right answer. “So where is she? What’s the new address?” A sudden panic seized him. “Tell me she’s not living in her car somewhere.”

“You think I’d let her do that?” Nick demanded, drawing himself up as if to face down an enemy.

“Then tell me where she is.”

“I repeat, why should I?” Nick said, sounding almost belligerent now. In defense of “his girl.”My woman.

“I don’t know what she told you—”

“She told me she’d been unforgivably stupid and she never should have taken that job because now she’d probably never get another one.”

Ry stared at the man now, brow furrowed. He pushed aside the rest and focused on the last thing he’d said. “Never get another? Why?”

Nick glared at him. “Because you made sure of it.”

He pulled back sharply. “I what?” he snapped out.

“Look, whatever she did, she would never intentionally hurt another human being. It’s just not in her to—”

“I know that!” He was starting to feel utterly confused. “She didn’t do anything, except put up with that bitch she was stuck working with.”

That seemed to surprise Nick in turn. “Then why did you have her fired?”

Ry knew he was gaping now, but he couldn’t help it. “Fired? What the hell are you talking about?”

Nick stared at him. “You…didn’t?”

“She thinks I did?”

How the hell could she possibly think that? The only person he’d wanted rid of was Jacobs, and he’d…he’d done that in the saloon. The call had come in right after he’d spotted Kaitlyn, that vision in the gold dress, walking toward him.

The probability of what happened slammed him in the gut. She’d heard. She’d heard and thought, somehow thought, impossibly thought, it was her he was talking about. It wasn’t that Jacobs had told her to sleep with him, it was that she thought he believed that was why she had.

He ran that call back through his mind, his side of it, what she’d heard. The call that had ended with:So get rid of her, now, or forget the whole thing. I’m good either way.And his final imprecation after he’d hung up.Damn that bitch.

No wonder she’d run. Because that was exactly what Kaitlyn Miller would expect out of life, another body blow.

“Nick,” he said hurriedly, “you’re going to have to trust me. I need to know where she is.”

“Why?”

He drew himself up and faced the man she considered a father head-on. And chose the plainest, clearest words he could think of.

“So I can tell her I love her.”