Adam (Farraday Country Book One)

Chapter Seventeen

 Adam sat quietly as Meg recounted everything from the FBI in the church hall before the wedding to how she found herself on the road to town.

Fingers twisting together, she seemed to grow more concerned discussing her father.

"How does this work now? Is he going to jail?"

"The police will be arresting him based on the indictment. He'll face the judge and request bail. Whether or not it's granted, or for how much, depends on a lot of things. I'm not a lawyer or a judge."

"She needs a lawyer." Adam knew of a few good attorneys in the county. The ones who wrote up wills and settled minor disputes. But none that he'd trust with Meg's future. "You must know someone?" Adam said to his brother.

D.J.'s eyes dimmed into narrow slits as he studied Adam. He wasn't wondering anything different than Adam was. Adam had known Margaret Colleen O'Brien for only two weeks and had had all of one official date with her, and yet he was ready to step up on her behalf. If D.J. asked Adam why, he wouldn't be able to answer, but he knew in his gut he couldn't do anything else. This was about more than a raging hard-on for a woman who could bring him to his knees with just a kiss. Maybe it was the way she worried about an injured dog the first time he'd seen her. Or how she scrambled to do a job she'd never been trained for her first day at the café. Or the way she'd agreed to play cards with his aunt, the only woman who—until now—had ever mattered to him.

"Adam—"

"Do you know someone?" Adam repeated.

"Excuse me." Meg looked from one brother to the other. "I know a lawyer."

The simple fact that she didn't protest needing an attorney to be questioned by the FBI told him there was more she hadn't told him. But Adam refused to believe she was a swindler. That made no sense at all. Not only because there was no reason for her to run off and lick her wounds if she'd been privy to her ex-fiancé's shenanigans but because of the way she behaved around him and everyone else in this town.

"At this time the FBI just want to question you, but Adam is right. It never hurts to have a good lawyer at your side."

She lowered her head and pulled out her phone. Adam watched her long slim fingers slide across the screen, scroll and tap. Phone to her ear, everyone waited. "Hi, Mom. Yes. I'm okay. No, I'm not ready to come home." She glanced up at D.J. "Mom, I think I need a lawyer."

Of all the ways he could have predicted this evening would end, having Meg awaiting interrogation by the FBI was most definitely not one of them. Dragging his attention away from Meg and the way she tightly held the phone at her ear, Adam looked to his brother.

Leaning forward, hands clasped loosely between his knees, D.J. was the portrayal of a casual observer, but Adam knew his brother to be anything but. D.J. was on alert, listening carefully, and Adam suspected by the tic in his jaw, allowing Meg to chat with her mother was not typical protocol.

As a matter of fact, Adam suspected none of what had just gone down in his living room were standard operating procedures. Most likely, had Meg been anyone else, a stranger the town had not taken in as one of their own, this conversation would have taken place in D.J.'s office at the station. Possibly behind bars. That wasn't a thought Adam wanted to dwell on. Every prison movie he'd ever seen flashed in front of him at high speed. The idea of Meg behind bars for even an hour, never mind years, made him want to puke. And he had a cast-iron stomach.

"I know, Mom. I'm sorry I worried you." Meg's words pulled Adam's attention back to her. He could only imagine what his family would go through if one of them disappeared without a word.