Secret Weapon Spouse - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,61
she whispered. “Everything is going to be fine.” They stayed like that for a long moment.
He heard Samantha step out of the room to give them some privacy. A moment later he heard the ring of her cell phone.
“Let me help you,” Alex said to his sister as he pulled back from the hug.
“You already have. I’m glad you know about Presley. I tried to tell you the other day at Weddings Your Way, but I was afraid of your reaction.”
“It isn’t my reaction you have to worry about,” he said.
“In time, Daddy will come around, you’ll see.” Caroline pressed his hand to her stomach. “You’re going to love Presley.” She smiled. “He reminds me of you.”
WALKING DOWN THE HALL away from the two guards outside Caroline’s room, Samantha took the call, glad to see it was Clare getting back to her.
“Are you sitting down?” Clare said.
“No, should I be?”
“Maybe. I did some checking on the names you gave me. I started with Alex Graham, since I knew you were in Tennessee with him and Rachel seemed to be worried about you.”
Samantha held her breath.
“Financially solvent and then some. It doesn’t look like he spends even the money he makes.”
“What are you saying?”
“He’s loaded and apparently has made some good investments. He could live much better than he does. From what I could find out, he lives in a small beach house, old neighborhood, though not a bad one.”
Samantha felt a wave of relief. No red flags. Nothing to cause her concern. Maybe Alex Graham was just what he appeared to be. She sure hoped so because she was crazy about him. And it scared her half to death.
“Of course Alex doesn’t have anything compared to his father,” Clare continued. “Whew! Is C. B. Graham rich.”
“Any recent big investments?”
“As a matter of fact…”
Just as Samantha had been led to believe, C. B. Graham had invested quite heavily with his future son-in-law, Pres. It wasn’t enough to make a dent in his overall wealth, but it was substantial enough that it wouldn’t go unnoticed if C.B. lost it.
“And Brian Graham?” Samantha asked, pretty sure he had invested, as well.
“No record of him investing any money with Wells,” Clare said, surprising her. Samantha had been so sure. Brian had seemed awfully eager to find Pres. But maybe it had just been concern for his father.
“Probably didn’t invest because he’s in trouble financially,” Clare said.
“What?” She remembered the cocky way Brian had been at the Holcom-Anders wedding. “But I thought he ran the Graham empire?”
“Not all of it. That kind of wealth is never all in one pot—or all under one control,” Clare said. “But Brian Graham had been given a substantial amount of it to control it appears.”
“And he’s lost it?”
“No, but he’s made some bad investments and unless he gets a windfall, he will have lost it all,” Clare said.
Brian was in trouble financially? Did C.B. know? And what did that have to do with Presley? Everything, she thought. If Brian were desperate, would he invest in one of Presley’s projects secretly as a last-ditch effort to save himself? It might explain why Brian was so anxious to find Presley.
She thanked Clare and closing her phone started back down the hall toward Caroline’s room. A nurse Samantha had seen before came out of Craig Johnson’s room just down the hall.
Samantha slowed to talk to her, the nurse smiling as she recognized her. “I saw you coming out of Craig Johnson’s room. How is he doing?” In truth, she was surprised he was still in the hospital. Shouldn’t he have been released by now?
The nurse’s smile instantly faded. “I’m sorry, you must not have heard. He’s in a coma.”
“A coma?” But Samantha had been convinced there wasn’t anything wrong with him. “I don’t understand.”
The nurse shook her head. “It happened about an hour ago. We found him on the floor. He’d obviously hit his head when he fell. No one knows what happened. Possibly some sort of seizure from his other head injury during his attack.”
Samantha had a pretty good idea she knew what had happened to Johnson. Whoever had tried to get to him before had been more successful this time.
“I saw that you were visiting Ms. Graham,” the nurse said. “A lovely woman. I’m so happy for her and her fiancé. He obviously loves her so much.”
Samantha came alert at the nurse’s last remark. “You’ve seen him?”
The nurse realized her mistake at once but Samantha wasn’t about to let the