“Got it.” Hansen hesitated for a second. “And thanks.”
Ben nodded as he walked past them and opened the door. He was out of the office and through the reception area in less than five seconds. A man on a mission.
Tessa vowed to make sure that Hansen didn’t become Ben’s next target.
She looked at him, saw all the horrors of the last few hours mirrored in his expression. “What happens when Kerrie wakes up?”
“With our history? Ben will probably arrest me.”
That would teach her to ask. “That won’t happen this time.”
“We’ll see.”
Chapter 10
Hansen opened the front door to his brown shingled cabin. Locking it hadn’t been an issue . . . until now. Until they settled whatever was happening, he’d have to make a habit out of using the dead bolt.
Unspent energy still bounced around inside him and he had to move. He walked across the room to the leather ottoman he used as a coffee table and set down Tessa’s gym bag with the few belongings Ben let her grab from her house this morning.
The cabin consisted of the main floor and a bedroom loft. The living area amounted to little more than a twenty-by-twenty square with a kitchen against one wall, a bathroom at the other end, and a sofa and chair in the middle. It was small and tidy and perfect for him. He didn’t own much, at least not here. Back home he had a condo and a closet full of suits. Here, no.
“This isn’t what I expected.” Tessa delivered the comment from the doorway as she dumped her raincoat on the hook by the door and toed off her shoes.
He got it. She’d expected an easy day and he’d plunged her into a nightmare. “To get sucked into my messed-up life?”
“The throw pillows.” She walked over to the sofa and ran her fingers over the braided edge of the blue one. “You don’t seem like a throw pillows kind of guy.”
One smart-ass joke and she broke the tension that threatened to suffocate him. “Who doesn’t like pillows?”
She hummed. “I would have guessed you.”
“I am human, you know.” Though most days he felt as if he were held together with rubber bands and little else.
“I’ll take your word on that.” She slid her hands up and down her arms as she scanned the room.
“Want to change?”
She reached for her bag before he finished the sentence. “That would be great.”
“You can take a shower.” Making the offer almost killed him. She’d be in the shower and he’d be out here squirming. Great idea, Hansen. He wanted to kick his own ass.
She shook her head. “Just a change of clothes and a towel are fine.”
He pointed toward the door to the bathroom. “Extra towels are on the shelves.”
“Excellent.” She stepped through the door and out of view, then popped her head out again. “This is a real test, you know?”
Did she think he’d spy on her as she changed? “How?”
“Once I go in here I’ll see how messy you are, look through your cabinets. That sort of thing.”
“Are you really going to look in my medicine cabinet?”
Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “You’ll never know.”
“Take the wet clothes off before I have to take you to the clinic for pneumonia.”
The second she disappeared again, his spirits dipped. She worked like a light switch for him. With her there, his mood stabilized. Without her, the anger seeped back in.
Rather than analyze her impact on his life and what that meant, he took the opportunity to find some warm, dry clothes for himself. He rummaged through the closet area beneath the loft ladder and found his softest and oldest pair of jeans. He pulled them on, along with a long-sleeve T-shirt, before she stepped into the room again. Once she did, her outfit made him yearn for a cold shower.
A thin tie held the relaxed sweatpants on the top of her hips. They balanced there, just touching the bottom edge of her I Trust Dogs More Than Men T-shirt. When she moved, a sliver of skin peeked through and his stomach flipped over.
And she did move as she conducted an informal surveillance of the open room. She walked around the small space and skimmed her fingertips along the top of the sofa. Looked inside the lampshade from above. Even went over to the window and shifted the curtains to glance outside.
She hypnotized him. The slight shift of her hips. Soaked to the skin from the downpour or dry didn’t matter. She calmed him. Made his world tilt right again.
For the first time in hours he felt like he could breathe. He hated that he needed her, but he did and that meant fighting every instinct to build his defenses even higher and being honest with her instead. “Ask me.”
She ran her hands through her hair, fluffing it up from underneath. The strands straddled the line between damp and mostly dry. She must have used a towel to take care of the worst of the rain damage.
“It’s frustrating that after everything, including me dancing around the question about how much I slept when you were at my house to avoid lying but still cover your butt, that you don’t trust me enough to just tell me whatever I need to know without me begging for answers.” Her tone carried a hint of not-sure-what-to-do-with-you frustration.
But man, did she read him wrong. “I do trust you.”
“That’s the only part you heard me say?”
“It’s a big point.” He saw her shrug. Then came the smile.
“True.” She walked around the sofa and sat down. Not at either end. No, she planted her impressive ass in the middle, which meant if he wanted to sit with her, they’d be up close and very personal.
She folded her legs in a pretzel position he couldn’t achieve even after a full day of stretching. The move showed off her fluffy white socks. The casual look worked for him. Made him want to snuggle in next to her and close his eyes. Forget this day and the fact he still had to talk with Ben.
But he needed to make her understand one very big fact first. “It’s important to me that you know I do.” Her eyebrow lifted but she didn’t say anything, so he kept going. “You and Ben are the two people, other than my brother and parents, that I do trust right now. I’ve put you both in a tough spot, and that sucks.”
“To be fair, you haven’t had the easiest time of it.”
He turned on the coffeepot, thinking the caffeine might help with the adrenaline burn-off he suspected was headed his way. “It’s been a pretty shitty year and a half.”
“I’m trying to figure out if I’m more surprised that you have parents or a brother.”
The scent of brewing coffee floated through the air. He sat down next to her, going slow and giving her a chance to scoot over and avoid him. But she didn’t move. By the time he slouched down on the sofa her knee pressed against his outer thigh and only a few inches stood between them. “Doesn’t everyone have parents in some form? Maybe they don’t know them, but still.”
“You seem like such a loner.”
He folded his hands and rested them on his stomach. “My mother is part of a big Korean family. The youngest of six kids, which means I spent most of my youth and a good chunk of my adulthood, actually, visiting with aunts and uncles. They have managed to produce about three hundred cousins between them, or it feels that way when we’re together.”
“Wow.”
He rolled his head on the cushion until he faced her. “Being alone isn’t exactly a choice you get in my family. They get together often—weddings, celebrations, or just because it’s Tuesday—to make food, then eat it all.”
She shifted a bit, turning her body until her legs curled under her. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“What?”
“You offering up so much personal information.”
They were whispering and he had no idea why. “Want more? If that’s what it will take to prove I trust you, I’ll keep going.”
She lifted her hand, and when it fell again, the back rested against his arm. The position, close enough to hear her breathi
ng and see every thought as it swirled in her head, was so unlike anything he’d experienced. The intimacy froze him there while he savored it.
“My brother’s name is Connor. He’s younger and brilliant. He also insists he’s the pretty one.”
Her eyes widened. “Do you have a photo? Maybe I could call him.”
Hansen decided to take that as a compliment . . . and vowed never to introduce her to Connor. “Funny.”
“And you’re stalling.” She rubbed her thumb back and forth over his biceps. Her soft tone matched the soothing calm of her touch. “Not that I don’t love the information dump, because I do. It will take me days to make the idea of you hanging out with a big, loving family fit with the man I see grumbling around town if someone dares to say hello to you.”
“I’m not sure what ‘grumbling around’ even looks like.” But he feared that was a pretty accurate description of the man he’d become. He’d gone from outgoing and sure of himself, to dedicated to his work—possibly too much so—but still able to have a good time, and finally to this: constantly angry and on edge.
Fucking Judson Ross.
She smiled at him. “Still stalling.”
The combination of her gentle encouragement and the brush of her hand against his arm did him in. She didn’t insist or raise her voice. She coaxed the impossible out of him and he wasn’t even sure how. Just by listening, maybe. He always had the sense with her that there was no ulterior motive. Her desire to help, to make him a better man, grew out of genuine concern.
“My sister’s name is Alexis. Was.” He stared up at the ceiling, unable to look at Tessa for this part. “Shit, I still don’t know how to refer to her because it’s just not real.”
She wrapped her fingers around his arm and pulled her body in closer. “What happened?”
The words that had been dammed up inside of him for so long started to break free. “Nineteen months ago, she was hiking with her new husband during a weekend away in West Virginia. She fell and died.”
Tessa’s hold tightened. “Oh, Hansen. That’s awful. I am so sorry.”
Needing to touch her, he rested his hand on her leg. That final connection between them made it possible to go on with the awful story that haunted him. “Her husband insisted she was taking a photo and slipped.”
“Oh . . . you don’t believe him.”
“Fuck no.” He watched his hand flex against her thigh. “My sister was an avid hiker.”
“It could still have been an accident though, right?”
He tried to inhale a deep cleansing breath but couldn’t drag enough air in. “She confided in me just a few days before they left that she might have made a mistake. It was a whirlwind romance. He was loving and sweet and then the honeymoon ended and things changed.” The words tumbled out of him now. Memories flashed in his mind. He could hear his sister’s voice. “I begged her not to go, but she hated to fail at anything. She thought she might be able to save the marriage if they talked it through.”
Tessa put her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know what to say.”
“She was the middle child and used to whine about how our parents ignored her. Of course, they didn’t, but it was the family joke. The forgotten child. Beautiful, smart. So fun and strong. She thought she could take on any challenge and conquer it.” Only one thing stopped her and now he was dead, too.
“You think he killed her,” she said in the same steady, caring voice.
“Judson Ross pushed my sister off that trail.”
Her head shot up. “Judson . . .”
Hansen knew Tessa had put those pieces together. She was too smart not to, but she didn’t flinch or pull away from him. That didn’t mean he knew the kind of thoughts traveling through her mind, because he didn’t. But he was desperate to hear and know how she viewed him now.
“Kerrie is his second wife. They got married three months after we buried Alexis.”
“And now Judson is here, on Whitaker, this remote place where you are, and he’s dead.”
Her thumb kept rubbing against his arm. He had no idea what to make of that. “You see my problem.”
She whistled. “Damn.”
“Feel free to use a stronger word.”
“Why was he here? They could have gone boating anywhere, but right where you are? That can’t be a coincidence.”
Typical Tessa. She jumped right to analyzing. To needing to know the answers and run the calculations to turn the situation into something that made sense. He understood the desire, but he’d learned that life didn’t always work that way. Sometimes you put the pieces together and the puzzle still refused to make any sense.
“Judson isn’t the type to take a vacation. He cut the honeymoon with my sister down to a weekend at a beach because he had billable hours to meet at his law firm. He was afraid he’d fall behind.” Hansen tried to ignore the growing ache in his chest. “There was nothing coincidental about where he docked that boat.”
At first Tessa didn’t say anything. She didn’t stop cuddling in close or freeze or try to inch away. She just sat there, focused on some distant spot in the kitchen.
It only took a few minutes of quiet for Hansen to break. “Tessa?”
She stood up. “Okay, so, I want to pelt you with a million questions.”
Not sure what was going on, he got up, too. “I’d be stunned if you didn’t.”
She went over to the kitchen and poured each of them a steaming cup of black coffee. When she returned, she held both mugs and nodded toward the sofa. “You need to sit back down.”
“Why? How hard are these questions going to be?”
She laughed, and the rich sound filled the cabin. “I mean that I’m going to refrain from pouncing on you with an interrogation. Somehow tamp down on my natural nosiness.”
None of this made sense but he followed her suggestion and took one of the mugs when she offered it to him. “You, Tessa Jenkins, who asks a million questions about everything, are going to let me off the hook without more explanation?”
“For now.” She sat down next to him again, just as close as she had been before.
He started to drink the coffee, then stopped. He put the mug on the ottoman and faced her instead.
“I didn’t kill Judson.” That was not even what he expected to say, but the words slipped out and he didn’t regret them.
She might not be asking but he needed her to know. This time he made the admission without being drowned out by the rain or the ambulance or the other people stumbling around the marina. This moment belonged to them. Right now. She needed to hear truth and be able to see his face and assess the words, so he gave her that.
“You don’t have to—”
“I admit I wanted to hurt him and thought about it more than once, but I didn’t do it. And I would never touch Kerrie. My real fear was Judson one day would turn on her like he did on Alexis.”
“You were worried about the woman who, I assume, Judson was cheating with while still married to your sister?”
“That does seem to be the timing, yes.” His grip tightened on his mug. “But that doesn’t mean she deserves to be another one of Judson’s victims.”
Tessa took a sip of coffee. Made a cute slurping sound as she did it. “He could hardly kill two wives without calling attention to himself.”
Wrong answer. “A guy with his ego could.”
“But it’s so risky.”
“She was tied up and injured while he was walking around Whitaker. He sure as hell did something to her.”
Tessa slowly lowered her mug again. “Huh.”
He figured she was mentally working through the horrors of what Kerrie went through, and he caught glimpses of that in her sad eyes, but something else lingered there. A question. “What are you thinking?”
“Judson was on the island. She was trapped on the boat. That means she didn’t kill Judson in self-defense or any other way.”
He could see her working the pieces in her mind. “Righ
t.”
“Neither did we.”
Relief surged through him again. She didn’t even hesitate as she said the words. “True.”
“So who did and why bring him to my house?”
Excellent questions. He’d been turning the possibilities over in his head and none of them fit. Kerrie’s brother, Allen, had called him right after Kerrie and Judson got married. He seemed worried about his sister’s safety. Asked for all sorts of details but then he stopped responding to texts and eventually blocked Hansen’s number.
Allen and Connor both had an interest in what happened to Judson, but they lived thousands of miles away. As far as Hansen knew, no one else on the island had any connection to Judson.
Hansen knew that made him the lead suspect. The only suspect.
“My guess is Ben will ask that exact same thing as soon as he gets here.” But that would only be the beginning. Tessa might be cutting him a break. Hansen expected the opposite from Ben. He had a job to do.
She leaned back until both of their heads rested against the sofa cushion. Their bodies barely touched. Her gaze wandered over his face and hesitated on his mouth for a few seconds before traveling back to his eyes. “You look exhausted.”
It was as if her saying it touched off a decline. Fatigue pulled at him and suddenly he wasn’t so sure he could get back up off the sofa without some help. “Again, it hasn’t been a great day.”
She slipped her hand over his. Threaded their fingers together. “It’s probably a good thing you stick to water.”
Nothing in her tone suggested she was poking around for more information but he gave it to her anyway. His drinking occupied the prime spot in the island’s rumors about him. That would change very soon. “My father is an alcoholic, but with a lot of coaxing and a few threats from my mom, he learned how to not take a drink. About ten years ago, on the anniversary of his sobriety, Alexis, Connor, and I took a vow of solidarity to give it up.”
She trailed a fingertip over his bottom lip. “You’re a good man, Hansen Rye.”
Screw the cons of trying to figure out what that gesture meant. “I’m really not.”
“Hush, I know people. Trust me when I say you are.”
Her Other Secret Page 9
