That was new. “Assistant?”
His father’s eyes narrowed. “Only that, Damon.”
“Do you remember Damon?” Cate asked.
“A version of him, yes.” Steven’s smile came back as he talked. This time it looked like it might be genuine, or at least well practiced.
Damon gave him credit for that. No part of Damon felt light or amused or even comfortable. He had to fight off the urge to move around. To take Cate’s hand and get out of there.
“Why don’t you come in and see for yourself.” Steven moved to the side and gestured toward the long driveway behind him. Then he pinned Damon with his intense gaze. “A lot of things are different from the last time you were here.”
The road might be paved now but Damon knew exactly where that driveway led. It wound around buildings, connecting one end of the expansive acreage of full trees and thick grass to the back part of the property. That’s where the water tower stood. The stream ran through and a hill running up the far side made it difficult for anyone to sneak over the fortified fence enclosing the land and get to the main buildings without being seen.
The guards might not be as obvious as they once were, but Damon sensed eyes on him. He scanned the open area in front of him. The guardhouse. The two men standing back about fifty feet pretending to hold a conversation. Damon guessed he could pick out every armed spy all over the property. Maybe no longer perched high on buildings, but still present.
“The lack of gunfire is a nice change.” But he could still hear it. Every fucking shot from that day fifteen years ago.
His father ignored that. “We use the old academic buildings for classes and—”
“Wait.” Maybe Cate noticed he was reeling or maybe she just had a line of questions ready, but she shifted her body slightly, moving just an inch in front of Damon and focused on the man in front of her. “What kind of classes? Is this a school again?”
“Farming, mathematics, writing, crafts. Many of the same things we taught before but now in a much less formal environment.”
Steven Sullivan had not lost one ounce of his old charm. He dove into selling the place like he used to. Smiled and moved a bit of heat into his voice, wooing in a nonsexual way. Getting people to listen to him, to trust him without ever earning it.
Damon knew better. “Where are the guns?”
Liza’s hand tightened on her notebook. “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
“It’s fine.” Steven waved off her concerns with a fatherly calm while keeping his gaze locked on Damon. “The shooting range is in the same place. The weapons are locked in a vault and the vault is monitored by security both of the human and electronic kind. We’ve upgraded everything, bring the buildings in line with modern times.”
Cate cleared her throat, gaining everyone’s attention. “What do guns have to do with crafts?”
“Everyone who lives here acquires skills. They have to be productive and do chores,” Steven continued in his smooth voice. “Some hunt.”
“You’re talking about for food and not humans, right?” Cate asked.
Liza made a strangled sound. “Of course.”
As Steven grew calmer, Liza got more jumpy. Her movements were jerky and her responses terse. Damon found the differences in their styles interesting, but he had no idea what it all meant, not even the big family welcome scene playing out right now.
He decided to test them one more time. “That would mean they shoot vegetables . . . or is meat allowed here now?”
“Most things are allowed. We live by simple rules. Everyone does their share. No one steals.” Steven seemed to stand up straighter. “No violence—ever.”
There was no way he could sell that line. Damon almost laughed that he tried. “That’s new, too, I guess.”
“We’re not a spa or a place to learn yoga.” There was a strained tightness to Liza’s voice as she talked now. “The goal is for members to become successful metallurgists and wood-carvers, midwives and farmers. Everyone chips in. The food and lodging are provided so long as people work and sell. Most of the share of proceeds from any sale goes to Sullivan to offset the expense of keeping the lights on.”
Like the weapons sales. She left that part unsaid but Damon picked up on it.
Steven hadn’t surrendered in his informal staring contest with his son. “Damon is well aware of what we do here.”
“You’re damn right.” He relived it far too often in his nightmares to pretend he could forget it.
Liza shook her head. “There’s no reason to—”
“What about you?” Steven asked as he turned to Cate. “Most people come to Sullivan looking for something or trying to break out of who they were before. Which are you?”
So smooth.
Such a fucking liar.
Damon broke in, trying to save Cate from having to be civilized while a warm breeze blew over them and people walked around enjoying the sunshine. “Is this the part where you pretend not to know her name?”
Steven’s perfect façade slipped. “Meaning?”
Damon knew he faced off against an expert game player, which made him grab the advantage wherever he could. “Vincent already welcomed us to town.”
“Interesting word choice.” Cate laughed but there was nothing light in her tone. “If you define ‘welcome’ by, basically, insisting we leave.”
Damon nodded. “Yeah, that.”
Steven and Liza exchanged confused glances but he was the one who spoke. “What are you talking about?”
Nice try. “The threats from Vincent at the diner. Then there’s the guy who attacked us at the motel last night. Are you pretending none of that was you?” When his father continued to stare with a blank expression, Damon kept on going. “I see that hasn’t changed. Practiced incompetence. It sure must make your life easier.”
I didn’t know about the weapon stockpiles and all those early morning practices. You have to believe me.
Lying then, lying now.
“Despite what you think, I would never hurt you.” Steven shook his head. “I’ve been trying for years to get you to come home, to see for yourself.”
Damon had changed his phone number so many times that comment might even be true. “See what?”
“That everything has changed.” Anger vibrated in Steven’s voice now. He turned to Liza. “Find Vincent. Tell him I want to talk with him. Now.”
She hesitated for a second then grabbed the cell out of her back pocket. “Yes, sir.”
Damon watched her scurry away. The phone was a surprise. He didn’t guess many cults handed those out. “Gotta say, it’s a good act. Much improved from your old one.”
“You’ve never been good at trust.”
He had to be kidding. “I wonder why.”
Steven turned to Cate. “I missed your name and why you two are together.”
“Cate Pendleton.”
It didn’t take long to get a reaction. The color drained from Steven’s face and his body swayed. “Really?”
“I guess that means you recognize my name.” She smiled, clearly pleased that she had launched the surprise with such ease.
“You’ve made numerous requests for a meeting.”
Damon forced his body to move. He slipped an arm around Cate’s waist in a gesture he hoped looked loving. He was still so out of it, so on edge and expecting battle, that he couldn’t tell. “We’re together. Dating.”
Cate shot him a side-eye when he stumbled. Even he could hear the lack of emotion in his voice.
Steven’s skin slipped from pale to deathly white. “Excuse me?”
“When I couldn’t get your attention, I went looking for people who once lived here and found Damon.” She glanced up at him and completely nailed the fake adoration thing, complete with a warm smile and this weird dancing light in her eyes.
Damon made a mental note to work through the flash of awe and panic that moved through him when he realized just how good she was at lying.
> “But you kept asking about your sister.” Steven shook his head. “I don’t understand how this fits together with the two of you.”
Because it didn’t, but Damon didn’t add that part.
“We met, fought, argued, I tried to ignore her and eventually we . . .” Man, what did he say after that?
“Fell for each other.” She moved closer. Fit right in that space under his arm. “The one problem between us is this place. He won’t talk about it but his life at Sullivan is separate from what happened to my sister.”
“So, I agreed to come here. Not right here at first, but you found us.” Which made Damon wonder just how far Sullivan’s communications reach extended.
Steven sighed. “Then we have a common goal. You want to prove something to your girlfriend and I want to prove something to you.” He looked from Cate to Damon. “Go anywhere, look at anything. You’ll see that this is the place I always wanted it to be.”
There it was. His father handed them the exact kind of access they needed. That made Damon even more skeptical.
“A lot of people paid a high price for this newfound legitimacy.” The ultimate one, including his mother, but Damon didn’t say her name. He didn’t have to.
But Steven didn’t blink. “Including me.”
“You wouldn’t know that to look at you.” His father seemed like a man fully in control and enjoying life. Damon hated that the most. He never wanted to know that life just marched on for his dad.
“You don’t know me anymore.”
“Is that right?” But the old man had a point. It had been years. Steven managed to stay out of the public eye. He never went to jail. He looked the same, slightly older but not beat up by life like he should be.
Steven waved his hand in the air. “Bob at the diner told me you were in town. Word quickly got back to me that you were at a motel. Check out and sleep here. Stay as long as you’d like.”
Damon’s head almost exploded. Plan or not, this was his nightmare, getting trapped back here. This time paying the ultimate price for being born with the last name Sullivan.
“Your old suite is—”
“No.” He could not be in that room. That was asking too much.
Steven looked at Cate, who had remained quiet through most of the exchange. Listening, looking around, likely assessing every move.
“One of the newer cabins, then.” Steven followed Damon’s gaze. “Maybe you can convince him, Cate. You need answers and this place is his birthright.”
Shit. Damon heard the word and rushed to talk over it. “I don’t want it.”
“Birthright?” She pressed the back of her hand against Damon’s chest as she stared Steven down. “Isn’t that an overstatement?”
Of course she heard the phrase. Damon wasn’t lucky enough for her to have missed such a big comment. His father had dropped it perfectly.
Steven smiled. “No. As my son, everything you see is rightfully his.”
The words hung there, polluting everything.
“We’ll see.” That’s all Damon could get out with Cate’s elbow digging into his side.
That eye sparkling thing she did was long gone.
“Yes,” she repeated as a roughness moved into her voice. “We’ll see.”
Chapter 11
A thundering rattle muted everything else. Cate could hear it rumble, blocking other sounds, even the steady thump of her out-of-control heartbeat. A burning heat rose inside her. Every muscle itched to lash out.
This is what fury felt like.
Damon stepped in front of her, obscuring her view to the driveway and the tops of the buildings she could see in the distance. “I know that you have questions.”
She ground her back teeth together to keep from screaming at him. When that didn’t work, she counted to ten. Twice. None of those calming skills prevented the shake she heard in her voice when she finally spoke. “You’re lucky there’s a new no-violence policy at Sullivan, but once we are off the property, you should run.”
He had the nerve to snort. “You really believe the violence thing?”
Another ten count and the fury still spun inside her, begging to get out. “Well, see, since you lie all the time I don’t know what to believe about anything.”
“I left one fact out.” He held up a finger. “Just one.”
She thought about snapping that finger off and feeding it to him. “Did you get that ability to rationalize from your dad? Because you sound like him right now. Evading, trying to put me on the defensive . . . lying your butt off.”
It actually hurt to say that word—dad. Damon and Steven. Related. She’d spent so many years of her life planning for the moment when she could get access to this property and force Steven to talk, and now this.
“I know you’re—”
“Stop talking.” Because if he said the wrong thing she would lunge for him. Put all those self-defense classes to good use.
He rocked back on his heels. “I’ll wait until you’ve cooled off.”
What the hell? He would not stop talking, which was the exact wrong response. “Give me a year.”
Her initial reaction to Damon had been raw and explosive, not businesslike at all. But she’d ignored her misgivings and doubts. She trusted Garrett and Wren because the senator told her to and Cate admired the senator more than anyone else in power. And, boy, did she buy in to the senator’s sales pitch. She believed in all the whispers about Wren being this big-time fixer and getting the impossible done.
Then she got stuck with Damon, the son and heir. Implicating anyone at Sullivan meant Damon would have to implicate himself. He’d have to turn on his family and all the people he grew up with, and she could not expect that to happen. Ever.
She stood there, staring at him and hating her wrong left turn in decision-making. She never let the hot guy derail her . . . except this one time.
This would teach her not to listen. Her friends begged her not to waste her sixty-day vacation on her sister’s case. They sympathized and listened to her rant, asked all the right questions and offered to help, never discounted her pain. But they were clear that they worried about her choices.
They’d all met for a wine-and-television-show-marathoning party two nights before she left town. One by one they went around the room. Each said she hoped Cate could find a way to move on and build her own life. They loved her mom and insisted she wouldn’t want both of them to wallow in grief of Shauna for a second decade.
Go off to Paris, hook up with some guy and eat a lot of bread, they said. Now she wished she’d followed the advice, except for the guy part. That guy part seemed to be ruining everything for her right now. She could handle her needs just fine without one.
“Just one request.” Damon held up both hands as if he was trying to surrender to her or beg for mercy. “I’ll explain, but not while we’re here. Not on this property.”
She still debated making a scene. Not a small one either. No, the kind that people talked about for years. “A convenient excuse to put this off.”
“You think any part of this assignment, being here, is convenient for me?”
Those eyes and the hitch in his voice. So tempting . . .
Nope. She would not give in and excuse his actions because of his pain.
“You should have told me about this. The whole fake relationship thing? It didn’t dawn on you to tell me then?” She shook her head. “Like, after you introduced yourself, you should have said, there’s this thing you need to know first. That early. Not even after you felt me up. Way before that, Damon.”
“Background intel wasn’t my job.”
It was as if he wanted her to start yelling. “Oh, please.”
“You never would have trusted me if you knew my last name really was Sullivan.” He put his hands on her arms and gave her a little squeeze.
She shrugged out of his hold. “That was the first honest thing you’ve said all morning. You admit you were a big chicken.” He started to say somet
hing and she heard the growl work up her throat as her anger spiraled again. Through pure willpower she bit it back. “I want to kick you right now.”
“Join the club. For the record, seeing you here is the exact opposite of you leaving the area.” Trevor stepped up beside them. He wore a fake smile and shook their hands, likely to throw off anyone who might be watching and make them think this was an initial meet and greet.
Cate decided it was fine to be pissed at Trevor, too. “Apparently you knew the truth about him being a Sullivan and related to this place. You’re clearly the reason he talked about how we should leave here and let things cool down.”
Trevor’s eyebrow lifted. “But your argument was more persuasive, I see.”
That tone kept her anger level on high. It spiked off the charts. “If you’re thinking about mentioning the condoms, don’t.”
“You already broke those out?” Trevor’s gaze switched to Damon. “I take back everything I’ve ever said about straight people being lame.”
“Are you done?” And by that she really meant do you want to die today.
Trevor swallowed his smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
“His father asked us to stay. At Sullivan. In a cabin or suite or something.” That offer still made her dizzy though she wasn’t sure why she bothered to mention it other than she now assumed everyone had the information in advance except for her.
“Sounds like you guys have been busy learning about each other.” Trevor looked back and forth between Cate and Damon before settling on his friend. “And you. What’s with spilling secrets you never tell anyone?”
Damon swore under his breath. “My father didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“You had to know this would come up when you accepted his invitation.” Trevor’s mouth still hung open. Nothing about his stunned expression had cleared.
Damon shrugged. “I wasn’t ready. This is not the kind of thing you just drop. And I thought Cate would immediately bolt. I wanted her to trust me a bit before she figured it out.”
“Trust?” He really didn’t know when to stop or how to make this better. In any other situation, she might feel sorry for him, but not today. Not on this.
The Protector Page 11
