“Do not answer his question.” Beck pointed in her direction but took a threatening step toward his brother. All that movement had the towel slipping in another round of penis hide-and-seek. He caught the edge and bunched the cotton right over the area in question as he looked at Callen. “And you. Drop it before we get sued by one more person.”
“Lucky for all of you, I don’t feel particularly harassed or inclined to sue, but I am ready for us all to move on,” Sophie said. Hell, she’d throw her body down the steps if that would end this conversation and get her plan back on track.
Beck nodded before turning to Callen. “And, really, it’s not what you think. She was acting like she’s never seen a man naked before, so I—”
“Oh, come on.” The final pieces of her humble-servant act crumbled. She held back a frustrated sigh, but just barely. “I thought we were done with this topic.”
Callen glanced at her again. “You have seen one, haven’t you?”
She inched closer to full-on head explosion. “Okay, well, thanks for the entertainment, gentlemen, but I’m done.”
The bathroom was about a foot too small for the three of them to stand there, and with each new comment the walls closed in. She shoved past Callen and managed to get one foot into the hall before she turned back to Beck. “Put on your clothes and get out of there so I can clean.”
This new frown had his whole face pinched. “Since when do you get to order me around?”
She knew she should have said “please” but she couldn’t bring herself to be that civil at the moment. “Since I’m working.”
“That isn’t really an answer.”
She slipped her second foot out of the confining space. “I’ll be waiting in the sewing room.”
“I’m still trying to believe we have one of those.” Callen didn’t move, but his mumbling was tough to miss.
The Hanover stubbornness made a nerve at the back of her neck pinch. Never mind they were sons of a notorious con man and life had handed them a shitty load. She had a job to do.
She’d almost made the first getaway step when Beck opened his mouth again. “And I’m still waiting for Sophie to tell me why the sight of my penis makes her all twitchy.”
“Subtle,” Callen said.
She came to a sudden stop and shot them a frown over her shoulder. Beck’s towel barely covered anything now. She spied a peek of hair and a lot of skin. If she didn’t know better she’d say he was holding it that way on purpose. He wanted her to look. Challenged her to look.
The man clearly was trying to kill her . . . or her control. “That topic is closed.”
Beck nodded. “We can continue it later.”
“I meant forever.”
Callen shook his head. “That’s unfortunate for Beck.”
She’d officially stuck around this house too long. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
She skipped the sewing room and the search and headed downstairs to what she hoped was a Hanover-free zone. With any luck, her breathing would kick-start once she got there.
Chapter Two
Callen stared out the bathroom door in the general direction of Sophie’s great escape. “Is it my imagination or is she testier than usual? Maybe it was all that penis talk or seeing you naked. That could turn off any sane woman.”
“I didn’t notice.” Beck unclenched his fist from the towel, surprised he hadn’t ripped right through the thick cotton.
Sophie, him naked . . . yeah, that combination had been swimming around in his head for over a month now. He got half-hard and all-stupid whenever she showed up with that damn cleaning bucket. He had to move out of Sweetwater or pretty soon his brain would be all fucked up and he’d be unable to get an erection without a mop nearby.
Maybe it was the smoking ass or those slim jeans Sophie wore, but something had him engaging in a sudden bout of exhibitionism. Last time he acted like that was in high school on a dark night fueled by too much beer, too little common sense and Suzy Long stripping out of her underwear before jumping into Donner Lake.
The sixteen-year-old version of him nearly ripped off skin getting his jeans off to join her. Just his luck he grew up in Truckee, one of the parts of California without an ocean coastline or year-round sunshine, so when he could get a girl outside and naked he didn’t waste time.
Different state and time, but all he wanted now was a very naked and very willing Sophie Clarke. She had long wavy hair that walked the line between black and brown and the biggest whiskey brown eyes he’d ever seen. Mix it together with the tight petite body and quiet way she moved in and out of a room before you saw her and you had one scary woman. Not dangerous, but far too appealing for his comfort.
Last thing he needed was an attraction to a woman living in Sweetwater who pretended not to have secrets. Two of his least favorite things. The actual town, with its almost a thousand residents, sat in a small valley with a thick forest on one side and the ocean on the other. Thanks to his father’s alleged crimes, all but about ten of the people who lived there had a nasty reaction to the Hanover last name, and Beck still wasn’t clear where Sophie fell on the pro/con list.
Callen didn’t trust her and Declan wanted to. Being this close to her made Beck miss the political red tape involved in his job. It was tempting to forget his temporary leave and head back to Reno and perform his assessment of the Legal Services office. From there he could move on to the other Nevada offices he had to check in on. Be anywhere Sophie wasn’t before the last of his common sense crashed.
First he had to calm his lower half down and get his brother out of the room.
Beck tied the towel around his waist and turned on the faucet. Splashing ice-cold water on his face didn’t do much for the blood thumping through him and pounding his dick.
He braced his hands on the cool sides of the ceramic pedestal sink and eyed his older brother. “Any chance I could have a minute of privacy?”
Callen finally broke off his Sophie surveillance. “She tends to walk into a room, shoot me a fake smile then race away before we say two words to each other.”
So much for getting a minute alone. “Do you blame her?”
Beck watched her act like that with both of his brothers. With him, she glanced his way and then her smile fell. Not the most flattering female reaction ever.
Callen gave one last stare into empty space. “Maybe it really was seeing you naked that threw her off her game this time.”
Beck turned the water off and stood up. “And maybe you could shut the hell up.”
“I don’t see that happening.” Callen crossed his arms over his chest and closed one eye as if pretending to weigh his options. “Clearly I need to tell Declan about what happened in here and—”
“Let it drop.” An all-Hanover audience to his obvious reaction to Sophie was just about the last thing Beck needed. Strike that, the last.
“Why would I when it seems to tick you off?”
Clearly Callen was enjoying this too much. That guaranteed Beck didn’t. “What are you, like, ten years old?”
“Almost thirty-five but you’re not the first person to suggest otherwise, which brings me to my next question.”
“Damn it.” Beck didn’t even have to hear it to get ticked off.
“How’s the get-Sophie-into-bed plan coming along?”
Beck stepped around Callen and glanced into the hallway, relieved it was empty. “Could you maybe keep your voice down?”
“So, you’re not denying it this time. That’s progress. Last week you insisted you never noticed her, though I don’t know how that can be true with her being around all the time, looking like that.”
Shit. Living on top of each other in this house had its upsides, like getting to know each other after years apart. But this kind of conversation was a definite downside. “I don’t know what you’re talking ab
out.”
“Yeah, it’s too late to deny this time.”
Beck dropped his head back and stared at the chipping paint on the ceiling. There wasn’t one inch of this old house that didn’t need work. It teetered on the edge of bankruptcy and seemingly every victim of their father’s cons wanted whatever equity the house might have left. Never mind the fact Charlie never owned the house or even lived in it.
Charlie grew up in Sweetwater but the house purchase came much later, years after. According to Sweetwater lore, Dad had skipped town with the contents of the town’s bank accounts. Grandmother bought the house later in life for well under market price. When grandmother died, since Charlie died before her, Beck and his brothers inherited the place, including the outbuildings and the acres of wooded area around it. And the debt.
In light of the low original sales price, the reason behind the current high mortgage on the property was just one of the many questions Beck had to answer. He vowed to get to that after he changed the burnt-out bulb over the mirror and figured out what the black spot in the ceiling corner might be. Even though he liked sticking his brothers with the manual labor, maybe doing some would help him work off some of the Sophie-induced energy racing through him.
“There isn’t anything between us.” He mumbled the phrase more to convince himself than Callen.
“Man, that is so not true. If I had a camera I could show you what really just happened in here.” Callen lifted his chin in the direction of Beck’s lower half. “Or do you always get a hard-on after your shower?”
No way was Beck answering that one. “I meant other than attraction. We haven’t tried anything. No touching. Nothing.”
“Yet.”
“I didn’t say that.” But he wanted to. Sweet hell, he wanted to.
Callen pushed away from the wall and slid closer into the hallway. “I have eyes, even though between you and Declan and your respective love lives I’m seriously considering poking them out.”
“She’s our employee.” A line Beck crossed in his head every five seconds as he mentally stripped her jeans off and . . . shit, the woman sucked away every ounce of his common sense.
“She was pretty clear she doesn’t plan on filing a harassment charge, though the bumbling comment about your dick there at the end might change her mind.”
Beck couldn’t even think about that now. Stalking women was not his style. Neither was trapping them in the bathroom and embarrassing them. He’d probably have to apologize to her for that, even though a new mental image of her climbing into a shower with him now refused to leave his brain.
“Did you want something when you came upstairs other than to annoy the piss out of me?” he asked mostly because he hoped fighting with Callen might help him burn off whatever voodoo crap Sophie used on him.
“We have a problem.”
Beck wondered if he’d gone even one day without hearing that phrase since they all met up at Shadow Hill more than a month ago. Back then the plan was to sell, but Declan fell for hometown sweetheart Leah and suddenly everything changed. Beck still wasn’t sure how he’d lost the sell-the-damn-house vote.
“If we only have one issue I’d consider this a good day.” Which was his way of saying “not now.”
Callen ignored the hint. “A major one.”
Beck looked for his deodorant in the box of supplies on the back of the toilet and wondered how many other guys had to go through this crap just to get a hot shower. “What is it?”
“Sophie.”
When Beck jerked, the trial-sized bottles rattled and the box crashed to the tile floor. “Didn’t we just go through this?”
Callen watched the bottles roll around near his feet. “Not the sex-with-you part. She’s still searching for something rather than just asking us to help her.”
Not this again. Callen had been harping on this angle from the first time he walked into his third-floor room and saw Sophie cleaning it.
“It’s called ‘dusting’,” Beck said.
“Declan told me he agreed to pay her to come once a week. Reality is she’s here almost every day and the place is barely cleaner.”
The man had a point. Sophie had the hot thing down, but cleaning? Not so much. Still, Beck wasn’t in the mood to argue with Callen over this for what felt like the hundredth time. “She’s dedicated to our grandmother’s memory but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s the best housekeeper out there.”
Callen rolled his eyes. “Grandmother’s memory? I know you’re a lawyer and all, but what kind of talk is that?”
“The grown-up kind.”
“Are you sticking with that answer or waiting for a better one to weasel into your brain?”
“Damn it, Cal.” Since he didn’t have any argument, Beck went with indignation. A little blame-the-victim might buy some time until he could figure out what Sophie really was hiding, because it was something. Unless everyone dusted the inside of books. Beck had walked into more than one room and caught her doing that weird-ass thing.
Her name wasn’t in any of his legal files or information about his grandmother’s debts. Nothing he could find in any threatening letter or lawsuit tied Sophie to Charlie’s cons, which was what Beck most cared about. His goal was to sever the last of the Charlie ties, not add more.
In Beck’s mind, Sophie and his grandmother had some sort of deal or agreement or something similar that had Sophie working for her almost for free and checking every shelf now that Grandmother was gone. Beck could imagine his grandmother borrowing money or collateral from Sophie and Sophie trying to get it back. Most people liked Nanette Hanover. Beck barely knew her, but she doted on her beloved son and never believed the charges against Charlie. The idea of Charlie learning his con moves at home wasn’t exactly a stretch.
Beck had tried to get to the issue by specifically asking, but Sophie’s “of course not” response had proved less than believable. Whatever she was doing there, and Cal was right that it involved searching, it didn’t appear to connect to his brothers or Charlie, and for now that satisfied Beck.
Then there was the part where he wanted her to come to him, to open up. Sophie would spill when she was ready. Or so he kept telling himself as the days without an answer ticked by.
Until she did cough up an explanation, Beck had to deal with the brother problem. “Not everyone is trying to screw us.”
Callen exhaled, even managed to groan a little. “That’s not my experience.”
“Some people don’t care about the Hanover family.”
“Says the lawyer who reminds me every ten seconds how many people have filed claims against Charlie’s and Grandmother’s estates.”
For a guy who hated lawyers, Callen was starting to argue like one. Beck knew that meant trouble. “Sophie thinks she’s doing us a favor. She thinks she owes Grandmother because she worked here before Grandmother died.”
“I don’t buy it. There’s something else going on. I know I agreed to back off and let her open up to us without harassing her, but only because you were so pathetic about it with the whole ‘we shouldn’t assume the worst’ bullshit—”
“I asked and you agreed without all the whining you’re doing now.”
“—but my patience is gone.” Callen swore when he moved his foot and stepped in a puddle of goop forming around a dropped shampoo bottle.
That explained the sudden smell of eucalyptus. “But yet you want me to sleep with Sophie?”
“I figure that’s inevitable.” Callen bent down and scooped up the overturned bottle. He dumped it in the sink and let it bounce around in there, thumping like a drum. “I just want you to know who’s sharing your bed. I’m convinced we don’t know anything about Sophie other than her mediocre cleaning skills, her ability to make you stupid and how good she looks in a pair of jeans.”
Every argument slammed to a stop in Beck’s
head. “What did you just say?”
“I’m not blind, man.”
The idea of Callen seeing Sophie as a woman, of anyone seeing her that way, started a hammering at the base of Beck’s neck. “You think she’s out to hurt us?”
“No, and for the record, you sound like a girl when you say it like that.”
“I think this isn’t really about us, just like Leah’s initial anger toward us, which you reciprocated, was not about us. It was about our fathers and pointless and should never have kept Declan and Leah apart. And I’ll point out how you now seem to think Leah is the best thing to happen to Declan since the Army.”
“I’m careful.”
Beck wondered if Callen knew the definition of the word. “You’re a pessimist.”
“Because Sophie’s I’m-just-here-to-clean story doesn’t add up. If you’d stop thinking with your dick, you’d admit I’m right.”
Beck decided to ignore that last part since it struck a bit too close to the truth. His sick and seemingly never-ending need to rip Sophie’s clothes off or not, Beck didn’t want Callen running through some half-assed investigation and insulting Sophie. Enough people falsely accused them of following in their con man father’s footsteps that Beck never rushed to judge others, though it was getting harder to wait for Sophie.
But now he needed both of his brothers to follow his lead. “Do me a favor—”
“If you put on some pants.”
“—let me handle Sophie.”
Silence descended on the room. A second ago Beck would have paid money for the quiet. Now it made him nervous.
After what felt to Beck like an hour but probably barely hit a minute, Callen shifted his weight and started talking. “You asked that before.”
“I’m asking again.”
He smacked his lips together, narrowed his eyes, ran through the entire disapproving oldest brother thing before he spoke. “Is it that you think I’d mess it up or that you’re afraid I’ll scare her away?”
Both. “I’d rather not have one more person sue us.”
A Simple Twist of Fate Page 2
