Sam quietly crept into the office when she arrived. The lights were on, which meant Brody was already in, but his office door was closed. She wasn’t quite sure why she was bothering to sneak around. If Brody wanted to know if she was in, he would watch the cameras for her.
She made her way to her desk and found another fresh pink rose in the silver bud vase. Despite her anxiety, the single rose made her smile. It was romantic and sweet, and knowing now that Brody grew the rose himself made it all the more special. After getting to know Brody better this weekend, it was just the kind of thing she would expect from him.
Sam slid the rose to the corner of her desk and busied herself settling in and catching up, but after an hour with no word from Brody in person or via email, she began to worry again.
Somehow, she thought he’d come out to greet her. Or at least ask her for something. He usually buzzed her phone or sent her an instant message once an hour or so. And he’d made a point to always tell her good morning. But today, silence.
The rose was the only thing keeping her from going crazy with anxiety. She opted to focus on her work and try not to worry. He might be busy. His calendar looked open, but he might need to deal with personal matters. Sam had been to his home and taken his virginity, but she really knew very little about Brody’s past or his family. He didn’t talk about it aside from a few vague comments during dinner Saturday night. He wouldn’t have even brought up his family on Sunday morning if Sam hadn’t asked him about the picture. And even then, he immediately clammed up about it.
Even as secretive as Brody was, that struck her as odd. He obviously had family. They helped shape who you are as an adult. It was something that came up in conversation. But not once had she heard him mention something funny a brother had done or tell an interesting story about his family. His mother was a bad cook and his father would get angry about it. That small tidbit was enough to make Sam worry that he didn’t have the happiest of childhoods, even without his accident.
He hadn’t spoken about that, either. The expression on his face as she slipped off his shirt nearly broke her heart. It was so hard for him to expose himself to her like that. It seemed almost painful. And when she saw how far his scars extended across his chest and back, she was surprised and concerned. It was as though a rain of fire had poured down his body.
In addition to that, there were other scars of different types sprinkled across his chest and arms. Small circles, long gashes, deep welts. She hadn’t allowed herself to react to the sight of them because he was so self-conscious, but she was still concerned about the scars. What could’ve caused all these injuries? She couldn’t imagine an accident that could do all of this at once. To her, it looked like the results of years of painful abuse.
How long had it taken him to recover from all those injuries?
Sam looked over at the heavy, closed door to his office. Maybe he hadn’t recovered at all. Just physically.
Finally, a chime sounded at Sam’s computer. She looked down to see an email in her inbox from Brody. It was a forwarded message. His instructions were for her to print the attachments out on the color printer and bring them to him.
Sam scrolled down to the forwarded email. It was from a man named Mickey who worked at Top Secret Private Investigators. The note was brief in the email.
Hey, Brody. Here’s what you asked for. Nothing newsworthy on this one. Didn’t I run a background check on a secretary for you a few weeks ago? You’re going through them like tissue paper, man. Hope this one works out better for you. Let me know if you need anything else.
Sam’s stomach sank. Attached to the email was a background investigation on a woman named Deborah Wilder. From Mickey’s message, it sounded like this Deborah woman was her replacement. Because despite what he told her Saturday night, he was going to use her and toss her away like Luke had.
Tears stung Sam’s eyes as she opened the file and pressed the button to print the paperwork as requested. The first page had a picture of the woman. She was thirtysomething with dark hair and a round face. A little chubby. Not particularly attractive, but not unattractive, either. DMV photos were never the most flattering.
Sam’s hands were shaking as she picked the pages up off the printer. Looking into the brown eyes of her replacement fueled a fire in her stomach that turned her tears into anger. How dare he ask her to print out the information on her replacement! Was that his way of breaking the news to her? He couldn’t even tell her face-to-face?
She snatched the last page of the background check off the machine and pivoted on her heel toward his office. She slung the heavy door open, sending it banging against the wall and swinging back.
Brody stood up, startled, when he heard the racket. His smile of greeting immediately faded into a concerned frown when he saw the furious expression on Sam’s face.
“What the hell is this?” she asked, holding the pages up. “Is this how you planned to get rid of me? You can’t even tell me to my face?”
The lines of confusion in Brody’s forehead deepened as she spoke. Then his gaze darted to the papers in her hand and the photograph of Deborah Wilder on top. “Now, hold on,” he began, but Sam didn’t listen.
“You know, I believed you when you said you wouldn’t sleep with me and toss me aside. Ignorant of me, right? Stupid, trusting Samantha always believes what men tell her.”
“Just stop!” Brody yelled over her tirade.
Sam quieted down, but she was far from calm. Her heart was pounding, and her cheeks were hot and flush.
Brody turned to his computer and swore at the screen. “I forwarded you the wrong message,” he explained. “I wanted you to print out the quarterly financial reports.”
That didn’t make Sam feel any better. “So you’re still replacing me, but you didn’t want me to know yet. Nice.”
“No,” he insisted. “You’re not being fired. Or replaced. I don’t want you to go anywhere, Sam. Why would you think I would do that to you after everything that happened between us?”
Sam straightened the paperwork in her hand and started reading Mickey’s words back to him. “You’re going through them like tissue paper, man. Hope this one works out better for you.”
“I can explain that,” he said.
Sam planted her hands on her hips. “Great. I can’t wait to hear it.”
“Mickey is the guy I use for background investigations. I hired him to check on you. When I needed some information on someone else, it was easier for me to tell him it was for another secretary. I couldn’t tell him the truth.”
“Why not?”
Brody frowned at her and took a deep breath before he spoke. “I needed to protect my brother.”
“Is this one of the brothers from that picture?” she asked.
“Yes. I have three brothers and a sister. All of us were in that photo you saw in the hallway. My brother Xander is a Congressman. He’s been seeing that woman for a few weeks. They’ve kept it quiet, but he’s getting fairly serious about her. I wanted to make sure she didn’t have anything in her background that could hurt his reputation and chances of reelection next term.”
“You’re only investigating your brother’s girlfriend?” Sam immediately felt sheepish. The anger and hurt that had rushed through her just a moment ago spiraled away, leaving a hollow place in her chest. She had thrown a hissy fit for no reason.
“Yes.”
“And you’re not replacing me?”
Brody came out from behind his desk. He took the papers from her hand and set them aside before wrapping his arms around her. “How could I possibly do that?” he asked, hugging her tightly against his chest.
Sam sighed and snuggled against him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I overreacted. This weekend was so nice. It was almost too nice.”
“You’ve been burned before, Sam. That’s har
d to forget. It’s difficult to believe people when they tell you they would never hurt you like that. They have to prove themselves, but even then, a part of you just waits for the other shoe to drop. Believe me, I know all about that.”
Sam felt the truth in his words. He’d lived that and his scars were more than only physical ones. She should know better than to think he would do that to her. She hugged him tighter, trying to stave off the tears that threatened again for a different reason.
After a few moments, Brody pulled away. He looked down at her with his hands gently rubbing her upper arms through her sweater. “How does my calendar look at the end of this week?”
Sam shrugged. She hadn’t looked this morning. “I’m not sure. Last I checked, you were pretty open.”
“Good. And what about you? Do you have any personal plans, say, Wednesday through Sunday?”
Sam didn’t have many plans. The past few months of unemployment had put a massive dent in her social life. Even Amanda could barely lure her out of her apartment. “Nothing I know of.”
“All right. Today, I want you to clear my calendar of anything this week from Wednesday on. If it’s important, move it to Tuesday or next week. And Wednesday morning, I want you to be ready with a suitcase packed for a long weekend. I’ll come by your place to pick you up at eight.”
Sam’s eyes widened with surprise. He was taking her somewhere? Her heart started to flutter with excitement for a moment, but reality quickly set in. The logistics of travel with Brody would be complicated. They’d have to drive and stay in a private residence because anything else would require a hotel or an airplane. Someone would see him. Right? “Where are we going?” she asked.
Brody smiled and shook his head. “It’s a surprise.”
“And how will I know what I should pack?”
“Dress for warm weather. Very casual. Bring a swimsuit or two. That should be all you need. If I have things my way, you’ll be naked most of the time, anyhow.”
He leaned down to kiss her. Sam felt a thrill run down her spine when his lips touched hers. A rush of excitement and arousal pumped through her veins as she molded her body against his.
“Okay,” he said, finally pulling away. “That’s about all I can handle of that right now, or I’m going to bend you over the pinball machine.”
Sam smiled and reluctantly stepped back. “If you insist.” She eyed the pinball machine for a moment but opted against pushing him. At least for today.
* * *
Brody watched Sam walk out of his office, admiring her snug curves in the skirt she’d worn today. She had an excellent collection of fitted skirts. They were modest in length, with only a small slit up the back to hint at the creamy flesh of her thigh. But now that he knew what delights were hidden beneath that fabric, he had a whole new appreciation for the seductive sway of her hips.
But after she shut the door, the smile faded from his face and he returned to his computer.
How had he made such a stupid mistake? To send Sam the wrong email? Now he knew what his brothers joked about when they said they had sex on the brain. It was a total distraction. Before their weekend together, he would fantasize about her, and now his mind kept drifting back to their time together. He’d had Sam four times in the past two days. There were plenty of images seared in his mind and they kept leaping into his thoughts without invitation.
This could’ve been a major problem. Thank goodness he’d managed to come up with the story about Xander’s non-existent girlfriend. Normally, he didn’t like talking about his family—biological or foster. Brody Eden was a ghost. Part of that was not having a past or giving anyone a way to trace him back to being Brody Butler. The press was always looking for an angle to dig up information on him. But this was more important. Sam was held by the confidentiality agreement, and he’d rather talk about his family than tell her what the email was really about.
Sam had bought it without asking any questions he couldn’t answer. Her only concern was that this person was her replacement, and he was able to quell those fears with his tale. Fortunately, she hadn’t looked closely enough at the report to notice Deborah was recently married with a new baby and didn’t live anywhere near Washington D.C.
He shook his head and forwarded her the quarterly report he’d intended to send the first time. Then he reached for the paperwork Sam brought in.
The papers were a little crinkled from the angry way she’d clutched them, but they would do. He’d been reading over the digital copy when Sam burst into his office. He’d been so engrossed in the material, he hadn’t noticed she had arrived for the morning. He would’ve stepped out to say hello. Ignoring her had probably dumped fuel on the fire.
But it didn’t take long to scan the pages and realize he had bigger problems than an angry, sexy secretary.
Finding out the real name of dwilder27 hadn’t been hard. An evening at home had traced the IP address and with a little digging, he had the name and address of the account owner. From there, he opted to have Mickey do the legwork. The guy was pretty trustworthy when it came to these things. He’d done a great job finding information on his brother Wade’s fiancée, Tori. He’d been very thorough on Sam. And judging by the papers in his hands, Mickey had done just as good a job on Deborah Wilder.
He knew it would be a relative of Tommy’s. Who else would look for him after all this time? Finding out it was his only sister was a bigger problem. Some curious, estranged relative might be prone to look up someone on the internet from time to time. But they would let it go if they didn’t find what they were looking for fairly easily. Not a sister. A sister would keep digging until she found her brother.
That was an issue. He hadn’t mentioned anything to his brothers yet. He didn’t want to alarm them if it was nothing. But this was something. They needed to know in case Deborah started sniffing around Cornwall looking for the trail Tommy had left for her to follow.
It should be a dead end. Everyone in town would tell her the story they knew as the truth—Tommy had run away from his foster home right before his eighteenth birthday and was never seen or heard from again. Good riddance, as far as most of them were concerned. He and his brothers were fortunate in that way. If they had to be involved in someone’s death, at least it was someone most people wouldn’t miss. Tommy had been arrested several times for assault and theft. His own parents couldn’t handle him and the state had taken him away. Tommy Wilder was trouble; a kid no one but the Edens would even take in. If anyone could get through to him, it was Molly and Ken. But even they couldn’t work their magic on him.
Once he came to the Garden of Eden, he immediately started problems. He’d stolen from Molly’s cash drawer at the gift shop. He refused to do his share of chores. He’d gotten in a fight with Wade over that and blackened his eye. And none of the boys liked the way he looked at Julianne, who was only thirteen at the time.
Tommy was a ticking time bomb. If he had made it to his eighteenth birthday and left the farm, he would’ve ended up in jail. Someone would’ve gotten hurt or worse.
That’s what Brody told himself when he thought about that night. Tommy’s death hadn’t been deliberate, but it had protected the future victims he hadn’t gotten around to yet.
Brody picked up the phone and dialed his brother Wade. Wade had lived in Manhattan for years but recently moved back to Cornwall when his fiancée, Tori, finished building their home. It had been a long process, but they’d moved into their massive dream house at the end of September.
If Deborah Wilder showed up in Cornwall, Wade would be the first in the family to know it.
“Hey, Brody,” Wade answered, sounding chipper as usual. After he proposed to Tori and their worries about the body being discovered were put to bed, his older brother had tried to forget about their past. He wanted to focus on his upcoming marriage and building their life together.
Brody hated to ruin the bliss, but Wade had to know what was going on. “Hi, Wade. Do you have a private minute? I need to talk to you about something important.”
“Sure,” Wade said, a serious tone creeping into his voice. “Tori’s working in her office upstairs. I’ll step out onto the deck in case she comes out.”
Brody could hear the doors open and the wind against the speaker as Wade moved to the patio with the panoramic view of the valley below. “I’ve gotten a hit on my search query for Tommy. I did some research and it turns out that it’s Tommy’s younger sister, Deborah. She’s looking for him, Wade.”
There was a moment of silence on the phone. Brody had a bad reputation for being the buzzkill of the family, but this couldn’t be dismissed as his paranoia.
“What have you found out?” Wade finally responded.
“I got the first hit about a week ago and started looking into the user’s information. Since then, she’s tried a couple more times with different search strings, but she hasn’t had any luck. I’m worried she might come to town and start asking questions. I wanted you to be prepared since you’ll likely hear about it first if she does.”
“Okay. I’ll put a bug in Skippy’s ear.”
Skippy was the bartender who worked in the local Cornwall watering hole, the Wet Hen. He was a hundred-and-fifty years old if he was a day, with skin like aged leather and hearing like a dog. “Do you really think you can trust Skippy with something like this?”
“Absolutely. Skippy knows everything that goes on in this town. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Skippy already knows about Tommy and what happened. He’s a bartender. He’s paid to listen and not talk. If he wanted to, he could probably blackmail half the county with the things he knows. He wouldn’t tell a soul. Besides, if she shows up, odds are, she’ll end up at the Hen. I can count on him to let me know the moment she arrives, even if I don’t tell him why it’s important.”
A Beauty Uncovered Page 10
