Embracing Danger

by Olivia Jaymes

  “I’m just worried about you. Are you still feeling numb?”

  Taking a moment to answer, Arden thought hard about how she felt at this very moment. She’d been avoiding taking any sort of inventory but that couldn’t, and wouldn’t, last forever.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t really know how I feel right now except that it’s a mixture of so many emotions. I feel angry at my father and grandmother that they kept so many important things from me. I feel hopeful that my uncle will live through surgery and I’ll get to meet and talk to him. Even if he isn’t my real father I’d like to get to know him, especially since he loved my mother. And I feel sad that you and I lost so many years. Even though I can’t be sorry because I did what I thought was right at the time, it’s still sad. We loved each other all along. When I left, I only wanted you to be happy.”

  That was a bunch of sloppy emotion and so far she’d been able to control it but she didn’t know how long that would last.

  “I was happy…in a way. I just wasn’t happily in love.” He grinned and bumped her foot under the table with his own. “You’re worth the wait.”

  The ice cube encasing her heart cracked a little. “So are you.”

  His fingers played with hers across the table. “Did you love your husband?”

  The flash of hurt in Shane’s eyes when he asked the question made the guilt churn in her gut. “I cared about him as a person but we were really friends. We both went into the marriage with eyes wide open and I hoped that we could be happy with friendship and respect. Turns out it wasn’t possible. He fell for his assistant and last I heard they were very happy together.”

  “I can put a hurt on the guy for you, if you want.”

  She was tempted but Michael was the past. He didn’t deserve any more of her thoughts.

  “Save the offer for my father. I have a feeling the next time I see him things are going to get ugly.”

  Shane paid the check and they left the restaurant to head back to the hospital. Standing on the front sidewalk, he helped Arden pull on her jacket, tickling her ear with a strand of hair. He was standing close to her, their bodies touching, so when he froze she felt it instantly. He was staring across the street to the entrance of the hospital.

  Her own gaze followed to where a man was climbing out of a cab. “What?”

  “That’s your dad.”

  She did a double-take and realized Shane was right. Her father, the man they’d been searching for, was paying his cab fare. She waved her arms in the air and hopped up and down.

  “Dad!” she bellowed as loud as she could. She wouldn’t let him get away from her after everything they’d gone through when he disappeared. “Ben Cavendish, look over here!”

  The yellow taxi pulled away, leaving her father standing on the sidewalk staring right back at them. Shane grabbed her hand and they started to cross the street.

  That’s when Ben ran.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‡

  Ben Cavendish didn’t have a prayer of being able to outrun Shane. The younger man kept himself in top shape at the gym and with a pickup game of football with a bunch of guys at the park once a week when the weather was decent. Ben, on the other hand, might watch what he ate but he hadn’t done anything more than a brisk walk in years. The outcome had been decided far in advance.

  Reaching out his hand, Shane grabbed Ben’s arm as the older man darted down an alleyway. Slamming him into the brick wall, Shane placed his elbow under his hopefully future father-in-law’s chin and got right in his face. He was pissed the hell off that someone who was supposed to love his daughter had been so selfish.

  “Stop struggling and tell me where in the fuck you’ve been,” Shane growled. “Arden has been worried sick and damn if you don’t have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. She’s found out a thing or two about you, Ben, and guess what? None of it’s good, not that it shocks me.”

  Ben’s hand came up to push Shane’s arm away. “Let me go. I won’t run.”

  Loosening his hold but not stepping back, Shane snorted in derision. “It wouldn’t matter. I’d just catch up with you again.”

  Ben’s gaze darted up and down the alley, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Where’s Arden?”

  “I left her at the entrance to the hospital. But I think we should start asking the questions. Are you ready to start telling the truth for once in your completely self-absorbed life?”

  Ben shoved Shane but it barely moved him from where he stood. Not long ago, the older man might have been able to mix it up more but now he looked aged and defeated. Even his face looked grayer and with more lines, along with the purple circles under his eyes. Ben looked like he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in days.

  Good. Neither had his daughter and it was all Cavendish’s fault.

  * * *

  The three of them were back in the restaurant, this time with cups of coffee instead of lunch. Ben kept his gaze on the table, barely able to look Arden in the eye, which angered Shane, but then everything her father did pissed him off in general. A man had to take responsibility for his actions and it didn’t appear that Ben was ready to do that.

  Shane would have to persuade him.

  “I’ve been worried sick,” Arden said flatly, giving her father no wriggle room. “You left with barely a word. I thought something horrible might have happened to you by one of your unsavory business associates. Do you ever think about anyone but yourself?”

  “I don’t have–” Ben began, but Arden shook her head to stop him from going any farther.

  “Save your denials. I’ve known for a long time. I’m not a little girl anymore.” She leaned forward, tears shining in her eyes. Underneath the table, Shane placed his hand on her thigh and squeezed, letting her know he was there. “In fact, it looks like I’m not even your little girl at all. Did you know that? Did Grandmother? Were you ever going to tell me the truth about my mother and David?”

  Ben’s head jerked up and his eyes grew wide. “What–What do mean? Of course you’re my little girl.”

  “The coroner’s report says something different. You and Mom can’t both be O when I’m A positive. Is David my real father?”

  His face growing red, Ben pounded the table with his fist and heads whipped around to stare. “I am your real father. I raised you. David wasn’t capable of taking care of himself, much less a wife and child. I love you, Arden, and you are my daughter, blood or not. I tried to give you the best life I could and part of that was moving you out of Hemingdale and away from the past.”

  Shane felt the tension leak from Arden’s body. “Then he is my biological father.”

  Ben shrugged, his lips in a grim line. “What does it matter after all this time? He’s a fuck-up and always has been. I’m your father in the ways that matter.”

  “Yet you were coming to the hospital to see him,” Shane stated, not feeling even a particle of sympathy for Ben. He’d brought all this on himself. If Arden never spoke to him again, she’d be justified. He’d lied and obfuscated about some pretty damn important things.

  “He is my brother.” The older man hesitated and then exhaled heavily. “The fact is it might be partially my fault.”

  Shane didn’t know what Ben was talking about, but again the man wasn’t willing to accept any responsibility.

  “What are you talking about, Dad? What might be your fault?”

  “Partially my fault,” Cavendish corrected. “It’s not all my fault. David was acting crazy, yelling accusations and waving the gun around telling me to leave.”

  “A gun?” Shane groaned and struggled to rein in his temper. Ben Cavendish needed a good punch to the gut. Hollis might as well. “I think you need to start from the beginning.”

  Ben took a gulp of his coffee and didn’t speak right away, obviously formulating his words. To Shane’s shame he couldn’t help but wonder if Arden’s father was trying to make whatever story he was about to tell shine him in a better light.

&nbs
p; Cynicism was an ugly thing. But then Ben had never gone out of his way to show Shane any of his good qualities. Far from it.

  “Elaine called me a few weeks ago. She said David had suffered a heart attack a few months before and was now making noises about wanting to tell Arden the truth about him being her father. I guess he thought he didn’t want to die without talking to her or something. Anyway, once Elaine indicated that David was serious I knew that I had to find him and talk him out of it.”

  Arden held up a hand. “Wait. Grandmother knew where your brother was all this time? She knew that he was my father?”

  “She didn’t know his location but she knew he was your biological father.” Ben shook his head. “But she talked to him once or twice a year since he left Hemingdale. She thought it was a good idea to keep in touch with him so we could make sure he would stay away from you.”

  “Because you didn’t want me to know that truth?” Arden replied, bitterness in her tone. “Heaven forbid that I should have any idea about my life. Even my last name isn’t real.”

  “I changed my name legally so it certainly is your last name.” Ben slapped the cup down on the table and a splash of coffee sloshed onto the table. “I was trying to protect you from a murderer, Arden. David is my brother but I firmly believe he killed Susannah. He killed your mother, sweetheart.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‡

  Months from now, Arden might look back on all this emotional drama with her family and laugh, but right now all she wanted to do was cry. Every time she thought she knew the truth there would a twist and she’d end up speechless and hurting.

  “David killed Mom? Are you sure?”

  She’d barely been able to get the words out but Shane’s strong arm around her shoulders gave her just enough strength to spit them out.

  “I’m sure,” her father answered grimly. “He was there that night, I just know it. I don’t care what all those other witnesses say. He wanted Susannah to leave me for him and she wouldn’t. He was a drunk, for God’s sake. When she wouldn’t leave, he shot her in a drunken rage.”

  Her gaze flickered from her father to Shane who didn’t look impressed, but then they’d never had much of a relationship, let alone a good one.

  “Is that something you can prove or is this just a theory?” Shane queried. “Because you had a powerful motive as well. A couple of them actually.”

  Ben’s face went from red to purple, his anger almost palpable in the small booth they were sitting in. “That’s a nasty thing to say, Anderson. I loved my wife.”

  “But she loved your brother,” Shane said smoothly, his eyes narrowed to slits. “He’d fathered a child that you had to take responsibility for and raise as your own. Not many men would take kindly to that.”

  Ben shook his head vigorously. “I loved Arden. I wouldn’t take her mother from her.”

  “But can you prove it?” Shane persisted.

  Her father’s shoulders slumped and he shook his head. “No, I can’t. According to the cops, David was at a bar and then with a woman all night. They say he couldn’t have killed her. But there are witnesses that place David running from the scene.”

  “One witness. But it was dark that night, Ben, and you and your brother look a hell of a lot alike.”

  “I was out of town,” the older man bit out with a growl. “The police were able to confirm that.”

  Arden had had enough of this pissing contest. She loved Shane and she loved her father – although she didn’t like him very much right now – and somehow they were going to need to learn to get along.

  “Stop it. Both of you just stop it.” Arden signaled to the waitress for more coffee although she’d rather have a whiskey. “Dad, please continue your story. You went to find your brother, leaving a cryptic note. Was it you that ran me off the road the night of the party?”

  Nodding, Ben took another drink of his coffee. “It was Barnes, your grandmother’s chauffeur. I told him I was in a hurry to catch a plane. I’m sorry we scared you but I knew if we stopped you’d try and talk me out of leaving or worse, I’d break down and tell you where I was going. I couldn’t let you do that.”

  “So you left your daughter on the side of a dark, deserted road. Great parenting. Did you come straight here?” Shane asked.

  Ben steepled his fingers and nodded. “It took a while to find him but I ended up in Chicago a few days ago. When I finally got an address, I went to see him this morning. I went there to ask him to leave you alone but he was yelling that he’d made a mistake letting a murderer raise his daughter. He said he was sober now and that he wanted to get to know you. Hell, I knew I couldn’t let that happen.”

  Ben Cavendish, businessman extraordinaire, once again trying to control her life. That habit needed to be broken. Now.

  “That wasn’t your call to make,” Arden said, putting as much acid into her tone as possible. “I make the decisions in my life. Not you. You and I have a very serious issue with our relationship. If you don’t want to be cut completely out of my life you’re going to need to learn to respect the boundaries I set.”

  Ben turned to Shane, anger blazing, almost standing up in the booth. “This is your fault. You’ve turned her against me. I suppose you told her you still love her or some bullshit like that? Did you tell her you’ve been fucking your way through the female population of southern Montana?”

  “Sit down,” Arden hissed, grabbing at her father’s arm and tugging until he fell back onto the vinyl seat. “You’re not going to do this again. You’re not going to play us off one another to get your own way. Shane and I are together again. If you can’t deal with that and be happy for us, you know where the door is.”

  Her previously purple father turned ash gray. “Together? You’re…together again?”

  Shane grinned and raised his coffee cup as if in salute. “We are, and there won’t be any tampering with the relationship this time. Your daughter just might end up an Anderson.”

  They’d never talked about marriage but they had spoken about commitment and forever. It was still a shock, however, to think that she might become Arden Anderson if they didn’t screw things up this time.

  Ben Cavendish looked like he might have a stroke. “An Anderson? My little girl is not going to become an Anderson. Over my dead body.”

  Shane shrugged, his smile still wide. “Whatever works.”

  “Now you stop it.” Arden smacked Shane on the arm. “Stop arguing like children. You both are going to have to find a way to get along so you might as well start now.”

  “I can get along with anyone,” Shane declared, casually sipping his coffee. “Just keep Daddy from trying to interfere in our lives and all will be well.”

  “You foul-mouthed–” Ben snarled but Arden held up both hands before smacking them down on the table, effectively shutting him up. Shit, if she’d known that would work she would have done it years ago.

  “Father, please continue your story. Shane, please stop baiting my father.”

  Shane placed his arm across her shoulders and settled back into the booth. Her father, on the other hand, didn’t appear nearly as relaxed as he added sugar to his coffee and then twisting the empty paper packet between his fingers until it was confetti.

  “David was waving around a gun and yelling so I tried to get it from him. I was afraid it would go off accidentally. We struggled and the gun went off, shooting him in the chest. I panicked and ran out of the back of the building and went back to my hotel to change clothes. Then I came over here to check on him.”

  “Did you call 911?” Shane demanded. “Did you put pressure on the gunshot wound until emergency services arrived?”

  Ben’s gaze had dropped to the table and he shook his head. “No, I said that I panicked. People might think I have motive to want him dead.”

  Shane snorted and began to laugh but it didn’t sound happy. “You do have motive. More than one. So let me understand your story here… You struggled with your bro
ther but you didn’t want him dead. But when the gun accidentally went off, you didn’t help him in any way, shape, or form, instead leaving him to die in a pool of his own blood and not even calling 911. That literally would have been the least you could do. That’s cold, old man, even for you.”

  Arden wanted to chastise Shane for speaking to her father that way but she couldn’t argue with what he said, only the tone he’d used to say it. It did sound horrible and cruel, and a few other things she didn’t even want to put names to.

  Dammit, it sounded suspicious. She’d already had her doubts about her father’s innocence and now his brother – and her father – was fighting for his life on an operating table. Shane had said that he didn’t believe in coincidences and frankly neither did she.

  She did believe that David had made statements about coming to see her, especially if he’d felt the weight of his mortality after his heart attack. She also believed her father took off secretly to convince him to stay away. Ben Cavendish took secrecy to a whole different level than regular folks.

  But everything else? She wasn’t so sure. He’d lied to her too many times to give him the benefit of the doubt. And that hurt…thinking her father might be capable of murdering her own mother.

  That happy numbness she’d experienced earlier wasn’t doing its job. She was angry and in physical pain, and that fury was focused on the older man sitting across from her. Because of the decisions he’d made she was hurting, deeply, and she didn’t know when it would stop.

  Arden made her decision right then and there.

  “Father, listen to me. Shane and I are going to get up and walk over to the hospital to see how David is doing. You can go with us if you like but you may not speak to me or spend time with me unless you go to the police and explain what happened. That will go a long way toward helping me believe what you said.”

  Ben reared back, shaking his head in denial. “They’ll throw me in jail. I can’t go to the police.”

  Picking up her purse, she pulled the strap onto her shoulder. “Then I’m walking out of here. I don’t want to hear from you or see you. If you can’t be honest and straight then I have to doubt your word. You’ve lied so many times to me. Both you and Grandmother. You’ve broken my trust and I can’t be around you right now.”