Dinner went well last night and he’d asked her to breakfast. Just coffee, he said. She declined but by the time they’d pulled back into her driveway after the amazing Italian dinner, she changed her answer to yes. He hadn’t kissed her. Insisted she had to ask, per his date agreement.
Then he canceled breakfast.
Leaving the cryptic text this morning about needing to do some work didn’t help the situation. Hell, they hadn’t even agreed to date. Well, not technically. But when a guy offered breakfast, he should supply breakfast. She took that to mean Callen had said something to get Declan to back off.
The idiot.
Two idiots, actually.
She skipped knocking on the front door and swung around the side of the house. She refused to sneak since it wasn’t her style. And she wanted him to see her coming, full-on and tired of whatever game he insisted they play. The man had held her, shirt up and body ready to go, and now he acted like he barely knew her name.
Oh, hell no.
With a gaze traveling over the wide expanse of the backyard, she hunted for him. She headed for the work shed, figuring he was hiding behind a wall of hammers. Bad idea since she might take one down and use it on his thick skull.
“You look ready for battle.” Declan’s voice had her spinning around.
In her anger, she brushed right past him, not even seeing him. Which said something about the power of her inner grumblings because he was not an easy man to miss. He stood next to the rusting swing set with its crooked right side and a seat hanging from one falling chain.
With the nip in the air he wore a plaid shirt unbuttoned to hint at a white Henley underneath. Faded jeans that hugged his muscular thighs rounded out the outfit. Sexy and rough with hint of danger. The man wore casual better than any man she’d ever known.
His rolled-up sleeves showed off those forearms she loved to smooth her palms over. The work gloves gave him a maintenance-dude hotness that had her adjusting her wildest fantasies about him. Maybe it was time to give bedroom role-playing a shot.
Looked like his tool of choice was a wrench instead of a hammer. Fine with her. She’d use whatever weapon it took to knock some sense into him. “What are you doing?”
His eyebrow lifted at the snap in her tone. “Fixing the swing set.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s about to fall down.”
For some reason his reasonable response ticked her off even more. “And I guess it has to be done right this second, that there is nothing more important to you.”
Without bending over but with a heavy dose of dramatic male exhaling, he dropped the wrench into the tool box. Metal clanged and dinged. “Are we really arguing about a swing set?”
“We are not fighting.” Because that would be silly and she refused to be silly, or admit she was well on the road to acting that way.
“Are you sure because you have the sound of an angry woman.” He leaned against the pole then shot up straight again when the swing set groaned and shifted under his weight.
Irrational fury buzzed her brain. She knew she was going overboard. Worse, she was showing she cared and that was something she was trying hard not to do, but seeing him standing there looking all controlled and hot sparked something inside her. Something dark and wild that she tried to rein in even as it begged to run loose.
“Is that something you’re used to? That type of woman?”
“Wow, you are wound up.” His gaze slipped, traveling over her black pantsuit and lingering on the slip of lace that stuck out underneath her sort blazer. “Sexy outfit by the way.”
The visual tour made her muscles shake. The man hadn’t touched her or even moved and her heartbeat hammered. It’s like he had some secret superpower. One look and her common sense turned to mush.
She folded her arms over her chest. “It’s a boring suit.”
“Not on you. Looks good.” That sexy gleam sparkled in his eye again.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was his flirty smile. Whatever drove her there didn’t matter because she was careening, craving an answer. “Why did you cancel breakfast?”
“I had a meeting with the bank.”
The answer threw her off. “About the house?”
“Let’s stay on topic, shall we?”
“You could have called.” It had been almost twenty-four hours after all. Okay, more like seventeen, but close.
His face fell, all signs of flirty adorableness gone in a flash. “When?”
“Don’t pretend.”
“I don’t even know what we’re talking about.” This time he grabbed onto the pole.
She wondered if he was holding it or holding it up. “Since the last time I saw you. You canceled breakfast and then cut off all contact, which is interesting since you were all over me when you had the chance.”
“I texted.” He closed one eye and peeked at her with the other. “But go back to the ‘all over you’ thing.”
Much more of this and he’d have her spinning around in circles. That’s what it felt like inside her anyway. The ride refused to stop. “I want a real answer.”
He lifted both hands in the air in a gesture that looked suspiciously like “Bring it” and frowned. “Me, too.”
This thing where he turned everything around until she questioned whether she had the right to be frustrated in the first place was one of her least favorite things about him. She just wished she could come up with a longer list.
“Why did you have an investigator follow Callen?” Declan asked with a face blank of emotion.
That made one of them. Heat rushed to her cheeks and an unwelcome churning started deep in her gut. “I knew he was behind this.”
“And the ‘this’ is?”
The practiced-cluelessness thing was getting old. There, she could add something else to that “con” list. “Your sudden lack of interest.”
He choked on his breath. Actually doubled over coughing. “You’ve got to be joking.”
She rushed over, pounding on his back as she talked. “You went radio silent, all broody and quiet.”
“I spent most of the morning filling out paperwork and the night before imaging what it would be like to taste you.” He grabbed her hand and shifted until she stood in front of him. “Do you understand what I’m saying? Peeling your panties down and then using my tongue to—”
Her gaze scanned the yard for his sneaky brothers as she put a hand over his mouth. “I get it.”
After a quick kiss on her palm, Declan lifted her fingers and trapped her hand against his broad chest. “Not yet, but hopefully very soon.”
“Paperwork?”
“About the house, Leah. I told you we might not want to sell. We’re going through our options.”
Her stomach dropped. That was the best way to make her dad happy and keep everyone safe. If they bought the house that meant she lost out. Potentially, they all did. “We haven’t even worked on a number.”
“We might still, but not now.”
He had no idea what he was doing to her plans. She knew she should be furious about the house and arguing, but her mind kept going to something else. Despite the weight of her father’s expectations and all those years of investigating, all she cared about was the broken date and Declan’s lack of communication all day.
She’d lost perspective and she had no idea how to get it back or if she even wanted to.
“Besides.” He cleared his throat. “I’d rather we focus on the personal side of our relationship.”
The words carried a zap that had her heart thumping. Between the panties comment and the house information, all the energy drained out of her. Fighting with him exhausted her. Exhausted and exhilarated. Made her wonder if she needed therapy since every head-pounding arguing session
led to a sharp desire to take his shirt off.
This was the problem with irresistible men. They were . . . irresistible.
She kicked her ego aside and focused on what really mattered to her, on why she really was there. “Then what was with the angry-male treatment?”
“You know we saw each other yesterday, right?” he asked with more than a little amusement in his voice.
And now he was being all logical . . . she hated that. “What exactly did your brother say to you about me?”
“Callen?”
That was a stall, and not a good one. “Do I need to worry about Beck, too? And do not sigh at me. Just answer the question. Callen, now. Talk.”
Declan started to exhale anyway but stopped when she shot him the female death stare. “Callen said that you had him followed.”
“You believed him?” Her fingernails dug into Declan’s shirt. She didn’t notice until his gaze went to her hand. Before he could point out her overzealous grip, she dropped her arm and stepped back.
“Is he wrong?”
“Kind of.” When Declan opened his mouth, she rushed to fill in the explanation. “I had someone look into your brother’s background.”
“I’m guessing you believe there’s a distinction between what you said and what I said.” Declan did that thing with his hands on his hips. His stance morphed but his tone stayed light.
But the sarcasm didn’t fool her. It was a defense mechanism. He fell back on it right as his anger level tipped into the red zone. She recognized the disconnect between the physical cues and the sound of his sexy voice because it happened all too often when they talked. Whether it was his way of controlling his temper or his checklist for a verbal battle, she wasn’t sure, but she could pick it out now and be ready.
“For the record, both of those things are an invasion of privacy and, frankly, a little high on the scary stalker scale.”
He had a point. The digging around never felt right to her. Necessary, but dirty, like she was lowering herself right into Charlie’s pile of mud. “The investigator looked through public files and talked to people. No one sat outside Callen’s apartment and took photos. No one followed him. No one pulled his phone bills. No one put him in danger or chased him down the street.”
“Those scenarios rolled off your tongue pretty easily.”
“But it’s the truth and you could have heard it earlier if you had asked.”
The soft breeze blew through his hair. He ran a hand over it as if to calm it back down. “That was my plan for this afternoon but you beat me to it by coming here first.”
His words snagged her attention. One second she watched those strong fingers sweep through his hair like she was dying to do. The next, she stared at him, willing him to be telling the truth. “You weren’t hiding from me?’
“I plan to be inside you very soon, so no.”
Well, okay. “No dodging there.”
“I figure there’s no reason to hide my intentions. I haven’t exactly been playing hard to get here.”
“Then I’ll return the favor with some information. Your brother left with Charlie all those years ago. I wanted to know if he was a junior Charlie.” With her heels sinking into the grass, she stepped to the side, putting the swing set pole between them and shifting to stand on a chunk of cement. She brushed her fingertips over the chipping paint, letting the cold seep into her skin. “Look, Declan, I never lied about my feelings for your father or my desire to get Shadow Hill back.”
“You’ve edited your allegations a bit.”
“Meaning?”
“Do you still think I’m a con man?”
She looked at the house, at the trees lined up on the far edge of the property, the same stretch she walked in the evening when the cool air blew off the water and over the land. Looked everywhere but at him as he leaned down, straight on face-to-face, and forced the issue.
Fighting it, denying it, amounted to nothing more than a waste of energy. “No, I don’t see you as a con man.”
“What about Callen?”
She drew the line there. Giving details would only open the wound again, and she desperately wanted to soothe over whatever wounds she had with Declan. “I don’t know Callen.”
“Sounds like you’ve been trying to get to know him by digging around in his past.”
“Do you blame me? He was Charlie’s sidekick.”
“And by that you mean oldest son.”
“I think it was more than that.” Not a sense. She knew. The paperwork backing it up was spread all over her bedroom floor.
“If so, not by choice.”
“If you say so.” Her palm slid up the swing set pole. “This was supposed to be mine.”
“What?”
“My father bought this and put it together soon after he found out my mother was pregnant.” Leah shook it a bit, testing its sturdiness but it failed when two fingers could move it. “He thought every house should have an area for kids to play.”
“That doesn’t quite match the man I met outside of the diner.”
Leah knew she couldn’t win that argument. Declan was right. “Dad changed and not for the better after my mother left. The situation with the town, with the slow drying up of his income that led to the inevitable loss of this place a few years later, made something snap. His temper got shorter and whatever ability he had to accept the rough patches disappeared. He hugged his fury close until it took over most of his personality.”
“That sounds closer to the guy I met.” Declan touched the chain to the swing and sent the broken seat spinning in a circle.
“He lost everything, Declan. And I’m not talking about the house. Dignity. Respect. My mother.”
“I’ve heard the rumor your mother thought she was in love with Charlie.” The change from self-assured to uncomfortable played in every line of Declan’s body. His shoulders curved and all attention went to the vinyl seat and a sudden need to keep it moving.
Leah got it. The tug, that invisible line from the past that stretched to the future and bound them together. It colored everything. Every conversation came with an underlying pulse of your-family-ruined-mine and no matter how she tried to climb out from under it, how she tried to analyze and control it, it sat there, taunting.
She’d lived with the sensation of unfinished business for a lifetime. She’s just never expected Declan to fit so comfortably into the other part of her life, the one that wanted to move on and get over it all. He shouldn’t be her get-back-to-life guy. Not when she still didn’t trust his role in everything that went before.
“Who told you?” she asked.
“My mom, the same woman Charlie was married to at the time he left with your mom.”
The phrasing said it all. No matter how much Leah wanted to shout and scream about all she’d lost, Declan proved a living reminder that she was not alone. A silent suggestion that she should get over it because others had it bad, too.
But no matter how Leah turned and examined the pieces, she’d lost more. “You’re putting a pretty spin on it but you can go ahead and use the real words. Your dad and my mom had an affair. My mother left me and Dad, thinking she’d found true love and Charlie was going to take her away from her boring life and all her responsibilities.”
Declan nodded. “Instead, he left her in a cheap motel in Nevada. Typical behavior for Charlie.”
“Where she died.” The wind kicked up, blowing past her and taking her hair with it. It seemed right to Leah that she should be shrouded, her face temporarily hidden, as she said the horrible words.
Declan reached out and tucked the wayward strands behind her ear. “Yeah, I know.”
He didn’t apologize or explain. She realized he didn’t think he had to. For the first time in her life, she wondered if he was right. If may
be it was true the sins stopped at the father and didn’t have to be carried by the sons.
“Charlie committed so many crimes and hurt so many people.” Declan glanced out over the property with sad eyes. “Mom says he rationalized his behavior by saying he took things and restored balance in the financial world. That was his spiel, “stuff only.” He either ignored or never understood that “stuff” is almost always about more than stuff. It’s tied to self-esteem and family obligation. That people panic when they lose everything and don’t see a way out. He ignored the human toll.”
Leah’s throat tightened to the point of choking her. She had to drag air deep into her lungs just to breathe. “Like my mom.”
“Like so many, Leah, but there were a few where the tragedy went well past jewelry and money. Your mom and another woman used pills. A few men who couldn’t deal with going home to tell their families they lost everything and picked a permanent way out.”
The words, delivered so calmly and in a matter-of-fact tone, cut through Leah. “You’d think with my mom leaving and the police calling to advise my dad . . . you’d think he’d grow to hate her.”
“But he didn’t.” Declan didn’t ask. It wasn’t a question. He knew the truth.
“No, he focused all his hate, all his blame and pain, on Charlie.”
“And taught you to do the same.”
There it was. The simple truth of her childhood. For a second, just that second, she let her mind go to the place where she resented her father for loading the burden on her. Where she blamed herself for not pushing back more. “Let’s just say his version of making family memories wasn’t really the norm.”
Declan leaned in with his hand barely touching the pole but his body leaning against it. “So, why don’t you hate me?”
“I wanted to. Man, I really did. I tried.”
He brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “But you don’t.”
No Turning Back Page 13
