Whatever brother-bond thing Beck and Callen had perfected in their few minutes alone ticked Declan off. “Since when do you two give a shit about my choices or my dating life?”
“Since we had a front-row seat to it and are astounded at how bad you are at this,” Beck said.
“At least I’ve had a woman in the last few weeks.”
Callen shifted in his seat. That’s all it took for the attention to zoom back to him. “Is that all she was? Seemed to me you fell for her.”
Declan didn’t bother to deny it. Sitting down hard on the bannister, he let his body slouch and his muscles downshift off high alert. “And doesn’t that make me the stupid asshole.”
“You could try fixing your mess.” Callen finished with a long sip of coffee.
“It’s over.”
Callen glanced over Declan’s shoulder. “Is it?”
Declan looked around. Leah stood right there, next to her car. It was the second time she’d snuck up on him. Correct that, drove up without him even noticing.
Before he could say anything, she walked over and stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. With big sad eyes, she stared them all down. “I know you don’t want me here.”
Callen finally stood up. “No one said that.”
They all followed his example. Mom had driven that into their heads years ago. When a woman came into the room, men stood. That applied to outdoors as well.
Declan glanced at his brothers. He didn’t want an audience for this scene, not if it looked anything like the last few shouting matches, but he doubted Beck and Callen would slink away willingly. If anything, Beck looked like he was one inch away from pulling out his phone and taping it.
Declan didn’t have any choice except to go down the stairs to Leah. And ignore the morons he was related to.
“I didn’t go to your father to threaten or blackmail him. I wanted him to get his head out of his ass. He’s treating you like shit, and it hurts you, and I wanted him to stop.” He started in the middle because that was the point he most wanted her to get. “Once I found that document and recognized it from my file, the pieces came together. All his hate and the obsession directed at us, the anger with you for not solving the problem. It was his problem. His guilt. He dumped it on you and it pissed me off.”
“But this is your chance.”
Not really the answer Declan expected to his big speech. She’d lost him with a few simple words. “For what?”
“Revenge.”
There. Her father’s reason for existence and the one lesson he made sure she learned as a child. Declan used to dread she’d compare him to his father. Now Declan worried if the real threat to their relationship was having her compare him to hers.
“Do you honestly think I care about that?” he asked.
She stepped closer. He stood on the bottom step, and she hovered right below him. “You should. He’s made your life impossible. Lined people up who had grievances with your dad and convinced them to pile the hate on you.”
“We’ve dealt with worse.” Declan heard his brothers grunt in agreement to that one.
As if she thought she needed to explain to all of them, she shifted to the side and scanned the entire porch. “Dad was in on Charlie’s Sweetwater con and refuses to take any responsibility.”
“They know. I filled them in.” Declan stepped in front of her again, forcing her to focus only on him. “But none of that makes Charlie less guilty. Hurting you or ruining your dad now doesn’t solve anything.”
“Listen to the man, Leah,” Callen called out.
“I thought for sure you, most of all, would want to use this information against the Barons.” She shot Callen a shaky smile. “Unleash the vengeance.”
He came to the edge of the porch and rested his palms on the bannister. “No.”
“Why?”
“When you’ve lived your entire life seeing what revenge does to people, you lose your appetite for it.”
Beck nodded. “None of us intend to say anything about your dad. That’s between the two of you and, honestly, I hope you can figure it out.”
Declan appreciated the backup. Most of all, he loved that his brothers truly meant what they said. They had every reason to exact revenge. With their father, they should have been the types to jump on this sort of thing. But they were better men than Charlie even pretended to be in his best con.
“How? Everything I’ve believed is messed up and sideways.”
The yearning in her voice drove right to Declan’s heart. “We can help you with that.” That much he knew. After all, he’d lived with it his entire life.
She jerked as if someone whispered something to her. She lifted her arm and took out a large manila envelope she had tucked there. Declan expected her to hand whatever it was over to him. Instead, she walked past him and handed the envelope up to Callen.
“Kristin Accord’s name sounded familiar. She stopped me at the diner and asked me to help her meet with you, but I said no.” Leah turned to Declan. “That’s all that was.”
He didn’t need more explanation than that. For some reason, her assurance was enough. “I believe you.”
“It took me until this morning to remember where I’d seen her name.” Leah nodded at the file in Callen’s hands. “It’s in there. It’s about you. Only you, and it’s not easy to read.”
Ever the lawyer, Beck was the first to jump in. “What is it?”
“Callen gets to decide if he wants to open it. Think long and hard about it. I think you’ve all had enough or now and, really, in all the ways that count the information doesn’t matter.”
He let it fall from his fingers and dump on the porch. “I agree. Whatever it is can wait, possibly forever. I’m tired of looking at documents right now.”
“You all deserve better.” Leah’s voice cut off and her eyes got all shiny. “I . . . I have to go.”
No big exit this time. She scurried to her car, fumbling in her purse. Twice she dropped her keys and once kicked them down the driveway.
Callen sighed. “Go after her or I will beat you senseless.”
Beck slapped Declan on the back. “And stop talking about selling the house. We’re staying. You’re right. The town will eventually get used to us being here. Most people are okay already.”
“We’re in this, Declan. Together.” Callen grabbed his coffee mug off the bannister. “Now, go drag your woman back here. Doesn’t look like she’s slept. We’ll let Beck talk law to her and she’ll be out in a second.”
Declan heard their words behind him and looked ahead to where the woman he loved rattled her keys and reached for the car door handle. The mess hadn’t cleared, but the air had changed. A sense of hope stole over him.
He loved her, deep to his soul and back loved her. By coming here today, she was saying she loved him. He just didn’t know if she realized it yet.
He’d educate her if he had to. The thought made him smile. “Thanks for the offer, but I want her awake.”
Callen chuckled. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Declan took two steps then turned around again. There was so much he wanted to say to his brothers. He went with the most heartfelt. “Thanks.”
Her fingers kept slipping off the damn handle. For some reason, she couldn’t get a good grip. It was as if every muscle and cell had gone into shutdown mode.
“Leah, stop.” Declan’s voice was close now. Like, maybe a foot away.
Not surprising since his stride was double hers and she barely had the strength to talk. She rested her palm against the cool glass of her window and breathed in, trying to regain some of the energy she’d lost as the morning hours wore on. “I can’t do this. I have to get out of here.”
“You can’t drive. Come inside.”
She dropped her for
ehead against the door and let her body relax. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
With a gentle touch, he turned her around to face him. Those eyes, so filled with hate earlier, showed only concern now. That handsome face, the one she thought showed nothing, had dark circles under the eyes and lines around the mouth. It was like staring into a mirror and seeing her exhaustion displayed on someone else’s face.
“What are you talking about?” His voice was soft, so tempting.
“How can you even look at me?” She was disgusted with herself and her father. With everything.
Declan trailed the back of his fingers down the side of her face. “That has never been a problem.”
Her heart jumped. Actually did a little flip and landed again. “My dad—”
“They’re his sins, Leah. No one is a bigger expert in separating out father from child than I am.”
The words lured her in. She wanted to believe that through all the corrosion and despair she could find her way out again. “Why do I still love him? I mean, I stormed out of the house and all I could think about was him lying in a hospital bed. If he has another attack after this—”
“It won’t be your fault.” Declan placed a soft kiss on her nose.
The sweet press of his lips gave her the strength to keep talking when all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. “I pushed him too far.”
“No, you didn’t. I was in that room. You handed the information over. You didn’t interrogate or blame.”
“The things he said about my mother. The way he taught me to think about her for all those years.” The reality made Leah’s stomach pitch. She gave in to the need to be held. The cool breeze tickled around them, but she barely felt it as she grabbed onto Declan’s shirt with both fists and rested her head on his broad chest.
“That sin is harder to take, but it’s still all his. Maybe your mom was in on it with both of them and for whatever reason picked Charlie, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter anymore.” Declan’s arms closed around her.
“I can’t imagine a day when I don’t think about it.”
“You’re allowed to be furious and still love him. You’re human if you hate what your dad’s done but still love him. He’s your dad. Give yourself a break and accept that your relationship will never be easy, that you’ll be conflicted, but let the hate go.”
The touch, the closeness, had her spilling her deepest concerns. An hour ago she wondered how she’d ever fallen in love with this man. Now she wondered how she believed she could stop.
His lips pressed against her hair. This close she could smell soap on his skin and that familiar warmth she associated with being held by him. He didn’t just touch her. He tucked her in close and made her feel protected. “Why are you being so nice about this?”
His finger went under her chin and his gaze locked on hers. The emotion was so intense that it hurt to look at him. “Because I love you.”
Her knees gave out and her heart hammered. “What?”
“I know, right?” A sexy smile lit up his face. “Who saw that coming? I certainly didn’t, but I do love you and it’s not going away.”
Hope washed through her. Her heart ached with the need to believe. She wanted to grab on and not look back, but the road was so long and so dangerous. “There is so much stuff piled between us, most of it’s not even our crap, but it’s still there blocking the way.”
“Then we’ll un-pile it piece by piece. Together. We’ll get better about trusting each other over the outside things. Not be so quick to jump to conclusions.” He kissed her before she could fire back. “And I’m referring to both of us, so don’t get all prickly.”
The anxiety whooshed out of her as fast as it filed in. Having everything she wanted hang there, just out of reach, scared her to death. “You make it sound easy.”
“It is . . . well, it is if you love me back.” He made a joke but the vulnerability was plain in his eyes.
She had no idea she had the power to bring this strong man to his knees. To make what she felt matter so much to him that he stood stock still and wary, waiting for her to say the magic words.
But she needed him to understand how she got there. “I wanted to hate you.”
“Same here.”
“You kept surprising me. You were good and strong and seemed to care—”
“Do care.”
“And when you touched me that first time, and every time since, I truly believed everything would be okay. Even when you made me angry enough to punch you, the connection stayed strong. I still wanted to see you.” She brushed her thumb over his bottom lip. “And this famous temper of yours?”
“I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, but not before she saw the burst of pain.
She had to kiss him then. She leaned in, slanting her mouth over his and deepening the touch until his hands flexed on her waist and he lingered on the edge of taking over. When she finally lifted her head, she said the words she knew would always be true. “I’m not afraid of you. That is your one con. You warned me about one thing and delivered another.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ve grown up and have it under control. Even at your most furious, I never worried for my safety. My heart broke because I thought you might yell and walk away and then not come back, but I never worried about the rest.”
His gaze searched hers. “I will always come back. Screw that, I never intend to leave.”
Hope exploded, sending tiny slivers of light through her. She no longer had to pretend or fight it. She wanted him to know. “Which is good, since I love you, too.”
His hands clenched against her. “Say it again.”
“I love you, Declan Hanover.” She kissed her way along his jaw. “Bad-boy past, dysfunctional family and sometimes overly controlling attitude when you think you know best. I love it all. Want it all.”
He tightened his hold around her and lifted her until only her toes touched the ground and they were eye to eye. “Doesn’t hurt that we’re on fire in the bedroom.”
Heat flushed through her body at the reminder. “Definitely not.”
He balanced his forehead against hers. “Do one more thing for me.”
“I’d give you just about anything right now.” And if he didn’t move them inside soon, she’d give it to him in the driveway where anyone could see.
“Let yourself grieve for the dad you thought you had and trust me to help you through it.”
How could she not love him? Through it all, Declan’s main concern was for her. He could have said anything in that moment, even made demands on her time and mind. Instead, his thoughts were about what she needed.
“I do love you.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Then let’s go inside.”
“Subtle.” She upped him one by wrapped her legs around his upper thighs.
“But it worked because this position is nice.” When she shifted her hips against him, he added a groan.
“Thought you’d enjoy that.”
He balanced her back against the car door. “I was also thinking this house needed a Baron living in it.”
Her breath hiccupped in her throat. “What?”
“Not now. You need time, so in the future. Just think about it.”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter but the way his gaze slipped away from her, she knew better. Not that she needed even a second to weigh the pros and cons. When a man handed you everything, his love and commitment, you grabbed onto it and didn’t let go.
“Give me a few weeks. We’ve had so much happen and still need to work things out.” She whispered the words against his mouth and watched his eyes go all sexy dark as his erection pressed against her. “But after we work it all through, and I doubt that will take long now that all the secr
ets are out, the answer will be yes. So, just be sure you want me around that much.”
“Always.”
“Then let’s get started.”
Keep reading for a special preview of the
next Hanover Brothers novel
A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE
Available from InterMix July 2013
Sophie Clarke glanced out the window of the second-story sewing room at Shadow Hill, the crumbling stone house she’d been cleaning and searching for a month. Two of the three Hanover brothers stood on the lawn below, pacing around a wood chipper and apparently trying to stare it into working.
That summed up Declan and Callen, the two oldest members of the ridiculously blessed Hanover male gene pool. They’d found something that didn’t work, which was almost everything on the estate they inherited from their grandmother, and paced around it, assessing and head scratching. If experience were any indication, eventually one or both would cave and drag out the toolbox.
Then anything could happen.
But they were not her concern at the moment. The younger, sexier and currently unaccounted for brother, Beckett, was the problem. For her, Beck was always the problem. He entered the room and her stomach performed a perfect back flip, something completely foreign to her and, she suspected, abnormal in general. Of course she’d found guys handsome before. But that thing where her mind buzzed and words stammered in her throat . . . yeah, that was new.
She dropped the curtain and moved away from the window. She didn’t have time for nonsense and what she felt for Beck was most certainly nonsense. And not at all welcome.
He wasn’t in the room but she could call up his image without even trying. He stood tall and lean with a smile that highlighted a drop-your-panties dimple in his cheek.
Not that she got to see the smile all that much. He spent a good amount of the workday following her around and frowning. She was starting to wonder if that was some sort of lawyer thing because he was one, which became obvious whenever he launched into a droning argument about something.
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