Breaking Free (Thoroughbred Legacy #10)

by Loreth Anne White

  “I wanted to keep the door to your mother open for you, to keep that dream you held.” His eyes moistened. “I wanted her to be your angel, kiddo. But sometimes…you just can’t force people to be who we want them to be. And we have to set them free.”

  “Why’d you send the papers after all this time, Dad?”

  He inhaled deeply, glanced at Megan, who was studiously busying herself with Muttley in order to give Dylan some time with his daughter.

  “Is it because you met Megan?” Heidi asked quietly, fragile hope brightening her features, and Dylan realized that his kid was almost as afraid to crush this moment as he was. That she, too, was seeing Megan in their life.

  “No,” he said softly. “It’s not because of Megs, it’s because it was time. It was something I should have done a long time ago, chook. For all of us.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  He exhaled a sharp shudder of breath, and quickly hugged his daughter tight to his chest, wet soap and all, lest she see the tears burning in his own eyes.

  Megan glanced up, and Dylan mouthed the words thank you over Heidi’s head.

  He had a hell of a lot to thank that woman for.

  And right this moment, he loved her.

  “Dylan, you have got to let Louisa go.” It was Monday night, and Megan was wondering how far D’Angelo was getting with his injunction. Once he slapped Dylan with it, everything would explode.

  “You know I can’t, Megan. Not without any new evidence,” he said as he turned some sausages on the barbecue.

  “But D’Angelo is—”

  He faced her. “Look, Megs, I know that guy is after my blood. I’m aware of the firm’s reputation as ‘cop killers,’ but I can’t let some legal ass tell me how to do my job. Nothing that man does is going to change the way I’m doing things, okay?”

  “Dylan, please, just listen to—”

  He placed his fingers on her lips, his eyes light and happy. “Not now, Megs, please. Let’s give it just a few hours break, okay?”

  She nodded, loath to kill that rare and gorgeous twinkle in his eyes, that smile on his lips.

  But she had a really bad feeling.

  She pulled Dylan’s sweater closer around her shoulders, her bare feet warm on tiles that had absorbed the day’s sun. She watched him cook over the fire and her lonely flat in Sydney felt a million miles away. He’d tossed her and Heidi into the pool, clothes and all, once they’d finished washing Muttley, and they’d all splashed and laughed while the dog yipped around the perimeter. Dylan was so comfortable to be around, on so many levels. He made her happy in a way she hadn’t been in a very long time.

  Megan could love a man like this.

  He was definitely a keeper.

  “I saw some old news cuttings today,” she said, leaning against him gently.

  “Yeah?” He glanced down at her, smoke hissing behind him as flames flared against the fat of the sausages.

  “They were stories about—”

  “You ready for the rolls and salad, Dylan?” June called from the house.

  He held up his hand to halt Megan for a second. “Yeah, Mum. You can bring ’em out.”

  He turned to Megan and grinned. “You’re good for us, you know that? My mother hasn’t been this together in days.”

  “Heidi said she has a form of dementia.”

  “Pretty much. Her memory is going as well now. We’ll have to deal with it, but it’s really good to see her like this.” He put the sausages on a plate. “What was that you were saying about newspaper cuttings?” he asked as June approached them with a tray of warm rolls and fresh salad from the garden.

  Megan smiled. “It’s nothing.” She didn’t want to break this moment for Dylan and his family by bringing up some horrific old crime. “Come on, Sergeant,” she said instead, pinching his butt. “Get the rest of those snags off the barbie and onto the table.”

  He shot her a look, raising the tongs in his hand and wiggling them at her. “Careful, Megs, you just might get more than you bargained for.”

  She leaned up on tiptoes, bussed his cheek. “I hope that’s a promise, Sarge,” she whispered in his ear, and his stomach swooped dizzyingly, his heart swelling with affection.

  Once his mother and Heidi had gone up to bed, Dylan sat with Megan on the porch. The night was deep, the glow from the fire in the mountains brighter than the previous nights.

  “You think if that storm comes south it might put the fires out?”

  “It’s more likely to bring lightning strikes and new fires,” he said.

  “I hear the APEC protestors are using the Koongorra fires to bolster their climate-change anti-globalization protests.”

  He snorted softly, reached for her hand. “Megs?”

  She lifted her eyes to his.

  “Would you consider…living here, in the Hunter?”

  Her breath stuck somewhere in her throat. Panic whispered, circled. “Dylan, I—”

  “You fit, Megan.” He took her hand and placed it on his warm chest where she could feel the solid, steady beat of his heart, and she felt ribbons of conflict twist inside her stomach.

  “We could be a family, Megs,” he said, very softly. “A good family.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to marshal thoughts spinning wildly, dizzyingly in all directions—her career, her flat, her friends, everything she had built so carefully. She was immensely proud of what she’d achieved, financially, professionally, and all on her own.

  Yet, she’d still been lured out here to the Hunter Valley with the faint hope of finding something more. A sense of family, a place to belong. There’d still been a hole in her life.

  She just hadn’t expected to find it filled by this man she’d squared off with at opposite ends of the Pepper Flats police interrogation room. Or so soon.

  Her heart began to race, and her palms felt damp. She withdrew her hand from his, and she felt his muscles constrict, tension suddenly rolling from him in waves.

  What did she want of her life, really?

  What woman would turn down a guy like Dylan Hastings? He was so rock-damn-solid. A protector, a lifer who would have your back in sickness and in health.

  A man respected in his community. A man with honor, integrity.

  Thunder rumbled soft and distant in the hills, the sound of crickets growing louder in the electric air.

  “Megan?” The rawness in his voice cut her.

  She turned in her chair. “Dylan, I…want to keep seeing you. I…might consider relocating, down the road, but—”

  He surged to his feet, went to the edge of the patio, stared in silence at the dark valley.

  Her stomach bottomed out. She got up, went to him, placed her hand on his shoulder. He stiffened.

  He didn’t look at her. “Do you think you could love me, Megan?”

  Tightness balled in her throat.

  “I’m just getting to know you, Dylan. I—”

  He whipped round to face her. “What more is there to know? I don’t have anything to hide. No games. No pretenses. I told you exactly what I’m about. I told you I don’t mess around, but when I fall for someone, I fall like a bloody rock, hard and forever. Megan, I want you.” He paused. “I want you now, in my life.”

  “I need to take it slower, Dylan,” she whispered. “I…I need to be sure. I have a lot to work out, with my job and all.”

  He was silent.

  She could literally feel him shutting down as she spoke.

  She reached in desperation for his hand, but he was unresponsive. Frustration began to mount in her. “Would you do it for me if I turned the tables on you?” she said. “Move? Just like that?”

  “I can’t move my family, Megan. You know that. You know why.”

  “Then you’re not being fair,” she whispered almost inaudibly, her voice catching.

  “It’s not just about me, Megan. It’s Heidi, her school—”

  “She wants to go
to school in Sydney,” she reminded him. “And there are good homes there for June when she needs one.”

  His eyes glimmered in the dark.

  “Why don’t we wait until this homicide thing is over before making any major decisions? I could come to the Hunter for weekends. And you and Heidi could come visit me in the city. And if she doesn’t get that bursary, I could set up a private scholarship fund for her. If she goes to Brookfield, it would give you both reason to come—”

  “Christ, Megan, I don’t want your charity! I don’t want her going to that goddamn school.” He stared down at her. “And the last thing on earth I want anything to do with is Fairchild money.”

  “Oh, don’t try laying that on me now. This has nothing to do with Louisa Fairchild. I’m talking about my finances, money earned by my own efforts. I am a success, Dylan, in my own right. I struggled hard to get where I’ve got, and I’m damn proud of it. And that is what you’re asking me to chuck!”

  “Chuck?”

  She inhaled shakily. “Yeah, chuck.”

  “I’m not asking you to chuck anything, Megan. I thought…I just thought you might want to do this. Look, I made a mistake. I’m sorry. It won’t work, and I was wrong to ask. We should just end it.”

  Her eyes blurred with emotion, and her jaw tensed. “You’re something else, you know that? Why must it be so all or goddamn nothing with you? Why can’t you take your time?”

  He turned away, stared at the ominous red glow in the sky. “Because I don’t need time. I’ve lost years of my life already trying to hang on to something I couldn’t have. And it’s because it’s who I am.”

  She felt sick. Tears threatened to leak down her cheeks. She glanced up at the sky, blew out a soft breath. “I’m scared,” she said quietly.

  His eyes flared to hers. “Why?”

  “Because it’s such a big move for me, and so soon. It’s not so simple for me, Dylan.”

  For him it was.

  Dylan nodded. He could see now he’d made a terrible mistake in thinking this might work, that she’d actually consider moving here, becoming part of his family. He could see what he was asking of her.

  He’d been rash. Impulsive.

  Just like he’d been with Sally all those years ago. Wanting her before thinking it all through, before taking the time to see that it wouldn’t work in the long run.

  Maybe he was being so damn impulsive with Megan because he knew that if they took things slowly, she’d soon see their lives really were incompatible. And then he’d lose her. Maybe he wanted to tie her down quickly, right now, and hold on to her because deep down he knew he couldn’t have her.

  He should not have let it get this far.

  And he had to let her go, before she imploded his life. Before he ruined hers.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that of you.”

  “We could take it slow, Dylan.”

  “It won’t work.”

  “Damn it, what is it with you!” Tears broke their banks and spilled down her cheeks. She spun round. “I’m leaving,” she said, making for the door.

  “I can drive you.”

  “Don’t bother,” she yelled back at him. “I can drive myself! Been doing it for years!”

  And he let her go.

  He just let her go.

  He heard her car door slam in the dark night, and he heard the engine start. Then he heard it fade down the ribbon of road.

  Every molecule in his body screamed for him to go after her. But he forced himself to stand his ground.

  Once again he’d fallen for what he couldn’t have. And it hurt him like all hell. He wanted to smash something.

  Fool.

  He heard a rustling noise behind him and spun round, thinking, absurdly, she might have come back.

  But it was Heidi who stood ghostly in a white nightdress at the door, her eyes dark and angry under the dim porch light.

  “You sent her away.”

  He rubbed his neck, tired. “She wanted to go.”

  Her eyes began to shimmer. “Why do you have to ruin everything!”

  She spun and charged inside, up the stairs. He heard her bedroom door slam.

  Dylan scooped up the vase of flowers his mother had cut and set on the patio table for dinner, and he hurled it into the tiles. It exploded into a million shards that glimmered in the moonlight, the delicate cosmos blooms lying bruised, battered. Broken.

  Beautiful for one fleeting moment, ruined by him the next.

  Like his damn life.

  Why was he such a goddamn idiot?

  Megan swore to herself as she entered the Fairchild hallway and saw Patrick. She’d been hoping to sneak in and bury herself in bed.

  “Megan!” he said, reaching for her hands as he came towards her, his eyes gleaming. “We got news—we can bring her home. Tonight! The injunction came through early.”

  Shock slammed into her chest. She felt dizzy. She shot a look at the hall phone.

  Patrick placed his hand gently on her shoulder. “Don’t call him, Megan. The court order prohibits Sergeant Hastings from talking to anyone from Fairchild, and I’m afraid it names you specifically.”

  Her mouth turned dry, and she wanted to cry, but she was empty. “D’Angelo named me specifically?” she whispered.

  “It’s just a blanket thing, Megs.” Patrick hesitated. “Hastings can’t come within a hundred yards of this property, either.”

  Her eyes flared.

  “Look, I…know you like him, Megan. But—”

  She shrugged free of his touch. “Don’t worry, there’s nothing between us, Patrick.” Not anymore. “What’ll this do to him…I mean professionally?” she asked.

  “The way I understand it, it basically means he’s off this homicide case and can no longer harass Louisa or anyone associated with her, but D’Angelo plans to take it further. He’s pressing for a full internal inquiry into Hastings’ conduct.”

  Megan suddenly felt utterly exhausted.

  “You okay?”

  “Just…tired. I need sleep.”

  At least she’d managed to avoid D’Angelo’s threat of dragging Dylan and her through the tabloids, she thought as she went up the stairs. That would have been even worse.

  But it was a bitter victory.

  And a short-lived one.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dylan pulled up outside Elias Memorial early Tuesday morning, intending to go straight for Dr. Jack Burgess, who’d called to say today was the day Louisa should be well enough to see him.

  He was surprised to find the press massing outside once again, but this time there were more vans, the rural media being joined by the bigger Newcastle and Sydney outfits.

  The hot autumn storm was still brewing as he got out of the car, the NSW flag outside the hospital snapping in a wind pungent with smoke—a bad wind, given the sudden directional switch. Dylan’s radio had been crackling all morning as the big pressure cell inched farther south. The storm hadn’t broken properly yet, but lightning strikes had already started spot fires in drought-ridden bush farther north.

  He shut the door of his squad car and put on his mirrored shades, adjusting his gun belt as he assessed the scene.

  Taken aback, he realized it was Andrew Preston—Tyler Preston’s cousin from Kentucky—who was holding court on the stairs, Tyler at his side. It looked like the Australian and American branches of the Preston clan had been united by the terrible tragedy at Lochlain Racing.

  Also part of the entourage on the stairs was Darci Parnell, daughter of Weston Parnell, the Australian Ambassador to Britain and former owner of Warrego Downs, Sydney’s premier racetrack. At her side stood Sam’s son, Daniel Whittleson, with his PR consultant wife, Marnie. Dylan frowned at the sight of her.

  Marnie had been a thorn in the side of the Pepper Flats police. She’d been instrumental in helping Louisa brush her original shooting of Sam under the carp
et some months ago.

  Then he caught sight of Megan as Andrew drew her close to him, into the line of the cameras, as he spoke.

  Dylan’s chest turned tight and cold.