Busted (Barnes Brothers #3)

by Shiloh Walker

  His widowed brother who really didn’t have that much experience with women.

  That was the nagging little voice of evil, that red devil that rode his shoulder.

  The other voice, well, he couldn’t call him an angel, but maybe it was the voice of common sense, he spoke up and reminded him, You like her. Trey’s not an idiot. He’s got decent instincts, even if maybe he has been out of the game awhile—or never even in the game to begin with. Just let it go.

  Yet Ressa had all but told him there was something in her past that he wouldn’t like. That meant Trey wouldn’t like it. And she hadn’t told Trey, either.

  Why was she keeping secrets?

  It didn’t take much time at all to figure out just what she’d been warning him about.

  By the time he was done checking everything out, his head was pounding and he didn’t know if he wanted to warn Trey . . . or just find Ressa and tell her to get it over with.

  * * *

  “About damn time you talk to me. What did it take, Mama fussing at you?”

  Ressa closed her eyes at Kiara’s words, trying to ignore the stab of guilt. She didn’t need to feel guilty. Yes, it had taken Mama Ang nudging her, but she’d called, right?

  “I’m calling, right, Kiara?” she asked softly. “How are you doing?”

  There was a faint pause, and then finally, she said, “I wanna see Neeci.”

  A headache settled at the base of Ressa’s head. “K, we’ve talked about this. You saw her not that long ago. You can see her at Thanksgiving. But—”

  “Damn it, Ress! She’s my baby. I want to see her!” Kiara’s voice skipped, hitched. That heavy, harsh, needling whine underscored those words.

  Ressa closed her eyes to the pain and focused on what mattered—Neeci. She used to allow it, whenever Neeci wanted it, whenever Kiara wanted it. And Neeci had nightmares. Used to wet the bed all the time, cry all the time. The counselor had suggested maybe they try something different.

  It had broken her heart, but in the end, Ressa knew it was the right thing.

  Neeci was a child and she needed more stability than Kiara could—or would—ever be able to provide. She needed to be safe and secure, and she needed something that Kiara just couldn’t offer.

  “We’ve talked about this. If you want to write her a letter, you’re more than welcome to. You’re welcome to do a phone call, if you remember the rules. But you’re not going to put her through this.”

  “I’m not putting her through anything,” Kiara half shouted. “She’s my little girl and you are not her mother.”

  “No.” Ressa steadied herself. “I’m her guardian. You signed away parental rights and there’s nothing you can do or say to change that, Kiara.”

  There was a faint pause and then finally, Kiara said, “Yeah. You’re her fucking guardian and I’m the one who’s in here. And whose fucking fault is that? But it may not stay that way. Not forever.”

  Guilt twisted inside. “Kiara . . .”

  “Don’t!” Kiara shouted.

  In the background, voices raised.

  “What does that mean?” Blood started to roar in her ears.

  A harsh, bitter laugh drifted through the phone. “We’ll talk next time you’re out here, cuz. I’m not telling you on the phone. But you and Mama Ang need to come out here, and soon. Since you don’t have anybody to leave my baby with, you’ll have to bring her.”

  “I don’t think so.” Ressa gripped the phone tighter.

  “Well, you don’t have much choice,” Kiara said, her voice sly. “There are things I have to tell you and I need to tell you both. So what else are you going to do?”

  “I’ll make arrangements.” Ressa set her jaw, her mind automatically flashing to Trey. “I already have somebody in mind. Kiara, what’s going on?”

  “You’ll do anything to keep my girl away from me,” Kiara said. Sullen temper underscored her words. “When you going to be here?”

  Sighing, Ressa skimmed a hand back over her damp hair. She still needed to deal with her hair, needed to call Mama Ang now, needed a drink. “Look, I’ll talk to Mama Ang. See what I can work out. I’ll let you know.”

  “Yeah. Fine. Whatever.”

  “Kiara . . . I love you.”

  Kiara said nothing, for the longest time. And then she murmured, “I know.”

  The line went dead a moment later.

  * * *

  For the first time in . . . ages, really, a story had sucked him under.

  It helped, he supposed, that Travis was there. He volunteered to pick up Clayton and Trey just grunted, only vaguely aware. He surfaced again when his alarm went off, signaling that it was time for him to leave, but since Travis was already gone, he only paused long enough to fuel himself with coffee and a hastily slapped together sandwich, and then he lost himself back in the story.

  It had been nearly eight before he found himself winding down and then he was famished, eyes bleary, and guilt had him seeking out his son.

  Clayton was snuggled up against Travis while they watched Captain America. Trey paused briefly to shake his head—the two of them had already watched every single movie in the Avengers franchise—and some of them twice—and Travis hadn’t been there that long.

  But that didn’t keep him from attacking the fridge—he rolled his eyes at the leftover pizza. Then he ate a slice cold and reheated what was left before joining them in the living room.

  While the captain was grieving over Bucky, Trey looked over at his twin. Trying to keep his voice casual, he asked, “Did anybody call or anything while I was off in another world?”

  “Nope.” Travis lifted a bottle of beer to his lips, drank deep, then shot him a look. “Were you expecting a call?”

  Yes. He shrugged. “Just wondering.”

  He pulled his phone from his back pocket, eyed the lack of messages and then blew out a breath.

  “You’re watching the movie with us, right, Dad?” Clayton asked, his voice soft, gaze still locked on the screen.

  “Yeah, Clay. I’m watching.” He did send her a text, though.

  Hey . . . how you doing?

  There was no answer, though. Even when he was tucking Clayton into bed, even when he returned to his office and tried to catch up on some of the non-writing work he’d ignored all day.

  He’d only been at it twenty minutes when Travis joined him, his feet silent. Travis had always been quiet, but Trey had always known when he was there, too.

  “You and Ressa going out this weekend?”

  Trey looked up at his brother, studying him. He’d been in town a little over a week now and he was looking less gaunt by the day.

  Less gaunt, less tired . . . but his eyes were still grim. He looked older, too.

  Older, and harder.

  Trey couldn’t think of a better way to put it. Travis had been born three minutes before Trey, but there were times when it looked like a decade separated them.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged, and wished he did know. They’d had coffee twice this week. He’d had sex with her—about a hundred times—but it was all in his head, or in dreams, and if he didn’t remedy that soon, he thought his balls might bust.

  Of course, sometimes, he had second thoughts, and third, and fourth. Occasionally those thoughts were followed by a panic attack because he worried about just what he’d do—what Ressa would think—if things got all hot and sweaty between them and then he had another freak-out session in the middle of a make-out session.

  More than once, he’d had to mentally kick his own ass, because he’d decided he was moving past this. Moving on with his life—because he actually wanted to have a life.

  They were still dancing around that talk . . . despite the fact that they talked on the phone every night. Sometimes it was just for a few minutes. But then there had been a couple of nights when they walked for a good two hours after they put their respective kids down.

  He didn’t know if he’d see her that weekend and the thought tha
t he might not made his mood take a turn for the lousy.

  “Haven’t made any plans?” Travis settled in the beat-up chair next to him, elbows braced on his knees.

  “What is this, twenty questions?” Eying his inbox with acute dislike, he said a silent prayer that his assistant Meg would be back to work next week—she’d been on vacation while he was at the convention plus the following week and right before she was supposed to come back, her mother had passed away.

  He knew she needed the time away. Shit, if his mother had died, he had a feeling he’d crumple like a baby and want to hide for about a year. He got it, really.

  But at the same time, he was lost without Meg being here.

  Deciding the search-and-destroy method would be best, Trey did a search for the stuff he knew he wouldn’t mess with—all the promotional stuff that was sent his way—he tagged and filed all of that into a folder for Meg to deal with when she was back and up to it. Then he did another search for the people he knew he had to answer sooner rather than later, although those people tended to call. There was a mess of stuff from his agent and his editor, including a new cover.

  “You never did answer me.”

  “What?” Trey only barely registered Travis’s voice as he studied the cover. He didn’t know what to think about it. It was another L. Forrester book, about one of the secondary characters he’d had in the last one. The heroine had a friend on the quiet, shy, almost gawkish side . . . and somebody who’d worked with the hero in the book had fallen for her.

  This one was called Seducing the Scholar and instead of a sexy girl with a tie, it had a guy. Trey didn’t care what it said about him. He much preferred the pretty girl over the bare-chested pretty boy they’d slapped on this one. He’d told them he wanted something in the same vein . . . and this was definitely that. But he much preferred the beautiful woman.

  “Hell, Trey, are you even on . . . what is this . . .”

  He went to slap his laptop shut but Travis stopped him, moving entirely too fast as he jerked the laptop out of his reach and all but sprinted around the desk until he had it between them.

  “Give me that damn laptop,” Trey growled, rising and bracing his hands on the surface of the desk.

  “‘Seducing the Scholar’ . . .” Travis drew it out, eyes narrowed. He looked up and the screen was reflected in miniature in his gaze. “So. Who is L. Forrester?”

  “You jackass, give me the computer.”

  “Answer the question.” Travis just backed up, an unholy light gleaming in his eyes. “You devious little bastard. It’s you, isn’t it?”

  If he could have managed not to blush, he would have bluffed. He knew how to bluff, even his twin. At least he thought he could have bluffed.

  But it was a waste of time to even try because that telltale hot flush he could feel spreading up his neck, then his cheeks, was a dead giveaway. “Give me my damn computer, you moron.”

  “Has Mom read these?” Travis sidestepped another grab for the computer, moving easier than he had since he’d arrived. He backed up farther out of reached as he grinned at his brother. “Does she know you went and picked up a pen name?”

  “No, you fuckwit.”

  “Fuckwit.” Travis chuckled as he cocked his head, studying the cover from one side, then the other. “So is this one of the billionaire books? You giving up the cry me a river books?”

  “No.” He gauged the distance, the desk, and then hurtled over it. One hand slipped on a piece of paper but he made it. Travis was already dodging out of reach. “You piece of shit—”

  “You kiss that pretty lady of yours with that mouth?” Travis snapped the laptop shut and turned it over. “So what is this? What’s the L. Forrester stuff?”

  Steaming, tapping the laptop against his leg, Trey debated beating his brother senseless or just leaving the room. “You are just as annoying now as you were when we were kids,” he finally said.

  “Probably.” Travis looked cheerful. “You going to answer the question? I can always call Mom. I bet she’s heard of this L. Forrester person. I’ll see what she . . .”

  “It’s romance. Okay? Aliesha wanted me to try something different.”

  Travis’s face, still lit with teasing laughter, slowly sobered.

  Sighing, Trey turned away. “Don’t look like that. Okay? I started working on it a couple of years after she died. It was . . . therapy. The first idea was something I bullshitted over with her, and she told me I should try it. I decided to and my editor liked it, but the imprint doesn’t do romance, so we went with another imprint at my publishing house. It did well. I had fun with it, so we did another. And . . .”

  He stopped, shrugged. “I like those cry me a river books,” he said, sliding his brother a dour look. “It’s what I’m good at. But every once in a while, I want to do something different. This is. And apparently I don’t suck at it.”

  “Are you still doing it for Aliesha?” Travis studied him.

  Trey glared at him.

  Holding up his hands, Travis said, “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m trying to understand, trying to help. I loved her, too. I . . . I just . . .” He stopped and looked away. “But I see how you looked at Ressa. If you’re doing this for Aliesha . . . ?”

  “It’s not for Aliesha. She’s part of my past, but Ressa . . .” Trey didn’t even have to think about it. His heart ached just thinking about Ressa. It ached, even as a smile seemed to fill every empty part of him. “I look at her and I hurt. I look at her and I want things I thought I’d never want again. I didn’t think I’d ever feel that way again.”

  He turned away, putting the laptop on his desk as he moved to the window. Shoving the window open, he unlatched the screen and leaned out.

  He needed air.

  A good twenty yards away was the dark, looming presence of Nadine’s house, and as he stood there, he thought he saw one of her curtains flicker, then fall back into place. He scowled and then pointedly looked away.

  Quietly, he said, “Aliesha’s gone, but I didn’t do this for her. It was for me. I needed to find a way to close the door, say good-bye . . . something. That’s what the first book was. The first chapter was the first step in letting go . . . it just took me a while to figure that out.”

  Travis was quiet.

  He was quiet for so long, Trey started to wonder if he’d slipped out.

  But when he turned, he saw his brother standing exactly where he had been. “Can I suggest you do something else for you, then?”

  Trey narrowed his eyes.

  Travis shrugged. “The kid’s asleep. He’ll stay that way until you wake him up. Chances are Ressa’s little girl is sleeping, too. Why don’t you go spend some time with your woman, Trey?”

  He opened his mouth, but Travis cut him off. “Both of you have kids you have to keep in mind. I can stay here with him. The two of you need to grab some time for yourself and stop dancing around each other like cats.”

  Brooding, Trey went to shake his head. Not a good idea. Of course, his entire body was already hard at the thought, blood thrumming in his veins.

  “Go on,” Travis said. “You should have seen your face when I told you nobody called, and don’t act like you weren’t expecting her to call. Go see her. Take some time for you.”

  For a long moment, Trey stared at his brother and then, without saying another word, he headed for the door.

  “By the way . . .”

  Trey paused in the doorway and looked back.

  “I already knew your little secret,” Travis said, grinning at him. “You have all those other books—the hot girl with the tie—up in the spare room. If you didn’t want me knowing, you should have locked the room or told me to stay out.”

  Trey just flipped him off.

  * * *

  Hey . . . how are you doing?

  She’d picked up the phone, stared at the text about a dozen times.

  And about a dozen times, she’d almost called him, because she needed to hear hi
s voice. She wanted to see him. But if they talked, he’d hear something in her voice, she knew it.

  And this wasn’t something she could go into over the phone.

  They needed to have that talk before she launched into a full-on sulk about the things from her past, and how her temperamental, and troubled, cousin still tangled up everything. So Ressa remained in her bed, curled up on her side and trying to pretend she could sleep, that the past few days hadn’t happened.

  She stroked the screen of her phone like a talisman, keeping her thoughts on Trey. If she thought about him, she wouldn’t have to think about the fact that this weekend, she and Mama Ang would be going to see her cousin, and she’d find out just what that sly note in Kiara’s voice meant.

  She needed to talk to him, though. See if he’d mind keeping Neeci with him. There were a few others she could leave her cousin with, but nobody she was as comfortable with and nobody that Neeci would like being with.

  Whose fucking fault is that? Kiara’s words rang in her ears. Groaning, she rolled onto her belly and buried her face in her pillow.

  “Think about something else,” she told herself.

  She shoved the phone call out of her mind, tried to think about Trey, but instead, her mind spun back.

  Years back. Back to the time when everything had gone wrong.

  * * *

  “Wow.” Kiara stared around her for a long moment before looking at her cousin. “How are you affording this?”

  She shrugged. “You ready to go?” On her way out the door, she grabbed her jacket but Kiara stopped her yet again, her eyes going wide at the buttery-soft leather jacket she’d pulled on.

  “Oh . . . Ress. That is nice!”

  “Thanks. Come on. We’re going to be late for the movie. We hardly ever go out anymore.”

  “That’s because you’re always busy,” Kiara said, laughing as she gave the leather jacket one more envious stroke. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were out there following in your dad’s footsteps or something, the way you got this place fixed up, your clothes . . .”

  “Very funny.” Ice skated up her spine, but she pushed it away. “I don’t mess with that stuff. I told you that. And you better not either.”