By Hook or By Crook

by Linda Morris

  The thrum of conversation let her admire the landscape. Pines, rolling hills, and the blue of the Sacramento River made for a setting less wild than the Tahoe region but no less beautiful. In the distance, snow spotted the low mountains. Anthony had the radio tuned to a country station, and ballad after ballad about no-good lovers and cheating hearts filled the cab. As they got farther from town, the roads grew rough, and they bounced over pot holes and cracked blacktop.

  Situated in the middle of the front seat between Joe and Anthony, Ivy found the jostling sent her ping-ponging between the two men. Every time her body brushed against Joe’s hard thigh, her body tingled in response. She caught his glance after one such moment. What she saw in his gaze made her heart race. She had agreed to come to help a woman in need. Joe had promised her nothing. She needed to remember that.

  She had to remember that. For the rest of the drive, she held herself apart to avoid bumping up against Joe. If only she could guard her heart so easily.

  ****

  “Hey, is that you guys?” Erin called from within the house.

  Hearing his sister’s voice made Joe’s heart pound as he climbed the steps of the tiny house Erin and Anthony called home.

  Anthony hung back near the truck with the others, ostensibly to show the visitors the property, at Ivy’s suggestion, but Joe knew Ivy wanted to give him time alone with his sister. He stood in the open doorway for a moment, lead in his feet. He didn’t want time alone with his sister. He hated family entanglements. All the pain they brought back, all the disappointment people felt in him when he couldn’t meet their expectations. All the needs that other people had that he couldn’t fulfill.

  As a young boy, he hadn’t been able to protect himself from his father’s violence, much less spare his mother or sister. Later, after his mother died and he took responsibility for raising his sister, he’d been big and strong enough to keep his sister and himself safe physically.

  Unfortunately, nothing could prevent Tom Dunham from spewing rage at his children. Hearing his sister’s voice brought it all back. He wanted to run—to run back out to the truck, grab Ivy, and head out of here, let sisters and brothers-in-law fend for themselves.

  And then he realized something—in his little fantasy escape scenario, he hadn’t even thought about leaving Ivy behind. Somehow, she’d become necessary to him. That should scare him even more than seeing his sister.

  It didn’t, though.

  “Joe-bro, is that you?”

  The impatience in his sister’s voice, reminding him of her when she was a kid and wanted him to play with her, snapped the spell. He couldn’t run—from Erin, from Ivy, or himself. He could handle this. She was his little sister, after all. Whether it made sense or not, she looked up to him. He heard movement behind him as a hand brushed against the small of his back.

  “I sincerely hope that’s not Anthony,” he said.

  Ivy’s laugh reassured him. He clasped her hand, stroking her palm with his fingertips. In the distance, Daisy and Pock hung over the fence, making noises to try to attract the horses. Good. He wanted his sister to meet Ivy alone for the first time, without Daisy sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

  “Come on,” he said with a smile. “I want you to meet my sister.”

  “Joe-bro, what is the holdup?” His sister practically yelled the words this time.

  Joe lifted a brow. “Not the patient type, my sister.”

  He led Ivy through the narrow hallway to the back of the house, following the sound of his sister’s voice until he found her in the back bedroom. Her pale face broke into a smile when she saw him, and he couldn’t keep an answering grin from his own.

  Despite the bad memories she brought back, she was still his sister, and he loved her. Stepping over piles of laundry on the floor, he reached down to give his sister a giant hug. Even with the bump of pregnancy, his tiny sister hardly occupied any space in the sleigh bed that dominated the small bedroom. Dirty dishes and magazines competed for space on the nightstand, and a laptop sat half-shoved under the bedspread.

  “Damn, Erin, this place is a wreck. Why don’t you get off your butt and do something?”

  His sister whacked him on the back. “Jerk,” she scolded, but her voice was warm.

  Joe extricated himself from her embrace long enough to introduce the two women to each other. Ivy extended one hand in a shy handshake. He’d grown so used to her going toe-to-toe with him that her reserve with a stranger surprised him. Still, she looked beautiful in a dark pink sweater and a pair of woolen gray trousers. He realized his gaze had been lingering on Ivy a little too long when Erin’s lips quirked in a smile.

  “So you’re the girl who’s tamed my big brother, huh?” Her eyes, a couple of shades lighter than Joe’s, sparkled.

  “I’m just here to help out since you’re not feeling well,” Ivy said, looking nervous.

  He’d assumed, when she agreed to come with him, she intended to give him another chance. Had he misread her? She had an overactive sense of responsibility. Maybe she felt some weird gratitude toward him and thought she owed him something. The thought soured his mood.

  “Sure you are.”

  The knowing tone of his sister’s voice irked him. Tweaking her ear, he shot her a half-serious warning look. “Be nice, or I’ll do your laundry for you.”

  “Please. A fate worse than death.” She rolled her eyes at Ivy. “I let him do the laundry once when I was a teenager. Never again. All my whites turned pink, and my favorite skin-tight jeans came out two sizes too small.”

  “How was I supposed to know you weren’t supposed to wash clothes in hot water?” he asked with a shrug. “Or put reds in with white? But don’t worry. I’ve learned a thing or two since then.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll leave the laundry to Anthony. I have to nag him into it, but at least my clothes survive the process.”

  “I can do your laundry,” Ivy offered, diffidently. “I haven’t done laundry before, but I’m sure I can learn.”

  Erin sent him a what’s-with-this-chick-that-she’s-never-done-laundry look. He shook his head slightly, not wanting to get into it.

  “Well, I would really appreciate that,” Erin said with a smile. “I can tell you how. Just don’t take any lessons from Joe.”

  ****

  “Mr. Cantor, guess what?”

  The eager look on his assistant’s face peeping through the half-open door to his office irritated Cantor. Not surprising—these days, everything irritated him. He held up a finger to silence her as he listened to his accountant drone on the other end of the line. The bastard wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know. His bank balance had suffered due to Pock’s last-minute attack of conscience. He’d repaid the money his friends, and his frenemies, had lost on Dykeman. Now some bills were past due, giving the lie to the image of the prosperous legitimate businessman he’d been constructing for himself. His chain of dry cleaners gave him a front of respectability, but his illegal activities paid the bills.

  He’d already been putting out feelers about running for City Council next year—calling in marks, talking to staffers, soliciting campaign donations. That would all go down the tubes if he didn’t get some money fast and get the Pock situation resolved too. Killing Pock wouldn’t pay his bills, but it would feel damn good, and it would let everyone know about the dangers of messing with Phil Cantor. Right now, he was the schmuck who had let a punk fighter get away with double-crossing him. That would all change if he got Pock.

  Jerrie shifted in the doorway, turning the doorknob back and forth absentmindedly, clearly impatient to tell him something. He ignored her. Let her wait. He paid her well enough for it. He’d slipped money to people in every casino, airport, and bus station in Tahoe, Reno, and Vegas to keep an eye out for Pock and his girlfriend, not to mention the two assholes who had left him for dead on the road, but he’d heard nothing for days.

  Finally he’d gotten a tip from one of his watchers at the Conrad. Pock and his g
irl were getting married at the wedding chapel in Stateline. The incompetent idiots had let them get away, and now he was right back to where he started, if not worse.

  When his accountant started in on his delinquent mortgage payments, he’d heard enough. He’d bought a McMansion two years ago to celebrate his rise in the Vegas underworld. Now he was looking at foreclosure. With the Vegas housing market in the toilet, he had zero chance of unloading the thing.

  “Talk to you later,” he barked, and slammed down the receiver, not bothering to wait for a response. “What?” he shouted at Jerrie.

  She opened the door and edged in. “Guess what? I heard from our guy at McCarran Airport. Pock, his girlfriend, and two other people got on a flight to Redding, California, yesterday.”

  The news had him leaning forward in his seat. Damn, this could be the break he needed. He thought for a moment. “Redding, California? What the hell’s there?”

  “I don’t know. You want me to find out?”

  “See if you can find out where they’re at. And get me a flight to Redding, too.”

  “But that’s not all,” Jerrie continued, her plain face lit up with a secret she clearly ached to divulge. “Our guy at the airport recognized the girl with Pock, and the other girl, too. They were the Smithson girls.”

  “Who?”

  “The Smithson girls. Their father is Richard Smithson, the big land developer in Chicago.”

  Cantor chewed his lip a moment. “Holy shit, I know who Richard Smithson is. Everybody knows who Richard Smithson is.”

  He did a quick search on the Internet for images of Richard Smithson. It took him only a minute to find what he was looking for—a shot of the man at a black-tie benefit, flanked by two smiling young women. One was the girl who, along with the detective, had left them for dead. The other was Pock’s girlfriend.

  Cantor’s heart pounded hard and sure. This changed everything.

  Christ. He’d had Richard Smithson’s daughter in his hands, and he’d let her slip away.

  This was huge. The Smithsons controlled a fortune that made the biggest dealers in Vegas look like paupers. Now, they could give him something even better than revenge—money.

  Hands trembling, he dialed the phone. He needed some help. Time to call in some markers with some people he knew out west. This time, he would get both of Smithson’s daughters, and he’d be damned if they’d wriggle away again.

  ****

  A few days after they arrived, Ivy went to the barn to find Anthony exercising a young mare on a lunge line in the corral. “Where are Joe and Pock? Lunch is ready.”

  He nodded to the barn. “Joe’s in there. Pock went to town to pick up some ointment from the vet. One of the horses has an ear infection.”

  She found Joe cleaning curry combs and brushes, looking right at home in jeans, a borrowed flannel shirt, and a pair of Anthony’s boots. The sight made her heart race. What woman didn’t love a cowboy a little, even a part-time one?

  “You’re going to need a pair of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat if you’re going to make a life of this,” she teased.

  “No career change for me, thanks. I prefer dealing with the symbolic kind of horseshit I encounter as a security consultant, not the real thing.”

  Ivy laughed. “And putting up with my father’s horseshit is lucrative, you have to admit. At least for you. I have to do it for free.”

  “You don’t have to do it at all, Ivy. You’re a free agent.” His serious expression made her smile fade. She sighed.

  “Please, let’s not get into a big discussion about my dad. I know how you feel about him.” They’d been getting along well lately. Why get into another argument that wouldn’t change anyone’s mind?

  He shrugged. “Fine. How’s Erin?”

  “Okay, I guess. A bit lonely. I think she’d like to see more of you,” Ivy told him.

  Joe paused long enough to pin her with a stare and then resumed his attention on the curry comb. “She ought to complain to her husband then. He’s keeping me busy.”

  “Surely you could spare a little time to talk to her, though,” Ivy said.

  “Maybe.” Joe obviously intended the monosyllable to shut her up, but it didn’t work.

  “Erin seems like a lovely girl,” she ventured.

  “She is a lovely girl.” She couldn’t mistake the pride in his voice.

  “I don’t see why things are so strained between you. Surely you must see it’s unfair to blame her for your father’s behavior.”

  “I don’t blame her!” His temper flared like a match to tinder.

  “But you keep letting your anger at your father disrupt your relationship with her,” Ivy pointed out.

  He tilted his head, looking at her in a measuring way, eyes flat with anger. “You’re talking about something you don’t understand. At all,” he said. “You think you have a difficult father? Our dad wasn’t difficult. He was impossible.”

  “Why?”

  He sighed and tossed the curry combs onto a nearby bench and then shoved his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. He paused for so long she wasn’t sure he was going to answer.

  “Before my mom died, she kept it from getting too bad. He focused so much rage on her, it deflected some of it from us.”

  He paused, lost in painful memories Ivy didn’t know whether she wanted to hear. She took a deep breath. “Did your father hit you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  The word chilled her. His blank expression gave her no clue to what he was thinking.

  “It got worse after Mom died, for a while. But then I got bigger and stronger, and I could fight back. After I broke my father’s jaw, he learned to leave Erin and me alone.”

  Dear God. He’d broken his father’s jaw.

  His voice held a mixture of pride and regret that broke her heart. What must it be like to hurt your father and be proud of it, because you knew you were protecting someone young and helpless? Still, she understood one thing about Joe Dunham—he couldn’t have enjoyed hurting his father. For all his rough edges, he carried a fundamental sense of decency about him that she couldn’t help but notice.

  “I think Erin is very right to look up to you,” she said softly.

  He shook his head. “She doesn’t look up to me—”

  “Trust me, she does,” Ivy corrected. “And with good reason. Joe, can you imagine what her life would have been like if you hadn’t been there?”

  “That’s the difference between then and now. Back then, I helped her out. I kept Dad from hitting her, and I made sure the bills got paid. I had a job in high school and helped out financially. My dad earned a decent living in the army, but he drank a lot of his pay. I made sure we had the things we needed for school.”

  “So why did you leave?”

  “Because I could. I was going nowhere as a grocery stocker, taking a college class here or there. I’d gotten offers for scholarships, but I turned them down because I couldn’t leave Erin alone with him. Then she graduated high school and took a scholarship at the University of Nevada. I got out of there.”

  “And you never went back?”

  “Once in a while. I went to her college graduation and her wedding. Dad eventually retired to Florida so I didn’t have to worry about seeing him. I came to visit her and Anthony here a couple of times.”

  “When she begged so much you couldn’t resist anymore,” Ivy guessed.

  “Don’t pass judgment. You don’t understand.”

  “I’m not passing judgment. But you’re right about one thing—I don’t understand it. You don’t want to see your father, I get that. But why punish Erin? You’re not being fair to her, and she really loves you.”

  He didn’t answer right away. When he finally did, his words had the air of a forced confession. “It’s better if I don’t. She’s better off without me. I don’t want to screw up her life like I’ve done my own.”

  The raw words shocked her. “Screw up your own? What do you mean?”

&nbs
p; “Let’s see, I screwed up my career, for one thing. Ever since I got my first job in security during college, all I wanted to do was be a cop. And once I got on the CPD, all I wanted to do was to be on the tactical unit. I knew I’d be great at it. I know I would be.”

  Ivy didn’t miss the shift to the present tense. Somewhere inside, he hadn’t totally let go of that dream.

  “My dad always said I’d amount to nothing. When I got kicked off the force, I guess I proved him right.”

  “I think you can quit worrying about your father’s opinion. We’ve established he wasn’t much of a father.”

  “You’re one to give advice on that topic.”

  The blunt charge hurt, but Ivy’s gaze never left his. She knew he spoke the truth. But this wasn’t about her, it was about him. “I get that your father has you convinced—wrongly convinced, I might add—that you’re a failure. But you shouldn’t let it keep you from a sister who really cares for you.” Or anyone else who really cares for you. Like me.

  “She doesn’t need me anymore. Sure, I took care of her back then. And yes, I took better care of her than our father did, but that’s an extremely low bar.”

  “Of course she doesn’t need you to take care of her anymore.” Ivy rolled her eyes. God, for a smart man, he could be dense sometimes. “She’s an adult. She’s got her own life and family. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t still love or need you.”

  He shook his head, vehement. “No. I could only screw things up for her. I screwed my career up. I’ve screwed up my personal life, too. For all the grief I’ve given you, I haven’t exactly had a long string of successful relationships myself. I never even wanted to, until I met you.”

  He spat the words out so forcefully, it took a moment for the last part to sink in. Was he saying... She hardly dared to speak for fear of saying the wrong thing. After a beat, she summoned her nerve. “And you want a relationship now?”

  The hard anger in his eyes faded. “Maybe.”

  “Since you consider yourself a failure at relationships, let me give you a pointer. Saying that ‘maybe’ you’re interested in a relationship with me isn’t enough. You’ll have to be more explicit.”