“There’s another theory being floated around about what happened.”
Dalton frowned confusedly. “So, tell me about the other theory.”
Caden paused a moment and then said, “It may not have been an accident—it might have been intentional.”
Dalton went still, and then he slowly sat up straight in his chair. Shock covered his face. “Intentional? Are you saying there’s a chance someone tried to kill you?”
Caden let out a deep breath and then said, “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
* * *
Dalton stared at Caden for the longest time as the shocking news ran through his mind, infiltrated his brain waves and registered in his thoughts. “Why would you think it was intentional?” he asked, not wanting to believe what he was hearing.
“I didn’t come up with this myself and, quite honestly, I’m still not sure that it was intentional. We’re having the matter investigated, since there have been some new developments,” Caden explained.
“What kind of developments?” Dalton wanted to know.
“Mainly to do with Rita Crews—she used to be the bass player in my band. We were lovers for a brief time, but she got carried away, became possessive and began antagonizing the fans and causing too much trouble with other band members. When things got worse, I knew I had to replace her. Just last night, I found out from my manager that she had made threats about me. Then, to cap it off, today he told me that her current band has been on hiatus for the past while—including last weekend. Apparently, one of the band members said she’d told him she would use her time off to settle a score with someone.”
“And you think that someone was you?”
“I don’t know, Dalton. That’s why we’ve hired a private investigator who’ll check on Rita’s whereabouts last weekend.”
Dalton shook his head as he stared at his two older brothers. “You should have told this Rita girl up front what the deal was. Then you wouldn’t have this problem.”
Caden rolled his eyes. “She knew what the deal was. I didn’t lead her on.”
“You must have done something if she’s now out to get you. Man, Caden, you don’t know how to handle business with your bed partner.” Dalton paused, then added, “Compared to you two, I am a genius when it comes to the ladies.”
Ignoring his last comment, Caden said, “Rita’s involvement is merely speculation. She might have been talking about something else altogether and there’s a fifty-fifty chance she wasn’t anywhere near Charlottesville last weekend.”
“Well, for your sake, I hope that’s the case. When will this private investigator know something?”
“Hopefully in a few days.”
Dalton drew in a deep breath. He sincerely hoped the speculation involving Rita Crews was merely speculation. Nothing could be worse than jealous women—there was no reasoning with them. At the first sign any woman was possessive or obsessive, he would drop her like a hot potato.
“You said you wanted to discuss a couple of things, so what’s the other one?” he asked Jace.
Dalton didn’t miss Jace’s hesitation and he noticed that Caden seemed uneasy about something, as well. “What’s the other thing, Jace?” he repeated, wondering what on earth it could be.
“It’s about Mom.”
Dalton felt a nasty twinge of concern as he exhaled and said, “Mom? What about Mom?”
Dalton saw the quick glance between Jace and Caden, the twinge becoming an uneasy feeling twisting in his stomach. “I’m going to ask just one more time,” he said, getting to his feet. “What about Mom?”
It was Jace who answered. “We found out that she was involved in an extramarital affair.”
* * *
Dalton didn’t say anything. He just stared at Jace, a complete absence of shock on his face.
Jace concluded there could be only one reason for that.
“You knew,” Jace said in an accusing tone as anger rattled his senses. “You knew Mom was being unfaithful to Dad.”
“Yes, damn it, I knew, but what was I supposed to do? Tell Dad?”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have,” Caden said with an edge of steel in his voice. “Jace and I have been pulling our hair out trying to think of the best way to break this news to you, and you knew already.”
Dalton frowned. “The reason I didn’t tell Dad or anyone was because Mom made me promise not to tell.”
“And of course, you did anything she asked you to do. You were always her favorite, and now I know why. You knew all her secrets.”
“Damn it, Caden, I did not know all her secrets. I was only a little kid at the time. I only found out she was having an affair by accident.”
Dalton sat back down and didn’t say anything for a minute, and then he began talking. His tone was low and deadly serious. “It was the year before she died, so I must have been around ten or eleven. I was lying low after school. I’d been acting out in class that day and they told me my teacher would be calling my parents to let them know. I figured I could hide out somewhere until their anger wore off.” He didn’t say anything for a minute, and then he said softly, “That’s when I saw Mom...with a man who wasn’t Dad. They were kissing and about to take their clothes off. She saw me, but the man never did. Later that night, she came to my room and made me promise not to tell anyone.”
And of course, he promised, Jace thought. Dalton had adored their mother, and he’d done anything she had asked of him.
A deep frown covered Caden’s face. “Where were they?” he asked in a curt tone.
Dalton glanced over at his brother. “The boathouse.”
“The boathouse?” Jace exclaimed in a loud, angry voice. “Mom had the nerve to bring her lover to Sutton Hills?”
“And to think Michael Greene was behaving all holier-than-thou at the party last Saturday night. Had I known he had disrespected our family, especially our dad, I would have beaten the crap out of him right then and there.”
Confusion spread over Dalton’s face. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Michael Greene,” Jace said. “He used to work for Granger years ago.”
“Yeah, I remember him. He’s Deidra Greene’s dad. Deidra gave me my first blow job when I was fourteen.”
Dalton’s statement left both of his brothers speechless. “Deidra was a lot older than you,” Caden said, recovering himself. “At least four years older.”
Dalton shrugged. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
“Apparently not,” Jace said, staring at his brother. “But the fact still remains that Michael Greene had the damned nerve to engage in an affair with our mother, and he used the boathouse at Sutton Hills as if it were a damned hotel.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Dalton interrupted. “I don’t know where you got your information, but the man Mom was with that day at the boathouse was not Deidra’s dad. It was not Michael Greene.”
Thirty-Six
Jace shifted his body and eased up to sit on the side of the bed. He couldn’t sleep. All he could think about was the conversation he’d had with his brothers earlier that evening.
“Jace?”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Shana look over at him as she wiped the sleep from her eyes. “Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Pushing hair out of her face, she said, “I’m fine. I was so tired last night I don’t remember you coming to bed. How did things go with Dalton? How did he handle finding out about your mom’s affair?”
“He already knew.”
“What?”
“Yes,” Jace said, lying back on the bed. Pulling Shana into his arms, he tucked her head beneath his chin. “He’d been hiding out in the boathouse when he got into trouble at school and saw Mom there with her lover.”
“At the boathouse? At Sutton Hills?”
“Yeah. I guess she felt safe in doing that because nobody but her went down there on a routine basis. She used to claim that was her privat
e place and that the lake would relax her mind.”
“What did she do when she realized Dalton was there? Did he walk in on them?”
“He didn’t actually walk in on them—he was hiding in a closet. But Mom saw him sneak out. He says he didn’t see anything other than two people kissing and undressing. But that was enough for him to get an idea of what they were about to do. Dalton wasn’t a dummy where sex was concerned, even when he was eleven.”
Jace paused a moment and then added, “Mom confronted him about what he’d seen that night and made him promise not to tell anyone. It was wrong for her to do that, but she knew she could get away with it because Dalton thought the world of her. He worshipped the ground she walked on. Dalton believed Mom was perfect, and I suspect it was hard on him to discover she wasn’t.”
Jace drew in a deep breath then said, “And he kept her secret all this time, telling no one what he saw that day. At one point, I suspected he thought Dad did kill Mom, and I can understand why he would. He knew what Mom had been doing and figured Dad had a motive.”
“Do you believe he still thinks your dad is guilty?”
Jace shook his head. “No. I think, after a while, he put the pieces together and acknowledged Dad’s innocence like the rest of us. It’s just not in our dad’s nature to hurt anyone.”
“But an angry person will do just about anything if pushed hard enough,” Shana said.
“True. But I’ve always admired my father’s control, especially under pressure. If anything, he would have asked Mom for a divorce. But he would never have killed her.”
Shana nodded. “Your mom was murdered at the boathouse, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then the person who killed her knew her routine or knew she went there often enough. If I were your father, I would have someone check out the Greenes’ alibi again to verify they really were on a cruise when your mom was killed.”
“But here’s the shocker, Shana. The man Dalton saw with Mom that day wasn’t Michael Greene.”
Shana pulled from Jace’s arms to look up at him. “You’re sure?”
“He’s positive. If that’s the case then she must have been seeing two men and, evidently, she was sleeping with both.”
“Who was the man Dalton saw?”
“He said he didn’t know him but that he would recognize him if he ever saw him again. He saw the man that afternoon, but the man didn’t see him. More than likely, Mom never told him that Dalton had been there.”
Shana didn’t say anything for a minute. “What if this other lover found out about her affair with Michael Greene and killed her in a jealous rage or something?”
“I guess that is a possibility. The one thing I do know is that my dad didn’t commit murder,” Jace said with unwavering certainty.
* * *
“All quiet on the Granger front at my end,” Striker Jennings reported to his boss, Roland Summers.
“Good. I’ve heard from the other members of the security detail, as well. It seems as if Shep’s sons have made things easy for us tonight.
“Everything is set for Caden’s trip this weekend?” Roland asked. Once Striker had discovered that Caden Granger would be taking a trip out of town for the weekend, Roland thought it would be best for someone else to shadow Caden. If Caden were to see Striker in Vegas and recognize him as the man who had saved his life, his cover would be blown. Until Carson said otherwise, Sheppard Granger’s sons would be protected, and Roland would do everything in his power to ensure Sheppard’s desire that professionalism and discretion be maintained at all costs.
Roland ended his call with Striker and leaned back in his chair. He recalled the first time he’d met Carson Boyett. He’d been a cop intentionally set up to take a fall. As a result, he had been sentenced to fifteen years.
He had served three years when his wife, Becca, hired Carson to fight to have his case reopened. She did so, risking her own life in the process. In retaliation, Becca was killed, and Carson had come close to losing her own life. But somehow Carson had persevered and had managed to expose the team of bad cops on the take. All five had been charged with his wife’s murder, along with a number of others.
It was through Carson that Roland had first met Luther Thomas, another man who had been wrongly convicted. Through her he’d also met Sheppard Granger. It had been Sheppard and Luther—now the Reverend Luther Thomas—who’d approached him to set up a security detail for Shep’s sons. Striker Jennings was one of those men. Some of the guys working for Roland were, like him, innocent of the crimes they’d been accused of. Some, like Striker, had committed crimes but had served their time and had now taken their rightful place back in society. They were all good men, men he’d been lucky enough to bring into his organization. Hardworking men and dedicated to a fault.
Roland was about to get himself another cup of coffee when his phone rang. “Roland Summers.”
“This is Stonewall.”
Stonewall Courson was the person who’d been assigned to keep an eye on Shep’s youngest son, Dalton. “Yes, Stonewall, what’s happening?”
“I guess the natives are restless. Dalton Granger decided to go out for the evening.”
Roland checked his watch. “It’s after midnight on a Thursday night. There aren’t too many places still open at this hour.”
“He’s headed down the interstate in that sports car of his. At least he’s keeping to the speed limit. Maybe he just wants to ride around or something. I do that myself when I have a lot on my mind. I just wanted you to know it’s not going to be an early night for me like I thought it would be.”
Roland chuckled. “Sorry about that, and thanks for checking back in. Just stay with him.”
“Don’t worry, I will. If he hangs out all night, so will I.”
Thirty-Seven
“You’re still not telling me where we’re going?” Shiloh asked, smiling over at Caden. She was sitting across from him in the private jet he had rented to take them from Charlottesville to the surprise location. Caden was doing a good job of keeping his lips sealed. As she continued to hold his gaze, she couldn’t help but think what a gorgeous pair of lips they were. She definitely liked the neatly trimmed beard he had begun sporting a few months ago. Caden had always been a good-looking man, but as far as she was concerned, the beard made him look even more handsome, and the way it lined his mouth made his lips that much more desirable, more kissable and so darned delicious.
“Shiloh?”
“Yes?”
“I asked if you were comfortable.”
She nodded. “Yes, now that the plane has leveled off.”
He chuckled. “I’d forgotten that flying isn’t your favorite pastime. But I hope you believe me when I say I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I hope so, since I didn’t bring a stitch of clothing with me other than what I have on.” And that was the truth. She had followed his instructions to the letter. No undergarments, toiletries or change of clothes. According to him, they would purchase anything she needed when they got to their destination.
Caden was sitting in the seat facing her with his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved white button-down shirt. Although she had no idea where they were going, she didn’t have any doubt in her mind what they would do when they got there. His eyes had been roving over her body from the minute they’d boarded the plane. And sitting across from him was giving her the full Caden Granger effect. He had a way of looking at her that could turn her insides to mush, creating a deep throb between her legs and making her breasts ache.
She could pretend they didn’t want each other, sit here and suffer through the entire trip. Or she could take matters into her own hands, and her fingers itched to do just that. She’d never been a bold person when it came to sex. In fact, Caden had taught her everything she knew. She had saved herself for him, and at twenty-two, she had experienced her first sexual encounter. He had made it worth waiting for.
“What are you thinking?”
His question interrupted her thoughts. “Sure you want to know?”
“Yes. Tell me.”
Could I? Should I? Why not? “I was sitting here thinking about how sexy I think you look and how your eyes are deliberately trying to turn me on.”
“Are they?”
“I think so.”
She watched as a smile touched the corners of his lips, making the throb between her legs intensify. “Is it working? Am I turning you on, Shiloh?”
She didn’t mind being honest. “Yes.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
Now, that was a thought-provoking question. “Not sure I can do anything.”
“Sweetheart, you’re the only woman who can.”
His words not only stirred her insides but also filled her with the degree of confidence she needed to unbuckle her seat belt. She glanced around. “The pilot is—”
“Flying this plane. And I didn’t think we needed a flight attendant. It’s just the two of us in here.”
She glanced around again. It was a mini-jet, not as large as the one owned by her uncle Rodney. Because he had business interests all over the world, her uncle’s jet was spacious and had been designed for his comfort with sleeping pods and a full-service kitchen. While this jet was nice, it lacked the amenities her uncle’s plane had.
But she would make do.
Easing out of her seat, she knew he was watching her. Waiting. Sometimes she thought he knew her better than she knew herself. “Since you won’t tell me where we’re going, I guess I’ll just have to entertain myself until I get there.”
“Help yourself.”
“I intend to.”
He lifted an eyebrow, and she smiled. Maybe he didn’t know her all that well after all. At least, this no-holds-barred side of her. He was the only man she’d ever slept with. Even during those four years they had been separated, the thought of sharing her body with another man was something she hadn’t had the courage to move on and do. When she thought she had been ready, Caden had stepped back into her life. And he’d let her know in more ways than one that he was there to stay.
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