“Then you fell for the town.”
“Fuck that.”
They both laughed. When they stopped, Declan grew serious. “Then why did you stay?”
Callen didn’t see a reason to duck the question. The answer wasn’t a mystery. Wasn’t a secret either. “You and Beck. A place to settle. Something to finish together.”
“My reasoning was about the same. Chalk one up for family.”
It was as if Declan had forgotten about Callen’s front row seat to the Declan and Leah Dating Show. “Nice try. We both know what body part led you, since what you wanted was Leah.”
“I don’t deny she’s the main draw, but the idea of building something with you and Beck feels right.” Declan thumped his hand against the sturdy doorframe. “And having an actual home instead of an apartment on a military base or tent in the desert doesn’t suck.”
Callen stood up. “Then let’s get outside and repair the rest of it.”
***
Sophie stood at her car later that afternoon and watched Tom circle the side of the Hanover house and head straight for her. The day turned cooler than usual for summer. Not surprising for Oregon where the rain and wind could kick up out of nowhere, but she craved summer. She loved the mild temperatures by the coast and wanted to shout for joy whenever the sun stayed out, warming everything it touched.
But today wasn’t that day. It wasn’t even six yet and a chill moved through the air. She knew because she’d spent hours out in it, clearing out the cottage now that the skunk family had been evicted. And thank you to Tom for that.
She wanted to take a hard run at the kitchen or sneak around Callen’s third-floor space, but Leah and Beck hovered around all afternoon, walking up and down the stairs and talking with each other. They ruined all Sophie’s plans.
This family really needed to work outside of the home a bit more. This office-in-the-house thing was killing her desperate search. With the real work cut off, she had to come up with an excuse to be there, which meant falling back on the fake stuff—cleaning. And that sucked.
“You’re still here?” Tom smiled as he dumped his toolbox in the back of his pickup. “What a surprise.”
Sophie decided to ignore the unspoken Beck-related hint. “You ended up working all day.”
Tom had told her he wanted to do some initial work. Make a list of necessary and emergency repairs then work down to those that might be nice to have, provided one or all of the Hanover brothers had a pile of money somewhere. And despite the rumors about that, Sophie had never seen any signs of extra cash.
Tom rolled down his long sleeves as he came around to lean against the side of the car next to her. He buttoned the ends. “Those two are pretty eager to learn.”
She had to smile at that. “I notice you reference two and not three Hanover brothers.”
“There’s some noise about Beck being the brains behind the family operation.”
At the mention of his name, she felt his presence. She glanced up at the library window expecting to see him standing there, but the curtain stayed closed. “I believe he’s mentioned that once or twice.”
“Speaking of Beck.” With a loud exhale and all the shifting to fold his arms across his chest, Tom likely didn’t need to say what was on his mind.
“We’re not.” She got the gist of Tom’s thoughts and tried to avoid it all. If they weren’t blocking the door to her car, she’d bolt out of there before Tom broached any sensitive topics.
He pushed on anyway. “You should tell Beck.”
“What?” It was an automatic response, the one where she pretended not to get it. Her gaze went across the large expanse of land running along the side of the house. All of that struck her as more fun than looking at Tom’s knowing smile.
“You know what I’m saying. Beck has a right to know what’s behind you ripping his house apart.”
“I’m being careful.”
Tom’s eyebrow lifted. “With stuff, maybe. I’m not sure you’re handling the people part of this all that well.”
The man had a point. He always had a point. From the start Tom told her not to fight Aunt Angela’s battles. He insisted that’s what landed her in trouble to begin with.
Sophie got it but she couldn’t take that route. “I meant why should I tell Beck now.”
Tom tipped his head and stared down at her. “You’re too smart to ask something so dumb.”
The heat of his attention burned into her. It wasn’t as if he said something she hadn’t argued in her own head. The position warred inside her and every time she saw Beck, the “tell him” side inched closer to a win.
But one fact remained. “It’s not my secret to share.”
“Your aunt slept with Charlie, not you.”
If only it were that simple. “I get that.”
“Do you?” Tom’s teeth clenched as he hissed out a long breath. “Angela invited Charlie into her house. Into her bed. Before the sheets had cooled, he took her jewelry, including the heirloom pieces from your uncle’s family. Now he wants them appraised, and she’s run out of time to produce them.”
The whole list of sins and deceits made Sophie’s stomach flip. “She made a mistake.”
“It’s her mistake. Her bad choices. Her affair. Her marriage. But you’re paying for it. She’s got you walking away from your life, running to all of Charlie’s known addresses and sticking you with a promise not to tell anyone even when you are dying to be honest with Beck.”
That was the right word. She ached with the need and every day it grew stronger until it thumped with a life of its own. She wanted him. Maybe just a few days without the promise or the search hanging over her head and guiding her every move. None of that could happen with the mess of lies and deception dragging her down. But still . . .
“This could destroy their marriage.” And the only true family Sophie had left.
It all came down to that. Her aunt and uncle weren’t perfect, but they took her in, raised her. They gave her love and she owed them something, maybe everything. If that turned out to be a relief from the burden of her uncle knowing a truth that could rip their marriage apart, Sophie would run that risk.
Her head spun and her throat strained from the desire to shout the truth. Every morning she woke up determined to march into that house, grab Beck’s hand and sit him down. Let the truth flow out of her and accept whatever anger he aimed her way. But then her aunt would call for a status update and somewhere between begging to explain it all to the Hanovers and her aunt’s hysterical crying at the suggestion, Sophie lost the ability to break her word.
“It’s not okay Angela put you in this position, and I told her that. She knew how dangerous Charlie was and what he had done to my family. Yet, she raced headfirst and fell for every line.”
The truth sucker punched Sophie, robbing her breath. Aunt Angela stepped away from a twenty-year marriage for a fling with Charlie. She knew the dangers, had heard the warnings, but she walked right into the con. And now Sophie was stuck trying to find the evidence before her aunt lost everything.
What really made Sophie sick, like double in half, was the reality she wasn’t the only one hiding information from Beck and his brothers. She wasn’t playing the Hanover brothers. Neither was Tom. But without intending to, they were both running the brothers around.
Sophie decided Tom needed a reminder “My aunt isn’t the only one with something to lose here.”
Tom leaned his head back against the car. “Meaning?”
“As you just pointed out, you have ties to this family and I didn’t hear you laying that on the table before you signed the house rehab contract.” Sophie knew the rough sketch, that Tom somehow accidentally pushed Aunt Angela right into Charlie’s path.
“Yeah, I’ve had my own Charlie issues.”
Sophie wasn’t exactly sure what that meant
. She always suspected Tom’s guilt and his role in the mess extended past him introducing Aunt Angela to the man who would shake her confidence, but Sophie couldn’t work up the strength to ask. She just didn’t want one more burden to carry, one more secret to hold.
But none of that forgave Sophie’s ongoing subterfuge. She couldn’t figure out how to fit all those pieces together and make everyone happy. “There are times, separate from all the stuff with Beck, when I think the brothers deserve to know everything from both of us right now, regardless of what that does to Aunt Angela. They’re Charlie’s sons and they’re inviting people into their home who have direct connections with their dead father.”
“Maybe from both of us.” Tom stared at her again. “Definitely from you.”
She snorted. “Oh, so just I should come clean. You’re fine as is?”
“I’m not the one searching their house. That’s you, and it’s messing up your relationship with Beck.”
That’s what—who—it all came down to. When she was searching the house for her aunt’s property without anyone there, she could disconnect the physical structure from human emotion. Then the brothers moved in and Sophie thought she’d buzz through her task, finish it and sneak away. Her unlucky streak survived and she got the sequence all wrong. The brothers moved in, she got sucked in further, and the tie to Beck tightened every day.
She was in such big trouble. She glanced at the house again . . . such big freaking trouble.
“I don’t know what’s happening with Beck.” And that was the truth. She thought she knew after the library, now nothing made sense.
“Yeah, you do.”
“He turned me down.” A fact that dug into her belly and left her aching and raw.
Tom snorted. “What?”
She was thrilled someone found this funny. She sure didn’t. “I made a pass and—
“Hold up.” Tom put up a hand and made a hissing sound through his teeth. “Do I want to hear this?”
“My point is, I gave Beck an opening and he walked away.”
First came the head shaking then the tsk-tsking sound. “Poor bastard.”
As far as Sophie could see Tom’s sympathy was sorely misdirected. Beck stood in the kitchen just that morning whistling—whistling, damn him—and appeared just fine. She was the one who had to crawl out of that library and face a guy across the table while her cheeks burned in horror at the memory of his kiss-off.
Yeah, sucked to be her.
“Actually, if you want to be technically correct, I was the one who suffered an ego implosion over the whole scene. Not that he remembered that at breakfast when he changed his mind completely.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” If she spent even ten seconds trying to figure out Beck’s wild emotional swings from day to day she’d go insane. It was better to ignore the sexy, sweet side of him for fear of misinterpreting . . . she just didn’t know how to make her head and her heart do that.
The wind changed directions and blew into the back of her hair. It carried a soft mist. Out of nowhere, the rain had kicked up. The weather should be warm and dry, but rain was as usual as air here.
She thought the dark skies fit the conversation. When a light flicked on in the downstairs television room, she knew it was time to take this somewhere else. She reached for the door handle but Tom blocked the way.
“We should go,” she said.
“Before we do there’s one thing you need to get, and I mean this, so listen.”
“Only one?” If true, that would be a good day.
“Do you really think Beck wanted to walk away from you when you made a pass?”
“Are we still on this?” She gave another quick look in the direction of the house. Last thing she needed was a parade of Hanovers coming down the steps to see what was going on in the driveway.
“You have that guy all messed up and misfiring. He spins much more and we’ll be rushing him to the hospital for emergency head-out-of-ass surgery.”
She shushed Tom even as she wanted to rely on his superior male-related knowledge. “Maybe you could not scream that.”
Tom shook his head. “Wow.”
“What?”
He pointed at her face. “It’s kind of wrong that the idea of Beck being screwed up over you makes you smile like that.”
She touched a hand to her cheek and felt the heat there. She tried to swallow the smile, but it would not die. Beck, all talky, prone to argue about anything. The thought of him standing there babbling over her . . . well, it didn’t make her sad. Did confuse the crap out of her, though.
“I know.”
“There is an answer to all of this.” Tom glanced around as he said it. “And it’s a pretty easy one.”
Wrong. “It’s not as simple as you guys think.”
“Guys?”
“You and Beck.”
Tom finally stood up to full height. He crowded in and dropped his voice. “Honey, if he’s pushing you for information, if you’ve gotten to that point where he wants to really know you, don’t blow it over some misplaced loyalty to Angela. Tell him now.”
A strange sensation tugged at her as Tom said the words. She looked up to the second floor again and saw an outline in the library window. She didn’t have to guess. Beck stood there with his hands on his hips and his attention focused on them in the driveway.
“I could be too late.” Even as she said the words she hoped they weren’t true.
Tom followed her gaze and waved. “From the whipped-dog look on Beck’s face every time I see him, I don’t think that’s an issue.”
Chapter Eleven
Beck stood in the television room the next morning staring at the unopened envelope on the coffee table. He’d studied that thing for weeks but never in this room. The fact it was here, now, meant Callen was moving it around, possibly getting closer to unveiling whatever the hell was in it.
Beck just wanted the damn thing opened. He didn’t like mysteries. He wanted facts and clarity. He’d been bugging Leah on and off for weeks about the contents. She knew. She put the information in there and handed it to Cal with the warning to ignore it. She kept the secret.
Damn, he hated secrets more than mysteries. Secrets carried with them a knowing intent by the holder to keep others in the dark. Callen, Leah . . . Sophie. Secrets choked the life out of everything. That the otherwise intelligent people in his household failed to see that kept a slow fury boiling inside of Beck all the time.
“Hey.” Declan stepped into the doorway in his daily uniform of jeans, tee and heavy work boots. “I need help with the wood splitter. Where’s Cal?”
After giving his brother a quick glance, Beck’s attention went back to the envelope and the heaviness in his gut. “He’s out.”
“Believe it or not that answer isn’t helpful.”
It had gotten to the point where Beck couldn’t concentrate on anything except the wealth of information he didn’t know. The secrets stacked on top of him and the situation with Sophie magnified every frustrating detail. Her denials and half-answers were just one piece of the incomprehensible whole his world had become.
But his adult life didn’t start in that direction. He knew the law and had walked into courtrooms prepared. His new position called for him to travel around, ensuring legal aid offices were in compliance with their charters. Clear and straightforward. A life centered on knowing the rules and how far he could push them.
Life in Sweetwater turned out to be the exact opposite. In many ways he was thrown back into the world he knew as a kid. The time before he found focus and refused to let it waver.
The hang-up phone calls to the house. The whispers from some of the people in town whenever Beck walked into a business. The money missing from Charlie’s accounts. It all amounted to layer upon layer of deception. Beck doubte
d half of the secrets even mattered. People gave intriguing details more power by holding them inside.
“What are you doing in here?” The amusement had left Declan’s voice. His voice stayed low and almost flat.
“I don’t get it.” Beck swiped the envelope off the table and waved it in Declan’s general direction. “Why doesn’t Callen just open the damn thing?”
Turning around, Declan closed the pocket doors, shutting them both inside. “Don’t do this. Not now.”
“When?”
“After everything settles down.”
Beck started to ask what that meant but before he got the words out the answer rammed into him like a kick to the stomach. He could see the truth in the pickup of Declan’s breathing and his sudden stillness. For all those years of weapons and battle training, all that time dedicated to protecting country, Declan wanted peace. In his life, with his brothers, in a future with Leah. It pulsed off him as he stood there. Beck’s strong brother had a fear.
Beck gave it a voice. “Cal is not going to leave.”
Declan’s expression went blank. “I didn’t say he was.”
He didn’t have to. Beck got it. “We’re not going to say that one thing that makes him run again.”
“I didn’t—” Declan wiped a hand over his forehead. “But how do we know that?”
“We just do.” Beck did.
Callen stayed when a few vocal neighbors expressed their hate for Charlie with threats to the house. He stayed when the FBI followed him to town. He stayed when a mystery woman showed up begging to see him.
And he handed over the check that would save the house for all of them.
“Those days are behind us.” Beck said because he wanted it to be true and believed it was. “But this envelope is just hanging. We need it handled.”
“Hell, I don’t know what he’s thinking. I’m guessing it’s a self-control issue at this point. Callen wants to prove the past doesn’t matter.”
But they knew the truth. That was the one horrific gift Charlie gave them—a past that haunted and destroyed everything. “Don’t you want to know what’s in it? I mean, it could impact all of us, or our ownership or the house, or one of the billion pending lawsuits.”
A Simple Twist of Fate Page 10