by Cynthia Eden
“I knew where to look,” she said carelessly, as if all the hours and bribes and deals she’d made to uncover the past had been easy. A real walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon.
Bull. It had taken blood, sweat and some serious payoffs to get that information. But she’d been determined. She hadn’t intended to stop, not until she gave Sullivan what he needed. Because she’d thought that maybe then her guilt would end.
“You knew where to look...” Davis laughed. “I sure get the feeling there is a whole lot more to you than meets the eye.”
She knew the other McGuires would grill her when she walked into that house. But she’d wear her mask. She’d control the information she revealed to them. There was no need for them to know—
“It was a chapel,” Sullivan said, his voice deep and rumbling. “And I still have that picture of her.”
What? Her gaze flew to him.
Sullivan’s glittering stare was locked on her. “If you’d looked inside my nightstand drawer, you would have found it, Celia.”
She shook her head.
“I guess I had a hard time letting go.” His hand rose and his fingers skimmed down her cheek. “I tried. You think I don’t know how damaged I am? When the chips were down, I was the one who turned on you.”
He wasn’t saying these things to her. He couldn’t be.
“I didn’t deserve you. I woke up in that hospital, and I knew that truth. I had been ready to believe the worst of you, when I should have been the one protecting you with every breath that I had.”
“Sullivan?”
He looked at his brother. Davis was watching them with an avid gaze. “I married her,” Sullivan said to him. “She divorced my fool self. There, happy?”
You’re still married to him. Ronald’s words rang in her ears.
“And you’re right, bro, I did change,” Sullivan continued. “Because every single day that passed, I missed her. I wanted her. But she was in the wind and I couldn’t find her, not at first. I tried at the agency, but they stonewalled me.”
“Uh, the agency?” Davis asked.
But Sullivan just kept going. “I didn’t know that Mac had managed to make contact with her—hell, when he first told me about her, that she was going to help us out with that mess that nearly destroyed Elizabeth, I think I went a little crazy.”
Her cheeks flashed hot, then ice-cold.
“She’s not just a client,” Sullivan said as his fingers stroked her cheek once more. “She’s always been so much more.”
“What are you doing?” Celia whispered to him. “Stop!”
But it was too late.
“I won’t ever deny you again,” Sullivan swore. “I’ll prove that you can trust me.”
This wasn’t happening.
Frantic, she glanced at Davis. A faint smile curved his lips. A rather satisfied smile. Had he deliberately been pushing Sullivan?
Davis turned away. Took a step. Then stopped. “You talk in your sleep, Sully.”
Yes, he did. She’d learned that fact for herself.
“I heard you call for her once. It was easy to put the pieces together after that.” Davis looked over his shoulder. “I’ll take care of the folks inside. You two need to talk this out before you see the others. If you want to tell the rest of them, do it. For my two cents...you should. But if you want to keep your secrets well, hell, it sure seems like this family was built on them, doesn’t it?” Then he walked away.
Celia didn’t speak, mostly because she was trying to figure out what to say. Sullivan’s hand had fallen away from her cheek, and she felt strangely cold without his touch.
But then, she’d felt a bit cold without him for a very long time.
Don’t make the same mistakes. Don’t give in to the need. But it was so hard. Especially with him standing right there and—
“You kept my picture?” She hadn’t meant to blurt out that question.
He nodded.
“You were the one who told me to walk away.” As if she’d ever forget that phone call. “You, Sully, not me.”
“You think I don’t know what a mistake I made? I was half out of my mind with painkillers. They’d sliced me open in that pit. I thought I was going to die there, and yeah, it was in that hell that I made my mistake. It was there I turned on you.” He heaved out a breath. “I believed them when they said you’d set me up. They knew so much about my family—things I’d only told you. They knew, C, and rage took over. I wanted—”
He looked away.
“You wanted me to suffer.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach and backed up.
“No.” His gaze flew right back to her. “I just wanted my life back. I wanted to feel like my heart hadn’t been ripped apart. Thinking you’d betrayed me? It gutted me. I was broken. Not by those jerks and their torture, but by what I thought you’d done. I couldn’t live like that. I had to get away.”
From me.
She focused on breathing, nice and slow.
“Mac told me that you helped him. I didn’t know you were driving the damn getaway car—not until you told me. I didn’t know you walked into hell for me.”
Her lips trembled a bit as she told him, “My boss didn’t authorize a retrieval mission for you. It was believed that you were part of the compromised group.”
“What?”
Ah, so she had managed to surprise him.
“I was informed you were one of the traitors. That you’d turned on us. Retrieval wasn’t an option.” Ronald had told her that with sympathy in his voice. “I was boarding the plane to rendezvous with you when my boss gave me the news. The mission had gone to hell. You’d turned. Most of the team members who’d been on-site with you were dead.” She’d grabbed the railing beside her and held on tight, not wanting Ronald to see that her legs had nearly collapsed beneath her. “I didn’t follow his orders. I contacted Mac instead. We got you out.”
He yanked a hand through his hair. “Because you never gave up on me.”
“Because it was my fault you’d been taken.” Why hide anymore? Davis had gone back into the house. It was just the two of them in that moment, alone on that bluff. No one could hear their secrets. “I was the one who recruited you. I was the one who gave you initial training. I was the one who should’ve had your back.” Because I was the one who loved you. “Traitor or not, I was going to find you. You deserved that from me.”
His hand fell. “And you deserved a hell of a lot more from me.”
“We moved too fast back then,” she said, the memories stirring within her. “We barely knew each other. When the chips were down, what more could we expect?”
He stepped closer to her. “More. Expect one hell of a lot more from me this time.” His arms wrapped around her and he pulled her close.
She should step away. She should stop him.
Instead, Celia rose onto her toes. She locked her hands around his shoulders, and when his head lowered toward her, she kissed him.
* * *
MAC WAS WAITING for Davis just inside the house. When he saw Davis’s expression, he demanded, “What did you do?” Trust Davis to go meddling.
Davis shut the door. “You and Sully...did you really think I didn’t know what the hell was going on? He vanished for weeks, and when he came back, he was as pale as a ghost. I knew my brother had been hurt.” He rolled back his shoulders. “I just respected him enough not to beat him while he was down and demand answers.”
“You think you have those answers now?” Mac kept his voice low. Davis might be in the know, but the rest of the family wasn’t, not yet.
“I have some answers, but definitely not all. I knew when I saw them together that she was the one who tied him in knots. His obsession, come to life.”
Mac exhaled. “Davis, it’s not that easy. You don’t know her...”
“She’s Celia James. I just shook her hand.”
Mac glared at the guy. Davis put his palms up. “Look, I know what matters, okay? I know that Sull
y lights up when he’s near her.”
But did he know how much pain Sully had brought her before? How much pain Sully had brought himself? “She’s already got a dead body in her wake. Danger follows her.” Mac liked Celia. He respected her. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of the risk that she presented—to Sullivan and to them all. “That dead body that was found outside McGuire Securities last night? Celia knew the guy. Sully and I think he was trying to kill her.”
A faint furrow appeared between Davis’s eyebrows, the only sign of his concern. “Yet he wound up dead.” A brief hesitation. “By her hand?”
“Celia said she didn’t kill him.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I want to.” He truly did. But he couldn’t trust her with his family’s lives. “But I haven’t ever been that close to her.”
“Not like Sully,” Davis murmured. “He got close enough to marry her...”
But he still didn’t fully trust her. And that had been their downfall.
“Sully mentioned the agency a few moments ago,” Davis said.
Mac hid his surprise. Davis was obviously probing, but Mac just stared back at his brother.
“If overseas work was involved, and I’ll assume it was with Sullivan’s background...” Davis cocked his head to the right “...then the agency, I’m guessing, is...CIA?”
“If you say so.”
Davis grunted. “You and Sully, huh? Because you know her well, too. Was she your handler?”
Mac shrugged.
Davis’s eyes hardened. “You never told me you were an operative.”
“I don’t remember you asking.” Mac rubbed his jaw, feeling the scrape of stubble there. He considered stonewalling his brother, but decided that enough was damn enough. “Someone had to watch Sully’s back.”
“I think that’s what Celia’s doing.”
No, he rather thought Celia and Sully were doing something else entirely. Especially if he knew his brother...
“But now that I know we’re dealing with the CIA,” Davis added, “I know which contacts to use in order to check her out.”
Right. Because Davis would never accept Celia at face value. He never accepted anyone at face value. Their whole family had trust issues.
“Let’s just see what my sources have to say about her...”
“Your sources?” Mac pushed. Since when did Davis have sources at the CIA?
Davis smiled at him. “You think you and Sully were the only ones approached by the CIA? Get in line, bro. I didn’t take them up on the offer, but that doesn’t mean my friends didn’t.”
Hell. He’d wondered about that... Davis and Brodie had both been SEALs, and SEALs would have made perfect candidates for the CIA’s Special Activities Division. With their elite training, they would have been perfect agent picks for the covert operations.
“Give me thirty minutes,” Davis said with a nod, “and I’ll know everything I need to know about Celia James...”
“Good luck with that,” Mac told him. Because you’ll need it.
Thirty minutes wouldn’t be nearly long enough to explore the mystery that was Celia. Sully could have easily told the guy that fact.
* * *
CELIA WAS IN his arms. She was kissing him. She tasted sweeter than candy, better than wine, and he never wanted to let her go.
And I won’t.
Not this time.
Sullivan pulled her closer. Kissed her deeper. He loved it when she gave that faint moan for him. He could feel the tips of her breasts pushing against him. Perfect breasts. They’d always fit just right in his hands. He wanted to strip her. To taste every delectable inch of her body.
When the pleasure swept over her, Celia was so beautiful.
She’s always beautiful.
His hands slid down her back. Moved to the curve of her hips. She had such a fine—
Celia pushed against him.
Jaw locking, Sullivan eased back, but he didn’t release his hold on her.
“Tell me what you want from me.” Her voice had gone husky with desire.
What he wanted? Easy. Everything. But he said, “From now on, no secrets.”
Her eyelashes flickered.
“I won’t keep any secrets from you,” he promised her. “So what I want right now, more than anything...is you. I want to take you someplace private, where I don’t have to worry about my family intruding on us. I want to strip you, and I want to drive you wild.”
That plan seemed simple enough to him.
“But what do you want?” Sullivan asked her. “Tell me, and I’ll make it happen.”
Her gaze searched his. The desire was plain to see in her stare. Her cheeks had flushed and her lips were red, slightly swollen, from his mouth. Sexy as all hell.
“I want you,” she said slowly. “I don’t want any hesitations. I want us, alone, and I want to let go of every fear that I’ve ever had.”
Yes.
He caught her hand in his and pretty much started pulling her toward the guesthouse.
Only...
A glance toward the main ranch house showed him that Mac was on the porch. The guy jumped off the steps and headed toward him.
No, no, no. His brother could not really have timing that bad. It just couldn’t be possible. “See...” Sullivan sighed. “There’s the family, intruding.”
Mac kept marching toward them. The guy was totally ignoring Sullivan’s get-away glare. “They want to meet her,” Mac called.
And I want to keep her all to myself. That equaled a problem in his book.
“She brought them answers,” Mac continued as he sauntered closer. “Well, answers and more questions... They’re all waiting inside for her.”
So much for Davis taking care of them. Just where had his other brother gone?
Celia bit her lower lip. A shudder of need rushed through him. He wanted to have that lip against his mouth again. He wanted to taste her, and if she wanted to bite him...feel free, baby.
The sex between them had always been intense. Wild.
Hot.
His arousal shoved against the front of his jeans, and the last thing he wanted was a sit-down with his family. He’d been away from Celia too long. She’d just admitted that she wanted to be with him, too.
Now...this?
Fate was so cruel. Terribly, twistedly cruel.
“I don’t have any more answers to give them,” Celia said. “Everything that I had...I gave that to Sully. There wasn’t any more for me to find on your mother. I looked. I searched. But I couldn’t find more. I think there was another file on the man who shot her boyfriend. She went back in for a sit-down with the local cops, but that file was destroyed in a fire. And the cops she talked with back then? They both died in a shoot-out a few months later. So if she ever officially said anything else about the man who executed Henry Jones, no record exists of that testimony.”
“Come inside,” Mac said with a slow nod. “It’s time, Celia.”
Time? A swift glance at Mac showed that his expression had turned very solemn. Sullivan realized this wasn’t just about the past—it was about the present that Mac knew Sullivan wanted with Celia.
She nodded. “Fine. We’ll be right behind you.”
Mac turned and headed back to the house.
Celia watched him in silence, and she made no move to follow. Sullivan started to feel...nervous, and that sure wasn’t something he was used to experiencing.
“I’m scared,” she finally admitted.
Nothing she could have confessed would have shocked him more.
“What if they don’t...what if they don’t like me?”
His jaw nearly hit the ground at that whispered question. Then he laughed.
Celia blushed furiously when she saw his expression.
“Oh, baby, no, I’m sorry.” He pulled her close once more. If he had his way, she’d always be close to him. “I wasn’t laughing at you.” He’d never do that. “I was laughing because...you’ve
faced down killers. International terrorists. And you’re worried about what my family thinks of you?”
“Yes.” Still flushing, she held his gaze. “I am.”
She shouldn’t be. “I’m just hoping they don’t say something that sends you running,” he said honestly. “They can be overwhelming.” To say the least.
“I’ve never had a family, Sullivan. You know I was raised in the foster system.”
Yes, he remembered her telling him that. And he remembered thinking, I’ll be your family, baby. He still wanted to offer her a family. A home. All that she’d ever dreamed of.
“I was pretty much on my own for as long as I can remember.” She cast a quick glance toward the house. “There were no big holidays. No family gatherings. No barbecues in the summer. A crowd like that one in there—all the emotions—it just...what if I say the wrong thing?”
“You won’t.” He was dead certain. “Elizabeth is already eternally grateful to you. Mac is ready to slay any dragon that appears...and you have me.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.” For as long as you want me. “We’ve got this.”
She smiled and her dimples flashed. He actually felt his heart stop at the sight of those dimples. It was a real smile from her. Not cold or taunting. Not a fake stretch of her lips. Her dimples winked. Her eyes gleamed.
In that instant, she was once again the woman he’d married.
“Let’s do this,” Celia said. Her fingers twined with his. They headed toward the house. They didn’t speak again as they climbed the porch steps and walked inside.
But as soon as they crossed the threshold, every bit of conversation in the house died. All eyes turned on them.
Not so subtly, Sullivan moved closer to Celia. If anyone so much as looked sideways at her...
Ava rushed forward. She shoved Sullivan to the side and threw her arms around Celia. “Thank you,” Sullivan heard his sister gasp out.
Over Ava’s shoulder, Celia stared at Sullivan with wide eyes. What do I do? She mouthed those words to him, looking rather like a gorgeous deer in the headlights.
But before Sullivan could say anything, Ava was talking again. She pulled back a bit but didn’t let Celia go. “This is a huge break for us. Knowing more about our mother and our father—it’s a game changer!” She shook her head. “I don’t know how you got that intel, but thank you. I am in your debt and I will do anything—”