A Lover's Vow

by Brenda Jackson

  Settling back against the sofa cushions, she jotted down notes. So far nothing and no one seemed suspicious. Most of the people she saw spent a lot of time at the food table, which was understandable since Hannah had made an awesome spread that night.

  She lifted a brow when she noticed the arrival of the man who’d tried hitting on her that night. Gary Coughlin. She was trying to recall what he’d told her about himself beyond his name. He had said that he was fairly new to town and had come to the party with a friend who was a business associate of Jace. Someone named Ron. CEO of Zimmons Aviation Supply Company. She also recalled him saying he was a divorcé. She jotted all that information down for Manning to verify later. She hated having a suspicious mind, but it came with the territory.

  A few minutes later she became curious when the video showed Coughlin reentering the party from the patio. That was probably during the time he’d left her out there with Dalton. She saw what looked like a smile on his face when he went straight to the coatrack, got his coat and left the party without saying good-night to anyone...not even the man he’d come to the party with, someone whom she could only assume was named Ron. Interesting.

  “So this is where my shirt ran off to.”

  Jules turned in the direction of Dalton’s voice, and her breath caught. He stood there, leaning against her coat closet door, shirtless but wearing a pair of dress slacks. The sight of him made her mouth water. Hadn’t they made love for nearly three hours straight? So why were her hormones kicking up and acting crazy again? It could be because at that very moment her five senses were on full alert and focused on him. And all that sexiness had her head spinning.

  “You want it back?” she asked, knowing that even if she gave it back, his aroma would still be on her skin.

  He chuckled, and the sound sent a distinct warmth bubbling through her. “That would leave you naked, and I love seeing you naked, Jules.”

  Not as much as I love seeing you naked, she thought, even as she figured that more sex was the last thing either of them needed right now. Sexual hunger she could deal with, but sexual addiction was way too crazy to think about.

  “I’m finished watching the video of Shana’s dinner party.”

  “Did I miss anything?”

  She decided not to mention her suspicions about Gary Coughlin until she checked out a few more things. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I did miss something. I missed you in the bed when I woke up.”

  She smiled. Is this the man who had just told her the other day that he didn’t like waking up to women in his bed? But then, it wasn’t his bed in there; it was hers. “You needed your rest.”

  She patted the seat beside her. “Now, come sit down, and let’s watch the next video. Since you weren’t at the open house at the wine boutique it might be useful for you to review it with me.”

  “And afterward...”

  Jules grinned. “You can go home if you like.”

  He moved across the room and slid in the seat beside her, pulling her into his arms, leaning close to whisper into her ear. “And what if I don’t want to go home?” He ended the question with a warm lick beneath her ear, across her cheek and down her neck, making the muscles between her legs tighten in arousal. “Then I guess you can stay.”

  “I’ll make sure you won’t regret the invitation.”

  She just bet he wouldn’t and felt her hand trembling slightly when she picked up the remote. Like the other video, the quality was good, and she tried shifting her focus away from Dalton and to the video by jotting down details on her notepad. She made note of the times people arrived and departed from the party at the wine boutique. She noted several people had attended both Shiloh’s open house and Shana’s dinner party.

  “That’s Sandra Timmons,” Dalton said in a tone that let her know the woman wasn’t one of his favorite people.

  She nodded. “I recognize her from the picture we have of her. She’s a nice-looking lady.”

  “Whatever. And that’s Sedrick, her asshole of a son.”

  Jules remembered Sedrick Timmons from his picture, as well. “I don’t see a family resemblance between him and Shiloh.”

  “Probably because he looks like his father and she looks like...”

  When he stopped in midsentence, Jules decided to fill in. “Her mother?”

  Dalton shrugged. “I don’t see any similarities between the two women.”

  “Probably because you like Shiloh but don’t like her mother.”

  “Maybe.”

  The video kept rolling. It was cute to see Shiloh’s reaction to Caden when he walked in and how she pretended not to look at him when she was doing just that. And there was Caden, openly staring at Shiloh, making his interest quite obvious.

  “Go get her, Tiger,” Dalton said, also picking up on his brother’s predatory demeanor. “Wait! Zero in on that guy and woman standing over by the buffet table.”

  Dalton’s sudden outburst almost scared Jules. “What guy? What woman?”

  “That one,” he said, pointing, getting off the sofa to move closer to the screen. “The woman in the blue dress.”

  “Her name is Nannette Gaither,” Jules told him. “Shiloh’s working with her on the city’s annual ball for cancer research. The same function Caden is headlining. I joined them for lunch one day, and she seems nice, just a little too chatty for my taste.”

  “I don’t care about her. I want you to zero on him—the man she’s with.”

  Jules froze the screen on a close-up of the man in question. “I believe he’s Nannette’s fiancé. I can check with Shana to be certain. Why does he interest you?”

  Dalton came back to the sofa and sat down, his gaze not leaving the television screen. She reached out and felt his body trembling, feeling his anger. “Dalton, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. “That’s him.”

  “That’s who?”

  He drew in a deep breath and shifted his gaze from the television to her. “I wondered if I would remember him. If I would be able to recognize him if I ever saw him again...and honestly, I never thought I would. He looks different, older, gray around the temples, a little weight around the middle, less hair, but it’s him.”

  She swallowed tightly. She knew the answer to her next question but figured she needed to ask it, anyway. Not for her, but for Dalton. “Who is he, Dalton?”

  He reached out and gripped her hand. As he stared into her eyes, she saw the hurt, the pain and the agony of the past trying to drown him when he said, “He’s the man who was with my mother at the boathouse that day.”

  Thirty-Five

  Dalton leaned back in the recliner and stared at Jules. He had managed to slip out of bed without waking her, deciding to sit in the chair and watch her sleep.

  And think.

  He thought he’d purged all the guilt inside him when he’d confessed to his father that he’d known about his mother’s affair. But seeing that man on the video had affected him in a bad way, and Jules had been right there to help see him through it.

  She had held him tightly, telling him everything would be all right, and that what had happened was in the past, that his mother’s mistakes were not his. Jules had even talked him out of leaving right then to find the man and confront him.

  He’d wanted to tell the guy he had been at the boathouse that day, hiding out in the closet. That he’d seen them naked, kissing in bed. He wondered how many other times the two had met there, right under his father’s nose at Sutton Hills? How had the man even gotten on the property without anyone knowing about it?

  Jules made a sound, shifting in her sleep and kicking off the covers, something he noticed she did a lot. Dalton crossed the room and slid the covers back over her naked body. And then he stood there, leaning again
st the bedpost to look at her.

  It had been raining earlier, practically pouring by the time she had turned off the video. He’d swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. And then she had tried to do what time hadn’t been able to do—purge all the guilt from him. She had made love to him in ways they had experienced before, but something about tonight had been different. It had meaning. A deeper definition. It had been perfect.

  And during those moments of being inside her, he hadn’t felt one iota of guilt or anger. He’d only felt pleasure and a gratification that had been so strong it had affected him in ways he thought he wouldn’t survive. But he had survived just to indulge again and again, while the sound of torrential rain beat down on her roof, washing the shingles and simultaneously washing his soul.

  He had needed that. For the first time, he didn’t see Jules as just another woman he had sex with, but as the only woman he wanted to have sex with. And for some reason the thought of that didn’t send him into panic mode, didn’t make his dick fall off or his fingers rot. What he felt was inner peace, a desire to be with a woman in a way he’d never thought possible.

  A peace that could only be had with her.

  She was the first woman who’d ever made him consider an exclusive relationship, basically abandoning his lifestyle as he now knew it. That was a lot to think about, and he couldn’t do it here. What he told her was true. He wasn’t a thinker—he was a doer. But this was one time he had to think and not act, because failing was not an option. He had to get it right.

  Glancing around, he spotted her notepad and pen. Tearing off a sheet of paper, he began writing, first assuring her that he was okay and that he had not left to go find Nannette Gaither’s fiancé, but was going back to his place to think some things through and would call her later. He ended by telling her that he hoped she had a nice lunch with her father.

  After placing the note on the pillow where his head had lain a short while before, he quietly dressed before tiptoeing from the bedroom.

  * * *

  Ben glanced over at his daughter. “Are you okay, Jules?”

  Jules looked up from her meal and met her father’s concerned eyes. In a way, she wasn’t okay because Dalton wasn’t okay. She was certain that he was better than he had been last night, but she knew he wasn’t one hundred percent.

  Seeing that man in the video had taken a toll on him, and she could just imagine what he’d been thinking. At the time he’d been a child, not fully realizing what the man and his mother had been about. But now, as a grown man, he knew all too well. She had pulled him into her arms and held him while his body shook with a hurt that should have been buried long ago.

  And later he had made love to her, as if doing so would release all the anguish from his body. When she’d awakened that morning, she’d found the note on the pillow saying he was okay and just needed time to think.

  “Jules?”

  She drew in a deep breath. Over the years, her daddy had always been the one she could take her troubles to and talk things out with. He never judged, and he never condemned. He always listened and offered advice only when she asked for it.

  “I’m glad we’re doing lunch, because there’s so much I need to tell you, Dad,” she said softly, not knowing where to begin.

  “I’m listening, Jules.”

  She loved this man so much. The man who’d always been there for her and Shana. The man who was still there for them. Benjamin Bradford was the daddy every girl should have. “I’ve taken on Sheppard Granger’s investigation to find out who killed his wife.”

  Ben didn’t say anything for a minute. “He hired you?”

  She shook her head, smiling wryly. “No. In fact, he’s probably not going to like it when he finds out. He believes the other PI on the case, a few years back, was murdered.”

  “That’s what I heard, too. The thought of that doesn’t bother you?”

  She chuckled softly. “I’m an ex-cop, Dad, and I was a detective for two years.”

  Ben nodded. “Yes, I know.”

  “Risks come with the territory, with the job I do. I can handle it.”

  “I know you can handle it, Jules, I’m just asking you to be careful.”

  “I will.” She paused a moment and then told him what she’d learned so far. Her father agreed that Ivan Greene’s flimsy alibi was worth further investigation.

  When the waitress delivered their dessert, she said quietly, “And then there’s Dalton,” she said.

  Her father glanced up at her before taking a sip of his coffee. “You two still at it?”

  Definitely not the way he was probably thinking. “I haven’t told anyone, not even Shana...but Dalton and I are no longer...”

  “Enemies?”

  Her father finished her thought for her when it seemed she couldn’t. “Yes, we’re no longer enemies.”

  “Oh? And what are you?”

  This was her dad, so she couldn’t come right out and say that they were lovers, that Dalton was the man she went to when she needed to get laid, the man whose body she could do all kinds of naughty stuff with. “Friends.”

  Ben nodded. “I see.”

  In a way, she was sure that he did. “We watched a video together last night.”

  “So he’s the reason you gave up my grilled pork chops?”

  Jules smiled. “Not really. I needed to watch those videos. Both were work-related and part of the Sylvia Granger investigation. One was of Shana’s dinner party, and the other was the grand opening of Caden’s wife’s wine boutique.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Yes. But first, I need to share something with you. When Dalton was about ten or eleven, he discovered his mother was having an affair. He didn’t fully understand what all that meant at the time, and she swore him to secrecy. He thought it was cool that he and his mom had a secret. After she died and he got older, he realized just what sort of secret she’d made him keep.”

  “That was cruel for her to do that to a child.”

  “Yes, it was. For years, he’d felt guilty and believed that by keeping his mother’s secret, he had betrayed his father.”

  Ben nodded. “I can understand him thinking that way. But again, he was just a child at the time.”

  “Well, last night while watching the video, he recognized the man his mother had been with years ago, and it affected him in a bad way.”

  “The man was at Shana’s dinner party?”

  “No, he attended Shiloh’s open house, but Dalton wasn’t there that night which is why he didn’t make the connection until he reviewed the videotape.”

  Ben took a sip of his coffee. “I hope Dalton isn’t thinking about confronting the man.”

  Dalton had suggested that very thing last night, but luckily, she’d been able to talk him out of it. “He did at first, but now I don’t think he will.”

  “So what’s next?” her father asked.

  Finishing off her apple pie, Jules placed her fork down by her plate. “Now I add the man’s name to my list of people I want to talk to.”

  * * *

  Back at her office, Jules stood in front of her investigation wall. A picture of Vance Clayburn was now pinned up along with the others she needed to interview. As her father had reminded her, just because the man and Sylvia Granger had been lovers did not mean he had a reason to kill her. But what if Sylvia had wanted more from the relationship and had threatened to tell the man’s wife? Jules’s research indicated that Clayburn had been married at the time of the affair.

  So far, she knew that Clayburn was a sixty-one-year-old divorcé, which suggested a thirty-year difference in his and Nannette Gaither’s ages. He’d made his billions years ago in Silicon Valley. He later branched out and acquired a number of small industrial companies and began growing
them into multimillion-dollar corporations. It was announced a couple of years ago that he would be expanding one of those companies to Charlottesville, thereby boosting the local economy and employment rate.

  The man lived in a gated community in one of the wealthiest areas of Charlottesville. Jules wasn’t surprised by that because, despite his wealth and influence, he had always kept a low profile and avoided the spotlight like the plague. It had been very difficult to get the one photo she did have. She wouldn’t be able to surprise him and just drop by. He would need to know she was coming and give her clearance to enter his property.

  Sitting down at her desk, Jules glanced at her watch. It was close to six in the evening, and she hadn’t heard anything from Dalton. She hoped he hadn’t changed his mind and sought out Clayburn, after all.

  She tapped her fingers on her desk a few times before quickly making her decision. She would drop by Dalton’s place for a quick second to check on him. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gone there unannounced. Besides, he’d shown up at her office and her home unannounced himself.

  Grabbing her purse from her desk drawer, she headed for the door.

  Thirty-Six

  In bare feet, Dalton crossed the living room and opened the door without first looking out the peephole. Jules’s scent was her signature, and it could penetrate walls and doors. And there she stood on his doorstep looking delicious enough to eat. She definitely looked good in her jeans, flats and pullover sweater with her hair unbound and swaying around her shoulders. “Jules.”

  “Dalton. I don’t need to come in. I just wanted to check to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m fine, but come in, anyway,” he said, stepping aside.

  She entered and turned around in the middle of his foyer. “Your note did say that you had a lot to think through, but when you hadn’t texted me or anything, I got worried.”

  He nodded. What he had to think through had nothing to do with the man who’d been his mother’s lover and everything to do with Jules. But she didn’t know that.