He took a deep breath. “How about what I think?”
“Don’t,” she said, sounding almost desperate now. “You don’t want to get any more tangled up in this. You could get hurt, or worse.”
“That’s my choice, isn’t it?”
“Only if I let it be.” She held his gaze, and he saw the dull ache of pain there. It twisted something inside him, and he wanted nothing more than to hold her again, get her to believe it would be all right. “I can’t take the chance. I can’t do that. Not to you.”
He wanted to respond to those last three words, to what it seemed like they meant. But he who had had to be sure about so much since he’d come home to see to raising his sister wasn’t sure of much just now. So he answered the only thing he was sure about. “So you go back on the run? For how long, Hope? How long do you live like this?”
“I told you—”
“I know. As long as it takes. So you what, stay on the run until they’re dead?”
It had been harsh, blunt, but he’d meant it to be. And it hit her hard, she paled. But she only said, “At least they will have lived their lives.”
“And every day of it hurting for you, the granddaughter they love.”
Nothing less than agony flashed in her eyes then, and he wished he hadn’t said it, because it was obvious she already knew he was right. “True, I can’t stay here! They’ll find out, they’ll find me, and if I’m still here, they’ll find you, and you don’t know how ruthless they are.”
He thought about a teenage girl, hiding in terror, and ending up with her best friend’s brains and blood spattered on her.
“Let me worry about that.”
“I can’t stay here just because it feels safe. Because it’s not. You were right, it won’t last.”
“Nothing will, until you deal with it.”
“Deal with it?” She stared at him. “You mean. . .what do you mean? Go back? Testify, like the cops want?”
“That would be a start.”
She laughed, and it was a harsh, hopeless sound. “I’m not that brave. And even if he ended up in jail, do you really think that would end it? He’s just one cog in that organization. I told you, they have connections all over.”
“Whiskey River is a small town.” He gave her a steady look. “We’re pretty aware when strangers show up.”
She stared at him. “What are you saying?”
“That Whiskey River takes care of its own.”
“But I’m one of those strangers, remember?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Not anymore.”
“I’ve been here less than a week.”
“And you saved Adam’s life. If Ginevra Hawkins has her way, you’ll have a statue in the square next to Booze.”
She colored again, a lighter pink this time. He wondered if there was a correlation between the shade and the source of the embarrassment. Which made him think of how red she’d turned when she’d misunderstood what he’d said and made that comment that betrayed. . .what, exactly?
It won’t last, Hope.
I know you’ll never love anyone the way you did her. . .
He still didn’t know if she was saying she wanted him to feel that way about her. Or had she merely been making sure he understood that she knew it would never be anything more than temporary, whatever this was between them?
He felt the strongest urge to back away. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with the occasional minefield of female thinking, and he was pretty sure he’d lost the knack. He dealt with Zee fine, but he knew her well, and there was not the extra, added complicated layer of. . .whatever this was.
“You made a deal,” he said, wishing it didn’t feel desperate. “Two weeks. You’ve got a week to go.”
“True—”
“You can’t run without money.”
She pulled herself straight, faced him head on. “And what, you won’t pay me the rest of what I’ve earned this week?”
His jaw tightened.
“I know you better than that, True Mahan. You’re an honorable person who lives by your values and pays your debts, whatever they may be.”
What should have been a compliment instead dug into him like a jagged splinter. “Then why are you in such a hurry to leave?”
The look she gave him then was the saddest thing he’d seen since the day Zee had finally accepted their parents were really gone.
“Because everything you are. . .I’m not.”
He studied her for a long, silent moment as she went back to putting her meager belongings into the battered pack. And for the first time in a very long time he remembered what Amanda had told him in the dark hours of the night before she died.
Don’t give up on life, True. You’re too good a man, you deserve to be happy, and some woman out there will need you.
Need you.
Hope certainly needed someone. But was that all it was? It didn’t seem possible. There was surely something alive and crackling between them. So alive he wasn’t completely sure he wanted anything to do with it.
But he wanted to know. He had to know. If he was capable of feeling again, he had to know.
“I want that extra week,” he said, his voice sounding oddly demanding even to him. “You agreed to it, and I need that job finished. And when it is, I’ll take you wherever you want to run.”
She stopped fussing with the pack and looked at him. “Careful,” she said softly. It was clearly a warning, but he wasn’t sure about what.
Or who it was meant for, him. . .or herself.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I think it would be better if she stayed in your guest room for the duration.”
Zee lifted a brow at him and said, her tone a shade too innocent, “Really? And I think Jamie should come home and take care of his aunt’s house himself.”
True drew back, puzzled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That either one of those is about as likely as a blizzard here tomorrow.”
He frowned. “I thought you liked her.”
“I do. I admit, I was wary at first. Wondered why it had to be her, with whatever her problems are, but then realized it doesn’t matter. Besides, then I got to know her a bit. And I do like her.”
“Then why—”
“You want a list, brother mine?”
Uh-oh. Those were never good words from his sister. Because it usually meant she had a bullet list of reasons that were likely to be un-dodgeable.
“I—”
“First, how’s she going to feel if you suddenly tell her you can’t stand to have her in your house anymore?”
“It’s not—” He stopped himself, because the only way he could explain that Hope wouldn’t mind would have to include why, and he wasn’t about to stand here and say “She won’t mind because I screwed up the whole situation by making a pass at her.” No way he was giving Zee that kind of ammo.
“Second, if you think having her only one wall away will make any difference, you’re stupid, and I know you’re not.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said, but he had a sinking feeling she was right about the wall and wrong about him not being stupid.
“Third, I’d hate to think of my big brother as a coward, after all these years.”
That made him stiffen. And remember that he never needed to worry about giving his sister ammo, she inevitably had plenty of her own.
“Fourth—” if she was up to four, he knew he was in for it now “—it’s fun watching you act like an idiot teenager around her.”
“I don’t—”
“Fifth, and most important of all,” Zee said, her voice going suddenly soft, in that way that told him this was what she’d been aiming for all along, “she’s the first woman since Amanda died who’s made you nervous. You’ve been amused, indifferent, irritated, but never, ever nervous.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing,” he muttered.
“I notice you’re not denying it.”
&nbs
p; He turned back to pacing the office, ramming his fingers through hair that had already seen a lot of that action today.
“She’s leaving as soon as the job is done.” And not happy at all about staying even that long.
“You haven’t talked her out of that yet?”
More like talked her into it. “She has reasons, Zee. Good ones, in fact.”
“Such as?”
“Not mine to tell.”
Zee studied him for a moment. “Bad ones? Like in trouble ones?”
He drew in a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Her fault?”
“Only in thinking she could help someone who didn’t want to be helped.”
“Can her situation be helped?”
“That’s. . .a matter of opinion, apparently.”
“Meaning?”
Suddenly weary he dropped down into the office chair. “Meaning I can see a way out, but she doesn’t see it that way.”
Zee studied him for a long silent moment. “I know you, brother mine. I’m guessing your way out means facing whatever’s dogging her.”
He nodded. “But there are. . .other people involved.”
Again his sister went silent. He could almost feel her assessing, with that mind that was so logical and yet made intuitive leaps that sometimes startled him. “She’s protecting them,” she finally said.
Not mine to tell. His own words echoed in his head. But this was Zee, and she would understand that not answering was in fact an answer.
“So why aren’t we helping her?” He almost smiled at that. Zee might put on a tough front, but underneath she was a softy.
“Tried.”
Again a moment passed. “She’s that scared?”
“Yes.” His hand went to his head again, fingers burying in his hair, but the heel of his hand stopped against his forehead and he pressed it against the ache that was building there. “Getting her to agree to finish the job here was the best I could do.”
“Immune to your charms, is she?”
He glanced at her, then quickly away. He’d thought his expression blank enough, but Zee was right, she knew him. Very well.
“So that’s it,” she exclaimed. “She’s not immune at all. And you’re as scared as she is!”
Damn. There was one of those mind leaps again. Feet first into a very cogent assessment. Because he was scared. He hadn’t felt anything even close to this in so long he’d thought he was the one who was immune.
And Hope Larson had blasted that to bits with one kiss.
“I don’t want you hurt, True,” Zee said softly. “God knows you’ve been through enough. But this is the first time—”
He cut her off with a sharp shake of his head. “Stop it. I know. But that’s asking for. . .” Pain. Heartache.
“Look, I know you’re not the kind of guy for a no-strings fling.” Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “That’s more Jamie’s style. That’s why I’m saying—”
“She’s leaving in a week, Zee.”
“Holy bluebonnets,” she said disgustedly. Her use of their father’s old phrase both startled him and told him how seriously to take her just now. “If you’ve gotten from nowhere to here in less than a week, if you can’t talk her out of running in another week, I wash my hands of you.”
He blinked. He hadn’t thought of it quite that way before. Leave it to Zee. But she was right. They had gone from zero to that kiss in the space of six days. And he’d been in Kerrville for nearly three days of that. Surely he could get her to reconsider by then. Couldn’t he?
Did he even want to? He felt an inward tug, a suggestion that sliding back into his old life where the only ripples were problems that cropped up on projects, where his biggest worry was getting Deck and Kelsey’s pavilion done on time, was what he should be hoping for.
And yet. . .
“It’s time to quit hiding, True.”
He blinked. “Hiding? I’m not hiding. I’m out there every day, dealing with people. I even went to that damn charity thing last year.”
“And spent the whole night dodging that woman up from San Antonio who couldn’t keep her eyes—or her hands—off you all night.”
He’d forgotten about that. It had been annoying at the time. “You should have been paying attention to your date, not me,” he said, trying to turn it back on her.
“She was lovely, rich, and actually fairly nice,” Zee said, apparently not to be diverted.
“How would you know?”
“Because I invited her.”
He blinked. Stared. “What?”
“You heard me. I met her in Kelly’s Boots, and we got to talking. You came up. I showed her that picture of you, working on Kelsey’s place.”
He groaned aloud. He knew exactly the one she meant. She’d come by one day to pick him up when one of the guys needed his truck. They’d been pushing to finish the hay shelter they were building before a delivery later that day, and he’d happily dumped the clipboard and done some real work. It had been hot enough that they’d all shed shirts before it was done. And then Zee had arrived, phone in hand as usual, and she’d snapped what she laughingly titled the calendar boy shot. She’d teased him unmercifully about the image, how sexy his muscled arms, bare abs and chest were, glistening with sweat.
And he had to admit, even though it was the most irritating kind of sibling jousting from her, and embarrassing, he’d been secretly flattered. And the ego that had been battered into near oblivion by being unable to do a damned thing for Amanda had twitched a little.
“I told her you cleaned up even nicer. She laughed, and agreed to come, and see if she could lure you out of that swamp you were living in.”
“You. . .sicced her on me? Why the hell? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking,” she said with brows arched upwards, “it would do you good to get laid.”
True felt his jaw actually drop.
“Not necessarily that night, mind you, just eventually,” she went on as if she hadn’t just blown up the yuck-meter at the idea his little sister had been. . .he couldn’t even think of a phrase for it that didn’t make it worse. “But she was nice, pretty, and sort of your type.”
“My. . .type?”
Zee sighed. “She reminded me of Amanda.”
The woman had reminded him, too. “Yes.”
“I should have realized that would be a negative, not a positive.”
“A negative?”
“I loved her. You know I did. I loved her like the sister she was to me. But I was getting worried about you.”
“I was doing fine.”
She gave him a sideways look, one brow lowered. “But I see now where my mistake was.”
“You should have butted out?” he suggested.
She dismissed that with an unconcerned wave of her hand. “I didn’t think about the possibility that. . .your type might have changed.”
He was starting to feel like he was lost at sea in a rowboat with no oars. Sometimes he simply could not fathom his sister’s mind.
“I should have realized someone completely different, with a problem, would be better.” She didn’t say “Like Hope,” but the implication was crystal clear.
“How,” he asked, hanging onto what patience he had left by a thread, “is somebody having a problem good?”
“You fix things, True,” Zee said quietly. “It’s what you do.”
“This is different,” he said. “This isn’t some run-down house, or something new to build. It’s someone’s life.”
“Kelsey says you’re as much a rescuer as she is, in your own way.”
He drew back. “Kelsey said that?”
“She did. And she’s right.”
He shook his head. “You both have too much faith in me.”
Zee’s mouth quirked. “Bro, this whole town has faith in you. I think you could blow up Booze’s statue in front of a hundred witnesses, and they’d all wait to see what your reason was. Why do you think everybody opened up to
Hope so quickly? They trust your judgment.”
“I know,” he said, almost wearily. And he did, it was a kind of responsibility he’d never expected to be carrying. Yet another reason to be careful.
“We all know you have to put it behind you. Whiskey River would be as thrilled as I would be to see you happy again.”
“I am happy.”
“You’re not unhappy. Not the same thing.”
He’d had about all he could take of female analysis of him for one day. Hell, for a week.
A week. The amount of time Hope had, reluctantly, agreed to stay. A week for him to figure out a way to. . .fix this. He winced inwardly as Zee’s words echoed in his head. Okay, so he did fix things. But fixing a house or a barn was a hell of a lot different than fixing a life that had gone astray, good intentions that had had, as they so often did, unintended consequences. And those were the kind of things he stayed away from. Hadn’t he proven with Amanda that he wasn’t capable of fixing a life?
But apparently that lesson hadn’t been learned, because he was still feeling the urge.
“Just keep an eye on her,” he said, his tone making clear this discussion was over. He had work—real work—to do. He headed for the door, then looked back. “And keep an eye out for any. . .strangers hanging around, okay? If you see anyone you don’t know or who makes you uneasy, call me.”
He’d finally surprised her. He could almost see her mind racing. “That bad?”
“I hope not, she’s put it a long distance behind her, but she’s still worried.”
“I’ll watch out,” she promised, and he felt a bit better. Zee was smart, and she knew just about everybody in Whiskey River; a stranger with bad intent would have to work to slip by her.
And in the meantime, he’d talk to Jack again. She was already mad at him for that, so what was a little more? Maybe he could find out if the threat was still as acute as Hope thought it was. Maybe things had died down, maybe the murderer had decided he’d run her off for good. Maybe he wasn’t even looking any more.
Sure. Maybe a major drug cartel decided to have mercy, just this once. Or maybe a killer just decided to forget about the only witness who could put him away.
Whiskey River Runaway (Whiskey River Series Book 2) Page 14