The flip response she might have thrown at him froze behind her pinched lips. A new life? A safe life? Out from under Alastair’s watch, his control? It didn’t seem possible and yet . . . if anyone could make it happen it was Nathan Tremayne and Malcolm Oliver. If she only had herself to consider she’d have taken the leap and snatched at his offer with both hands, but she had Joey to think about. And Poppy. She couldn’t make any rash decisions without a plan. Still . . . she bit her lip.
“You’re going to have to trust someone at some point, Laurel. And it may as well be me, because from where I’m sitting you don’t have any other options. Don’t test me on this. I’ll give you forty-eight hours to decide.” He got to his feet and straightened his jacket. “And while you’re thinking, keep this in mind. I’m fighting for my family. If you don’t believe anything else I ever say to you, believe this.” He moved forward and loomed over her, the angry heat of his body sinking into her like a threatening promise. He bent down to meet her gaze. She couldn’t break away, no matter how hard she fought the pull of their green depths. “There is nothing,” he whispered, “and I mean nothing, I won’t do to protect them. You will lose when it comes to them, Laurel. Every time. Remember that.” He stepped back. “That’s yours.” He jabbed a finger at the file that remained atop the tumble of sheets and blankets. “I have copies for backup. You can find me at the Tremayne offices. If I don’t hear from you by Friday morning, I’ll assume you’ve left town. In which case you’d best stay gone for good.”
***
Nathan nearly jumped out of his skin when Gage rapped on the passenger window of his Mercedes SUV early Thursday morning. Swearing, Nathan lowered the window and breathed in the rich aroma of fresh brewed coffee from the mug Gage shoved at him.
“Either you’re trying to get up the nerve to finally fill me in on what’s going on with the lot of you or you’re mulling over one spectacular lie.” Gage leaned his arms on the window frame and stared at him.
Given the truth lay somewhere in between, Nathan accepted the mug in silence, his gaze shifting to the bungalow house his sister and her fiancé were systematically moving out of. Gage had bought the house when he’d moved back to Lantano Valley after a disastrous stint with the FBI had nearly gotten him killed. He and Morgan planned to put it on the market after the wedding; after they took complete possession of the house on Tumbleweed Drive. “I must be losing my touch, letting you sneak up on me like that,” Nathan said.
“You must have a lot on your mind.”
“You could say that.” He counted himself lucky he’d gotten any sleep at all last night. His mind had been filled with images of a sullen, striking, silent Laurel as he blackmailed her into compliance last night. He knew she hadn’t told him everything; hell, she’d barely told him anything, but he had to give her credit. She hadn’t cowered and that took courage. Whether she was working for Manville or not—he hadn’t been able to tell if that flash in her eyes at the mention of Alastair’s name had been recognition or ignorance—he couldn’t trust her. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t push her into trusting him. Whatever she was hiding, whatever secrets she had, he’d find a way to work them out of her. If that lead him to Manville, all the better. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the idea that Laurel would do anything to endanger his family. All the more reason to keep her close and show her exactly what was at stake for everyone involved. Or maybe what he needed was a secret weapon. Hmmm . . .
“Earth to Nathan.” Gage snapped his fingers in front of Nathan’s face. “You want to come in?”
“Depends.” Nathan leaned over and looked at the front porch, suddenly understanding how Laurel must have felt under his questioning last night. “You don’t have any loose floorboards in there under which to hide my body, do you?”
“Not at this house.” Gage’s mouth tipped into a smile. “Come on. Might as well get this over with.”
Nathan climbed out of the car and followed a jeans-and-T-shirt-clad Gage into the house that served as home base, office, and decompression chamber for his sister and her fiancé. Frank Lloyd Wright inspired, with geometric stained-glass windows interspersed with mission-style handmade furniture—Gage’s coping mechanism—this house was a home despite how little time they spent here. His recent foray into flipping homes was proving successful despite the still-fragile housing market. Of course, anything looked amazing compared to Nathan’s sparsely furnished town house located in the heart of the business district downtown. The last thing Nathan would call his living quarters was a home.
This place, however, fit Gage to perfection, and while his sister had grown up surrounded by custom design just shy of opulence, she was a practical woman.
“So what’s the bad news?” Gage called from the kitchen as Nathan walked down the hall to join him.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d like to take the kids to Disneyland for the next couple of weeks?”
“Hmmm. Let’s think on that.” Gage poured himself a fresh mug of coffee from the coffeemaker on the butcher block countertop. “That would mean packing up four kids under ten, one attitude-filled teenager, and an overanxious fiancée who would only be thinking about all the work she’d left behind. I’d rather not.”
“You could always bring your mother to help chaperone?”
“Why do you hate me?”
Nathan grinned at the green-tinged expression that floated over Gage’s face whenever his over-attentive mother was brought into a conversation. He took a seat on the bar stool at the end of the counter.
“Enough hedging, Nathan. Out with it already.”
All the time he’d spent finding the right words had been wasted. There were no right words. “Have you noticed anyone hanging around the house? Following you? Has Morgan mentioned anyone taking pictures of her and the kids?” Nathan couldn’t remember ever talking so fast in his life, but all he wanted to do was get it out and let the chips fall.
Gage considered him over the rim of his mug and Nathan felt the overwhelming urge to shiver. “As I haven’t been arrested for murder we can assume the answer is no.”
The imaginary band that had been squeezing Nathan’s insides for the past few days loosened. “Well, either that’s good news and they’ve moved on or—”
“Or someone’s good enough that an ex-cop hasn’t noticed he was being followed. What the fuck, Nathan?” Gage slammed his coffee down and sent it sloshing. “Stop dancing around and man up. Out with it already.”
Guilt nudged at him as he dodged the verbal bullets. “Some events in Dad’s past have come up again. He’s—we—are afraid it may, okay, has”—he corrected at Gage’s back-of-the-throat growl—“has put the rest of the family under some scrutiny.”
“Police scrutiny or psycho scrutiny?”
“Do you really think I’d be here if I was worried about the police?”
“Shit.” Gage looked around as if trying to find something to punch. “What in the hell have you all been playing at? Who is it? Or they? And how dangerous—”
“I don’t want to think whoever is behind this would hurt any of the kids.” Nathan tried to get ahead of the reaction he’d anticipated. “But I can’t take the chance. Which is why I’m here. We just have to be careful since there are certain secrets we’d prefer not be brought to light.”
“I’m betting it’s not just Jackson you’re worried about.” Gage braced his hands on the edge of the counter. “Be honest with me, Nathan. Can you handle this or do I need to call in some favors?”
“I’m handling it,” Nathan admitted. For now. “Gage, I need you to listen to me, okay? I need you to believe me when I tell you that while I’ve taken a lot of chances in my life, I’m not about to take them with the people I care about. Any of them. Nobody is going to get hurt because of this. I promise.”
“No offense,” Gage said, and once again Nathan was reminded of how
intimidating it must have been for anyone to be interrogated by his future brother-in-law, “but I’m not convinced I can trust you, Nathan. Clearly whatever you and my soon-to-be father-in-law have been up to has put a target on the Tremayne family, and by extension mine.”
“We realize that.” He’d let himself fall into the trap—that being a part of Nemesis had been fun, exciting. It had paid off in spades . . . until the price climbed too high to pay. “I’m going to fix this, Gage. Whatever I have to do, I will fix this.”
“Explain to me how.”
“Well—” Nathan began, only to have the phone ring and cut him off.
“Hold that thought,” Gage ordered with a look that had Nathan remaining where he was. “Morgan?” Watching Gage’s expression shift from cool detachment to concern to outright fear tied impossible knots in Nathan’s gut. “Yeah, no. I’ll head down right now.” He glanced at his watch. “Traffic’s going to be a bitch, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Lydia?” Nathan asked, following Gage to the front door where he was shoving his feet into shoes. “Didn’t Morgan take her down to Los Angeles to see a new specialist?”
“She had a massive seizure during the CT scan.” Gage patted his pockets, glancing around the narrow entryway. Nathan plucked the keys out of the bowl near the door, tossed them to his friend. “Dammit, we’re just coming out of losing Brandon.” Gage stared down at the keys in his palm as if he didn’t know what to do with them even as he took deep breaths. “I don’t know how Morgan does this, time after time.”
“We’ll get through.” Nathan laid a hand on Gage’s shoulder. “Whatever happens, we’ll get through.” Because that’s what Tremaynes did. “Come on. I’ll drive.”
Chapter Ten
Laurel didn’t believe for one second Nathan was bluffing the other night when he’d put her on decision deadline. Nonetheless, when she stepped out of the Tremayne Investments and Securities building for the second time in as many days after being told Nathan wasn’t in the office, she had to wonder if she was wrong. Here she was, ready to throw herself to a particularly protective wolf, and he’d picked up and disappeared.
Laurel hitched up her shoulder bag and smoothed the waistline of her white linen dress, the narrow silver belt catching against her fingers. What game was Nathan playing with her now?
She spotted a coffee cart on the corner and felt her stomach rumble. Between Nathan’s ultimatum and having to send yet another update to Alastair—she’d neglected to mention Nathan was aware Manville was involved with his father’s precarious circumstance—she’d all but lost her appetite. But she could do with a good dose of caffeine.
As she stepped away from the building, she caught sight of an odd-looking man across the street lounging in the doorway of an under-construction bakery. Laurel stared. That sickly brown suit he wore was hard to forget. She’d seen him before, yesterday, she recalled, in that same position outside Lorezo’s Café when she’d emerged from perusing the shelves at Pages Unlimited, the kitschy indie book store. Her shopping excursion had produced a new edition of Little Women to add to her collection—she’d nearly revealed to the owner she’d named Joey after Louisa May Alcott’s Jo, but being a single mother wasn’t part of the role she was playing in Lantano Valley. Alastair had told her he had someone else in town.
All the same, the knowledge she was being followed tied her stomach in knots.
Laurel slipped on her sunglasses. Maybe she was overreacting. But to be sure, she took a hesitant step in the man’s direction. The second she did, he pushed away from the doorway, but he suddenly shifted and darted down the street, glancing over his shoulder as he disappeared around the corner.
As the museum was closed today to gear up for a new showing, she had nothing to do except wait for his highness Nathan Tremayne to make an appearance at the office. Coffee it was.
There was something to be said for California summers, especially mild ones, which it seemed Lantano Valley was famous for. The town might be up-and-coming when it came to businesses setting up shop, but she liked how the city had a natural break between areas, reminding her of New York with its various concentrations of cultural and social communities. Lantano Valley boasted tons of restaurants, art galleries, and studios; the warmer, middle class neighborhoods contained grocery stores and cute little gift shops while the upscale and higher end offerings could rival Rodeo Drive in all their elegant—and unaffordable—splendor. Anyone could fit in here. Even her.
She was so lost in her admiration, she didn’t realize the woman ahead of her in line had spun around and stopped short of barreling into her. Laurel jumped back as dark coffee spilled out of the plastic lid and just missed her shoes.
“I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay,” Laurel tried to laugh it off, relieved she wouldn’t have to send her dress to the dry cleaners. “I wasn’t paying—Sheila?”
“Laurel.” Sheila Tremayne said her name in a way that put Laurel on alert. “Ugh. Today just gets better and better.” She swiped a hand down the front of her turquoise blouse as Laurel stepped away, her face heating. Obviously Nathan had given his sister an earful. But Laurel had never been one to care about what people thought of her. What was different now?
“I’ll come back, later,” Laurel told the barista behind the cart.
“What?” Sheila’s chin popped up as her eyes went wide. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean you, Laurel. Please, let me get you something and you can join me.”
“Join you?” What had she missed? Sheila sounded almost . . . friendly.
“I’m not up for going in there just yet,” Sheila said and to Laurel’s shock, tears welled in Nathan’s sister’s eyes as she looked at the office building. “Please. Callie, put whatever she wants on my tab, okay?”
“Sure thing, Sheila.” The barista nodded. Laurel’s ears buzzed as she gave her order, then carried her coffee and oversized white chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie over to Sheila’s table under a café umbrella. “Are you sure—”
“Sit, please.” Sheila eyed Laurel’s cookie as Laurel joined her. “Fair warning, those are addictive.”
“All the more reason to split it with someone, then.” She broke it in half and handed part of it over. Tears plopped onto Sheila’s cheeks. Laurel let out a long breath. Oh, boy. She did not do well in situations like this. She always said the wrong thing. “Is everything okay?”
Laurel fought the urge to roll her eyes. She’d just proven her own point. Of course everything wasn’t okay. A melancholy hovered over Sheila Tremayne as heavy as a storm cloud. Laurel cleared her throat, attempted to change the subject. “I’ve been trying to meet with Nathan since yesterday morning. Do you happen to know if something came up?”
“Um, yeah. Actually, something did.” Sheila glanced away as the cookie crumbled in her fingers. “One of Morgan’s foster kids was hospitalized down in Los Angeles. Nathan just got back late last night. I can call him if you—”
Laurel’s stomach dropped, bile rising in her throat. “No, please, don’t do that.” Oh, God. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” Shame swept over her. The world didn’t revolve around her and her problems. Or around Alastair’s weird agenda. Given the last thing he’d said to her the other night, she should have known the only thing that could have distracted Nathan was something with his family. “I saw them in the park the other morning,” Laurel said, calling to mind the tiny Wonder Woman and her duo of henchmen as she set her purse on the table. “The little girl and boys?”
Sheila shook her head, a small smile on her lips as Laurel caught the sheen of fresh tears in her eyes. “No, Kelley and the twins are fine. Thank goodness. No, um, there’s another little girl, Lydia. She has an inoperable brain tumor among other issues. Long story.” She tried to laugh, but Laurel recognized grief when she saw it. For an instant, Joey’s smiling face flashed in her mind and once again Laurel counted hers
elf fortunate her daughter was healthy and happy. Even if she wasn’t quite as safe. “There’s nothing more they can do.” Sheila swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “They don’t think she has very long.”
“Doctors can be wrong.” Her words sounded so meaningless. What was the right thing to say when discussing the imminent death of a child? It was so . . . unnatural.
“Not in this case.” Sheila swiped fingers under her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t seem to get this under control. I’m sure you didn’t expect this when you sat down.”
“Honestly?” Laurel flexed her fingers and resisted the urge to reach across the table to squeeze a comforting hand around Sheila’s. “I expected you to dump your coffee in my lap.”
“You mean because of your less-than-reputable past?” Sheila’s green eyes sharpened and cleared and Laurel understood instantly Sheila was grateful for the distraction. Respect struck Laurel dead center of her chest.
“We’ve all done things we’d rather not have or aren’t proud of.” The tears vanished behind the flash of heat in Sheila’s gaze. “Believe me, I’m not about to pass judgment. But if you plan to hurt my family, you and I are going to have a different conversation.”
“That’s not my intention.” At least it hadn’t been, but there wasn’t much Laurel was sure about any longer. These days she didn’t feel like just a pawn, but an expendable one at that. Not that she was going to admit that to Sheila. Or Nathan. Between the two of them, however, she’d bet Nathan would figure it out before his sister did. Strange how she didn’t have any trouble being less than truthful with Sheila, but with Nathan . . . “Nathan and I probably aren’t on as friendly terms as we were a few days ago.” With the way he’d walked out of her hotel room the other night, she may as well have been He Who Must Not Be Named to her Harry Potter. Why that should matter to her, Laurel couldn’t reconcile. As long as he kept her close, she was obeying Alastair’s orders. Except it did matter. Despite the situation, she didn’t like the idea of Nathan not thinking well of her.
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