Lies That Bind

by Shirley Wine

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, crossing the room to his side, ‘but no amount of sorrow will bring your sister back.’

  ‘No.’ His voice broke on the word.

  Brooke slipped her arms around his waist and leaned close and rested her face against his bare back, and held him tightly. All she could do was offer him the comfort of her silent presence.

  Gradually, she felt his tension ease and she dropped her arms. ‘So what happens now?’

  Slowly, he turned back to face her. He leaned against the windowsill and tipped his head back, looking at the ceiling. ‘The crash investigator is coming out here tomorrow to interview Rose.’

  Brooke’s hand clenched—Does Jackson Dwyer still head the Serious Crash Unit?

  She shoved aside the unwelcome thought, and before Luke had a chance to discern her disquiet, she asked, ‘Do you think Rose is ready for this?’

  ‘When we talked earlier, I warned her that the police may want to ask her about her memories, and she seemed to be okay with this.’ Luke raked an unsteady hand through hair already well and truly mussed-up, his vivid eyes dark with anguish. ‘I can only hope I’m doing the right thing.’

  The desolation in his voice made Brooke’s heart ache.

  She’d never imagined that this strong, proud man could be so vulnerable, or that he would drop his guard enough to allow her to see it.

  ‘You’re doing great,’ she murmured, trying to allay his fears and seeking words of reassurance. ‘Most parents get to grow into the role as their babies grow. You came into this game mid-innings, so to speak. I hope the man they’re sending understands that Rose is still fragile, emotionally and physically.’

  She suppressed a shiver, too clearly remembering a police interrogation nowhere near kind or understanding. Luke did not need to hear her misgivings right now.

  ‘I stressed that Rose is still recovering from her injuries and emotional trauma,’ he said, an unmistakable bite entering his voice. ‘Most investigators are kind and caring.’

  Brooke muffled the derisive snort that rose in her throat. Brad’s suicide and the subsequent police interrogation she’d endured could never be construed as polite or considerate.

  ‘You think?’ she muttered, turning away. ‘Try selling that line to someone else.’

  Luke closed the space between them, caught her arm and turned her to face him. ‘You need to explain that comment.’

  The brotherhood always supports the brotherhood, Luke. Surely you know and understand this?

  So much for trying to spare him worry. She looked up into his stern face, the hard planes a mosaic of light and shadow. There was no hint of softness or his earlier vulnerability. His eyes were dark and unreadable in the dim light.

  Brooke jerked free of his hold.

  Too agitated to stay still, she strode from the kitchen, through the dining room and opened the French doors before stepping out onto the wide covered verandah.

  How did this situation deteriorate so quickly?

  It was as hot out here as it was indoors. Not a breath of breeze stirred the sultry air. Luke’s bare feet made only the faintest sound on the wooden verandah boards.

  Ignoring him, she leaned against the rail and stared out into the night. Tonight there was no moon to alleviate the darkness. The stars hung in the velvety orb overhead in an endless stream, resembling faraway lanterns flung across the space by a careless hand.

  Out here on the wild, west Waikato coast, far from the noise and bustle of the city, there was only the occasional hoot of an owl or the bleat of a ewe to break the silence.

  Brooke sensed rather than saw Luke lean against the rail near her. To her relief, he kept distance between them. She tensed, bracing for the inevitable questions, but once again he surprised her by remaining silent. Gradually her tension eased. The night and the peacefulness worked its magic.

  ‘It’s so quiet,’ she murmured at last. ‘No traffic noise, no sirens, no jets soaring overhead.’

  ‘And no people fighting and yelling. Out here a man can really breathe.’ Luke’s deep voice was soft and impersonal. ‘There’s rain on the way, though.’

  ‘I wish.’ Surprised, she turned slightly towards him. ‘What makes you so sure about that?’

  ‘I can smell it.’

  Brooke sniffed at the air but could detect nothing other than the same sense of stifling heat. ‘I can’t smell anything.’

  ‘It’s a couple of days away. I only hope it isn’t a gully-washer.’

  ‘A what?’ Brooke turned and leaned back against the rail.

  Luke chuckled, the soft, sexy sound wrapping her in intimate warmth. ‘A gully-washer is a rainstorm that does more damage than good.’

  ‘That can happen?’

  ‘It can and does. Rain is needed, but often after a prolonged dry period the ground is so hard that heavy rain just runs off instead of soaking into the soil where it’s really needed, hence a gully-washer.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He chuckled again and, moving closer, he laid a gentle hand against her burning face, tilting it upwards.

  For long timeless moments she stared at him.

  The dim light spilling from the house outlined the dark, shadowy planes of his face, but it was his manner that set her heart tripping in her chest.

  He lowered his head and the light faded. His lips closed over hers and she tasted whisky, heat and a dark tang that was uniquely his own. She yearned to curl into him and never let go. Her knees and legs weakened as if she had water where joints and bone usually existed. Her fingers curled into his shoulders; she needed something solid for support.

  When he lifted his head, she sucked in a deep shuddery breath.

  What is he thinking?

  He lifted a hand and brushed a thumb over her lips and she felt its fine tremble. ‘Brooke?’

  Her anxious question was answered. Blood pulsed through her veins in a fevered, hectic rush. He waited for her response without moving. Each breath he drew warmly caressed her cheek. Did she want to carry this moment to its natural fulfilment? She sensed his strained patience. Slowly, she lifted a hand and curved it around his cheek. Whisker stubble abraded the soft skin of her palm in a sexy touch.

  This was all the consent he needed.

  His head lowered and his lips covered hers in a deep kiss that demanded a response. Oh she’d longed for this, wanted this from the moment she’d watched him stride into Cherry’s Cafe.

  She was enveloped in heat. She sizzled from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. This was sex—an age-old chemistry—and so much easier to deal with than the strange tangle of yearnings he’d aroused in her earlier.

  As she’d watched Luke struggle to deal with the ugly truth that surrounded his sister’s death, she’d hungered for something she’d never known.

  With a sudden impatient movement, he caught her around the waist, lifted her against him and carried her inside, pulling the French doors closed behind them, the snick of the lock loud in the silence.

  Without pause, he strode down the corridor into her bedroom. He kicked the door shut and let her slide down his hard body before pushing her against the closed door and kissing her with a hunger that would not be denied.

  Her hands raced across his bare chest, over his shoulders and up his neck before sinking into his thick hair. She opened her mouth and his kiss plundered her soul.

  Brooke was lost in sensation.

  He lifted his head and looked into her face. ‘Be sure this is what you want,’ he said, his voice a husky murmur near her ear. ‘From here there will be no going back.’

  She stared up at him too befuddled to think. A thread of caution pushed through the euphoric haze of passion. Resolute, she pushed it aside. ‘I’m sure.’

  Is that breathy, needy voice mine?

  Luke claimed her mouth in a carnal kiss and her brain shut off. Thinking was beyond her.

  He grasped her around the waist and lifted her off the ground, his hips pressed hard against h
ers until she had no idea where he stopped and she began.

  She gasped and arched back against him.

  He took two steps and deposited her in the centre of the bed. He stood looking down at her, his bronzed skin gleaming in the soft light, his muscular chest rising and falling on each harshly indrawn breath.

  She reached up and pulled at the wide band holding her unruly hair in place and gave her head a shake, sending it tumbling across the pillow.

  He made a rough guttural sound, one hand working the button of his jeans undone. The metallic rasp of his zipper made her senses spin. In one economical movement, he shucked his jeans; his blue eyes gleamed dark and mysterious; his gaze never left hers.

  When she saw the size of his erection lust shuddered and crawled through her entire being. She was on fire. She wanted this. She wanted him.

  He leaned down, pulled a condom out of his jeans pocket and rolled it up his penis, a predatory edge to his wolfish smile.

  Her breath came fast and shallow.

  The side of the wide bed sagged under his weight. He leaned forward; his big hands splayed either side of her and looked directly into her eyes. He lowered his head and his mouth found hers.

  And she forgot to think at all.

  Within a heartbeat, she was divested of her robe and her skimpy cotton pyjamas. His hands closed over her breasts. He kissed her cheek, beside her ear, the tender column of her neck, nibbling and soothing the fevered flesh stimulated by the quick glide of his tongue. Her pulse beat in a frantic tattoo. Her breasts ached for his touch and she strained upwards, silently begging for more.

  Heat radiated from him. He sought her mouth, kissing her again and again until she was a throbbing trembling mass, two cells shy of desperate.

  His hair-roughened thigh slid over hers, and there was no way she could mistake the fine tremble in his powerful muscles as he nudged her thighs apart and in one, swift thrust embedded himself in the heart of her. He paused, rose on his elbows and looked down at her. ‘You okay?’

  Incapable of speech she merely nodded.

  Then he was thrusting inside her in a rhythm as old as time. Helpless, she arched against him, arms and legs wrapping around him, holding him as close as a second skin. Shuddering wildly, she met him thrust for powerful thrust.

  ‘Let me have it, Brooke.’

  The sound rose up and out of her throat in a deep groan. Her senses swirled, caught in the grip of an ever-widening vortex of sensation until she shattered into millions of boneless shards.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dawn stole silently over the landscape, shifting and altering the shadows that night had created. Luke sat on the edge of Brooke’s bed and studied her sleeping face filled with an unaccustomed tenderness. She was a generous lover, giving as eagerly as she took, his equal in every way.

  Memories of their night stirred his libido afresh. It took real effort to fight the temptation to strip and crawl back into that bed beside her.

  Asleep, she looked so young and so innocent.

  His lips quirked. Brooke was as passionate as she was earthy, and one hell of a long way from innocent.

  ‘Brooke.’ He smoothed a hand across the alluring expanse of bare skin where her shoulder met the sheet.

  She grumbled and buried her face deeper in the pillow.

  Luke was tempted to let her sleep, but while he didn’t know where this attraction was headed, he knew damn well that leaving her bed without saying goodbye was a mistake he’d do far better not to make.

  ‘Brooke,’ he said with a little more force, pushing a lock of hair off her cheek.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ One dark eye opened and she peered at him obviously nowhere near ready to wake.

  Not that this was surprising given how little sleep they’d had in the night.

  Luke chuckled softly. ‘I have to leave now.’

  That brought both her eyes open. ‘It’s morning?’

  ‘It sure is,’ he murmured as understanding dawned in her eyes. ‘And I’m already running late.’

  She rolled over and looked at the window. ‘It’s not even daylight.’

  ‘I know, sweetheart,’ he said close to her ear. ‘But Matt has a big cattle muster planned this morning and it needs to happen before the heat of the day sets in and makes it too damn difficult.’

  She nodded, rolling onto her back, lifting an arm and covering her eyes.

  ‘Are we okay?’ he asked, holding the hand lying on the coverlet.

  She shifted her arm and looked up at him. ‘I don’t know. Are we?’

  The hesitant question left him unsure how to respond. He rubbed a thumb over the back of her hand. Life had been so much simpler before he’d asked Brooke to move into his home. And recalling the way he’d spilled his guts to her last night left him very self-conscious.

  She’d moved in and he’d been tied in knots ever since.

  ‘Sure,’ he said gruffly, tightening his grip on her hand. ‘Will you be okay with Rose if the crash inspector arrives before I get back?’

  And that quickly, the night lay bare between them.

  Brooke’s colour heightened and she pulled up the sheet, avoiding all eye contact. ‘When will he be here?’

  ‘He just said sometime today.’ Luke frowned, squeezing her hand before he laid it down on the coverlet. ‘Are you sure you’ll be okay if I’m not here?’

  A flicker of revulsion crossed Brooke’s face, but was gone so quickly Luke wondered if he’d imagined it.

  She sat up, clutching the sheet to her breasts. ‘I’ll be fine, and I’ll make sure Rose is too, okay?’

  Despite her jaunty assurance, Luke wasn’t so sure.

  The way she nibbled at her lower lip made him suspect that she would probably find it more difficult to deal with the police investigator than ever Rose would.

  Yet again, Luke found himself floundering. Brooke’s undisguised antipathy to any mention of police was really beginning to bother him. What the hell had gone down with her when Thornton topped himself?

  Thornton!

  Once again the man came between them, a ghostly barrier Luke found insurmountable. The tip of Brooke’s tongue peeped out and moistened her full sexy lower lip. The unconscious little gesture stirred his libido into vibrant life.

  ‘Damnit, I knew this would be a problem,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’

  He clamped his jaw so tight it ached and, against his better judgement, he leaned forward.

  ‘This.’ He slipped his hand behind her neck and dipped his head, his mouth covering hers.

  Brooke’s mouth opened under his and the sheet she was clutching dropped unnoticed from her grasp, baring her perfect breasts. Her hand slid up his neck and curled around his cheek. The intimacy of her touch threatened his already shaky self-control.

  He tore his mouth from hers. ‘I wasn’t going to do this.’

  ‘Then why did you?’

  The tartness of her tone and the way she grabbed at the sheet and pulled it right up to her beautiful throat had him rubbing a hand around the back of his neck.

  ‘Because where you’re concerned I don’t seem to have much sense or willpower,’ he muttered, rising from the edge of the bed. ‘I have to go.’

  Brooke’s cheeks flushed scarlet.

  With an impatient oath, Luke strode from the room before he inserted his foot any deeper into his mouth.

  ***

  Unsettled from that early morning encounter, Brooke went in search of Rio and found him elbow deep in bread dough. Standing in the doorway, she watched as he kneaded the dough in a big white china bowl. The slow, rhythmic movements soothed her restlessness.

  This man never ceased to surprise her.

  For such a big, tough looking dude, he manoeuvred his way around a kitchen with surprising delicacy.

  ‘You want something?’

  The gruff question jerked her to attention.

  ‘Not really.’ She shrugged as she crossed to the counter, grabbed a mug off
the tree and poured herself a coffee from the carafe bubbling in the machine. She pulled up a seat at the breakfast bar and blew on the piping hot beverage before taking the first sip.

  ‘What are you making?’

  Rio’s bushy brows pinched together and his dark eyes narrowed as he looked at her. Brooke found it difficult not to squirm under that steady scrutiny.

  ‘Ciabatta buns.’ Rio punched the bread dough into a round shape and tipped it out onto a floured board. ‘Rose likes them. And with a Greek salad they’ll make a satisfying lunch for missy.’

  Brooke nodded and sipped her coffee. ‘She’s steadily regaining lost weight.’

  ‘That she is.’ His timeworn face creased in a satisfied smile as his ham-like hands fashioned the bread dough into delicate, slipper-shaped buns. ‘She’s still deeply troubled though.’

  Rio’s insight came as no real surprise: Brooke had quickly come to understand that this man was as observant as he was shrewd. She blew on her coffee as she debated how to answer.

  ‘Rose is still having nightmares,’ she said, slowly glancing up at him, ‘but now we have some idea as to why.’

  Maybe it was the stillness of the early morning or maybe the weight of worry and Luke’s reaction to it, or maybe it was the understanding she read in Rio’s kind eyes that decided her, but Brooke found she needed to share yesterday’s unnerving events.

  ‘A detective from the police Serious Crash Unit is coming here sometime today.’ Brooke lifted her gaze from her coffee and looked directly at their housekeeper. As much as she dreaded being forced to deal with anyone in the Force, Brooke wanted Rio to know about of the impending interview. ‘He’s going to interview Rose and Otto about the crash that killed their parents.’

  ‘Now? Why is that?’ Rio’s gnarled hands stilled in the bread dough as his keen gaze raked her face.

  ‘Rose has remembered some very disturbing details.’

  ‘She confided in you?’

  ‘She did, and I persuaded her to share what she’s remembered with Luke.’ Brooke clenched a fist so hard the nails dug into her palm. ‘She remembers another vehicle running them off the road, something the crash inspector confirmed when Luke spoke with him.’