Her father’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “Leah?”
“Hi Dad.” She guided the four of them to a space on the sidewalk just away from the diner’s door but in full view of anyone watching out of the huge windows. And that was almost every person in there. Even the cook had come out and was wandering around the front booths.
Marc Baron kept his hands in his pockets and gestured at Declan with a lift of the chin and a voice filled with disdain. “This one of them?”
Declan shifted until his shoulder shielded her. “Them?”
Clay upped the stakes by putting his hand on his gun. “Maybe you and I should talk, son.”
Testosterone overload. She thought about smashing their heads together because much more of this and there would be blood on the cement. “Chief, really. This isn’t necessary.”
“Let the man do his job.” Her dad’s glare stayed leveled at Declan.
Probably didn’t help that Declan braced his body and made sure some part of him touched her, no matter how she tried to inch away. The man knew his surroundings. He also had the protective thing down. That’s what he was doing. She could sense it. Didn’t make the rescue attempt any less misplaced. Her father was a tough man, demanding and seething with rage about the injustices life had dealt him, but he wasn’t violent.
At least he wasn’t until Declan came to town.
“Is there a law against having dinner in Sweetwater?” Declan put enough of a slap in his voice to catch the attention of a group of teenagers passing by. A car slowed down and more than one set of eyes watched from outside of the movie theater across the street.
Her dad took a step forward. Actually stomped his foot. “Don’t be a smart-ass.”
Enough. She slipped in front of Declan. If someone had told her a week ago that she would use her body as a shield to protect him she would have been hysterical. Now it felt normal. “Dad, stop.”
He pointed at Declan over her head. “This one needs to learn some manners.”
“I’m just trying to leave a restaurant.” Declan’s voice stayed calm as he shoved the takeout bag into Leah’s hands and brought her even with him again.
“When are you leaving town?” Clay asked.
“I’m not sure I am.”
Clay motioned toward his car, his full police-chief power in evidence in his swagger. It was parked across the street but the lights and insignia on the side were clear. “Why don’t you come with me?’
“No.”
Much more of this and Declan would end up in a jail cell as she predicted. “Look, Declan isn’t doing anything wrong. We were talking.”
The direction of her father’s glare finally moved, this time to her, in all its red-faced fury. “Did you just call him Declan?”
“She can call me whatever she wants.”
“You’re not helping.” She tugged on Declan’s arm. The move was small and meant to pass only between them, but her father’s gaze bounced to her hand and she knew he’d seen the byplay.
“How about con man? Or liar. Or thief. All those apply, don’t they?” Her father’s voice got louder with each accusation.
Declan rolled his shoulders back. If possible, he grew another few inches. “I see the problem with false claims runs in the family.”
The comment smacked her harder than expected. She’d never been punched in the stomach, but the sensation of doubling over hit her out of nowhere. “Declan, please.”
He glanced at her then, but before he could say anything, her father piped up again. “I’ve had it with you and your smarmy superiority.”
Forget that he’d just met Declan for the first time. Her father had made up his mind. He’d tried Declan in some secret court in his head and found him guilty.
Before she could call for calm, her father grabbed her arm and tried to drag her to his side but she held her ground. The idea of being torn apart like a rag doll between these two made her want to scream. She’d been forced to pick sides, always with her father, her entire life. She wanted to stand on her own for a change.
This close she could hear her father’s teeth grind together. Hatred rolled off of him, filling the empty space and choking the air. Guilt and panic hit her from every direction. She’d never seen that wildness, that complete disregard for reality, in her father’s eyes before.
And Declan. He stood there, seemingly taking it in but underneath something boiled and swayed. Yeah, she’d watched him for a few days now. She knew about the undercurrent of anger running through him.
The combination of all this male fury would blow this town apart.
“Tomorrow, in my office.” Clay’s voice cut through the still night, ripping through the tension with each syllable. “Be there at nine.”
“Why would I come to the police station?” Declan glanced at her. “Sweetwater does have one, right?”
“Just because we’re a small town doesn’t mean we can be pushed around. Your father never learned the lesson. You should before it’s too late.” Her father issued his threat then stepped back. He walked in circles, as if burning off some of whatever was spinning around inside him.
She could barely see over the pounding in her temples. “Okay, we’ve reached the point of craziness.”
“Passed it, I think.” Declan rubbed the back of his neck.
After a quick analysis, she figured the best way to diffuse the situation was to take Declan out of it. “Why don’t you go home?”
His gaze snapped to hers. “I drove you here.”
“I can take care of my daughter. You might want to remember that.”
Declan opened his mouth then closed it again. For a few seconds, he stood there staring at her. People pushed past on the sidewalk, one guy mumbling about getting out of the way. She held her breath through it all, worried Declan would make some kind of stand.
He had to know where her allegiance lay. He could never know that for the first time she was torn. Part of her wanted to tell her father to calm down and then leave with Declan. But she knew that would send this mess rushing in an even more dangerous direction if she did.
After a stark silence, Declan nodded to her. “Goodnight then.”
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Clay said.
“It’s a truck and it’s right there. So, no thanks.” Declan closed the few feet to his vehicle and climbed in without looking back at her.
She willed him to glance at her. Something. When he slammed the door without looking up that tiny bit of hope burning in her belly, that part she toyed with snuffing out earlier, disappeared in a poof. The loss made her stomach turn over, so she closed her eyes to keep from falling down. When she opened them again, both of the older men stared at her.
Her father’s fury hadn’t abated one bit. His body practically trembled from the force of his anger. “What do you think you’re doing here with him?”
Clay made a tsk-tsking sound. “You did look pretty cozy, Leah.”
Exhaustion slammed into her. She wanted to go home, maybe call Declan and explain her father’s reaction. She didn’t do anything wrong, but she felt as if she needed to say something. But getting through this verbal gauntlet came first. “You two told me, no, ordered me, to work this out with Declan. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“I warned you not to be alone with him.”
“We were in public.” She skipped the part about when they weren’t because some things should stay private.
“Give me an update.” Right there on the sidewalk. For some reason that made sense to her dad.
“I can’t since you scared him off.” She exhaled, trying one last time to grab for patience. “I get the anger. I do. But Declan was a little kid all those years ago. He’s not the enemy.”
“Since when?”
That was the wrong
way to go, so she quickly abandoned the argument. “I need time and space to work this out and that means not threatening him or dragging him in for questioning.”
Clay shook his head. “He needs to be informed of where he stands.”
“I’m thinking you’ve made that clear.” They hadn’t exactly hidden their lynch-mob mentality. And that’s what scared her the most. It was as if her father and his friends believed they were right and the law be damned.
“You have one week, then we’re stepping in.” Her father delivered the order then zipped past her, but not before getting in one last shot. “Get the job done. Now.”
Chapter Nine
Declan wiped a hand over the bench and examined the thick layer of dust left in his palm. The work shed was exactly that. A small, almost falling-down ten-by-ten stand-alone room near the garages and made of now-rotted wood. The place was a breeding ground for allergies and whatever creature raced across the floor when he opened the door. It could fall on his head at any moment, but he’d expected worse when he wandered in here in an attempt to walk off the memory of Leah and last night’s idiocy.
He doubted anyone had been in the shack for years. He’d been surprised the electricity didn’t spark into a full-blown fire when he put in the new lightbulb and flicked the switch. Not that it threw much light. The open door and two broken windows helped with that.
Hard to imagine his grandmother, with her pearls and her ever-present purse slung over her forearm, walking around the creaky floors as she arranged tools on hooks on the wall. But someone had. He wasn’t an expert, but he guessed the tools were once expensive. If they still worked, they might be either a great place to start when putting the place back together or a decent asset for the estate, which made him wonder why the inventory hadn’t been sold off piece by piece to pay off some of the crushing mortgage debt.
He took the vinyl cover off the table saw. Sharp blade. Not what he’d expected from equipment neglected for more than a decade. Looked like his grandmother hid something more than a housekeeper. She could have had a whole staff tucked around Sweetwater for all he knew.
Shoes clicked against the floor right before the voice floated in the door. “I see you survived last night.”
He didn’t need to turn around to know who stood there. He was so keyed into her that he could smell her. Sense her. Leah had come for another round. Good thing he was up for the fight.
“Do you mean the lack of dinner, the surprise visitor or meeting your father? He seemed rock solid, by the way.” Last thing Declan needed was an unstable man with a vengeance streak stalking around town looking for him.
“He’s difficult but he has cause to be.”
Without asking a question, she knew how to narrow in on a raw spot and start poking it. “Ah, yes. Another Charlie Hanover victim.”
“You picked the word this time.”
Declan threw a hammer onto the bench. A surge of satisfaction bolted through him when the metal slammed against the wood. He needed to grab onto his control again. Turning around undermined that goal. Something about seeing Leah made the words catch in his throat and his mind spin with thoughts of stripping her naked. Not to mention what that body and that face did to his dick.
Despite the kick of lust, he wasn’t ready to be civil. Restlessness grabbed him last night and refused to let go in the daylight. Her dark jeans and slim v-neck tee weren’t helping. They fit her like skin, skimming over her and sending his attention spinning in the wrong direction.
“Honestly, Leah, I’m not in the mood for a climb through my family tree today.”
She stepped inside with her arms still crossed over her stomach and her gaze traveling over the room. “Yeah I get that from your tone.”
“How did you know where I was?” He felt like throwing something else but settled for leaning against the workbench and balancing his hands on either side of him.
“I followed the stench of anger.”
“I’m not in the mood to be pissed off either. If that bugs you, you’re free to leave.” He gestured toward the door.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“What the hell do you think is wrong?” He couldn’t shake it. The anger, irrational as it was, kept crawling up inside him, alive and wrestling to get out.
She stopped in front of him. Pushed in close enough that he had to separate his legs to give her room to step between. “Oh, man. You didn’t actually go to the police station this morning, did you? That was the stupid threat from a guy trying to protect an old friend. Nothing more.”
“I’m not a complete idiot.” Though Declan knew he sure as hell was starting to act like one.
She had the nerve to smile at him. “Then the asshat routine right now is because . . . ?”
“You dismissed me.”
Her head snapped back as if he’d slapped her. “What? When?”
Damn, the words flew out before he could even analyze them. They’d been rattling around inside him. He ignored them, convinced he felt unsettled because of the new round of accusations and that idiot police chief. Now he knew the anxiety went deeper.
Nothing like self-denial to mess up a guy.
“Last night?” Her hands dropped to her sides. “I was trying to avoid a scene.”
Oh, hell no. “You think that crap on the sidewalk was about avoiding something?”
“Clearly that got out of control.”
“You think?”
“You obviously believe I broke some sort of secret agreement. I want to help you, but we haven’t agreed to any terms. Hell, you haven’t even agreed you might need help. So, explain your irrational anger to me.” She didn’t back up or back down. If anything, she inched in closer with that familiar fire zapping between them.
“You were acting like a naughty teen who got caught making out with her boyfriend in the backseat of the car.”
“It was a business meeting.”
“It was a date and the first of many.” He decided that just this second. No more stupid games.
“We never agreed that we were—”
“I think we both know that’s not true. The kiss, the way we’re circling each other, it means something. But shoving me away when Daddy comes by? Honestly, that stuff stopped in the ninth grade.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit sensitive about this?”
She knew just the right word to make something inside his head explode. “Did you just accuse me of—”
“Maybe we should back up a second. Ignoring the date-versus-no-date argument for a second. You got ambushed and that sucks.” She put a hand on his chest.
He stared at those fingers, watched them flex against his cotton tee. Her touch stole some of his outrage. “For a woman who thinks we’re not dating, this feels like a dating move.”
“I honestly don’t know what we are.”
“If that’s your idea of an apology, it needs work.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“About your dad? Exactly.”
She frowned and tried to pull away. “Is this really all because of the kiss at the house? You’re acting like everything changed.”
“It changed a little.”
“It was a kiss.”
His hand closed over hers, holding her still. “A second ago you pretended you didn’t remember the kiss. Did you tell Daddy all about it? Tell him how the dirty Hanover boy touched you?”
She shoved against his chest. Got in a stronger thump than expected from this angle. “Knock it the hell off. You’re being a jerk just for the sake of being a jerk.”
“Maybe I am one.”
“No maybes about it at this moment.”
The woman was right. They kissed, they talked, she wore down his anger and set it to flame at the same time. She had him chasing
his dick and questioning his brainpower. And he was yelling at her because he got pissed off and still wasn’t quite sure why his mind went to such a dark place when thinking about the scene on the sidewalk, which was totally not cool. He didn’t understand her, but she deserved better.
He let out a long, ragged exhale. “Fair enough. Sorry.”
The air changed. All the snapping tension seeped out, leaving behind a new sensation. A spark. An arc of power that lured him in like a magnet.
“What do you want from me?” She whispered the question.
If she’d gotten angry or yelled, he would have come up with a smart-ass reply. Instead, he delivered the truth, rough and unfiltered. “You might want to rephrase that since the answer involves bending you over this table and stripping your pants down.”
“Well, there’s not a lot of gray area there, is there?”
“Let’s try this again.”
“Maybe I should leave.”
“Wrong answer.” He pulled her arms up and linked them around his neck. “I know kisses makes you twitchy so we’ll talk. I just want to do it in this position.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are going to bring a heap of trouble into my life. I feel it already.”
“That goes both ways. Stop avoiding. Why are you here today?”
“Honestly?”
“That would be appreciated, yes.”
“At the moment all I can think of is this.” She leaned in, stretched up on her tiptoes. Once, twice, her mouth brushed over his. Soft and sweet. Light in a dance of promise. Right when he reached the point of growling, she swept in deeper. Her tongue licked against the seam of his lips until he opened. Then she dipped inside.
The kiss burned through him, lighting a path straight to his lower half. His blood boiled and his hands took off exploring. Tugging, he lifted her tee from her pants and slipped his palm under the edge. Fingers skimmed bare skin.
As his mouth crossed over hers, pressing deeper with each pass, his body closed in. Hot and wet, their lips met and tongues touched. His hands slid up her lean back as the sexy feel of her softness crushed the last bits of his control. When his fingertips clipped the edge of her bra, he kept going. Coming around her right side, he lifted the cup and shifted until her breast fit in the vee he made with his thumb and forefinger.
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