He lifted his head to stare down at her. Her shirt blocked his view of her flesh, of the plumpness under his palm and tight nipple he pressed with his thumb. He needed her clothes off and her butt on the workbench. Somewhere in the back of his head an alarm bell sounded. Dirty sex, a little rough and pure naughty, appealed to him. But some women liked it different and he had no idea which type she happened to be.
With his free hand, he caressed her cheek. Cloudy gray eyes and pink cheeks. Yeah, she wanted it as badly as he did. Damn, if that didn’t start his fingers shaking.
“It’s filthy in here.” His words were raspy and his breath clipped out of him.
“I sure as hell hope so. You did say something about being a dirty Hanover boy. I’d love an example.” As the joke left her mouth, her hands went to his belt.
He felt the tug and his cock went into launch mode. “Damn, you’re hot.”
“And willing.”
“Lucky for you, I’m very able.” His hand slipped over hers and guided her searching fingers to the bulge underneath his zipper. “Perfect.”
She glanced down to their joint hands. “I want these off.”
“Rip them if you have to.”
“Looks like I’m interrupting something.” Cal’s deep voice, amused and more than a little surprised, cut through the room.
Leah jumped back so fast that Declan almost ripped her shirt. It took him another second to let go of her and slide his hand back from her breast. The thundering of his heartbeat in his ears started to die down until he noticed the way her shirt was hiked up on the one side, revealing a sweet slip of skin.
“You should . . .” He had to clear his throat and point. “Your shirt.”
Cal covered his mouth over what could only be described as a fake cough. “I should have knocked.”
“Uh, yeah,” Leah said as she smoothed first her clothes, then her hair. Her cheeks burned bright the whole time.
His brother hadn’t changed a bit. Always one for the dramatic entrance. Add in the dark hair and black leather jacket regardless of the weather and he took on a menacing, could-kick-your-ass look. Other than the usual brother wrestling and fighting, Declan had never tested the limits of Cal’s anger. He was loyal and would appear out of nowhere when needed, as if he had some innate danger meter, but he kept his strength in check.
It took Declan another second to find enough air in his body to speak in full sentences and not just halting nonsense words. His big brother always did have the damnedest timing. “When did you get here?”
This time Cal’s mouth twitched. “About five minutes too early, apparently.”
No way was Declan touching that, not when Leah looked ready to unleash on Cal. “This is Leah.”
He nodded and stepped up and held out his hand. “I’m Callen, Declan’s older brother.”
“I know.”
“Have we met?”
Leah’s eyes narrowed. “My last name is Baron.”
His expression didn’t change. “Should that mean something?”
“I think you know it does.” She exhaled, blowing out a long breath as she turned back to Declan. “I should go.”
“I can come back.” Cal pointed at the house. “What, maybe in five or ten minutes? Is that enough time for you to finish?”
Being an inch shorter and four years younger wouldn’t stop him. Declan vowed to throw a punch as soon as Leah was out of hearing range. “You’re enjoying this a bit too much.”
Cal held up both hands. “Just trying to help.”
“Well, don’t.”
Leah watched the byplay as she tucked the front of her shirt into her jeans. “I’ll let you two have some brother time.”
She bent toward Declan as if she intended to kiss him, but pulled back at the last minute. He was having none of it. He wrapped a hand around her upper arm and brought her in for a quick kiss, one that promised they’d only gotten started. “I’ll call you.”
She nodded and headed for the door. Her steps faltered when Cal called out to her.
“Don’t let me rush you out.” He smiled at her when she glanced over her shoulder.
Then she was gone.
***
Whatever passed between Cal and Leah, Declan didn’t like. There was an unspoken dislike, and not on the surface like she had for him in the diner the first time. This went deeper and colored everything. It certainly skewed Cal’s usual lady charms. “When did you start acting like an ass toward women?”
By the time Cal turned back to Declan, his smile had faded. “When did you get stupid?”
Declan pushed off from the workbench, surprised his legs held him after that kiss. The woman knew how to use that mouth. He planned to test her other skills very soon.
He brushed the dust off his hands. “That’s an interesting welcome.”
“Baron’s daughter?”
“So, you do know her.” Not a surprise to Declan since Cal investigated and analyzed everything.
They spent months, at one time years, apart. When they came together again, Cal asked the right things, could talk about every aspect of Declan’s life even though Cal hadn’t been there to live through it. Cal could name his brothers’ first girlfriends and biggest enemies. He possessed a scary sense of people. Knew facts he shouldn’t know. Declan didn’t understood it but he’d stopped questioning it years ago.
“I make it my business to know the people who are trying to destroy me, whether they weigh a buck-twenty and look like Red or are three-hundred-pound bald men.” Cal walked around the small space, touching the tools and brushing his hands over the dust and checking to see what lay beneath.
“Destroy?”
“That’s what I said.”
That punch of anxiety came roaring back. Declan tried to swallow it back, “That’s a big word. Since when are you so dramatic?”
Cal stopped on the opposite side of the table saw. “Since I uncovered the private investigator your hot girlfriend had digging around in my life.”
The news walloped Declan like a roundhouse kick to the stomach. His breath hiccupped. “Leah?”
Cal glanced up before resuming his review of his surroundings. “Yeah, the woman you’re screwing is determined to screw us. So, destroy might even be too weak a word. Pick another if you want, but get to the same conclusion and fast or she will take you down.”
“She’s never . . .” Declan was going to say Leah wasn’t like that but he knew he couldn’t sell it because it just wasn’t true.
“Blamed you, accused you, hurt you?” Cal shook his head. “I don’t buy it. She’s got Baron blood coursing through her and more stamina to see her revenge through than her dad ever had.”
The information made sense. It fit with her attitude when they first met and what Declan overheard in the diner. Matched the accusations she liked to hurl whenever the topic of Shadow Hill arose.
But the woman he kissed, all warm and inviting, didn’t fit in with the rest. There was no need for her to offer her body to get close to him for an attack. It wasn’t like he was playing hard to get. And, despite everything, she didn’t strike him as the type.
He hoped like hell that wasn’t his pounding erection doing his thinking for him. “How do you know all of this?”
“Her investigator.”
“He admitted it to you?”
Cal’s gave a harsh laugh. “Eventually.”
Declan’s mind wouldn’t process the information. He couldn’t take the woman he touched out of the equation, but Cal didn’t throw shit around. Declan mentally gathered the pieces and shoved them aside. He’d unpack them and try to put them together later.
Until then, he would unload some information of his own. “She might not be the only one looking to cause trouble.”
Ca
l stilled with his finger trailing through the dust. “Meaning?”
“Someone name Kristin Accord is looking for you.”
Cal’s reaction was instantaneous. His body tensed and his hand balled into a fist. “Where is she?”
“At the local motel.”
“That’s just fucking great.”
Declan tried to assess Cal’s body language. He generally hid his emotions. He stood right there without blinking and pretended not to know Leah’s name. He didn’t have a tell. But this Kristin person meant trouble and Declan didn’t need Beck’s law degree or his father’s people-reading skills to figure that out. “Who is she?”
“No idea.”
“You’re not acting like it.”
Cal bit down on his lower lip as if weighing how much to divulge. “This isn’t the first time she’s caught up with me. She showed up at a construction job I was working. Told people she was a relative so she could get access to the office and wait around for me to come in. Good thing a fellow employee tipped me off so I could slip out. But, damn, the woman won’t let up.”
“Sounds kind of sick.” Or brokenhearted. Declan remembered more than one woman having a similar reaction to the news Charlie was married and used fake engagements as a way of getting access to heirloom jewelry. “Do you two have a history?”
Cal’s eyebrow lifted. “I just said I don’t know her.”
Knowing all about her and having her under him were two different things. “I wasn’t talking about long-term dating.”
A smile broke across Cal’s mouth. “Are you asking if I’ve slept with her?’
“Seems like a good guess. She’s older, but maybe a disgruntled former-lover type of thing. She did say it was personal.”
“Nothing like that but she’s started calling and her messages get more dire each time. All this ‘we must meet before it’s too late’ stuff.”
“How does she have the number? You’re unlisted and even changed it a few months back.” It was the last time they’d talked and Declan remembered the short conversation.
Cal swore under his breath as he stared up at the holes in the ceiling above his head. “She’s the reason I changed it. I thought ignoring her and switching numbers would make her go away, but she found me again.”
Declan moved Kristin Accord onto the stalker side of their list of enemies. Many would call and threaten or write letters, but those who went to the time and expense to track them down were a whole different level of danger. “That’s a determined woman right there.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You sure she’s not a former—”
Cal shot Declan a shut-the-fuck-up look. “When I sleep with a woman, I remember. And they rarely get involved enough to hunt me down. Condoms and casual is my motto.”
Declan wasn’t sure what to say to that. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“It’s better than sleeping with the daughter of Charlie’s number-one enemy.”
And there it was. They’d circled right back to Leah. “We’re not sleeping together.”
“Yet. And if my timing were better you’d have to answer that one differently.” Cal scowled as he said it.
“Yeah, well. You owe me one.” And since Declan intended to fix the sexual near-miss soon, well, as soon as he got a response to the investigator question, he was willing to let his brother’s piss-poor timing pass.
“I’ll remember that when you need someone to save you from her.” Cal nodded his head toward the door and started walking.
Yet another person who wanted to rush in and save him. Declan’s back teeth slammed together at the thought. “I can handle myself.”
Cal slapped Declan on the back as he escorted him out. “Let’s go find Beck and see if he agrees about the dangers of sleeping with the enemy. I have a feeling I’ve missed some of the fun by being three days late.”
Chapter Ten
Leah dropped the takeout bag on one of the long tables set up in the middle of Mallory’s shop. This one was Leah’s favorite. The scarred wood spoke to its resilience. There were paint chips and puncture holes. Customers used it for crafting. Mallory held classes there and sometimes just sat on one of the benches there and talked with a customer over coffee.
She pretended to be anti-social and tried to send out that vibe through the mix of dark clothing and a judging frown. But Leah knew better. Mallory was bone-decent. Orphaned early and passed around from relative to relative, trailer park to trailer park, she developed a hard shell and tucked her emotions in tight. But when she trusted, like she did with Leah, it was a beautiful thing.
Mallory treated her customers like old friends from the start, willing to learn anything and picking it up in just minutes, and people had been flocking there ever since.
Even now with the sign turned to CLOSED for lunch, a woman wandered the store. Mallory wasn’t the type to kick anyone out. It was a good thing she lived right upstairs.
“What did you get?” Mallory straddled the bench across from Leah and opened the bag. The paper crinkled as she waved to the older woman hanging out in the journal aisle with a stack of notebooks in her arms.
Leah jumped right to the heart of the conversation. “I kissed him.”
Mallory’s hands dropped, smashing the sandwiches under the weight of her fist. “What?”
Leah winced less over the lost lunch than the stunned surprise in her friend’s voice. Since Mallory had been the first person Leah had shared her losing-her-virginity story with, all two minutes of fumbling backseat disappointment, Leah expected a calm reaction. Not the bug-eyed stare.
May as well just tell Mallory everything and hope she didn’t pass out. Leah held up two fingers. “Twice.” Then she thought about it. The answer was more like two times but many kisses. “Well, I’m not sure how you calculate it, but more than once. And then again yesterday.”
Mallory smacked her hand against the table. The thud had the older woman grabbing for her chest. Mallory waved her off. “Sorry Mrs. Parker.”
“Nice,” Leah whispered under her breath.
This time Mallory leaned in, both hands flat against the table and her eyes practically gleaming. “And to you I say, ha!”
“Go ahead and say the whole thing.” Not that Leah didn’t deserve it. But, really, Mallory’s reaction had been her lowest concern when Declan brushed his mouth over hers.
The man tasted as good as he looked. And his body? Damn. He was all hard muscles and exploring hands. His kisses ripped away her last of defense and turned her knees to jelly. She’d been on the verge of begging him to take her clothes off when his brother came in.
Callen Hanover. Older, harder, unreadable. The guy was six-feet-two of trouble. He’d hated her on sight and made that fact clear. The feeling was pretty much mutual. Where Declan possessed an underlying charm, Callen consisted only of rough edges. Declan groused but he could joke and open up. He devoted his military career to service and helping others. More than one award recognized his sacrifice for the men who served with him.
Callen’s reputation as a loner and the huge gaps in his history pointed to a much darker side. When Charlie left town all those years ago, he had come back and he’d taken Callen with him. Pre-teen or not, Charlie dragged his oldest into his grifter life. There was no question which hat Callen wore.
Mallory pulled a too-thin sandwich out of the bag. The wax paper stuck to it. “I think I’ll skip the fists-in-the-air gloating I’m tempted to unleash here, but I told you so. I knew there would be kissing with you two. Your chemistry is off the charts.”
“Kissing, touching and general confusion.” Leah said the words before she could think about how much they revealed.
“If you’re confused he must be doing it wrong.” Mallory screwed up her lips as she made a face. “That’s disappointing. H
e struck me as a man who knew his way around a woman.”
Around, over and Leah would guess, in. “His skills are fine.”
Mallory’s face morphed to the horrified kind. “Just fine?”
Since there was no need to hide the truth or ruin Declan’s reputation, Leah spilled the truth. “Okay, he was amazing. Like, knock-my-shoes-off amazing, but that’s not the point.”
“It should be.”
Leah dropped her head in her hands. “What am I going to do?”
“I’m unclear on one point. Have you slept with him?”
Leah peeked at Mallory through her fingers. “No.”
“Then your answer is easy. Go do that.”
The customer inched closer. She faced the bookshelves but her head bounced up and down in what Leah assumed was agreement on the sex thing.
She thought about banging her head against the table. Now the whole town would know she was in the middle of a sex/no sex debate. With any luck, her father would find out. He’d probably try to ground her. Or send her away. He tended to miss the part where she was an adult. In the past she’d forced a bit of breathing room between them to deliver the message but the heart attack robbed her of that tool.
“Could you possibly focus on something other than my sex life?” Leah clenched her jaw and forced her voice to remain steady.
“Do you have one?”
“We ran into my father. We were at the diner on Sunday and ran right into him.” Leah couldn’t think of the scene without wanting to scream. “Chief Darber basically threatened to arrest Declan just for walking on the sidewalk. It was ridiculous.”
Mallory made another attempt at food retrieval. She peeled the paper back, frowning as the tuna fish stuck to everything but the bread. “I thought you guys ate dinner at your house. Or wait, was it even dinner or just a business meeting?”
Leah answered the part she wanted to and skipped the rest. “We started at my house.”
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