Brent strode down the gangplank with a carefully blank expression on his face, belied by the fire in his eyes.
“And you are…?” Laura asked pointedly.
“Anna.”
“Anna what?” Laser-sharp eyes bored into hers. Everything inside Anna froze.
“Anna Karenina. Drop it, Sherlock.” Brent climbed into the boat without using his hands and stowed the canvas down the side of his seat. He gave Laura a pirate’s grin. “Anna is a personal friend of mine and that’s all you need to know.”
He made it sound like they were lovers, which made sense since she was holed up in his cabin, but she blushed from the tips of her toes to her hairline.
Laura eyes sparkled. “Known each other long?” She wasn’t put off by his briskness or his tone. Anna had a feeling Laura wouldn’t be put off by much.
“Years.” He looked surprised by the word that had escaped, and Anna realized he thought he knew her because of her father. His eyes shot to hers, knowledge alive in their depths. Then a terrible sense of foreboding stole through her. Had her father shown him her letters? She might not have told him everything, but she’d sure as heck told him a lot more than she wanted a stranger to know. Especially a sexy ex-con like Brent.
She looked away, concentrating on the blast of the ocean breeze as they headed around the point and out into Barkley Sound.
Laura held tight to a bunch of tulips that probably wouldn’t survive the wind. The ride was bumpy and had Anna gripping hard onto the sides. She’d lived by the sea all her young life, but had never been much of a boat person. They motored past Brent’s home, which looked magnificent from the water, and around a corner to a much smaller and more modest cottage on a hill above a short sturdy dock built into the rocky edge of a secluded beach.
Brent docked and tied up the boat. “I don’t know why you had Finn rebuild your dock when you don’t even own a boat.”
“Maybe I just liked having your brother around for some decent company,” Laura said with enough snide in the remark to make Brent smile.
“If you wanted decent company, you shouldn’t have moved to Bamfield.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Anna cut in, surprised.
“Makes me wonder what else you don’t know about our illustrious skipper,” Laura said ominously.
Brent’s features tightened even as he lifted Laura’s groceries out of the boat. He gave her a hand out. “For that, you can carry your own bags up the hill.” He shot Laura a sweet smile that wasn’t at all sweet and jumped back in the boat with Anna.
“Yeah, you’re bad to the bone.” Laura sniffed. “Better watch out. Any more good deeds and you’re going to ruin your bad-boy reputation.” She stood and watched them as they motored away and around the corner, out of sight.
“She seems nice,” Anna commented.
Brent grunted. Then he seemed to realize grunts and snorts weren’t part of normal conversation. “Laura hasn’t lived here long, but without her help last year I’d probably be serving another life sentence for murder.”
“Another?” Her voice came out muffled, as if she were drowning.
But he heard, and stilled.
“Who did you kill?” she rasped.
His eyes became hooded, and his expression went blank. “My father.”
This was not how he wanted Anna to find out she was bunking with a killer. Why the hell hadn’t Davis told her? It wasn’t like he claimed to be innocent. Unlike 95 percent of the prison population, he took full responsibility for his actions. Although in fairness, most of the inmates were so high on drugs and drink they probably couldn’t remember their crimes—or didn’t want to.
But he’d owned up to his. Owned it. Paid the price. Would always pay the price.
“What did Davis tell you I was in for?” he asked carefully.
She looked like she wanted to throw herself out of the boat. He’d be glad to get rid of her except Davis had asked for his help and Brent kept his promises, even to a woman who thought her father was a common thief and was right now looking at Brent himself like he was about to turn psycho. It made him want to shake some sense into her, but that would probably give her a goddamned heart attack.
White knuckles gleamed as she gripped the side of the boat. A frown knotted dark brows over eyes that were as green as the moss on the north-facing trunk of a pine.
“He said you’d beaten someone up,” she whispered. “He never said the person died.”
He concentrated on steering the boat toward the dock. What the hell was he supposed to say? Sorry? “Sorry” was too simplistic. Words were worthless without trust, and he’d already warned her not to trust him.
“What did you do with the gun I gave you?” he asked.
Her nostrils flared, that old fight-or-flight reflex kicking in at the sight of a predator.
Anger and self-loathing traveled his veins—something he was used to and was sick of. This was why he pushed people away. “I don’t want to hurt you.” he explained patiently. “I’m trying to figure out a way to make you feel safe.”
“I left it in the bedroom,” she admitted in a low voice.
“Not real useful.”
“Well, I’m obviously not very good at dealing with convicted felons.” Her eyes flashed. “You’ll have to excuse me.”
“Hey.” He much preferred anger over fear. “You came to me, remember?”
“I didn’t know you were a killer.”
He went still inside. He didn’t know why hearing those words from her lips made a difference. But it did. The wash of the ocean against his small cruiser was the only noise, the silence so taut with tension he couldn’t stand it any longer. Him, a man who once spent six months in solitary and enjoyed every damn second. The irony wasn’t lost on him. “Your father sent you to me…”
“But Papa wasn’t exactly trustworthy himself, was he?”
How’d he get caught in this mess? He lived on the edge of nowhere and barely answered his phone, let alone talked to people. And yet here he was doing his damnedest to help his best friend’s daughter—a woman who didn’t believe in a man so noble he wouldn’t even take money from a rich fucker like Brent. So why would Davis steal it from someone else? He wouldn’t.
He was supposed to fix this mess? No fucking way.
“Why did you kill your father?” she asked.
Pain pierced his chest. He narrowed his eyes and swallowed. He was done getting bitched at. Her mouth tightened at his silence. He took up the ropes and stepped onto the dock, securing the boat only yards from where he’d cradled his daddy in his arms as the bastard bled out. The memories returned like a grim dose of reality. He could see every detail. Smell the thick cloying tang of his father’s blood. See the drunken confusion in his eyes. Feel the impotence of that young foolish boy who’d known his father was dying, who’d worried his little brother wouldn’t make it either, and had realized there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about any of it.
Love was too simple an emotion for how he’d felt about his father. Hatred would have given him an easy way out in a situation where there was none.
He stepped back into the boat and placed his canvas and Anna’s groceries on the creaking wooden boards before climbing out again. She didn’t move. He didn’t care.
“Where was your mother?” Her face had lost its waxy paleness and an angry red stained both cheeks.
He’d been about to stride away. Her question stopped him cold.
“She left when I was a kid.” He had a distinct memory of his dad saying he’d rather strangle him and his brother, Finn, than let her have custody. Ironic? As a dead guy’s winning lottery ticket.
He tucked the grocery box under one arm and watched her shaking fingers try and fail to undo the zip of her life vest. She staggered off the boat and he caught her arm to stop her from falling on her face. There was an intense flash of awareness, hot enough to make his skin crackle, quickly replaced by distaste—on her part anyway.
&n
bsp; He was used to the looks and whispers. He’d never pretended to be anything he wasn’t, and wasn’t about to start now. But a small part of him wished things could be different—not a thought he usually allowed himself because it hurt too fucking much. He placed the box and canvas on the dock. Took hold of the bottom of her life vest and yanked down the zipper. He tossed the vest onto the deck of his boat while she watched him like a raptor, that bottom lip of hers thrust out at a belligerent angle.
This shouldn’t be a problem for him. She shouldn’t be a problem. He was an expert at shutting down so nothing touched him. That was how he’d endured so many years in an institution that told you when to eat, when to sleep, when to wash. Don’t stare someone in the eye for more than half a second, but never back down if someone tried to stare you out. Never look at someone’s possessions, never touch their stuff, don’t talk back to the guards unless you wanted to get beat down and stuffed in the hole.
And yet, somehow, he was failing to shun all the emotions that this slip of a girl was stirring up in him.
Probably because, through her letters to her father, he’d allowed himself to fall just a little in love with her when she’d been a teen struggling with a shitty situation—and now she needed his help even though she didn’t want it and he’d rather jump off a cliff into boiling waves below.
A flurry of emotions crossed her features and he tried to reconcile this flesh-and-blood woman with the fantasy version he’d created all those years ago. Anna Silver…He’d ached for news of her, reveled in her achievements, itched to help her through her one shocking stumble. She’d had all the teenage experiences he’d missed, all the angst and joy of growing up on the outside. All he’d had was a paint box, four walls, and eventually, a man who liked to talk about his kid.
Getting rid of this real and judgmental Anna Silver would be a good thing. Except the itch that had kept him alive on more than one occasion was now scratching a hole through his skin.
“Look,” he growled when she showed no sign of moving. “You don’t have to stay here.” She was still looking at him like he was going to knife her on the spot. But his crime, and his life for that matter, was none of her damn business. She should be grateful he was offering any help at all. This whole situation was driving him insane. “There’s a friend of mine you can stay with if that makes you feel better. He’s old and respectable and won’t slit your throat if you piss him off.” His teeth ached from clenching his jaw so damn tight. Why was he expected to swallow the condemnation she kept throwing at him?
Because he deserved it, a small voice whispered inside his head. He deserved punishment.
“I’m a convicted murderer. I get that it might freak you out. But that guy in the photograph from the train station? I bet my ass he’s a killer too. Military grade.”
She flinched. She was hurting from the death of her father, but he didn’t have the time or patience for dealing with tender feelings. She wasn’t a kid anymore. He turned toward the house he’d built out of the ashes of his childhood. “There’s nothing I can do to change my past. There’s nothing I can do for Davis, except help you find your way out of this mess. But if you decide you don’t want my help?” He looked back over his shoulder into her troubled green eyes. He gave a sharp nod. “That’s your business. You can leave any time you want.”
And he walked away. Because he didn’t need Anna Silver’s approval or forgiveness. He just needed to be left the hell alone.
Brent Carver was a killer.
Well, what the hell had she thought he’d done? Stolen somebody’s piggy bank? He looked dangerous. With those eyes and that body, he looked frickin’ deadly.
But he didn’t feel dangerous.
Why would a boy kill his father? Could it have been an accident? Assisted suicide? But the way Brent said “convicted murderer” suggested something more threatening. Had he been drunk or stoned? Had it been self-defense? Or a premeditated act of evil?
Anna didn’t know what to do.
Her fingernails bit into her flesh. The sea breeze sandblasted her skin until she was so cold she could barely stand. Could she stay with a man who’d taken a life? Someone who’d murdered his own father?
She already had.
She’d arrived in the middle of the night and taken him by surprise. And although he’d been naked with a gun, he hadn’t hurt her. He’d manhandled her until he’d figured out she wasn’t a threat, and then he’d backed right off.
Would her father have suggested going to Brent if he wasn’t a good guy? They’d shared a cell for five years. You might be able to fake it for a few weeks or months, but for eighteen hundred days? Though her father wasn’t exactly known for his good judgment, and her mother’s sucked too. She loved her parents, but they’d both shattered her trust as a teen. You couldn’t repair that. Once it was gone, it was gone forever.
From their short conversation, Laura seemed to trust Brent. And, even though she’d only spent a few minutes in her company, Anna figured Laura was a smart and savvy woman.
Seaweed swayed gently in the tide, a thick fringe of underwater green. The gentle motion calmed her. Her feet took a couple of small steps off the dock and onto the sand. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten much in days, but she needed answers, not food. Brent Carver wasn’t going to give her any, so she needed to find some other way to figure him out. She placed one foot in front of the other and slowly climbed the steps to the house. She kicked off her sandals and padded barefoot through the entranceway. She looked around with fresh eyes.
This was the home of a murderer.
The space was bright and open. Uncluttered and immaculate. Had he learned that in prison? Full of natural beauty. Open. Airy. Definitely a reaction against the small confined ugliness of a prison cell.
She thought of her father’s dreary little apartment. He’d found his redemption in being given a trustworthy position again. What had happened to change that? Or was he telling the truth about being set up?
She felt sick and conflicted about her father’s death. Was he a victim or the perpetrator? Either option filled her with dread. She didn’t want to be the center of another scandal, didn’t want to have to rely on this forbidding stranger for help. But what if her father had been telling the truth? What if someone had chased him and scared him so badly he’d fallen under that train?
Didn’t he deserve justice? Bad guys should not get away with doing bad things. But that reasoning made her a hypocrite of the worst kind, because she’d never reported her own assault. Had been too frightened of the consequences. Her stomach cramped.
She slid her hand over the smooth granite surfaces in the kitchen. The steaks were defrosting on a platter and everything else had been put away in the cupboards and refrigerator. Nothing left out on the counters. No trash sitting waiting to be thrown out. Not a single envelope or junk mail flyer in sight.
It could be a show home, she realized.
There wasn’t a smidgen of personality anywhere, and maybe that was a sign that she should get out as fast as possible. She helped herself to a glass of water and gulped it down. She wandered through the living room and spotted the huge canvas above the fireplace.
Now there was emotion.
It was such a simple picture: three bands of color—bone-white sand, gritty purple ocean, darker teal sky. The sea looked calm, but there was a brooding element to the painting, an energy that was almost tangible.
Her father had given her a painting of Brent’s. It hung above her bed as gentle and soothing as a lullaby. Staring at that scene felt like going on a vacation and had kept her company on many a lonely night. This one above his stone hearth spoke of an impending storm. Of fury waiting to strike.
A shiver ran over her skin.
She moved on, looking for some clue to the truth of Brent’s personality. Something substantial. Something she could trust. A huge flat-screen TV hung on the wall that formed the stairs. The furniture was dark and masculine—dark blue couches with black c
ushions. Almost everything was made of polished wood, stainless steel, or glass. Nothing to tell her who Brent Carver really was, except for the torment-soaked canvas on the wall.
All this rigid structure contrasted strongly with the passion she saw in his paintings. The same way his stoic expression battled the fire in his eyes. What did it mean? That he controlled it? Disguised it? What was he hiding?
Was it any of her damned business?
She prided herself on having good self-preservation instincts. More importantly, nowadays she listened to them—which was why Peter was history. It worried her that the instincts that should have been sending out five-engine alarm bells were curiously silent in Brent’s presence.
Was she stricken numb with grief? Did that handsome face and ridiculously honed body blind her to reality? Why didn’t she sense the danger in him?
Why had he killed his father? Something terrible must have happened, but what?
Her father’s actions had driven her to the edge of despair, but she’d never wanted to hurt him. Her brain spun with unanswered questions.
Did she stay or go?
Go where?
She didn’t know, but that was no reason for inaction. She wouldn’t be a victim just because she didn’t have options. However, she didn’t want to run around like a headless chicken and get hit by a frickin’ train either.
Tears stung but she blinked them away.
She spotted three photographs in what looked like solid silver frames tucked on the edge of the hearth of the wide stone fireplace. She walked over and stared down at them.
A thick lump wedged in her throat.
One picture showed a black-and-white image of two boys goofing around. Brent, looking so young and skinny, mischief dancing in that gorgeous young face as he mugged for the camera. He held a much smaller boy in a loose headlock. The younger boy, who must be his brother, if the family resemblance was to be believed, stuck out his tongue as he grappled with his big brother. Such an innocent depiction of boyhood happiness. There was another photograph—her father—making a snow angel in the sand. She picked it up and held back sobs as she looked at his handsome face smiling at the camera. She didn’t know the last time he’d looked that happy. The third photograph showed a shy-looking teenage girl. She had short dark hair and a pretty smile.
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