The Secret She Keeps

by HelenKay Dimon

  “I can do that,” Evan said, as if anyone asked him to step up.

  Connor shook his head. “You’re out of your jurisdiction.”

  “Maddie is my responsibility,” Evan shot back.

  “Okay, let’s stop this.” Maddie raised her hand. “And, Evan? Not anymore.”

  Evan ignored her comment and kept his attention on Connor. He sat back in the big chair. Lounged there, looking like he was running a meeting. “Are we in the middle of a turf war?”

  Because that’s probably how the guy saw this, as some sort of battle. “My only goal is to keep her safe.”

  He was trying to prove another point. He wasn’t even sure what it was but he hated the idea of letting Evan win at anything.

  Evan folded his hands over his stomach. “And your qualifications to guard her are what?”

  “That’s enough. Evan does have the expertise. No one is debating that.” Ben made the point, then winced as if to apologize after the fact.

  Maddie sighed at him. “You’re not helping.”

  “I want you safe.” Evan delivered the comment as if it was news. “I’m not going to dick around, feeding your boyfriend’s ego at your expense.”

  Fuck this guy. “You being the only competent male on the planet.”

  Maddie looked at Sylvia. “Do you notice how none of them bother to ask me what I want?”

  Sylvia nodded. “Typical.”

  Okay, yeah. She made her point. Both women did. Evan might have him revved up and pissed off but the person he was trouncing on was Maddie. “Message received.”

  “Between the notes and the dead body, your choices just got limited to one. You need to be back in the program.” When Maddie started to respond, Evan talked over her. “We’ll relocate you, set you up with a new name and—”

  Sylvia looked confused. “Wait.”

  Maddie didn’t. “No way.”

  The marshal looked ready to blow. “We should talk about this alone.”

  “She gets a choice.” Jesus, this guy and his attitude made Connor want to hit something.

  He wasn’t the violent type, but the way Evan mowed over Maddie and her feelings pissed Connor off. Danger or not, there were better ways to handle this. Hell, he’d issued some orders of his own when it came to her safety and gave her little choice, but he didn’t do it this way . . . damn, he hoped he hadn’t because this was bullshit.

  Evan turned on him. “Did you read the fucking notes?”

  “I’m referenced in one, dumbass.”

  Evan didn’t say anything for a few seconds. He stared at Connor as if assessing how much of a rival he might be. “And just who are you in all of this? I mean, I’ve done a background check and got the basics.”

  “Evan.” Maddie’s stern voice sounded like a warning.

  “You don’t exactly have a great track record for keeping women safe, now, do you?”

  The shot landed but Connor refused to flinch. He kept his expression neutral. He would not let all this ranting get to him. Not from this guy.

  Maddie stood up. “Evan!”

  Even Ben, who had been silent and watching, straightened away from the door. “That’s out of line.”

  Connor appreciated the show of solidarity. He hadn’t expected it and wasn’t sure he’d earned it, but he vowed not to take it for granted. “Do you think you can intimidate me, Marshal?”

  “You’re a businessman on a mandatory vacation.” Evan smiled as if he’d scored some sort of victory. “Right?”

  Ben started moving. “We should take a break.”

  The only acknowledgment from Evan was that he sat forward in the chair. But his glare never left Connor. “Your family sent you here. Didn’t give you a choice because they thought it was here or a hospital.”

  He had the information mixed up and turned around, but Connor guessed that was the point. Evan wanted everyone in the room to know that his family had conducted an intervention. He might not know that much, but he knew too much.

  Connor acted like he didn’t care. “You done?”

  “Am I wrong?”

  “No, you’ve proven you’re an asshole.”

  Maddie stepped around the outstretched legs and all the bodies in the way in the twelve-by-twelve space and headed for the door. “You really have, Evan.”

  Connor almost smiled. Evan had overplayed his hand. He launched an attack, not realizing that it would drive Maddie further away from him.

  Evan’s jaw clenched. It looked like he wanted to go on, to blow, but he reined his temper in. He lowered his voice and brought back that singsongy calming tone. “Maddie, you know I can’t tiptoe around the danger. My language is harsh because what can happen to you is harsh.”

  “She fired you already.” Connor had been holding that one but he enjoyed dropping it now.

  She nodded. “Yes, I did. Sort of.”

  Before Evan could fire back, Ben took over by talking directly to Evan. “By tomorrow other police officers will arrive. You can take a look around the island with them. I’ll start the house search and we’ll meet up after that.”

  Evan swore under his breath. “None of that deals with Maddie’s safety.”

  If the argument upset Ben, he never let it show. “I will have someone watching her. Me, one of my people, or one of the police officers who are on the way.”

  She appreciated all of the help but wanted to make one thing clear. “I’m staying with Connor.”

  She shifted until she stood beside him. Their arms touched but she didn’t make a move to show any more affection in front of Evan.

  “Your boyfriend?”

  Connor waited to see how she’d react to the word.

  “He is.”

  All of the amusement ran out of Evan. He didn’t look quite as self-satisfied now. “We talked about distractions and the risk they pose.”

  Maddie shook her head. “It’s my life, my choice.”

  “You could do better.”

  For the first time since they met, Connor agreed with Evan.

  Chapter 21

  The day dragged on forever. Between the talking and Evan and moving her stuff back to her house, Maddie had reached her limit. So when Connor offered to cook dinner, she jumped on it.

  She loved the idea of watching him cook. She also looked forward to seeing him busy in the kitchen and maybe a bit distracted. Him off guard meant she could ask some of those questions she’d been holding inside.

  As sucky as the day had been for her, it was equally sucky for him. Evan had acted like a jackass. More than once she saw Connor visibly restrain his anger to keep from going off. She appreciated the effort and guessed that was for her benefit. Maybe he sensed she could only take so much more without having a few hours to refuel. Because that was true. She’d run out of the energy needed to keep fighting this fight. All those years of running, all the lying, raced up behind her and knocked her flat.

  Now she needed quiet. A few hours of relaxation. It might be temporary, it might not even be real, but she borrowed the time. She no longer knew what counted as normal but she could try to find a version of it. With him. Tonight.

  The plan started with comfortable clothes, some food, and bed. Tonight it would be her own sheets, but he would be with her.

  She’d changed into lounge pants and an old university T-shirt from a school she didn’t actually attend. Sitting on one of the two stools at her kitchen island, she had an open view of all the cooking.

  Everything about this cottage appealed to her, from the weathered white walls inside and out, to the riot of purple flowers in her front yard in the spring, to this kitchen. The one-bedroom house measured less than seven hundred square feet, but the kitchen had been upgraded well past the value of the rest of the house.

  The area spanned most of the open floor plan she could see when she walked in the door. Marble counters. Every appliance and every type of pot and pan. Rumor was the person who lived there before her refurbished the kitchen, then spent a year w
orking on recipes for a catering business. She now worked at a wedding venue in Northern California and Maddie benefitted from both her determination and her passion for food.

  “What are we having?” The ingredients fascinated her. A package of noodles, various vegetables, and strips of beef. Bottles and spices sat off to one side. Mushrooms soaked in a bowl of water. She wasn’t sure what was going on there, but she also wasn’t much of a cook. She was more of an expert eater.

  “Japchae.”

  The word sounded like chopped chey, but she had no idea what it meant. “My food choices have been limited on Whitaker, so fill me in on what this is.”

  “Basically, noodles and vegetables.” He held up the package. “Glass noodles. They’re made from sweet potato.”

  Sounded good so far. “You got those on Whitaker? I couldn’t find garlic at the store a few weeks ago.”

  “Brought them from home.”

  She basically brought underwear and she was staying forever. “You’re a serious cook.”

  “Not really.” The water boiled and he dropped the noodles in. “I can make the basics. That was a rule in our house growing up. Mom taught everyone. No one got a pass.”

  “I like her already.”

  “She refused to let me be a useless husband one day. At least, that’s what she repeatedly said.” He heated a pan and added some oil. “I think she was afraid I’d get married, wouldn’t know how to cook, and the whole mess would reflect poorly on her. Either that or she worried I would never move out, and that was not okay with my Korean mother. My job was to work and not just sit around.”

  The story made Maddie smile, in part because it made Connor smile. “Sounds like you shouldn’t cross her.”

  “Ever.”

  “But that doesn’t explain why you travel with food.”

  “Mom shoved the package in my hand when I stopped by before heading for the airport to come here.” He acted out the scene and mimicked her voice. “Here, take these.”

  “She was afraid you’d starve.”

  “Probably more afraid I’d eat fast food. She is not an eat-out type of person.” He cleaned off the knife and put it back in the butcher block.

  Everything looked set. A bowl of sauce he’d made there. Those vegetables, lined up and cut into even slices with precision. Much more of this and she would never let him leave again. And that was tempting even without the food.

  She waited for him to start cooking—cutting the now cooked noodles and starting the stir fry of vegetables and sauce—before broaching the unspoken subject between them. The kitchen filled with intoxicating smells. The meat and the soy sauce. The sesame oil and the onions. It came together under his hands and all she wanted to do was pounce on the pan.

  “So, about Evan.”

  Connor looked up but kept stirring. “He’s a dick.”

  “Very true.” When he transferred the cooked mushrooms and beef to a bowl she reached over and snuck a few pieces. Then some more.

  “Not sure how you tolerated working with him.”

  “Well, he kept me alive, so there’s that.”

  “That’s his only redeeming quality as far as I can tell.” Connor put stir-fried vegetables in a bowl. Next went the sauce and some spinach.

  The kitchen smelled like heaven and it took all of her restraint not to dive headfirst into the food. “You know he’s supposed to be a bit of a jerk, right?”

  “Is that a job requirement?”

  “More like a type of guy. Not the type you’d want to date or even have dinner with—”

  “Agreed.”

  “He’s an expert. He thinks a lot of his abilities because he has helped so many people stay alive, which is no small thing. But the only-I-can-do-this attitude is exhausting.” It had worn her down after a few months. The blowhard narcissist breed was her least favorite breed of guy.

  “I’m not disagreeing.”

  After cooking everything separately, he now put it all in the pan. The noodles went in last and he mixed all the parts together. Her mouth actually watered. And she would get to the food, but first she had to get this piece out. “The stuff he said—”

  Connor rested his hands on either side of the serving bowl on the counter and looked at her. “My family did think I was on the verge of work burnout.”

  Not a surprise. From everything she’d read about him and that award he’d won, it sounded as if he worked all the time and only caught a few hours of sleep at his desk each night. But she didn’t get the impression he believed he’d gone too far. That’s what scared her. “You didn’t?”

  “I knew from my doctor the bigger issue was my heart.”

  She dropped the noodle she’d stolen for a taste test. “What?”

  “Apparently when you plunge your brain into nonstop stress, work twenty hours a day, don’t sleep, lock yourself away, and rarely venture out in the sunlight, you get high blood pressure and your body starts to break down.” He grabbed two bowls from the cabinet. “Who knew?”

  “Everyone?”

  The joking tone didn’t fool her. He’d pushed his body right to the edge. She’d bet the doctor gave him an ultimatum. She also doubted that Connor realized that work frenzy kept him from mourning.

  “You’re not wrong . . . sort of. What you said before. I did cope with Alexis’s death by overdoing. Being the best son. Best businessman. Being at work all the time.”

  She feared the self-destructive behavior went deeper than that. A sort of post-traumatic reaction he still hadn’t dealt with . . . not really. “I’d argue with the word cope because I don’t think you have, but talking about this is progress.” When he shot her an are-you-done frown, she tried to clean up what she said so he would keep talking. “Sorry. Go on.”

  “I saw the worry on my parents’ faces. Got yelled at for weeks straight by Hansen when he came back and realized I’d taken on a workload that was usually handled by a group of three—”

  “Connor.”

  He held up a hand as if he understood her concern and got it. “I gave in to their request that I take time off—extended time—because I didn’t want them to worry.”

  So Evan’s comment about a forced sabbatical of sorts wasn’t wrong. His ability to track down information, things he should not know, made her twitchy.

  “But they don’t know you screwed up your body. Right?” She wanted to call Hansen, make him fly here, then shake him a bit for letting his brother go through this.

  “My body is on the mend.”

  “It’s fantastic, but that’s not my point.” She retrieved the dropped noodle from the counter and popped it in her mouth. “Good grief, that’s good. A little sweet mixed in with the soy.”

  She stopped talking long enough to take another noodle and a piece of the beef. She might never eat fast food again.

  “It’s easy to make. Takes fresh ingredients and some cutting, but not much else.” He served a portion into each of their bowls.

  “Says the man who had an expert in Korean cooking train him on how to make it.”

  “Good point.” He smiled as he set a bowl in front of her, then finally stopped moving around. “Want to go back to the part where you talk about my body being fantastic?”

  She could talk on that subject all day.

  “It’s ridiculous. And what you can do with that tongue? It’s sinful.” She reached for a fork because she didn’t have chopsticks. She thought about just sticking her face in the bowl, because who needed utensils of any sort? Then the silence hit her. She glanced up to find him staring at her. “What?”

  “I forgot to tell you one big benefit of this dish.”

  “What?” If he said it tasted even better naked he would make her day.

  That sexy smile of his grew impossibly wide. “It reheats really well in the microwave.”

  Even better.

  A half hour and no eating later, Maddie grabbed the underside of the headboard. The force of her grip made her palms ache. Her fingers clenched an
d unclenched around the wood while Connor’s tongue swept over her. Back and forth. His fingers and those licks.

  She looked down the length of her naked body and saw him lying between her knees. His dark hair contrasted with the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. That scruff around his chin scratched against her. Every touch, every brush, made her muscles tighten and her body heat. Warmth and need mixed and pulsed through her.

  She shifted until one leg draped over his shoulder. Still he didn’t stop. His fingers plunged in and out of her. His tongue flicked over her. The combination had her hips lifting off the mattress in an effort to get even closer to his hot mouth.

  Lost in need, she dropped a hand and wove her fingers through his soft hair. Let the strands fall over her hand as she pushed him in closer. Her eyes drifted shut as she gave in to the sensations shaking through her.

  She was so close. Pleasure swamped her and her muscles tightened, screaming for relief. His name danced on her lips and the satisfaction she chased so hard hovered just out of her grasp.

  “Connor, please.”

  He slid his fingers out of her and blew a cool breath over her already sensitive skin. She gasped at the contact as her shoulders lifted off the bed. Her eyes popped open and her plea for him to keep going died on her lips.

  On his knees now, he pushed her thighs open even wider to fit his body between them. She fought to calm her breathing but he stole it again when he pressed against her opening. She didn’t know when he’d grabbed the condom, but he wore one as he slipped inside her now. Slow, inch by inch.

  Her tiny internal muscles pulsed around him. The fullness, the heat. She felt him everywhere and wanted more.

  She held on to his forearms as he moved back and forth inside her. His speed increased and her body tightened. She felt raw, exposed, and uninhibited. The need to scream his name surprised her, and she started to when the orgasm overtook her. Her fingers tightened on his arm and her nails dug into his skin. Control exploded and all she could do was savor the sensation as he sank into her.

  Her hips shook as the last of the pleasure moved through her. No longer able to hold back, she ran her palms over him, slipped a hand down to the small of his back, and urged him deeper inside her. Her skin, so sensitive from his touch and kisses, had her mouth dropping open.