The ones that had once been buried all over the yard. The items they uncovered by mistake, some of which Walker had been tracking forever. It was a risk but he already knew. The day everything came to light a month ago and Walker admitted his parentage, he’d been in the yard and seen the holes. They were covered now but Walker had been trained to notice things.
“The house. The evidence.” Beck held both hands palms up and looked from one to the other. “Like I said, we have more than one issue happening right now.”
“Well, isn’t that great news.” The exact opposite, actually. Callen figured they had to be due for the right side of luck soon.
Declan fell back into the cushions again. The pillow took flight a second later. “Since when have our lives run smoothly?”
“Never.” Callen tried to swallow but something blocked his throat. Probably frustration. “But, damn, a guy can hope.”
Chapter Seven
The knock came at about six on Sunday night. The rain had finally cleared in time for another storm to settle in. This one amounted to much more than a drizzle. Rain fell in sheets. Sideways.
It was enough to keep Mallory inside. Which was why she stood in front of her open refrigerator door and stared at fifty dollars’ worth of groceries not seeing one thing she wanted to eat. She had a pizza in the freezer and soup in a can. That wasn’t a hard battle for the pizza to win, but too much pizza and none of her clothes would fit.
She’d just made a silent wish for a food deliveryman when the doorbell rang. The ping had her jumping and closing the refrigerator. The warm air of the apartment hit her. That’s what she got for cranking up the heat and wearing a sweatshirt over oversized men’s boxer briefs.
Her thick socks slid across the shiny floor. Going up on tiptoes she glanced out the peephole. Then looked again.
Walker. In a long-sleeve plaid shirt and dark . . . were those khakis of some sort?
Without thinking and ignoring his vow to win her over, which had been playing in an endless loop in her mind since yesterday, she opened the door. “You can’t be here.”
Oh, good grief he looked delicious. His hair was damp and his shirt stuck to the muscles across his shoulders. In a suit he commanded attention. In this outfit he looked less brooding. Less serious and more approachable.
He juggled two bags in one hand and had his other hand raised as if he were about to knock. “Why should I leave? Do you have a date or something?”
His face fell as he asked the question. The strain around his mouth appeared the second he said the words.
She had her ammunition. No way would she use it, though. “It’s tempting to tell you yes.”
“Fine, but I’ll just follow you and shoot the guy.” There was not even a little amusement in his voice.
“You will not.” But she sensed he absolutely would.
His eyebrow rose. “Test me.”
That sounded like it had the makings of a bloodbath. Not her thing at all. Back in college some women would get off on pitting men against each other in some sort of testosterone battle. She preferred respect and a bit of dignity.
And truth. “I’m not seeing anyone else.”
Some of the tension left his shoulders. “Good.”
“And look what I’m wearing.” She couldn’t imagine what kind of date would involve this outfit.
“I like the shorts.”
Of course he did since they were his. “To be technically correct, I’m not even seeing you.”
“We can agree to disagree on that.” He stared into the room behind her. “Any chance I can come the whole way in?”
A good idea since the older man across the hall liked to ask questions. To this day he insisted she and Leah were lesbians and hiding it.
Mallory watched as Walker came in and went straight for the kitchen counter. There wasn’t much space but he knew from experience where the plates were and reached for them.
“What are you carrying?” she asked, secretly hoping for something other than pizza or soup.
“Dinner.” He reached in the bag and pulled out a white Chinese-food container. “The kind you like.”
A man bearing food. That bordered on a dream come true. Ten minutes ago she would have handed over every possession in exchange for takeout. “Why?”
“We both need to eat.” He opened the bag and took out one, two, three more Chinese-food containers. Then a fifth, along with a packet of sauces and other goodies, hit the counter.
He’d never looked hotter to her than right now.
“What, you’re not enjoying big family dinners at Shadow Hill?” She was dying to sit in on one. Between the conversation topics and the general stiffness, she wondered if anyone ate a bite.
“Right now I’m staying out of everyone’s way.” He put two plates on the small table with a thud.
She verbally poked around because, well, it was her house. If he didn’t like it he could leave. But the food should stay. “Did something happen?”
“Not really.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant but at least it sounded as if they’d avoided an all-out war so far. “Why live there at all?”
“Something is going on.” Walker held a handful of forks and chopsticks as he leaned back against the counter. “There are a lot of closed-door meetings between Declan, Beck and Callen.”
“Like a war committee?” A vague sense of worry moved through Mallory. She couldn’t imagine the Hanovers setting Walker up to do something awful to him. They weren’t perfect, but they weren’t evil either. Despite what many people thought, they were not their father.
“It feels that way.”
Not that the brothers didn’t have reason to be pissed off at the forgotten one. Walker didn’t exactly welcome his family in. More like he assumed they all sucked and tried to ruin them. That sort of thing made holiday dinners tough.
“No offense, but you brought some of that on yourself.” She moved in closer to Walker. Not right next to him or between his legs, like she wanted to be, but not a room away either.
“I want to deny that but I’m trying to make peace with you.”
The guy had a learning curve. She’d give him that. “Why is that again?”
“Because I miss you.”
The way his head tilted to the side and the hardness left his eyes made her heart race. A lightness moved through her. A wallop of reality followed right behind. He’d said things before about how much he liked to be with her then walked away.
She swallowed back a mixed lump of happiness and regret while she tried not to care about the words coming out of his mouth. “As evidenced by the fact you didn’t call when you left town.”
His hands went to the counter behind him. The white-knuckle hold didn’t ease up. “I screwed up.”
“Is that an apology?” It certainly sounded like one but he’d never come close before. Missed meals and all that secrecy and not one word of regret.
“No, this is.” He widened his legs and with a tug on her hand, drew her between them. “I’m sorry I left. Sorry I hurt you and took you for granted.”
“Did someone coach you on that?” She tried to sound tough but her hands came up to rest on his shoulders as his hands found her waist and pretty much ruined her earlier we’re-over speech.
His mouth fell into a grim line. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
She promised she wouldn’t. Just a few weeks ago she’d looked in the mirror and given herself a pep talk. A “you can do better” speech. For a few days she’d believed it. That was before he walked back into town. “Do you blame me?”
“A month ago I stood in that yard at Shadow Hill and listened to—” His words cut off and he shook his head. “Never mind.”
They were so close to some sort of breakthrough. She could feel it. “Say it.”
“They figured it out. About my parents, I mean.” His fingers tightened on her waist. “Well, Grace did, and then everything unraveled. Kim Hanover stood
there and told me she would have taken me in if she’d known about me.”
Mallory pressed a hand against his chest. His distant expression suggested he needed the contact. “I believe that.”
Looking down, Walker mumbled more to himself than to her. “How could she not know there were two little boys instead of just one?”
“She didn’t know she’d married a con man either. She didn’t know Callen’s birth mother, your mother, was still alive.” Using her thumbs, Mallory lifted Walker’s face and looked him straight in the eye. “Charlie told so many lies back then. He had fake documents and social security numbers and covered his tracks.”
He blew out a long, frustrated breath. “I figured it out. They could have.”
So many arguments and grievances separated Walker from his brothers. She was an only child and didn’t understand the concept of siblings. What she had with Leah came close. Losing that would kill Mallory as surely as a stab to the heart.
“They didn’t know they needed to look.” A common-sense answer, but it seemed out of place with all the emotional turmoil.
He gathered her in even closer and his voice dropped low. “Everything fell apart on me.”
“Your revenge scheme fell apart.” She hated to point that out but it was true. He’d been obsessed, so much so that Grace went hunting for answers.
“You think I won’t go after them? That I suddenly think Callen is innocent?”
Doing so could kill off any chance of them reconciling. Maybe that wasn’t possible anyway, but the idea of getting wrapped up in Walker’s scheme and ending up on the opposite side of a battle from Leah made Mallory want to heave.
But the idea of losing Walker started a stabbing pain in the center of Mallory’s chest. All she wanted was for the world to spin back to the way it was. That private time between them when they didn’t talk about the Hanovers. Sweet, fun, loving and sexy. She’d spend her days in the shop and her nights rolling around on crisp sheets with him.
Of course, that system hadn’t worked for them either. That left few choices, none of them all that viable. “If I asked you to drop it, to make amends and stop hunting them, what would you say?”
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again a stark look of pain filled them. “You can’t make that request.”
“I can.” She did, she would, because that’s what girlfriends did. Every now and then they demanded things.
Walker missed that part. He only saw the benefits and ignored the realistic conversations people in a relationship normally had. “I want to be more important than your revenge.”
His hands rubbed up and down her arms as her body leaned against his. “You are.”
All the promises and reassurance had her head spinning. “You talk in circles while you stand there and look all pretty. It’s a con. Not Charlie’s kind but still not genuine.”
“If you think you can piss me off and that will make me storm off, you’re wrong.”
Maybe this was a test. She didn’t consciously think so, but checking his stamina was only fair. So was understanding his plan from the start. “What is the endgame here?”
There was a beat of silence. Then another. Finally Walker answered. “I don’t completely know. Not anymore. Nothing is all that clear right now.”
“Huh.” The answer may have made other people crazy, but she liked hearing the truth, especially since that’s what she now demanded from him.
He eyed her up with more than a little wariness on his face. “What?”
“I was expecting you to throw me a schmaltzy we-can-do-this-baby kind of line. Something I could tell at parties when I made fun of you.” Something about promising a future or how much she meant to him. Instead she got four words that made a bit more sense in light of their fractured relationship.
“You knocked me over from the beginning. I didn’t expect you.” He caressed with his eyes and his hands. “I still don’t know what to do with you.”
“History would suggest otherwise.” She tried to hold on to her anger but it kept blanking out. Sarcasm covered a lot but even that was getting hard to sell.
“I don’t mean sex.”
Interesting comment since her thigh now rested on his erection. “No?”
She decided to test his self-control. Her palm danced over his shoulder and across his chest. Fingers found the buttons on his shirt as she leaned in tighter against his lower body.
His breathing ticked up. It quickened and grew louder. He sounded a few seconds away from a full-fledged pant.
She loved the loss of control. He usually stayed rock solid as far as that was concerned. He’d lose it in bed but getting there took a long time. She had to be pretty creative. But when they hit that moment, they both ended up exhausted.
Before he could shove her away or calm things down, she placed a line of kisses on his throat. Tiny and biting with enough excitement to pull a groan out of him. His hands trembled where they’d landed on her lower back.
“What are you doing?” But he moved his head to the side to give her greater access, she knew full well.
“I’m not sure.” She unbuttoned the top button and placed a kiss on that sexy spot where his collarbone and neck met. When he treated her to a sharp inhale of breath, she undid another one.
“Oh, I think you know where this will lead.” His hand slipped under the elastic band at the top of her boxers, past her underwear until he touched skin.
Her insides whirled now. Need and desire flattened common sense. Her hands moved all over him as her mouth moved lower on his chest.
“Maybe I need a release.” She did. Her body cried out for it.
“Is that what I am?”
Instead of answering she opened the buttons of his shirt to his waist, revealing inch after amazing inch of firm chest. Her fingertips brushed over his nipples and traced the outline of muscles on his stomach. She didn’t know what type of training the FBI required or how many hours in the gym, but there was no question Walker was an overachiever on that score.
As her mouth moved lower and she bent to get a better taste of his skin, he cupped her ass. His hands swallowed her up and pulled her tighter against him. With some nuzzling, his mouth found hers. The kiss burned through her as he rubbed her body against his erection.
The heat between them simmered and built. Her skin so sensitive from everywhere he kissed or touched screamed for more. Never one to wait for what she wanted, she went after it. She moved her lower half until it fit snuggly in the notch between his legs. The fire there pounded against her.
And when his finger slipped into the cleft between her ass cheeks then moved lower, her breath hiccupped out of her lungs. He slipped it inside her. She was wet and ready and on the verge of exploding. The gentle pumping, the combination of kisses and knowing caresses. The way he brushed his hands over her until the trembling made her knees buckle. So many memories, but the live version surpassed anything.
She moaned his name as his tongue slipped inside her mouth. She couldn’t get close enough or feel enough. Sensations bombarded her as her insides pulled tight.
She was about to beg for more, more of him, harder and faster, when her internal muscles started clenching. Her hips bucked and her head spun. A minute passed then everything let go. The tightness unwound and her head fell back. She would have fallen to the ground but his strong arms kept her upright.
When the pulses finally stopped, she rested her head against his shoulder. It took another few minutes to form a sentence. “As you can see you’re not the only one who’s confused about us.”
“It doesn’t feel like we’re confused about this part.”
She had to agree with him on that point. “No, this still works.”
His laughter rumbled against her cheek and blew across her hair. “I’ll take that as progress.”
She looked up at him then. Saw the flushed skin and look of satisfaction in his eyes. “That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”
“Yesterday you ordered me out of the state.” He kissed her. Not short and not long, but lingering. “Maybe that was Leah, but I got the impression you agreed. Today, well, I haven’t been kicked out yet.”
When he lifted his mouth her fingers followed. She couldn’t get enough of him. Her hand skimmed over his chin and into his hair. “I wanted to hate you.”
He smiled at her. That made quite a few since he walked in the door, which had to be a record. “Any chance you’re struggling against doing that?”
Every second of every day. “You got in the door, didn’t you?”
He shifted their bodies until he stood right in front of her. “I really do miss you.”
“The smart-ass comeback and the sex?”
“Both exceptional but not just those.” He placed a gentle kiss on her chin. “You have many charming qualities.”
Something rumbled in the back of her mind. It wasn’t until the kiss deepened and his body pressed against hers that she realized what it was.
She jerked away from him and looked down. “You were—”
“Hard? Yeah. The way you came took care of that.” An unusual redness stained his cheeks. “It wasn’t my finest moment.”
He was always so cool and controlled. The idea of him losing it before he got his pants off . . . well, that made her feel pretty damn powerful. “Oh my God.”
“You’re pretty stunning when you let go.”
She didn’t ever want to see that. Some things were better left to the imagination. In her fantasies, nothing jiggled and she looked hot. If he thought so, then who was she to argue.
“I like the outfit.” Which should be obvious since she tried to strip him out of it.
He frowned. “Really?”
“Don’t get me wrong, the suit is smoking hot, but this is pretty sexy, too.” She rebuttoned a few inches of the shirt. No reason to invite temptation again so soon.
He smoothed his hand down the front of him. “Get used to this one because I only own about three casual shirts.”
“There are these things called stores.” She would love to get him in there and see him model a few things. The man had a form, all fit and compact, that looked great in clothes.
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