Breaking Free (Thoroughbred Legacy #10)

by Loreth Anne White

  Dylan swore, lurched to his feet, and went after her. But he stopped at the terrace gate as he saw the red taillights of her Aston Martin brighten at the end of the parking lot exit, and then spin onto the highway and fade into specks in the night.

  What in hell just went down here?

  He swore again, kicked the gate post, and turned to go back into the pub, realizing with mild shock his hands were trembling. He fisted them, trying to tamp down his adrenaline, his lust.

  It was his fault.

  He’d told her he didn’t mess around. What in hell was wrong with him? Here was the most gorgeous woman ever, wanting to make out with him, and he was spooking her with his seriousness, his talk of commitment.

  But deep down he knew what was wrong.

  He’d made this mistake with Sally. They’d acted on lust, and look where it had gotten them both. Look where it had put Heidi. Look at how many years of his life he’d sacrificed.

  She was right. It did have to stop. Megan had another life, one she needed to go back to soon, and he needed another beer.

  Dylan pushed back through the Crook Scale doors and allowed the warmth and laughter and music and camaraderie of his mates and life as he knew it to embrace him, to swallow him back in and cocoon him from Megan Stafford.

  But his mates weren’t going to let him off that easily. They slapped him on the back, joking about the hot Fairchild babe, one of them slipping something into Dylan’s back pocket.

  He took the package out, held it up. “What in bloody hell is this for?”

  They all guffawed. “Condoms, mate,” Mitch said as he ordered another round. “You haven’t forgotten how to use those, have you? We figure any you might have in that bathroom cabinet of yours are well past their sell-by date.”

  Dylan shoved the packet back into his jeans pocket and silently sipped the froth off his beer, thinking it wasn’t funny.

  Because they were far too close to the truth.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bags packed and in the rental car, Megan ran up the Elias Memorial stairs to tell Louisa she was leaving. She’d organized a groom to hand-walk Anthem and found someone on the estate to give Heidi dressage lessons. She’d phone Dylan and Heidi from Sydney to let them know she’d left.

  She wasn’t ready to face Dylan in person after last night’s humiliating behavior. And she knew if she saw him again, things would just get more tangled.

  As much as she’d found a lost part of herself in the Hunter Valley, the process was also turning her upside down emotionally, making her question fundamental choices in her life, and she just couldn’t see her way straight to chucking her job, her apartment, her friends, her life. Not now. Not yet. Not for a man she’d met only eight days ago.

  A man who certainly wouldn’t relocate for her.

  This was something she needed to work through over time.

  And if she was truly honest with herself, it would be better for everyone—including Louisa’s case—if she moved to the sidelines.

  Patrick could stay on at Fairchild Acres and be as pragmatic as he damn well liked about his inheritance, but she needed out.

  She’d been kidding herself, anyway—Louisa didn’t need her. Maybe on the first day of her arrest she had, but now her aunt had Sydney’s top legal sharks swimming around her, and Marie Lafayette was taking good personal care of her.

  And Megan sure wasn’t going to solve this homicide on her own. She was just causing hassles for Dylan by trying.

  But her heart was heavy as she breezed through the hospital doors. And almost immediately she saw Dr. Jack Burgess arguing with Robert D’Angelo near the nurses’ station.

  Her heart kicked.

  Megan slowed, walking purposefully towards the two. But as she neared, Dr. Burgess gesticulated angrily and stalked off.

  “Robert?” Megan said, approaching. “I didn’t realize you’d be here on a Sunday morning.”

  Robert D’Angelo, elegantly hawkish in his designer suit, turned to look down at her. “Megan.” He smiled easily, his hooded obsidian eyes crinkling at the sides behind his rimless glasses. There was absolutely no sign of the simmering anger in his features that had shaped Dr. Burgess’s posture a second ago.

  “I was just leaving. Come walk with me.” Classic D’Angelo, thought Megan—she could talk to him, as long as she went in his direction, on his terms.

  She hastened to meet his stride as he made for the exit. “What was that with Dr. Burgess?”

  He paused at the doors, pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. “Burgess says he can’t ethically hold the police back any longer. Louisa is well enough to walk out of here, and has been for the last two days. He was about to call the cop, but I’ve negotiated a forty-eight-hour grace period, threatening him with legal action should my client have a relapse because of his hasty judgment. After forty-eight hours, he can call Hastings. Which means—” he tapped his leather briefcase “—I need to get back to Sydney to prepare to file these papers so I can have that injunction in hand before Hastings rolls in here with a magistrate in tow.”

  “What injunction?”

  “A court order to pull Detective Sergeant Dylan Hastings off the case. I have a cooperative judge looking into it for me, and he happens to have the police commissioner’s ear. It’s an unusual move, granted, but a tactic I feel is warranted by a highly unusual set of circumstances.” He smiled. “If we swing this, Megan, it’ll be precedent-setting in terms of the law.”

  Tension shimmered in Megan. He was relishing this game. “On what grounds will you secure this injunction?”

  “Police brutality, breach of arrest procedure, stationing a probationary guard at my client’s door, lack of due care with a sensitive prisoner, no separation of custody duties, using a non-designated station. You name it, we nail him for it. That officer came close to killing an eighty-year-old woman in his care, Megan. If I get my way with this judge and the commissioner, that cop’s career is toast within less than forty-eight hours. He’ll be damn lucky if he escapes facing criminal charges himself, pending an internal police investigation.”

  Fury stabbed through her. “Is this really necessary?”

  He studied her from up high, impossibly tall, a slow frown wedging into his brow, intensifying his bird-of-prey quality. “Absolutely. The arrest will be nullified, no charges. Nothing. And any officer who wants to come close to my client after that is going to need absolute proof. Which, Megan, they won’t have, because my client is innocent. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the city before five. With luck, I might even have this application before the courts by tomorrow—” He paused, the V-shape on his brow sharpening further. “You will keep this in the family.”

  She tried to swallow against the dry knot in her throat. “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s not a request, Megan.” His eyes bored down into hers. “It’s imperative this injunction comes at the NSW police force from left field. The court order must hit them before they have time to redeploy and take Hastings off the case themselves.”

  “What if he releases Louisa before this happens?”

  His eyes flickered and his lips flattened. “Megan, I cannot stress how important it is that you not talk to that cop about this. Patrick…mentioned he’s been trying to use you.”

  Fury seared deeper into her gut.

  “He’s not using me.”

  “If you do talk to him, Megan, if you go making yourself an enemy of my client, I shall be forced to put you on the wrong side of the Fairchild fence.” His eyes narrowed. “That means I drag you all the way up to the Supreme Court alongside Hastings. Believe me, you’re not going to want the media attention that’s going to come with that. Allegations that an NSW detective was having an affair with the grand-niece of someone not even legally in his custody, someone he was unconstitutionally accusing of murder—”

  “I am not having an—”

  He lifted his hand. “Especially if that niece was in town seeking
to inherit from that same accused.” He shook his head, and tutted his tongue. “The perception of collusion could make for a very messy media business indeed.”

  Megan’s hands balled at her sides, and she felt her cheeks redden. “You’re threatening me.”

  “I’m protecting my client.”

  He turned and left, the glass doors sliding smoothly shut behind him.

  Megan stared at his back in shock, pressure building in her by the second.

  She couldn’t walk from this now.

  This would devastate Dylan and those he cared for.

  It was her family versus his, and she was trapped slap bang in the middle.

  Just as Dylan had warned her.

  Megan sped up the mile-long Fairchild driveway too fast. She hadn’t been able to force herself to go in and see Louisa. She was too furious. She’d started driving to Pepper Flats instead, her impulse to tell Dylan immediately.

  But she’d backed out, turned the rental around.

  She knew Dylan would just dig his heels in further if she told him what D’Angelo was up to. That cop was as stubborn and immovable as a bloody mountain. And the last thing Dylan needed was to be plastered all over the media as having an affair with her while being charged with police brutality.

  Her own minor brushes with fame as a glamorous designer-dressed art-gallery lawyer, coupled with Louisa’s notoriety and wealth and the tabloid intrigue of the murder and arson at Lochlain Racing, would only fuel a sordid national media frenzy.

  She skidded on a curve as her tires hit loose gravel. Her heart slammed into her throat as she managed—just—to control the slide before leaving the road. She swore, slowed the rental, blood thumping through her.

  The best thing she could do—the only thing she could think of doing—was to get Dylan to release Louisa. Fast. Before that court order came down.

  She wasn’t even sure it would help him in the long run, but from the quick flicker in D’Angelo’s eyes when she’d posed the question, she figured it might at least throw his injunction for a loop, and he’d have to regroup before mounting another avenue of attack. By then a full homicide squad could be back on the job, and Dylan could move to the sidelines, out of the line of fire.

  Damn. She slammed the palm of her hand on the steering wheel. She’d known D’Angelo was gunning for Dylan. But not quite like this.

  This was so…personal. So serious. The life consequences so great.

  What she really needed was to find the true killer. Within less than forty-eight hours.

  Megan screeched to a stop in the gravel outside the Fairchild manor house…and saw Heidi.

  She was hunched on the stairs that led up to the house, face buried in her hands.

  Tension whipped through Megan as she swung open the car door and ran over the gravel.

  “Heidi! What’s wrong?” she said, setting her purse down and sitting on the steps beside her, Scout and Blue milling about in concern.

  Heidi looked up, swiping tears from her face.

  “She still hasn’t answered my e-mails, Megan.”

  “Your mother? Maybe she’s away on holiday, hon. Maybe—”

  “She’s not.” She swallowed. “I called her office in London. I worked out the time difference and everything, and the receptionist said she was there, and busy with a client. I asked if her e-mail address was still the same, and she said yes, so she must have got my e-mails, Megan. I sent several, just in case the ones with my photo attachments didn’t go through.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I feel all messed up right now.”

  Megan sighed heavily and rubbed her hands over her face. She was a Gordian knot of conflict, too. “You should speak to your father about this, Heidi. You both need to talk. Have you seen him today?”

  She shook her head. “He got a call at the crack of dawn and had to rush out before I woke up. He’s too busy to talk to me, Megs. Too busy looking after other people.”

  “Heidi, maybe your mother is just very busy, too.”

  The teen nodded, although her eyes betrayed her.

  “Look, maybe London is not such a great idea. I mean, Brookfield is so much closer. And you’d still come home weekends to ride, and see your dad. And he could visit you there.”

  “He hates the city! He hates everything about it. And he won’t pay for private school. He’s got a stupid job—”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Megan said firmly.

  Heidi looked up in surprise. “You’re defending him?”

  “I care about both of you.”

  Heidi studied her in silence. “Thanks, Megs,” she whispered.

  She smiled encouragingly. “Now, would you like to come inside and call the Brookfield alumni association with me? We can see if they have some bursaries available for next year. And if they don’t, maybe we could get your name onto a list. At best you can find out how to apply, what marks you might need, and what they want to see in a portfolio.”

  “Would you!”

  “Of course I will.” God, Dylan was going to be livid with this on top of everything else. But it might just be the path Heidi and Dylan needed to take.

  “Come,” Megan said, getting to her feet and holding out her hand, feeling totally drained. “Let’s go inside and get Mrs. Lipton or Marie to fix us some tea, and then we can phone the school.”

  “But it’s Sunday.”

  “That’s okay, we’ll find someone to talk to. You know what my mum used to do when I felt down? Lamingtons.” She forced another smile. “Frozen lamingtons, with tea. It was also Granny Betty’s favorite, and you know what? I got the kitchen staff to freeze some when the farm union ladies came round on a lamington fundraising drive last week. Mrs. Lipton told me Louisa still has a soft spot for them herself. Maybe she and Betty used to have them together as kids.”

  Heidi dusted herself off. “Do you miss your mother, Megan?”

  “Always, with all my heart. But I remember the special times, and I carry those with me. The times with Granny Betty, too. Come on, we can gear up afterwards and go down to the river and walk Anthem.”

  “I shouldn’t stay long.” She wavered. “My dad will be looking for me. I…I came by bike. I didn’t tell anyone where I went.”

  “You better phone him, then. Leave a message for him to pick you up here. Meanwhile, we can make that call and enjoy some tea.”

  Marie Lafayette, dressed in a crisp navy-and-white uniform, brought their tea and a plate of the chocolate-covered sponge cakes out onto a stone terrace overlooking the corner of the pool and the estate beyond. In the distance they could see dust being kicked up round the Fairchild racetrack, and along the edge of the patio two cockatoos waddled over dry leaves and grass. Scout and Blue lay obediently watching them from under the wicker furniture.

  “I cannot believe you got my name onto the Brookfield bursary list, Megs.” Heidi looked simultaneously thrilled and concerned. “Dad should be happy, I…I mean, if he doesn’t have to pay. He—”

  They heard a noise, and they both spun round to see Dylan climbing the stairs on the far side of the stoop.

  “Be happy about what?” His laser-blue eyes zeroed in on her.

  Megan’s pulse rushed.

  She quickly wiped a lamington crumb from her lips, trying to stay cool, to let Heidi handle this, but God, he looked good, and she wished again she’d left this morning. Her bags were still in the rental.

  Nothing was physically stopping her. She could still go.

  Then she recalled the dark reason she could not in good conscience leave. She had to get him to release Louisa. Soon. She had to finish what she’d started.

  He closed the distance between them, eyes locked fast on hers. “Whose suitcases are in that rental out front?”

  “Mine.”

  “You leaving?” His voice was clipped, eyes suddenly flat.

  “I was going to. Something…came up.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Patr
ick stepped through the French doors. “Megan, I’m going into Pepper Flats to—” He froze as he caught sight of Dylan in uniform on the stoop.

  “What the—you better have a warrant, mate, or you get the hell off this porch and property!”

  Megan surged up off her chair. “Patrick, wait. I…invited him.”

  He turned to his sister. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing. Megan? Having his kid riding here is one thing, but—”

  “Patrick,” she said through clenched teeth, her voice low. “This is Heidi.”