“Smartass.”
She gathered the scattered remnants of her makeup bag off the floor and tucked them into her purse. “You want me to bring over a Magic Eraser tomorrow? It should save you the trouble of calling the painter again.”
I wanted her to stay and get naked, though I’d have to settle for a kiss and a few gropes on the front steps—the only place we were sure Rosalee wouldn’t catch us—when I walked her out. “Trust me, I own stock in Mr. Clean.” I turned the light off and shut the bathroom door. I’d have to clean it before I went to bed, but first… “Come on. I’ll walk you out.”
I swung the front door open and waited for her to exit first, but she came to an abrupt stop, mumbling, “Oh, goodie.”
Peering around her, I saw Ian leaning against the hood of his car. He wasn’t headed up the walk or climbing out. He was just sitting there as if he’d been waiting for a while.
I’d yet to tell him about the change in my relationship with Hadley. It wasn’t that I was keeping it from him exactly. I was just…keeping it from him in general.
“What are you doing?” I called.
He looked to Hadley then back to me. “Stopped by to talk to you about the Goodman account.”
“You know there’s this little button next to the door that you can press to let me know you’re here, right?”
His disapproving gaze drifted to Hadley as he stated, “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Ooookay. That’s my cue to leave,” she whispered, starting down the steps.
Nope. Ian could be as pissy as he wanted, but no way I was letting him rob me of one of my three weekly opportunities to taste her. Catching her arm, I spun her around, my mouth sealing over hers. As always, her lips were pliable, but this time, her body stiffened. She gripped my bicep for balance, both of us teetering on the top step. But despite Ian’s no doubt murderous glare heating her back, she opened her mouth, welcoming me in for an all-too-brief tongue sweep.
She pulled away first, burying her forehead in the curve of my neck. “I think our plan not to tell Ian has been foiled.”
“Strong possibility.”
“Well then. I’m going to leave you to clean up two messes tonight.”
“Chicken,” I murmured.
When her head popped up, she was wearing that epic smile again. And it hit me just as hard as it always did. Warming me in a way Ian’s icy glare could never cool.
“I’ll see you Wednesday,” she whispered.
I nodded and dipped for another lip touch.
Ducking, she dodged me and laughed as she trotted to her car. “Night, Ian.”
His dark gaze tracked her until her taillights disappeared into the distance. Only then did he turn his attention back to me. “We’re keeping secrets now?”
I shrugged. “So, funny story. Turns out you were right and I have a thing for Hadley.”
He strolled up to the door. “Shocking. I’m especially impressed with how you were so mature and upfront, telling me about it so I didn’t have to show up at your house unannounced to find out.”
“Don’t give me that guilt trip. You know why I didn’t tell you.”
“Because I would have told you, again, that it was a stupid idea?”
I swayed my head from side to side. “More or less.”
He followed closely as I walked inside, heading straight for my downstairs office. I didn’t work from home much anymore, but when Rosalee had been little, I’d claimed that glorified closet so I wouldn’t wake her up while on the phone. Nap time was too precious to take chances.
That space had once been a mudroom, but I’d added a wall and a door. It was just big enough for a desk and two leather chairs, but it was quiet and far enough away from the action that I rarely heard Godzilla knocking down Rosalee’s building blocks.
And given that Ian was prepping to give me an earful about Hadley, we needed all the privacy we could get.
“Rosie in bed?” he asked, sinking into one of the chairs.
I walked around the desk and sat down. “She’s supposed to be. But I took away her TV time because she smeared lipstick all over the bathroom. So she’s probably up there destroying something else.”
He chuckled before letting out a resigned sigh. “Good, then you have plenty of time to fill me in on what’s going on between you and Hadley. Are you sleeping with her? Trying to sleep with her? Copping feelings? What?”
“Is there an ‘all of the above’ option on this quiz?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Cav. What the hell? This isn’t like you.”
He was beyond right. This rash and emotionally driven guy was nothing like Caven Hunt. I liked women—a fuck of a lot—but I always had my priorities in check. Ever since Rosalee had entered my life, she’d been at the very top of that list. But there was something about Hadley. Something that had me taking risks. Something that didn’t date back to our one-night stand but rather to the bond we’d formed over the last few months.
“She makes me feel.”
“Feel what? Please tell me what the hell this woman makes you feel that approximately one billion other women on the planet couldn’t?”
The corner of my mouth hiked up. “That was the end of my thought. She makes me feel. And it’s crazy given who she is and her parents and… Well, you know the rest. But I don’t know. Having somebody who understands me on this level is like feeling the sun for the very first time.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Keats. Are you writing poetry over there?”
I barked a laugh. “I’m serious. She’s different. I’m not a wolf in sheep’s clothing when I’m with her. She’s seen the skeletons in my closet, and she gets them because they are the same ones hanging in hers. And I fucking hate that she gets it. But Christ, there is something to be said about not having to fillet myself open to explain every excruciating detail of my past with a woman. I’ve never gotten serious with anyone because opening myself up and airing out the dumpster fire that is my life seemed like a nightmare…but she already knows.”
“You let this one go and I’ll personally sit down with the next woman and explain everything about your past. Deal?”
I shook my head. “As very appealing as having a mediator in my relationship sounds, I think I’m going to pass.”
He groaned, crossing and uncrossing his legs. “When are you going to tell Rosalee?”
“Tell her what? That I have a thing for Hadley? Because I gotta say, I’m not sure I’m obligated to reveal that information to a four-year-old.”
He stood up and quickly peeked out the door to make sure the coast was clear. Then he dropped his voice so low that it was almost inaudible. “I’m talking about telling Rosie that Hadley is her mother. She’s spending a lot of time here these days. Are you even the least bit concerned that she’s going to slip and tell her before you have the chance?”
I reached into my desk and pulled out the paper I’d had Hadley sign the first night she’d come over. The one that outlined exactly what she wasn’t allowed to discuss with Rosalee including but not limited to the fact that she was her mother. I slid it across to him. “I had her sign that as an insurance policy. She breaks it and you might get your wish because, feelings and understanding notwithstanding, she tells my daughter anything without discussing it with me first, we’re going to have problems.”
He lifted the paper and scanned over it.
I’d known Ian for a lot of years. He was my best friend and more of a brother to me than Trent in a lot of ways. It was because of that that I sensed the exact moment he went on alert.
He blinked several times before shaking his head as though his mind were an Etch A Sketch he was trying to reset.
I inched forward to the edge of my chair, trying to see the paper in his hand. I’d read that damn thing a dozen times after Doug’s assistant had emailed it over. There was nothing on there that would be news to Ian.
“What?”
He looked up at me and I could al
most see the gears turning in his head.
When I was ten, the death of my mother had changed my life.
A few years later when I was fifteen, a single bullet had changed my life again.
At twenty-nine, a shrill cry from an abandoned newborn had flipped my life on end.
At thirty-three, in the middle of my daughter’s fourth birthday party, Hadley Banks had changed my life once more.
But in that tiny office, with my daughter upstairs and her mother—the woman who was stealing my heart—on her way home, Ian changed it all over again.
“Who the hell is Willow Banks?” He turned the paper around and pointed to the signature line.
Clear as the day is long, it read Willow Banks.
Willow.
Willow.
Willow.
My head got light as all the blood drained from my face. There was only one person I’d ever known named Willow.
A terrified little girl.
A terrified little redheaded girl who had haunted me for the majority of my life.
I shot to my feet and snatched the paper from his hand. Turning it at different angles, I tried to see the word Hadley in the perfectly formed W-I-L-L-O-W.
It wasn’t possible. I’d seen Hadley sign that paper. She had been standing in my kitchen.
“Wasn’t Willow the name of the—”
“Shut up,” I snapped. “She has nothing to do with this. This has to be some sort of mistake.”
I couldn’t even think of that kid without feeling like a spike had been driven through my heart. Fighting to stay in the present, I was overcome by an onslaught of memories. The last time I’d seen my Willow, she was being wheeled out on a stretcher with a bullet hole in her abdomen. It didn’t matter that I was bleeding to death, barely able to lift my head off the ground—I watched her until I couldn’t see her anymore, and then I stared at the door they’d taken her out of her long after she was gone.
I was a wreck, drifting in and out of consciousness, but every time I would rouse, her green eyes were the first thing I saw on the backs of my eyelids.
I’d contemplated reaching out to her over the years. But what would I ever say to her? Gee, thanks for saving my life, but I’m sorry my father shot you in the stomach? She’d sworn that she’d forgive me as long as I didn’t die. But those were nothing more than the words of a frightened child. If she knew me—the real me—she’d hate me for the rest of her life.
And it made me a coward of the worst kind, but I didn’t want her to know that side of me.
Because then she’d know that it was all my fault.
The kindest, most generous thing I could ever do for her was let her forget. Let her move on with the rest of her life.
Even if I never could.
She deserved that.
But that didn’t stop me from thinking about her. She would have grown into a woman over the years, and in the back of my mind, every redhead I ever passed was always Willow.
If a redhead was smiling, I’d smile too because she wasn’t crying and covered in blood anymore.
If a redhead was walking down the street, I figured that meant she had a life she needed to get to, one that didn’t involve pain and fear.
But every so often, my curiosity trumped my conscience and I’d stop a redhead to ask her name.
None of them were ever Willow.
But one of them had been Hadley. Her cascade of deep-red hair had caught my attention the moment I’d walked into the bar that night. I’d held my breath as I’d made my approach. And as she’d told me her name, much to my disappointment and relief, she hadn’t been the little girl who haunted my dreams.
Ian stood and walked around to me. “Was there any way Hadley knew about Willow?”
“How the hell would she know that?”
“Well, she knew something, because she signed the name Willow Banks to fuck with your head.”
“She’s not fucking with me. Maybe it’s her middle name nor something?” I rasped, my voice not quite working properly. “Get Doug on the phone. Now.”
I stared at the paper as he pulled out his phone and called up our attorney.
Willow was not a common name by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn’t impossible that two complete strangers could have shared it. And that was exactly what they were. Strangers.
Who had both been at the mall that day? Fuck. There had to be a logical reason for all of this.
“Here.” Ian handed me the phone.
“Tell me everything that was in the file about Hadley,” I demanded. “What’s her middle name?”
“Why? What’s going on?” Doug asked.
“What’s her fucking name!”
He paused. “Hang on, hang on. Let me get into her file.”
Exiting the office in exchange for more room to pace, I listened to his clicks on a keyboard, which were not nearly fast enough to tamp down the panic racing through my veins.
Finally, on an exhale, he only confused me more. “Hadley Marie Banks. Now, tell me what the hell is going on?”
“She signed the nondisclosure agreement Willow Banks. Please tell me there’s something that I’m missing?”
“Her sister’s name is Willow.”
My stomach rolled, and as I threw out a hand to brace myself against the wall, Doug’s words crashed down over me like a boulder caught in an avalanche. This couldn’t be happening, but I had to ask anyway. “Was she at the mall that day?”
Ian let out a loud cuss behind me, but I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to spare him a glance.
“Was she?”
“Who? Hadley?” Doug asked.
“Willow!” I boomed. “Was she at the mall too?”
“Jesus, Caven, what the hell is going on over there? Hold on and let me see if it says anything about her sister.” There were several seconds of silence. “News reports mention that they were at the mall as a family that day. Why does this matter? The sister passed away a few months back.”
My vision tunneled as that little girl from the mall flashed on the backs of my eyelids. I’d done everything I could to save her that day, and the thought of her being gone now nearly brought me to my knees. The phone fell with a clatter as her voice from all those years earlier played on a loop in my head.
“Let them help you, Caven, and I’ll forgive you. I promise. I will.”
She was Hadley’s sister.
My daughter’s aunt.
My guardian angel.
And she was dead.
Ian retrieved the phone from the floor. “Talk to me.”
Not including the thundering of my heart, there was silence as Doug filled Ian in on my latest nightmare.
“Shit. Right. Okay. Email me that report. I’ll get back with you in a few. Yeah. He’s… I’ll call you back.” Ian ended the call and stepped in front of me. “What are you thinking right now?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
“Did she ever mention this sister to you? Is it possible she knew your connection to Willow the whole time?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to ignore the gaping hole in my chest for a kid I hadn’t seen in over eighteen years. “I don’t know.”
“Why else would she sign Willow if she didn’t know?”
Denial broke inside me. “We don’t even know if it’s the same Willow. It’s completely possible that there was more than one Willow that day. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe she’s still alive. Maybe—”
“Caven, stop.”
But I couldn’t stop. It couldn’t be true. And there was only one person who would know the truth.
“Stay with Rosalee,” I barked as I darted toward the front door.
Ian followed, matching me stride for stride. “Where the hell are you going?”
“Hadley will know if it was her or not. I need to know, Ian. I have to know if it was her.”
“What makes you think she’s going to tell you the truth?”
“Beca
use she will.”
“She signed a dead woman’s name on a damn contract. I’m doubting she’s going to—” He abruptly stopped talking, his footsteps no longer echoing on the wood behind me. “Oh, fuck,” he groaned and then repeated, “Oh, fucking fuck.”
I was a man on a mission, but there was something in his tone that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. I put my chin to my shoulder as I reached the door. “What?”
“Did Doug have our lab pull DNA on her, or was it her lab?”
I shot him an incredulous glare. “Of course we had one done.”
“They have to be identical, then.” He raked a hand through his hair, his gaze flicking around the room at nothing and everything. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “Where’s the note? The one that was in Rosalee’s blanket. Where is it?”
I had no clue what was going on, but it wasn’t often Ian got worked up about something.
“In the safe. Why?”
I’d considered lighting that damn note on fire at least a dozen times over the years. But at the time, I’d thought it was all Rosalee had left of her mother. It wasn’t mine to burn.
He turned on a toe and hurried back to my office. I was emotionally hanging on the edge of a cliff, but I trusted Ian enough to follow.
He knew the combination and was already cracking the door open when I entered the room. There wasn’t much in there—some cash in case of emergency, our passports, Rosalee’s birth certificate. But I’d find what he was looking for far more quickly than he would.
Reaching over his shoulder, I pulled the manila folder out.
He snatched it from my hand, peeling the brass clasp back before sliding it out and carrying it to my desk. He placed it next to the nondisclosure agreement signed as Willow and then stepped away like a fucking detective examining evidence.
One read:
Caven,
I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen. This is our daughter Keira. I’ll love her forever. Take care of her the way I can’t.
Written with regret,
Hadley
The other: Willow Banks.
Not exactly the best handwriting sample to compare.
But it was enough.
The Ls didn’t match. The two in Willow were loopy and large. The one in Hadley was nothing more than an angled stick. The slope of the letters was different too. Hadley’s note was slanted hard to the right and messy to the point that it was almost illegible.
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