No Turning Back
Authors: HelenKay Dimon
INTERMIX BOOKS
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NO TURNING BACK
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
InterMix eBook edition / March 2013
Copyright © 2013 by HelenKay Dimon.
Excerpt from
A Simple Twist of Fate
copyright © 2013 by HelenKay Dimon.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-60395-6
INTERMIX
InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group
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For Charissa McAfee, my dear friend and one of my favorite people in the world.
This one’s for you!
Chapter One
“They’re here in town. All three of them. Well, definitely two but I’m betting the third is skulking around here somewhere.” Leah Baron slid into the booth and ignored the way her jeans squeaked against the fake green leather. A plate complete with chicken salad sandwich and a side of chips hit the table with a clank a second later.
“Your usual,” the waitress said as she dropped it and ran.
Leah admired the perfect timing. “Guess it’s obvious I don’t deal well with change.”
“Got to love Rosie’s Diner.” Mallory Able tapped her lavender-painted nails on the table as her silver bracelets jangled. “Except for my meal, which sucks.”
“It’s a salad.”
“Which is why I used the word
sucks
.”
Leah pushed her plate away so she could lean her elbows on the table. She could barely sit still in her seat. “Gossip is zipping through town. Everyone will know everything about these guys from their vital statistics to their credit scores by midnight.”
“Your lunch looks better than mine.” Mallory frowned at her small side salad. Glancing back and forth between their plates, she reached over and stole a chip. Then a second.
Leah beat back the urge to race through her news and gobble up every minute of Mallory’s short weekday break from her gift shop. This moment called for some best friend honesty recon. “You don’t need to diet, you know.”
“I should lose ten . . .” Mallory closed one eye, as if she were mentally counting. “Make that fifteen . . . pounds.”
“Stop. You’ve already lost more than twenty and look amazing.” Not that Leah could convince Mallory or make her see her real figure when she looked in the mirror. The voice in her friend’s head pummeled her body, and Leah couldn’t force the negativity out with a long list of compliments, though she kept trying.
Getting Mallory to peel off a layer or two of clothing proved equally impossible. Even now she wore a black skirt with matching tights under it and a long-sleeve bulky sweater over. She’d dressed for fall even though the calendar said the beginning of summer.
“I wish I could get you to see what I see. You’re stunning.” The high cheekbones and straight long hair. Leah envied the look as well as her friend’s ability to wear bangs and send out a sexy vibe while doing it. Then there was the curvy figure that more than once had Leah crossing her arms over her chest in breast envy.
“Have you really not noticed men staring at you?” Leah said, hoping to break through the defenses, if only a crack.
Mallory pointed her fork in the direction of the men in the corner booth near the door. “You mean the dude in his eighties?”
Leah gave up for now and tucked a leg underneath her as she waved a hello to the cook when he peeked his head out of the kitchen to scan the tables. “Thanks for ordering for me, by the way.”
“Wasn’t tough to pick your meal since you eat the same thing for lunch every day. Rosie’s should name the lunch special after you.” Mallory slipped another chip off the towering pile but dropped it before taking a bite. “You were late and I can only be away from the shop for so long, so I didn’t wait to order. You get what I picked. Lucky I know you so well.” Leah winced. She’d gotten sidetracked and been running behind all day. It was as if her internal clock got jammed. “Sorry about that.”
“No big deal.” Mallory stabbed at a piece of defenseless lettuce. “Carry on.”
Leah inhaled, putting friendship responsibility aside and trying to calm the mix of anxiety and excitement pinging around inside her. No one could stop today’s emotional free fall but seeing Mallory did ground Leah. They’d been friends since college, opposite on the outside—artsy and free-spirited versus practical and focused, grunge versus girly—but bone-deep loyal on the inside.
When Leah had moved back home to Sweetwater after graduation, Mallory followed. Five years later Mallory made a living selling handcrafted goods and highlighting local artists in her shop and on her online store.
Despite being from there, Leah still searched for her place in the community. Hell, she’d settle for a few minutes of peace. Her stomach rarely stopped jumping and most nights she slept only a few hours then spent the dawn walking.
“You were saying something about the town being invaded by three of something?” Mallory asked.
“Basically, we’re talking about the biggest news in my life . . . and how sad is that.” Leah mumbled the last part but knew it came out louder than intended when the guy sitting alone in the booth behind Mallory chuckled. With a glare and a lowered voice, Leah continued. “Charlie Hanover’s boys have come to town to claim their grandmother’s estate.”
“By boys you mean men, right?”
“I guess.”
“That strikes me as a key piece of information.”
“They’re all around thirty.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “Whatever. Their ages don’t really matter.”
“Not so fast.” Mallory’s eyes gleamed with what looked like excitement. “Any idea what these guys look like?”
Oh, no
. Once they started the whole hot-guy conversation, common sense would pack for vacation. Leah slammed the brakes on before that could happen. “They’re Charlie’s sons.”
“Okay, and . . . ?”
So much for braking. “I thought that explanation said it all.”
“He’s a bad guy. Got it.” Mallory waved her fork in the air. “But I’ve seen your files and Charlie was a good-looking man. You know, if you like guys in their forties. I’m betting his sons are hot.”
“Charlie was fifty-six when he died.” Leah had a whiteboard at her house with every bit of information on him she’d collected. The guy had three birth certificates, five wives and three sons, but only one real birth date. For Leah, being a homegrown child of Sweetwater, that bit of information—unlike anything else about Charlie—had been easy to find.
Mallory performed one of her patented eye rolls, the type guaranteed to give a lesser woman a throbbing headache. “I think you’re missing my point on the good-looking-man thing, likely on purpose since you’re obsessed with Charlie and all, but there are other men in the world. Ones worth thinking about.”
Leah fell back against the booth and ignored the squeak as the seat threatened to fall apart. “Enlighten me.”
“We single women need to keep the radar on and stay aware of any male that moves within a fifty-mile zone.”
It was easier to agree, so Leah did. “I get that.”
“Then I’d remind you Sweetwater has a population of about a thousand people, and the number of available males worth fantasizing about in this area of Oregon is, like, less than twenty.”
Since Mallory looked ready to name them all while she counted on her fingers, Leah jumped in. “Closer to the single digits, but let’s go with your calculations to keep from crying ourselves to sleep. So?”
“So.” Mallory leaned in as if sharing some deep woman secret over the soft clatter of silverware and mumble of conversation from other tables. “We should celebrate any men—those related to Charlie and those not—who move to town. Hell, I’d settle for a mature nineteen-year-old at this point, which is pathetic since I’m barely hanging on to my twenties.”
Now look who’s missing the point
. “You’re twenty-six.”
“Exactly.
Late
twenties.”
No way was Leah touching that one. “These guys are the sons of a notorious con man.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Charlie Hanover stole from this town and most of the families in it.”
“Including yours, yeah, I know. I’ve heard this story about a million times.”
The memories of her parents’ fights rushed up on Leah and she pushed them back down. “After Charlie sucked all the money and goodwill out of Sweetwater, he moved on to other towns. Other victims. I’m betting the Hanover boys are just like their father. Handsome, charming and downright dangerous.”
“Is that last part on the pro or con list of their attributes?”
Mallory had heard the history but she didn’t get it. Leah doubted anyone who hadn’t lived through Charlie’s destruction could truly get it. “They can’t be trusted.”
“I want to look them over, not go engagement-ring shopping. Call it curiosity.” Mallory glanced at Leah’s purse. “Don’t you have a photo or two of the sons in that stack of Charlie information you carry around?”
“No, which ticks me off. These three have managed to stay outside of law enforcement’s notice. Other than old yearbook photos and that sort of thing, I’m in the dark.”
Mallory’s perfectly sculpted eyebrow, complete with tiny earring, arched. “How dare they go off and have private lives?”
Leah couldn’t help smiling. “You think I’m losing it.”
“When it comes to the Hanover family, the word is
lost
, babe. As in past tense.” Mallory stole another chip and munched on it.
Leah added that to the list of comments she intended to ignore today and circled back to her point. “According to the records I do have, Charlie’s mother put a mortgage on the place and failed to pay it during the last year. The Hanover property, Shadow Hill, is on the verge of foreclosure and there isn’t enough money in her estate to cover the debt. It just figures the boys would—”
“We’ve established they’re grown men, even potentially available ones.”
“—show up right when I’m on the verge of getting the property back.”
Mallory’s chest lifted on a heavy breath. She reached both hands across the table and put her palms over Leah’s. “Listen to me. I love you like a sister. You know I only want what’s best for you, right?”
“This is going to be a scary pep talk, isn’t it?”
“But lovingly delivered.”
Leah tried to pull back, but Mallory held on with the sudden strength of a pro wrestler. “Is this how I sound when I talk to you about your weight?” Leah asked.
“You’re worse, but do me a favor. Let this go. Charlie, this obsessive thing with the whole Hanover clan, I’m begging you to drop it and move on. Nanette Hanover got the house and property years ago. Your father tried to fight it, argued it was fraud and lost. She’s dead, and with Charlie dead before her, the house goes to his sons. It’s annoying but tidy and perfectly legal.”
The mantra Leah repeated every morning in her head spilled out before she could edit it. “I can’t let another generation of Hanover males ruin this town.”
Mallory let her fingers drop against the table and slumped back in the booth. “Just a thought but maybe we should meet them before we judge them.”
She was right. Every word made sense. But caution and common sense went in Leah’s brain and right back out again. She’d waited so long to get Shadow Hill back, to give her father a tiny piece of the respect Charlie and her mom had stolen away all those years ago. Deep down Leah knew this wasn’t her fight, but she kept swinging. Just as she’d been trained to do.
“Maybe this will all go away and they’ll put up a sign and list the property for sale then leave town,” Leah said, knowing it would never be that simple.
“And if they don’t?”
Leah wasn’t ready to share those plans with Mallory or anyone else. “I’ll deal with that in the future. Until then I think . . .”
The man behind Mallory got up and turned around. The muscular build and close-cropped dark hair suggested military. The faded blue jeans and broad shoulders straining against the seams of a navy T-shirt said he was good at whatever he did—lifting cars, wrestling tigers . . . something that required the impressive biceps peeking out from under those short sleeves.
Maybe Mallory was right. Sweetwater did need more men.
Leah tried to force air into her lungs but her breathing came out as a wheeze. When he stopped at the edge of their table with a smile kicking at the corner of his mouth and amusement dancing in his pale blue eyes, she forgot most of the alphabet.
He nodded, treating them both to a smile. “Ladies.”
When the ability to form sentences returned, Leah went with a question. “Do we know you?”
“You think you do.”
“I don’t—” Leah jumped when the hard toe of Mallory’s motorcycle boot slammed into her shin. “What are you doing?”
Mallory’s eyes bulged. “Think about it.”
“Your friend is trying to tip you off.” He leaned over and the edge of his T-shirt pushed up to show a jagged vine tattoo that looked like barbed wire around his upper arm.
Leah was too busy staring at the muscle bulge to see the twenty hit the table until he slipped his wallet into his back pocket. She glanced at the bill then up to his face. “What’s with the cash?”
“I’m Declan Hanover, and since you kept me entertained while I drank my coffee, what with my supposed family history and criminal tendencies and all, the least I can do is buy your lunch.”
Heat washed over her skin. This was different from the smack of warmth that hit her when she first saw that strong jawline. She didn’t like either sensation.
She tried to force out a word or two but nothing happened.
“Enjoy the rest of your meal, ladies.” He nodded, looking like he’d tip his cowboy hat if he’d worn one, then he was off.
He didn’t strut but didn’t walk either. Shoulders back and head held high, the determined stride took him to the door without looking back. He shoved it open and the bell at the top rang. She swore she heard him whistle.
“That’s one of them?” Mallory’s eyes still hadn’t returned to normal size. She hadn’t stopped staring after the guy either.
Leah may not know the face but she recognized the name. “The middle one.”
“He’s better than a random nineteen-year-old.”
“He’s more like thirty.” And not at all what she’d expected. She’d prepared to feel a double kick of anger and disgust when she met the Hanover boys. The stammering and boiling heat beneath her skin were totally unwelcome.
High cheekbones and dark brown hair with that wide grin. His eyes actually twinkled. Had to be some sort of drops or something, because no way was that sort of thing natural. And she’d bet that practiced smoldering look of his lured more than one innocent woman to bed. Probably made them hand over the bank accounts and family jewelry as he unhooked their bras.
“He looks like six feet of sexy trouble to me.” Mallory almost smashed her nose against the glass of the window next to them and took a final look at Declan as he climbed into the small black pickup parked out front of the diner.