No Turning Back (22 page)

Declan held up the paper. “Look at the signatures. Look at the dates.”

“Who knows what you’re capable of?” She did once, but lost sight of it all. She couldn’t believe she let a handsome face and strong hands throw her so far off track.

Damn, he was good. Better than Charlie, even.

Declan’s eyes widened as a surge of tension whirled around him. “You can’t possibly believe I’m setting your dad up.”

It all made sense. There was no other reason for him to sneak behind her back. “It explains why you didn’t get angry about the whiteboard.”

He shoved away the chair she used as a shield. The legs scraped against the floor as he closed in. With his hands wrapped around her upper arms, he shook her. “I was fucking furious and you know it. I am now, too. You see that much at least, right?”

Fear slid across her consciousness then fled again. Even with the flushed cheeks and stiff jaw, she felt his control. He wouldn’t hurt her, at least not physically. Emotionally he’d already crushed her. Threw her to the floor and ground a foot on her.

“A token fury, and you got over it. Because you figured out it was the perfect in. You wanted the house, to clear your dad’s name and to frame mine.” She lifted her arms and broke his grip. “You got it all and all you had to do was sleep with me.”

“You are twisting this all around.”

For the first time in weeks, she saw it all so clearly. “Get the hell out of my house.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

She glanced at the phone on the kitchen wall and saw Declan’s gaze follow hers. Judging the distance and his speed, she calculated she’d lose the race, but that didn’t matter. “I will call Clay and let him drag you away. He can lock you up for all I care. I should have done it at the beginning.”

“You’re talking nonsense.” Declan shifted his weight ever so slightly, putting his body one step closer to the phone.

“That was my job, you know. To get close to you and figure out how to destroy you.”

His ready stance dropped. Shoulders down and head tipped forward, he treated her to a bewildered look. “What the fuck are you saying?”

“You sneak into my house—”

“Sneak? Lady, do you forget how you greeted me at the door tonight?”

Last time that would ever happen. She didn’t hold back with him and she got burned. “I learned my lesson, believe me.”

“Don’t act innocent. I read some files. Big deal compared to you.” He pointed toward the front door. “You are out there holding meetings with Kristin Accord and Walker Reeves. I didn’t exactly hear you disclosing that.”

Leah actually felt a thunk in her brain. Clarity she had. Now she fought for air. “Are you having me followed?’

“I didn’t have to. People wanted me to know.”

“You act like anyone in town willingly talks to you.” She shot the words at him, aiming to hurt.

“No thanks to your family.”

Her temper flamed to match his. She could trade insults all night. “Do not blame this on me. You are the one skulking around after I go to bed.”

“Do you—” He made a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl. With a bite of his lower lip, he blew out a long breath. “Okay, let’s calm down. Just tell me about the meetings.”

She saw him wind down but refused to join him. “Why should I bother when you’ve already made up your mind? Or are you just collecting more data for your campaign against my dad?”

“You know none of that’s true,” Declan said with all the heat gone from his voice.

“The only thing I know is you’re leaving. Grab your pants and whatever else you’ve left here over the last few days, and get the hell out.” For the first time, her lack of clothing registered. So did his. He stood there in his underwear and tee. With the fighting tapering off, her near nudity and the cool temperature of the room combined to highlight her vulnerability. “And next time you sleep with some poor woman to get information, save the bedroom routine. Like father, like son and all that, but the mental screwing was enough. You could have skipped the actual screwing.”

“You are pissing me off.”

Her temples felt like someone had them in a death grip and kept squeezing. “Am I about to see that famous Declan Hanover temper?”

“Leah, don’t push me.”

She rubbed her head but the pressure wouldn’t ease. “Why stop now?”

“I’ll leave, but I’ll be back tomorrow.” He stood shoulder to shoulder with her now and nodded in the direction of the table. “You’ll notice I’m not keeping the paper.”

“I’m sure you can fake another one.”

“This isn’t over.” He was close enough for her to hear his teeth grind together.

“Funny, it feels like it’s over.”

When he walked out three minutes later without saying a word or looking in her direction, her leg muscles gave out. Keeping it together while he was here sapped her strength. She slid to the cold floor and cried until her chest convulsed and she had to gasp for breath.

A half hour after that, she called Mallory.

Chapter Twenty-two

At five in the morning Leah sat wrapped up in oversized sweats and nursing a cup of tea. She sat on the family room couch with her legs curled under her. Being in the dining room made her stomach heave, so she let Mallory go in there and look around on her own.

Leah sipped, letting the steam spray her face though she doubted she’d ever be warm again. “Thanks for coming.”

“You’ve said that five times now. Once more and I get my pre-teen girl on and pull your hair.” Mallory walked back in with a folder in her hands. A stack of papers hit the coffee table a second later.

“It’s really late.”

“Technically at this point I think it’s really early.” She dropped in the chair across from Leah, delivering one of her exaggerated sighs. “I wasn’t busy anyway. And even if I were it wouldn’t have mattered. You were crying, which was a pretty momentous occasion. And by momentous I mean shitty.”

Leah eyed Mallory over the top of the mug. “I would not waste tears over him.”

But Leah had. Buckets full and not pretty sniffles. Nope, she balled and wailed and then cursed Declan for being born. She couldn’t remember the last time she cried with her shoulders, stomach and every other sick-with-exhaustion part of her. Her heart actually ached from the loss, and her headache refused to ease no matter what she did.

Mallory’s eye roll said she didn’t buy the denial either. “Leah, it’s okay to admit Declan broke your heart.”

“He lied and acted like a total shit.” Controlled in his anger, but that face. He’d had the nerve to look disappointed in her.
In her.

“And that’s because,” Mallory held up a hand. “And don’t get pissy at me, but you’re saying that because he read your files? That’s what’s at the bottom of all this?”

It looked like the girlfriend code was on the fritz. “Do you really not get it?”

“I figured you’d already either dumped the files or showed them to him. No way did I think those things were hanging around, getting in the way.”

Doubt skittered through Leah’s mind. “Why would I hand them over?”

“You love him and those files are about his family. With the threats I just assumed you’d give him whatever ammunition you could.”

The delivery, so matter-of-fact, had Leah’s defenses rising. “He used me to get to the documents and then made up these stories about my dad.” And now Mallory was frowning. Worse, it was that you-know-better glare she did so well. “What?”

“Any chance Declan didn’t make it up?’

Leah shifted the mug around and drank out of the opposite side. When she decided that wasn’t any more comfortable, she twisted it around again. “Of course he did.”

“Try to look at this with an open mind, one not influenced by stories told to you over the years by an angry man.” One of Mallory’s feet hit the floor as she leaned forward. “You were a little kid. Is it possible, just possible, your dad’s hands weren’t clean back then?”

Leah blinked hard as her headache thumped even louder. “How dare you?”

“Save your indignation. I’m not Declan.”

The comment, so out of context and so calm in the way she said it, snapped Leah right back out of her fury. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Mallory got up and came around the coffee table to sit on it and right in front of Leah. “You know I love you. You know I would never hurt you. You hope Declan will give you the same, but you don’t know, and that makes you skeptical of his motives. But you know mine, so stop with the daring stuff and talk to me.”

Having the truth dumped right at her feet like that made Leah’s insides squirm. Mallory’s ability to deliver unvarnished truth was one of her greatest assets as a best friend. Loyalty was another.

“Hoped. Past tense when it comes to Declan.” Leah mumbled the words even though, deep down, she feared there wasn’t anything past tense about her feelings for Declan.

Mallory grabbed the mug out of Leah’s hands and put it on the table beside her. “I don’t have an agenda but I do have eyes.”

“Okay.” Leah didn’t know what else to say, so she went with that.

Mallory picked up the top piece of paper and put it on Leah’s lap. “The faded ink, the familiar handwriting. Hell, Leah, there’s nothing about this that looks new or made up.”

She refused to look at it. That reveal of this simple piece of paper had smashed her heart into pieces and left her feeling so lost. “Declan is an expert at this sort of thing.”

“No, his dad was an expert grifter. From what you’ve told me, Declan was a hotheaded, messed-up kid who found his way thanks to a strong mother and the United States Army.”

“But . . . I . . .” Leah shifted and the paper crinkled. She tried to give it a brief glance, but the lines grabbed her attention and wouldn’t let it go. The words she’d been fighting rushed out. “If this is true and Dad did this, how do I trust anything?”

“You can trust.” Mallory’s nose wrinkled as she made a face. “I just think you’re trusting the wrong man.”

Leah’s hands shook as she picked up the paper. Her fingertip traced the words as she read along. She’d skimmed the passage so many times in the past. It didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of Charlie’s crimes, because him taking the money and the date weren’t in question. It all fit together differently now. Those same words accused . . . and changed everything.

If it was possible for her chest to cave in, it just did. She glanced up, letting Mallory see the thunder of pain Leah could no longer hold back. “What do I do?”

Mallory put a hand on Leah’s knee. “Talk to your dad. I’ll go with you.”

“No.”

She smiled. “Then take someone he likes.”

“He likes you.” At Mallory’s snort, Leah changed directions. “Okay, fine. I’ll take Clay.”

“I was thinking Ed.”

The unspoken point was that her dad might need legal advice by the time this was through.

“Fine.”

Mallory picked up Leah’s cup and took a sip, but not before shooting her a look that meant trouble. “What are you going to do about Declan?”

“See, that’s just it. I figured out one other thing before you got here.” There was a fact she’d kept trying to remember, one she couldn’t grab onto long enough to make the pieces fit. But after Declan left it came to her. A few paragraphs in one report, but when added to the timeline of the Hanover brothers and Charlie’s initial con, it changed everything. “I know who Kristin Accord is. Since it’s in the files, Declan might know. He could have read it.”

“Who is she?”

“Someone who knew Callen’s mother.”

“What?’

“My point is that telling Declan will end everything, which is probably inevitable anyway since love without trust means nothing.” That lesson had been spelled out in bright letters to her early that morning. And it sucked.

***

Declan drove around for hours before finally heading home. He walked in, careful not to slam the door, though he desperately wanted to. He needed to shout and swear and punch the shit out of Marc Baron. Declan knew if he started he just might not stop, and that was the only thread keeping him from driving to the man’s house.

While he was at it, Declan wanted to find a way to kick his own ass.

He’d blown it. He got greedy. He read the files and got hooked. After a lifetime of thinking he didn’t want to hear one more word about Charlie, poring through the files gave him a bit of something he didn’t know he needed. Insight. A peek in.

Declan still didn’t understand the man and never would. He certainly couldn’t condone one thing his father had ever done with his life. But none of that excused Marc’s behavior or his treatment of Leah.

Leah
. Declan threw his head back and stared at the crown molding on the ceiling.

“What are you doing back here?”

Callen’s voice floating through the darkness had Declan jumping. “Shit, Cal. Why are you up?”

“It’s close to dawn.”

“But have you even slept?”

“Having trouble with that lately, so I was watching a bad movie.” He walked into the entry wearing the same clothes he had had on all day. The only nod he gave to nighttime was the socks and bottle of water, though he carried one of those all the time. “Now answer my question.”

Declan thought about ducking the question and shrugging off the concern. But before he could build up a wall on the anger and frustration bouncing around inside him, the words came out. “Everything fell apart.”

“Not with Leah.” Callen blew out a long exhale. “Man, what did you do?”

“I uncovered something about her father. Seems he was a fraud just like Dad. Started out as Charlie’s partner.”

Callen’s eyes widened, which meant something, because nothing shook Declan’s big brother. “Shit.”

Declan waited for Callen to say more, but that was it. Maybe that was enough. “Yeah.”

Callen shook his head. “Damn.”

“Fuck, shit, damn. I’ve run through them all.” Declan also made up some interesting combinations on the way home.

“You told her?” When Declan nodded, Callen let out a long, low whistle. “How did she take it?”

“I’m home, aren’t I?” The clock in the family room picked that minute to chime.

Callen set his water bottle down on the banister and started up the steps. “Let’s wake Beck.”

“Why?”

Cal stopped and turned around. His steps back down the stairs were slow and measured. The move matched the intense stare. “We need to talk, Declan. Straighten this out.”

“We’re not going to turn Marc Baron in.” Declan was adamant about that and would fight Callen forever if he had to.

He screwed up his lips. “Of course not. We’re going to figure out how to handle this so it’s not so hard for Leah.”

The words crashed over Declan. He’d expected some anger and maybe a stray I-told-you-so comment. He got support. Not that he should have been surprised. Since arriving in Sweetwater, Callen had stepped up. He didn’t judge and handled trouble with ease.

But still, this was more than simple brotherly support. “We?”

“We’re in this together, Declan.” Callen put a hand on Declan’s shoulder. “If you don’t like it you have no one to blame but yourself. You set this up when you convinced us to keep the house. You’re stuck with us now.”

The pact was more than Declan had hoped for but everything he always wanted. “That works for me.”

Callen lifted his hand and smacked Declan in the side of the head. “Then let’s get the lawyer boy and put his expensive education to work getting your woman back.”

Now that’s the Callen that Declan had grown accustomed to. “I like the sound of that.”