Read Truth and Humility Online
Authors: J. A. Dennam
Truth and Humility (11 page)
Suddenly her air passage burned and she coughed into the glass, creating a slight mess in her booth.
“Hey, these are Dolce and Gabbana!” Brett exclaimed when green liquid doused his trousers.
“Danny, are you okay?” Melanie asked with wide-eyed concern, laughing a little at her friend’s attempt to wipe up the puddle on the table.
“Fine,” Danny wheezed, keeping her eyes down as Austin, Mac, Sue and Frank strolled through the establishment and made themselves comfortable at the bar. “I’ll go get more napkins.”
“Hurry, it’s soaking through!” Brett admonished with blatant irritation as he accepted the little cocktail napkin from Randy, gently dabbed at his pants.
Danny quickly made her way to the bar and leaned into it beside Mac. The big man had spiffed up, was wearing a western cut shirt, cowboy boots and smelled of Old Spice. The thin tuft of hair atop his bald spot was clean and impeccably combed. All of them were notably cleaned up...except for Austin, who exuded a natural confidence that didn’t require fluffing. She kept her gaze forward.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she sang through clenched teeth. All four heads turned to regard her. “
Don’t
look at me!” she hissed and snatched a pile of napkins from the holder beside her, tossing a few in her haste.
“Danny!” Austin bellowed loudly from Mac’s other side.
“Shhhhh!”
“I’ll be damned. What a surprise running into you here…” His eyes traveled suggestively from the platform shoes to the tanned calves, white pants that advertised a spectacular ass, all the way up to the sexy hairdo. “And don’t you look good enough to eat.” Her pretty little nostrils flared, sending pleasant thrills down his spine. The bartender handed him a frosty beer and he grinned at the man. “Doesn’t she?” he asked playfully, pointing to the fuming woman in question with his bottleneck. “Look good enough to eat?”
“I’d eat ‘er,” the man replied without pause, winked and sent Danny a knockout grin before moving out of range.
Backfire. Mac guffawed as Danny blinked and Austin reacted in an unpleasant manner.
“I
y blinked>
know
what you’re doing, Cahill,” Danny hissed again, stiff necked, glaring out of the corner of her eye. “And I’m warning you to keep your mouth
shut!”
“Relax, Monkey, we’re just here for a beer,” Mac replied smoothly. But the sparkle was in his eyes, too.
It didn’t take Danny long to learn they were all in on it. Even Sue and Frank grinned into their drinks while they made lighthearted conversation.
Unable to resist, Danny slowly pivoted on her heel and finally pinned Austin with a killing look. “You promised. Just you remember that.”
Her hasty retreat left a fresh scent of honeysuckle. For a second, those thick, smoky eyes stayed on him until Austin blinked, realized they were only burned to the back of his brain.
Wow.
Mac clapped him on the arm, grinned. “You look pole-axed, boss.”
Damned if he wasn’t. “Shut up, Mac.”
Back at the table, Danny was relieved to see that no one had noticed her covert interaction with the group at the bar. The room began to spin. She sat down, threw the napkins on the table, picked one out of the pile and began to violently pursue the wet patch on Brett’s designer pants.
“Whoa, sweetheart,” Brett said, grinning rakishly when her efforts opened her blouse a little. “I know you’re anxious but don’t worry, we’ll get to that later.”
Just as he said the words, Danny realized she was downright woozy.
“We’re going to the beach at Brighton Heights on the lake,” Melanie informed from across the booth. “Randy has a cooler in the car. Waddya say, Danny, you up for it?”
“She’s up for it,” Brett answered, sending signals to Randy across the table.
“Sure,” Danny agreed, hoping to vacate the bar before Cahill got any bright ideas about announcing his presence. Careful of falling ice, she turned her margarita glass upside-down and winced as the cold affected the back of her nasal cavity.
The room doubled. Her senses tumbled. She frowned at the sudden nausea that gripped her insides and when Randy delivered a tongue-in-cheek comment about her drooping eyelids, she squeezed them tight to right the world.
This time when Brett wrapped an arm around her shoulders, she leaned into him and accepted his warmth. Her s
kin tingled wonderfully when his right thumb did a stroking number on her upper arm. When she didn’t shirk his touch, his other hand slinked over to boldly cup her inner thigh, testing, caressing.
Yeah. That felt nice.
Pain...bad things happening in her head. Movement...her stomach protested against the constant motion beneath her. Danny made a face in the ugly act of coming to. The familiar noises were somewhat of a comfort. Low hum of deep-tread tires speeding over asphalt, crackle of windblown ragtop overhead. Definitely her Jeep.
She groaned and turned her head, slowly opened her eyes. A blurry mass was all she saw until her eyes slowly focused. The colors separated until she could distinguish the dim blue light of morning and the dark blob that was a person. Breathing in deep, she stretched and tried to sit up. Seatbelt.
“Morning, sunshine.”
Austin’s voice hit her like smelling salts to the nose. “Wha?” she groaned, propping herself up on her elbows and blinking at the passing landscape through the windshield. “What’s going on?” Her seat was laid back and her body was covered with a blanket she kept in her car. A quick personal inventory produced bare feet, itchy eyes and a mouth that tasted like death.
Austin maneuvered the Jeep off the main road and began the journey down his long driveway. “Maybe we should get you inside before I explain things.”
“Is it morning?”
The house came into view and he stopped at the gate, rolled down the window and punched in a code. “Just after five.”
The gate slowly opened. “Why are you driving my Jeep? And where’s Melanie?”
“Aaaah, Melanie.” Austin added a hint of satire to his voice. “That’s some friend you got there, Bennett. Fixed you up with a really nice fella.”
Danny plopped back down on the seat and stared at the black ragtop overhead. “Oh yeah. Brett. I didn’t like him much.”
The Jeep came to a stop and Austin set the brake, cut the engine, rested an arm over the steering wheel as he looked at her. “That isn’t how it appeared when he attempted to leave with you last night.”
Now she was perplexed…about a lot of things. “I don’t remember that.”
“No, I imagine you don’t.” Still suffering from the aftermath of her amorous attentions, Austin teased her with the truth. “How ‘bout brazenly molesting me in the parking lot.”
Shock stiffened her spine. “I did not.”
“Your repeated attempts to get me out of my shirt?” Misery. His smile widened. “Got so bad I almost let you. I’ve never tangled with such a horny woman in my life.” Her infuriated gasp was music to his ears. “And that kiss! Holy Jesus, you cleaned me out good.”
“I did not!”
“Yep. You did. Tongue, teeth and everything. See? I have the bite marks to prove it.”
Danny squinted, noted a small abrasion beneath his bottom lip that looked suspiciously like teeth marks.
“That’s just from your bottoms. The uppers left their mark on the inside. Almost got a hickey.”
She’d
sucked
on that full bottom lip? God, no! Though, part of her wanted to remember. Badly. “But...nothing else...happened. Right?”
He thought about lying, but she looked so darned dismal as she lay there with her hair fanned over the seat, trusting him to give her an honest answer. Besides, she’d been through enough. “Nah,” he said instead. “You conked out as soon as I belted you in.”
Her relief was overwhelming. “Jeez, how many drinks did I have?” she paused to do a mental count. “Damn. That must have been one helluva margarita…wait, what time is it?”
A swell of mixed emotions gripped Austin by the throat as he watched the slideshow of expressions cross her features. She was so damned sweet in the girl clothes with the loose messy hair, smudged make-up and red eyes. Could she really be so naive?
A part of him still wanted to resent her. Another part wanted to shake some sense into her and the biggest part wanted to hold her tight and protect her from predators like Brett. But, after the moves she’d put on him earlier – the thought of which had him fighting back full-blown wood – perhaps that wasn’t the safest route. He settled on the direct approach.
“Danny, you were drugged last night.” In the silence, he reached over, pressed the red button and her seatbelt retracted with a
zip
.
Something in her brain already knew it, knew that slime-ball, Brett, was exactly the type to use pharmaceuticals on an unsuspecting woman. But hearing it come from Austin Cahill sent a rush of humiliation through her that made her want to hide forever. She put her hands over her face. “Did he…”
“No.” Austin set his teeth and wanted to punch something. “We knew something was off about you the moment he tried to get you out of that bar. Mac and Frank stopped him.”
“Mac and Frank?”
“Yeah, I was too busy yelling at your girlfriend.”
Things were getting clearer, now. Danny sat up straight and steadied herself by gripping the dashboard. “You talked to Melanie?” Her wide eyes shot around. “Does she know who you are?”
Austin opened the door and step [doo sheped out. So did Danny. Purse and shoes in one hand, she stood up on the doorframe and faced him over the black ragtop of her Jeep. “Did you tell her, Austin?”
“Now, how is that more important than spending the night in a hospital after being roofied by that asshole?”
Her head swam. “I spent the night in a hospital?”
“Yes,
we
did! I didn’t know how your body would react to a drug like that, it could’ve been dangerous. They monitored you for a while, then let me take you home.”
After mulling it over, she stepped down barefoot, slammed the door and met him around the back of the Jeep. “So you’re saying if you hadn’t been there to rat me out to Melanie, I would have been molested by that pig.”
Austin recognized her look and chuckled as they walked past the private rooms. He waved to Frank who’d stepped out of his room, knowing the man was checking on Danny. “You’ve got yourself quite a dilemma, don’t you, Bennett?” he observed with humor. “You don’t know whether to thank me or flog me for eavesdropping on your phone call.”
“Don’t be so cocky, Cahill, I know why you were there. Yes,
thank you,
along with everyone else for rescuing me.” They were approaching the offices and she stopped, put a hand against the siding to steady herself, the roiling of her stomach. Shrugging off Austin’s supportive hand, she gritted her teeth and put one foot in front of the other. “But if this results in a fight between you and my brother, I’ll never forgive you.”
He glared at her back, pondering the level of her gullibility, how it extended to her brother. When they were in the privacy of the house just feet from her room, he grabbed her by the arm, spun her around for a much needed confrontation. “I’m not interested in your forgiveness. Your brother can handle himself, I’m just giving him the chance to own up to what he did and – yes, Danny – he needs to be held accountable.”
She jerked her arm from his grasp and spat, “You think he hasn’t suffered for your fiancé’s death? He was
investigated
.”
“Oh, so what?” he bit back. “Rena is
dead.
”
“And you’re grasping! There was no solid evidence to pin on Derek and you just can’t let it go.”
That’s all it took. Something inside him exploded. “That’s because there wasn’t enough of Rena left to connect him with her death! The coyotes saw to that!” He pounded a fist to his chest. “
My
Rena. I laid a [bspont>
“But not because of Derek. He wasn’t the one with her that night.”
“He answered her goddamned phone when I called it!”
Hey,
brother
, just having a little fun...
“The son-of-a-bitch
taunted
me, Danny!” Austin watched as her brows un-furrowed and her eyes masked over with uncertainty. “You didn’t know that, did you?”
Her shoulders slumped and she put her face in her hands again to block out the sight of him. He was so angry, so determined. “That doesn’t mean anything,” she decided, going on pure faith. “The river was high. Rena got too close. It’s as simple as that.”
With dangerous calm, “An eye witness says differently.”
“That eye witness couldn’t see much, it was dark.”
“He saw enough! He heard enough! She
pleaded
with him, Danny, she
begged
him to stop!”
“It wasn’t him.”
Austin didn’t know if she was in denial or if she knew more than she let on. “Derek was parked next to Rena.
Fact!
He knew who she was, answered her phone.
Fact!
When he attacked her, she was scared enough to use the stun gun I got her for protection against him.
Fact!
And since he wasn’t expecting that, he fell into the river with her.
Fact!”
Whereas most would shrink from the storm, Danny met it head on. “But – it – wasn’t – him! There were other cars in the lot that night, and he was never in the river!”
“How do you know? Were you there? How do you know he didn’t just dry off before he got home?” Her lack of an answer was all he needed. “I can see it in your face,” he drawled disgustedly. “You’d love to give him an alibi but you can’t. And it’s so damned easy for you to blow it off as coincidence.”
She could tell by the pulsing vein in his neck, the quivering muscles, that he was barely suppressing the rage that had been building inside him for so long...months and months of supp [ontis neck, tressed rage. And she was suddenly afraid. “That’s what everyone thinks,” she stated, fighting off her fear of him. “Everyone but you.”
He took a step closer and she backed up. “You see, that’s where the problem lies. People like you are willing to dismiss it as if her life meant nothing. All to protect
him
.” He took another step daring her to turn and run. “But you didn’t know her. You didn’t love her. I did and I won’t let this go. I
can’t
let this go until Derek pays for what he did.”
Danny wanted to tear her gaze away, but the menace his black eyes exuded had her by the soul. “There were others who were swept away in the current that week,” she stated softly, sympathetically. “It was a terrible flood.”
Her phone broke through the silence. She instantly paled.
Something in his face fell as if he were disappointed. “Then you better prepare yourself, Bennett. Because there’s about to be another.”
“I’m not answering it,” she stated boldly, turned and stalked to her room. When she cleared the door she felt her purse leave her shoulder. When she dove for it, Austin kept it from her reach until he had the ringing phone in his hand. She dove again.
Danny gasped when he flatted his large hand against her chest and shoved her back against the wall. His look dared her to try it again and suddenly she felt as if she was being ruthlessly pinned by a man she hadn’t met yet. His eyes moved to the screen, traveled back up to hers and the glint in them told her it was Derek calling. Since the call was coming in, he could bypass her security code and simply answer.
“Hey,
brother
,” Austin purred nastily. There was no camaraderie in the tone.
The instant Derek heard the familiar greeting, he closed his eyes, clenched his teeth. Melanie had been right. His insides ran cold and he barked out a derisive laugh. “Well, that answers so many questions.”
“Good. Then I won’t have to explain how this works.”
“If you lay a hand on my sister, Cahill, I will tear you apart.”
Austin’s mouth twitched. If only the bastard could see where his hand was now. “I invite you to try. You didn’t tell me Danny was a girl when we were friends, Derek. And such a pretty little thing, too.”