Dangerous Secrets: Callaghan Brothers, Book 1 (12 page)

Ian sat across from him at the scarred wooden table where they had once shared family meals.  Before answering, he took another bite of one of the slices he’d swiped on his way out, disposing of half the piece easily.  He pinned Jake with steely eyes.  “Hell of a time to ask, Jake.”

“Is.  She.  Alright?” 

Ian nodded slowly.  “I’m worried about that slice on her palm.  It was still bleeding this morning.  She refuses to let Michael look at it.” 

Jake glared back at him.  Ian knew what was coming, but he’d be damned if he’d play that game.  Jake was a big boy.  He had made his bed, now it was time for him to lay in it.  Or not, as the case was.  Ian kept his mouth shut and glared right back.   

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”  They stared at each other for several long moments, equally stubborn, as well-matched as any two men could be. 

Jake ground out the words with obvious effort.  “Did you fuck her?”

Ian’s expression hardened.  “You mean after you did?”

Jake clenched his teeth.  “Yes.” 

“She was crying, you know,” Ian said, his voice low.  He saw the pain in Jake’s eyes then, knew that it had been preying on his mind.  It wasn’t enough.  He wanted Jake to understand that he’d crossed a line this time. 

“Did you?” Jake demanded.

Ian blinked lazily, the only indication that he’d heard him.  They had no secrets between them, especially not where either sex or women were concerned.  What really bothered Ian – even more than what Jake had done – was that his brother believed he would seduce Taryn in the state in which he’d left her.  Ian had his dark side, but it never involved taking advantage of anyone who didn’t want to be taken advantage of. 

“I am not having this conversation with you.”  Ian got up and started walking away.  He only made it about two steps before Jake caught him by the arm. 

“Don’t you walk away from me!”

“Why not, Jake?” sneered Ian.  “Is walking away exclusively your privilege?” 

“You did, didn’t you,” Jake said quietly, his face looking pained.  “You’ve been with her all this time.”   

“NO!” Ian bit out angrily.  “You stupid fucking bastard!  You think I would do that to her?  To you?  Christ, I can’t fucking believe you.”  He got right up in Jake’s face.  “I’ve seen her a total of five minutes today when I caught her trying to sneak out.  The rest of the time I’ve been playing guard, listening to her cry and pace and curse your sorry ass.”

* * *

A
ll of the wind left Jake’s sails as the reality hit him in the gut like a two-by-four, slamming into him so hard that it was difficult to fill his lungs with enough air for his next breath.  All night, all morning he’d been kicking himself in the ass.  He never should have said those things to Taryn.  Instead of pushing her away, he should have been holding her in his arms all night.  His face should have been the first one she’d seen when she woke, not Ian’s.

The usual rules didn’t apply.  Everything had been different, because
she
was different.

It must be his morning for epiphanies, because he suddenly had another one.  “Jesus Christ.  You’ve been watching over her.” 

Ian didn’t deny it.  “You’re in love with her,” he said as if that explained everything. 

Jake sank down into a chair, Ian’s words hitting him with the force of a Mack truck.  Was he in love with Taryn?  

“I don’t know.”  He looked up at Ian, now looking at him with something like pity and maybe... awe.  “
I don’t fucking know
.  All I do know is that last night, being with Taryn... it wasn’t like anything I’ve ever felt before.  It scared the shit out of me.” 

Ian smirked.  “You are so totally fucked.  You know that, don’t you?”

Jake raked one hand down his face.  He
was
fucked.  He’d been through hell and back more than once, but this was uncharted territory for him – for any of them. 

“How the hell did this happen?”  he asked.  Ian shook his head.

Jake blew out a breath.  Forty-eight hours ago felt like a different lifetime, one that didn’t include a fiery little woman who had shaken him down to his core, tied his dick in knots and had his heart stuttering in his chest, a chest that tightened even further as he wondered what the next forty-eight hours would bring.  Damn, they should have basic training for this kind of shit.

“Was she really crying?” Jake asked.  She hadn’t cried last night.  If she had, he wouldn’t have had the strength to leave. 

Ian exhaled.  “Yeah.” 

Well
, thought Jake,
that explained a lot
.  Ian wasn’t the type to play babysitter.  Cold bastards they might be on assignment, but not one of them could stomach a woman’s genuine tears.  Jake knew if
he
had seen tears in Taryn’s eyes, he would have done anything she asked without question.

“I’m glad you were watching out for her.” 

Ian snorted.  “Didn’t you just want to kill me for doing that a few minutes ago?” 

“Yeah,” Jake exhaled, but that was when his head had been up his own ass and he thought Ian had been
consoling
Taryn.

Now that he was over his initial panic, he realized just how messed up that was.  Ian wouldn’t have done that, not after Jake had told him not to. 

And maybe he had overreacted.  Yes, he’d felt overprotective of her from the start, but he hadn’t been prepared for the near out-of-body experience of having sex with her.  After he’d had a chance to come to terms with that, he realized that by walking away he had cheated both of them.  Had he stayed, he could have held her throughout the night, kissed her, took her to new heights of passion.  He could have looked in her eyes when she came, over and over again.  It sure beat a cold night on the mountains alone running his Harley into the ground.

“I’ve got your back, Jake,” Ian said quietly, serious once again.  “Always.  You know that, right?”

Jake nodded with both relief and gratitude.  Ian had sensed the truth even before he had.  That, he figured, was a good thing, because he couldn’t seem to think clearly where she was concerned, with one glaring exception:  now that he had found her, he was not going to let her go. 

There was only one small detail.  Telling Taryn.

As if reading his mind, Ian asked thoughtfully, “How do you think she’s going to take it?”

Jake snorted.  “She’s going to fight it like the little hellcat she is,” he said truthfully.  Just thinking about it was making him hard.  “Especially if she suspects for one moment we’ve already decided this amongst ourselves.  She does
not
like to be told what to do.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Ian agreed with a smirk.  “She still plans on leaving tomorrow, you know.”

“Like hell,” growled Jake.

“And exactly how are we going to stop her?” 

“She can’t leave without her car.”

“Sean checked it out personally and said the kid was right - it’s just a clogged fuel line.  Joey is driving him nuts, too - said he felt like shit lying to her like that.”

Jake’s eyes glittered.  Desperate times called for desperate measures, and he was feeling pretty damn desperate.  Once he’d accepted his mistake, he had racked his brains trying to come up with a way to convince her to stick around past Homecoming.  After last night, he was pretty certain she wouldn’t be willing to listen to reason (reason being that he wanted her to stay).  He’d also dismissed locking her in her room until she agreed to listen to reason.  Ruling out logical, verbal persuasion (never an option with a pissed-off, hurt female) and brute force (last resort), didn’t leave him a lot of viable alternatives.

“The kid won’t have to lie anymore.  The damage is much worse than he originally thought.  It is going to take several days to get the necessary parts.  Plenty of time to convince her to hang around a little longer.”

Ian narrowed his eyes, finally realizing where Jake had been all morning. One side of his mouth tilted in a smile remarkably like his brother’s.  “Creepy much?”

Jake shrugged.  No one got hurt, and it bought him some time.  “We need more time to figure out what she’s running from.  Here.”  Jake reached into his pocket and pulled out a few clear plastic squares in a small bag.  On the center of each were near-perfect prints.  “I lifted these from the fuel cap.  Run them through that über scanner of yours and see what hits, but cloak it, just in case.  I’ll keep her busy.”

Ian took the squares and pocketed them.  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”  Jake looked at him, puzzled.

“I don’t think she’s too keen on your attention right now,” Ian reminded him.  “As a matter of fact, I’d say that right now she’d be more apt to cuddle up to whatever’s on the bottom of her shoe than you.”

Jake’s expression darkened.  Ian was right.  “Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to rectify that.” 

This time it was Ian who snorted.  This was going to be fun.

T
aryn was in “her” room, perched on the oversized sill, knees drawn up, looking outward.  The white sheet currently doubling as a curtain was pushed aside, held against the frame by her toes.  From this vantage point, she could look up and down the street at the old homes, all meticulously maintained and landscaped.  Judging by the looks of them, most - if not all - were on a historical registry, like the Pub.  The trees were dressed in full fall regalia, the colors unusually bright. 

Her eyes were drawn to the sidewalk below where a family strolled by.  The dad held a little girl with hair the color of sunshine on his shoulders, hands clasped protectively around her ankles as she reached up and tried to capture the softly falling leaves like snowflakes.  Beside him, his very pretty, very pregnant wife was smiling and holding the hand of a young boy bouncing along, performing his own variation of hopscotch.  

What would it be like to live in a town like this, she wondered?  To have a family.  To know your neighbors.  To have block parties and county fairs and tailgates.  She shook her head to clear those crazy thoughts. 

“Ain’t no good wishing for unicorns,” Charlie used to say whenever he caught her with that faraway look in her eye.  It always made her smile.  Unicorns indeed.  As if she would ever wish for something so mythical.  She was a practical girl.  Her desires were much simpler than that:  she wanted to
exist
again. 

God, she missed Charlie.  Taryn pulled her knees a little tighter to her chest, trying to stem some of the ache she felt whenever she realized she would never see him again.  The old man had done more than save her life; he’d saved her soul as well.  He had restored a sliver of her faith in humanity just when she was sure there was none left.

There weren’t many good people left in this world, of that she was certain.  But Charlie had been one of them.  He had taken her in, put her back together again, just like a modern day, female Humpty Dumpty.  To everyone in Dunns Falls, Taryn Malone had been Charlie Malone’s niece, who had come to live with him after the sudden and untimely death of his sister, her mother.  The fictional car wreck he devised conveniently explained her extensive injuries, and provided the perfect excuse for “lapses in memory” when asked personal questions. 

Why the old man had done it she’d never know for sure, but she guessed that on some level, he had needed her almost as much as she’d needed him.  Charlie hadn’t had anyone, either.  For nearly ten years, though, they’d had each other, and that was something.

Taryn thought that Jake and Ian were good men, too.  That belief was based more in instinct than anything else, but they had backed it up with their actions.  They had been willing to take in a perfect stranger, give her a job and a place to stay.  It seemed to be a trait of the Callaghan clan; their father and brothers had readily accepted her and made her feel instantly welcome (unexpected mountings notwithstanding). 

The cynical side of her pointed out that it didn’t really require much of an effort on their part.  She’d proven to be a good bartender, as well as a good lay, even if Jake did have his regrets about that.  He shouldn’t.  She was only there for three days, so it was a strings-free deal.  Hell, he would have been stupid
not
to take her in and... yeah.

But her heart wanted to believe it was more than that.  Beneath all that intimidating male size and strength, she had sensed that they were good guys.  And who the hell was she kidding?  There were strings all around her, tying her up in little knots, winding through every crack and cranny, binding her  to them, making her want to stay just a little longer. 

Which is exactly why she had to get the hell out as soon as possible.

Her entire body tingled at the memory of last night.  Of the things Jake had done to her, the things he had made her feel.  The ache in her chest moved lower, centering itself in her womb.  She almost laughed at the insanity of it all.  She’d gone ten years without even the slightest desire for a man to satisfy her on those exceptionally lonely nights.  Now it seemed she couldn’t go ten minutes without craving the feel of his hot, hard body against, around, and inside hers. 

Jake
.  Hard and unyielding. The epitome of the dominant alpha male.  He’d taken her thoroughly, commandingly, yet had tried to be gentle with her at first.  Her body shook at the memory of the feel of him coming inside her.  For those few moments, he had totally possessed her.  For those few moments, she could almost believe he really cared for her beyond the fleeting – but spectacular - hook-up.

Taryn sighed.  What was wrong with her, anyway?  None of it mattered, not really.  She knew better than anyone that your entire life could change in a heartbeat, and what really counted was right here, right now. 
Carpe diem
.  And she had seized the day, hadn’t she, she thought with a ghost of a smile?  The memories alone would hold her through some of the long, cold, and lonely nights to come.

* * *

F
rom the doorway, Jake gazed at the small figure in the window.  Shafts of sunlight shone through the glass, framing her delicate features with a golden glow.  Even Ian’s blue Pub shirt looked like an angel’s robe as it draped around her much smaller body.