Dirty Little Lies: A Men of Summer Novel (30 page)

“And Grace could be killed before that ever happens,” Ben protested. “Kenni’s Vince’s daughter, but Grace is mine. And I’m tired of waiting to see my daughter. I want it taken care of now.”

“How?” Zack questioned all of them, disbelief causing him to stare at them in outrage as he rubbed at the itch tingling along the back of his neck. “How, Ben? You think you can just walk in from the dead, open your arms, and she’ll fly right to them and forgive you for leaving her here? You can’t do that to her.”

“As you said, Kenni’s home now,” Ben pointed out, a fist forming as his arm lay along the mantel over the fireplace. “I can take my daughter with me.”

What a fucking mess.

Zack shook his head before pacing across the room while flicking his uncle a furious look. “This isn’t the way to do this.” He faced them again, feeling everything he’d begun to believe he could fix unraveling around him. “It won’t work.”

“Says who?” Clyde asked, staring back at Zack curiously. “For you? You’ve always been sweet on her, Zack. Think you can claim her and not tell her the truth?”

The sound of the front door opening had Clyde’s bodyguards moving smoothly to the doorway before relaxing and stepping back once again.

Frowning, Zack watched as Calli entered the room, her gaze going to her father, remorse clouding her eyes.

“Hey there, girl.” Ben’s expression softened as Calli walked slowly to him. “I thought you were at Zack’s?”

“She was.” Zack watched her suspiciously, seeing the way her lower lip trembled before she stopped in front of her father. “Why are you here, Calli?”

“I’m so sorry, Daddy,” she said, staring up at him with genuine sorrow. So genuine, Zack felt the horror of what he knew was coming. “I’m so sorry.…”

*   *   *

“I’m so sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry…” The words reverberated through Grace’s head as she stood in the small entryway of the cabin, agony slicing through her heart, her stomach, nearly doubling her over with the grief and the pain.

“Calli-girl, why are you sorry?”

Calli-girl.

He’d once called Grace his girl, too. Once, long ago. So long ago.

She forced her legs to move, feeling reality narrow as she stepped into the living room and stared at her father for the first time in twenty years.

Calli stepped out of his arms and moved to his side, staring back at Grace, though what her expression showed, Grace didn’t have a clue.

She felt as though she were walking in a dream, terrified she’d wake up, just as terrified it was real. Reality thinned and narrowed, the other occupants of the room barely noticed as she stared at the man she’d never believed would lie to her.

She never believed he would leave her.

But he was alive.…

Joy erupted inside her with such force, she nearly cried out with it.

He was alive. He wasn’t dead. He was still breathing, he was still there.

Wasn’t he?

“Daddy…?” her voice trembled, hope and fear rushing side by side through her senses.

Next to him, Calli flinched, pain clenching her face as Ben Maddox took a step away from her.

“Hey there, girl,” he said softly, staring at her with wary hope.

Calli’s repeated flinch and fight to blink back her tears sliced through the agonizing joy, dropping her back into reality with such jarring abruptness, Grace felt dazed.

Her father was alive.

He was there with Zack’s aunt Ureana, and their daughter, Calli. The lover and daughter he’d left her for. The daughter who liked to shoot guns, who liked to hunt and play with knives instead of reading books or cooking with her aunt. She hadn’t been the daughter he wanted, but if he’d just told her how much it meant to him, then she would have tried harder. She would have eaten the fucking squirrel if he’d just explained.

“I would have learned how to shoot,” she told him, her ragged voice barely recognizable as she clenched her fists and pressed them against her stomach, trying to still the gut-wrenching pain tearing through her. “I would have,” she swore. “I would have learned how.”

Confusion creased his face, and she knew he didn’t believe her. Not that it mattered. He had the daughter who liked guns and hunting. One who wanted to learn how to spill blood instead of throwing up at the sight of it.

“I would have been good,” she whispered, shaking her head, wishing this damned dream didn’t seem so real. “I would have…”

*   *   *

Zack felt something in his heart twist with such wrenching agony, he couldn’t bear it. Crossing the room, ignoring his uncle’s warning look, he moved to her, watching her break apart, little by little, in front of his eyes was killing him.

“No.” She stepped back, staring at him with such pain-filled eyes, he wanted to kill.

*   *   *

It wasn’t a dream.

It wasn’t a dream.

Grace stared around the room. There were too many people here whom she didn’t know, their eyes filled with pity as they watched her. She couldn’t break apart here. She couldn’t. Not in front of them. When she left, they’d laugh at her, feel sorry for her.

Poor little Grace, even her father didn’t love her.…

“You lied to me, Zack,” she whispered. “You knew, all these years, you knew. Didn’t you?”

She saw the answer on his face, in his eyes.

He felt sorry for her, too.

“Grace, you have to let me explain.…” Her father’s voice, firm and deep, drew her attention, his emerald green eyes darker, the scars on his face something she didn’t remember.

“Let you explain?” It was incomprehensible. How could he ever explain something so horrific to her? “How?” she whispered, trying to make sense of it. “Why even bother now? What does it even matter now?”

“God, Grace … You don’t understand,” he tried again, taking another step toward her. “You have to let me tell you—”

“I do understand.” She nodded quickly, unable to hear it from his lips. She couldn’t bear to hear him say it. “I really do understand.” She gave Calli a trembling smile, but her sister only turned away from her. “She’s a good little soldier,” she whispered. “She likes your guns and your war games, doesn’t she? I’m sorry I didn’t like them—”

“Grace … no…” Shock filled his voice as his eyes widened, staring between Calli and Grace. “God, girl, that’s not why.”

“Grace,” Zack’s voice so soft, so tender, whispered around her, his warmth eased against her. “Come on…”

He’d lied to her, too.

She jerked away from him, agony tearing through her brain, ripping at her heart.

“You’re right. You’re right. I should go.” Desperate, agonizing, she could feel the screams wanting to loosen inside her, feel them shredding her soul as they had the night she begged her father not to be dead. Begged God not to take him away from her. Because she needed him.

The trembling of her lips was controllable now, the tremors racing through her body threatening to tear her apart.

“You’ll let me explain!” her father yelled at her, the sound ripping across her soul. “You will not walk out—”

“You lied to me!… You left me!…” The scream tore from her, so grating and serrated that Grace wasn’t even certain it was her voice for a moment.

Pointing a shaking finger in her father’s direction, she felt the fury that tore through her and wondered where it would go now that it was free.

“You left me,” she repeated, a snarl pulling at her lips. “You didn’t love me. I wasn’t the daughter you wanted. And I should have known—”

“Grace, that’s enough.…” Her father advanced on her.

Instinct had her moving back. He couldn’t touch her. None of them could touch her. They would shatter her if they did. There would be nothing left of her.

“I begged God to bring you back.…” She laughed at the very thought of it. “I lay on your grave and I screamed and I begged God not to leave me so alone … to take me, too, so I wouldn’t be alone with you gone—” A sob tore from her.

No.

She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t.

“At least you’re alive.” She shuddered, fighting to control herself, to push it back. “At least you’re alive.”

She turned to race from the cabin, made it as far as the rough, weathered porch before hard, familiar arms wrapped around her, dragging her to a stop.

“I’ll take you back to the house,” Zack promised, holding her to him as he moved quickly to the Jeep. “Come on, baby. I’ll take you back.”

Take her back? To what?

“Make me wake up,” she whispered as he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the Jeep. “Please, Zack, just make me wake up.”

But she was already awake.

Staring through the windshield, she huddled against the door of the Jeep, the truth, all those little threads that had teased her for years, coming together. She hadn’t acknowledged it before, hadn’t put it together, because doing so meant admitting the truth. Her father hadn’t been taken from her—he’d left her.

“Lucia suspected he was alive, didn’t she?” Her voice sounded so rough, not at all like she remembered it. “How?”

“We don’t know,” he told her heavily. “We didn’t even know anyone suspected until an attempted hack of Clyde’s computers alerted him to a problem about two years ago. Ureana is a hell of a hacker herself. She tracked the intruder back to the Loudon property, but that was as far as she could go. Clyde was working on the identity Kenni was using, though I didn’t know about that one until it was done and over with.”

“She came into the office one day, talking about him,” Grace remembered. “It felt off at the time, but…” She shook her head. “I should have known she had a reason. I told myself it was just another of those little games she played, trying to see if she could still hurt me.”

She had. Grace had just learned not to let her mother see how much it hurt.

“And you knew all along,” she whispered, refusing to look at him, terrified she’d lose her hold on the white-hot rage building inside her. “All along.”

“He nearly died in the explosion that night, Grace,” he stated, his voice sharp with anger. “It took two years to get him back on his feet, another six months before he could walk, his memories of the two years before it are still blurred—”

“And at any time, he could have had me brought to him!” she cried out, that lashing fury digging into her chest. “He didn’t want to. He had his lover and the daughter who would enjoy everything he enjoyed,” she sneered. “He has his little soldier. He didn’t need me.”

The Jeep rounded the turn into Zack’s driveway, the house lit up, security lights blazing, and the three men he’d left to protect her standing on the porch, arms crossed and glaring at her through the window of the Jeep.

“You made me a promise tonight, Grace,” he reminded her then, gripping her arm before she could leave the Jeep. “We’d talk if we had problems. I won’t let you break that promise.”

She turned her head and stared back at him, the betrayal so deep, so ragged, it hurt to breathe. “Why not?” she whispered, pulling at the grip he had on her arm. “You broke yours before you ever made it. All of you did.”

“You’ll see if you try to break it,” he warned her, the promise hardening his gaze as he slowly let go of her arm. “I’ll be a few minutes coming in.”

He’d be a few minutes coming in? He could take all year, for all she cared. She needed time … Oh God, was there enough time to ever stop hurting?

She shrugged at that. “That’s okay, take all the time you want, Zack. I don’t need you at all.”

But she did need him.

She’d needed him to tell her the truth rather than letting Calli lead her into it. Her sister was so angry at her, disliked her so much, that she’d gladly taken Grace to that cabin. So angry … Calli hated her. Hatred was learned; it wasn’t instinct. It was given life by resentments, by perceived hurts. If her sister hated her, then it was because her father had told the other girl what a disappointment Grace was as a child.

She was a disappointment now, too.

“Grace.” Lobo was waiting as she stepped to the porch. “Calli didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Of course she did.” She stared up at him calmly, not surprised when he glanced away and breathed out heavily. “Let her grow up, Lobo. Just because she’s a good soldier doesn’t mean she’s not still a child.”

His head jerked back, his gaze meeting hers again as his eyes narrowed.

“The Maddox legacy isn’t a nice one,” she advised him bitterly, stepping away from him and entering the house. “It’s actually a really really bad one.”

She closed the door behind her, eyes dry and so tired she just stared at the stairs for long seconds before forcing herself to climb them. Once in the guest room, she stripped from her clothes and forced herself to put on a pair of loose pajamas before lying down to stare into the darkness.

*   *   *

Mad and Beau-Remi made their way from the cabin back to their camp within sight of Zack Richards’s house. Neither spoke, what could they say? Even they hadn’t known Ben Maddox was in the area, Beau-Remi thought. He hadn’t told his sons he would be there. Something he hadn’t told his daughter, but it was worse that he hadn’t taken the tiny, delicate little girl who had loved him so much as a child.

“We should have taken her with us,” Mad stated quietly as they slid beneath the overhang of the rock that protected them from sight. “We shouldn’t have left her.”

Joe’s chains jangled from the water, the heavy splash a good sign that the caiman had found a midnight snack.

“She had Sierra then,” he reminded Mad, not even bothering to irritate his brother with the Cajun lingo he normally used. “Then Vince lost Kenni. Or thought he did.” Beau-Remi shrugged. “Hell, Mad, taking her woulda started a war, ya know?”

They could understand her feelings of betrayal, though. Beau-Remi had felt it himself when he was just a boy. Knowing who his father was, not being able to tell a fucking soul and having to be content with visits when the wife was gone. He’d fucking hated Lucia until he’d finally figured it out. It hadn’t been Lucia’s fault; it had been Ben’s, no one else’s.

“We gotta get this taken care of.” Mad tapped one long finger against his bent knee, his gaze narrowed on the darkness as he spoke softly. “It’s been a lot of years, Beau-Remi, and if it’s not taken care of, then no one’s safe, least of all Grace.”