“I’m so sorry, Brogan,” she whispered, her compassion wrapping around him.
A bitter smile tugged at his lips as he let his hand cup her cheek for a moment, drawing in the gentleness that was so much a part of her.
“I want you to understand,” he explained. “As I said, I was five. My father didn’t know I existed. When Child Services showed up on his doorstep with me, he looked down, and I saw disgust curl his lip when he said, ‘Hell, I paid her to abort the little bastard.’”
Her eyes widened in outraged pain.
“He took me in, though.” He sighed. “Two weeks later I was in a military school four states away. I came back to Somerset during the holidays and for summers and stayed with my aunt until she died in a car crash when I was sixteen.”
“What an abrupt change from a loving home to a cold, emotionless world,” she whispered, her emerald eyes dark with distress, with banked anger at the thought of his father’s cruelty.
And yes, it had been cruelty.
“I was eighteen and working with the FBI as an informant against a particular clique of students I was a part of when John David Bryce was assigned as the director of the bureau office I reported to.” There was something about the fact that he was holding her, his hands stroking her shoulders, his fingertips relishing the feel of her soft flesh, that dimmed some of the fury he usually felt at those early memories.
“What happened?” she asked.
He snorted at the question. “I was the pride of my regional office because of the information I was reporting on a small, select group of students creating their own homeland militia group. I was pulling in information on their parents, political and military figures, their sharing of information and top-secret files. And when John David, or JD as I usually call him, came into the office he felt the need to announce the fact that I was his son. Pride and all that.” He grunted in disgust. “Thirteen years of being ignored by the bastard and suddenly I was his son. When graduation came I dropped out of the program and went my own way for a while. That was when I met Candy.”
The feel of her lips pressing against his shoulder soothed him, and he found he didn’t want to get pissed. He didn’t want that darkness to mar the peace he found with her.
“I missed you, Eve,” he admitted as she lifted her head and stared up at him.
Regret filled him at the memory of the pain he had caused her the week before, the feeling of betrayal he knew she felt. Hell, he didn’t blame her for feeling it.
“I missed you. More than you know, Brogan,” she admitted as his lips lowered, taking a small, lingering kiss before pulling back.
The memory of last night swept over him again. The feel of her coming for him, destroying his senses with their combined pleasure and the heat that had built between them. Even clearer, though, was the memory of her crying out her love for him, and how he’d known in that instant that the emotion that swirled and drew them together was indeed love.
Yet he hadn’t told her he loved her as well.
He’d tried. His lips had parted, the words lying ready on his tongue before instantly shrinking back in response.
As that memory tempted him, as the words waited, once again at the tip of his tongue, he found himself once again unable to utter them.
Why? What could be holding him back?
She stared up at him expectantly, waiting. She wasn’t going to ask, and she wasn’t going to beg for his love. He would give it willingly or she wasn’t going to take it at all.
She wanted more than what he was giving her. It didn’t take an extra or heightened sense of what she was thinking to figure that one out.
She was going to make him say the words, he thought, feeling his throat tighten at the thought of it. He hadn’t said those words in a hell of a lot of years. More years than he often cared to remember. He didn’t even know whether he was aware of how to say them now.
“I missed you a lot,” he tried, brushing his lips against her brow as she continued to stare back at him.
A backbone of pure steel, Timothy had once accused her. As stubborn and determined as the mountains themselves.
And she was at that. But his block against the emotion that he had lived with for so damned long was just as stubborn.
He couldn’t say it. He wanted to, but there was always the chance he could have the girl and protect his heart at the same time.
And that was important.
Eve stared back at him for long moments, feeling a hint of nerves, a bit of uncertainty, but also a great capacity to love that he was still holding inside him like a miser held on to his gold.
She wasn’t satisfied with that now. She wanted the love that he was still holding inside his soul like a captive he refused to release.
She wanted all of him, not just the parts of him that he was willing to give her right now. She wanted the heart he was so protective of, the one she knew belonged to her, yet that he kept just out of reach.
She wasn’t satisfied with just knowing he cared about her. She didn’t want to just sense those emotions held trapped inside him. They weren’t going to do her any good if they weren’t allowed to be free.
She waited.
If she didn’t get the words verbally, even though she could feel them as he stared back at her, then she wasn’t going to accept any of it. She deserved much better. She deserved all of the man she loved, not just an awareness that he could love her if he let his emotions free.
She wasn’t going to let it break her, though.
No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much she ached for him or how it would kill her to lose him, she wouldn’t let it break her pride. There was no way to keep it from breaking her heart, but the rest of her emotions were salvageable.
Besides, if she was pregnant, her child would need a mother fully capable of caring for him. If he had to do without a father, then he at least needed more than just half a mother. Or a mother who couldn’t forget that she had had to beg his father to love her.
He. She kept thinking of the baby as a he. Just as Christa, Chaya, and Kelly had claimed they had done with their daughters, she had already assigned a sex to the child she might have conceived.
As she stared up at Brogan, he laid his forehead against hers and closed his eyes as though he meant to nap a bit more this morning.
It was apparent he wasn’t going to say a damned thing.
This time she didn’t have to fight the tears back, though her chest tightened with aching regret. There were no tears filling her eyes; there was only acceptance—an acceptance tinged with bitter regret.
“It’s time for me to get up,” she told him, pretending everything was fine. “I have things to do this morning.”
Slowly, watching her carefully, he let her go.
Uncertainty flickered in his gaze, and despite having sensed it in him before, she still found that small bit of vulnerability endearing. Brogan wasn’t a man who admitted to any sort of weakness, and he would see uncertainty in any area as a weakness.
“Will I see you this evening?” she asked as she moved to the closet and pulled out a light blue casual chiffon skirt that fell just below her thighs, along with a loose matching camisole top.
“Definitely,” he answered, propping his hand on his palm as he watched her, his gray-blue eyes reflecting simmering lust. “I may even be able to get away from the job early. We could go out to dinner.”
He was willing to take her out now? Why now? Because he was afraid she wouldn’t wait until he was ready to stake his claim? Her dinner with Chatham—or Doogan, as Brogan had called him—hadn’t pleased him in the slightest.
Brogan was ready to stake a public claim on her now, while he was always willing to walk away from the more private claim.
Her jaw tightened in anger as she turned away from him and moved back to the closet, where she pulled free a pair of flat, strappy leather sandals. She was not going to let him see how hurt she was, or how angry. If he didn’t want to own her hea
rt, then screw him; she had no problem at all trying to take it back from him.
“If I’m not back when you return, then I won’t be much longer,” she promised, fighting to keep her voice even, her tone casual.
The last thing she needed was for him to suspect her plans.
But if he thought she was going to hang around Pulaski County and watch him flit around like a buck in rut while all the women swarmed him, like they had since he’d arrived, then he was crazed. She’d be damned if she would have to deal with the smart-assed territorial women who seemed to think he was their own personal prize.
It wasn’t going to happen.
“Where will you be?” Suspicion entered his gaze as well as his voice, though maybe he was finally figuring out that things weren’t going to go all his way any longer.
“I had a job offer.” She shrugged as though it didn’t matter, while she gathered clean underclothes together before heading to the shower. “I’m going to meet with the company’s owner today so he can explain the job.”
The offer had come from another of John Walker’s friends from Boston the day before. He had enough of those to go around, it seemed. At first she hadn’t been interested, until she had talked to her mother the night before.
“Where is this job, Eve?”
Brogan could sense the ax getting ready to fall, and he could kick his own ass for letting it go this far.
Staring into his eyes moments ago, Eve had shown him more clearly than words what it would take to keep her, and he had ignored her.
Stubborn arrogance, his father called it, and now Brogan might very well pay for it.
“Where do you think?” She laughed as though he should know. As though the question were moot.
“My guess is, outside Kentucky,” he stated.
Eve turned around slowly to face him, and the answer was in her eyes.
“Boston.” She confirmed his guess. “It’s a wonderful opportunity. I’ll be managing several offices and client lists. My degree is in business administration, and there are just so few—”
“I love you, Eve. . . .”
She froze.
Shock registered on her face as she stared back at him as though she were certain she hadn’t heard right.
“What did you say?”
Rising from the bed, he moved to her. Clasping her shoulders in his hands, he stared into the naked vulnerability of her gaze.
“I said I love you, Eve,” he repeated. “I love you, heart and soul. I don’t know why I’ve fought it. Even before we spent that first night together, I’ve known I loved you and that I couldn’t bear to lose you. I sure as hell don’t want you moving to Boston, where I’m afraid I would lose you forever.”
Joy exploded in her gaze, flushed her cheeks. Brogan swore he could feel it now: an explosion of heat and happiness that filled her entire consciousness and then whipped into his.
Before he’d left for D.C., the Mackay cousins had detained him for a few hours. Somehow, Brogan had found himself trying to vocalize the confusing mix of emotions he always felt whenever he and Eve were in the same room. Dawg called it a mating. Natches called it a soul thing. Rowdy had laughed at all of them and told Brogan to prepare himself; it was this little thing called love.
Some couples—most couples—waited years and years before they developed the ability to read or to feel each other so well. Then there were those very few who touched each other so deeply, so perfectly that first time that the bond was almost immediate.
For the Mackay men and their wives it hadn’t happened until each of their wives had conceived their first child. Each cousin swore it was the first time he felt his child kick. Connected as they were to their wives and, through their wives, to their children, that bond had kicked into place.
“You really love me?” she whispered as he came to her and framed her face gently. “You really love me, Brogan?”
“Past forever, Eve,” he promised to her. “How could you doubt it? You’ve felt it, the same as I have, since we spent that night together. I felt your heart touch mine, and I know mine touched yours. What else could it be but love?”
“It’s love,” she whispered, that explosion of happiness radiating from her soul to warm his own as she threw her arms around his neck and hung on tight. “Oh, God, Brogan, it’s love.”
A part of him had been dark for so many years, even before Candy. The deliberate destruction of his child had only cemented the bitterness that had raged in him for so long.
The moment he met Eve, he’d felt light touch that darkness. Each time she touched him with her smile he had become even more vulnerable to her. He’d become locked firmly beneath her spell.
“Have patience with me?” he whispered as he buried his face against her neck again, holding her close to his heart.
“Always,” she swore, and he was warmed by her heart touching his.
“It may take me a while.” Closing his eyes, he prayed—prayed he could keep the evil of his world from touching her. “I promise to get the hang of it soon.” He lifted his head from her neck; then his lips lowered, touched hers, and he belonged.
“I love you, Eve,” he vowed.
And her smile completed his dreams, filled his life with light, and once again Brogan knew hope.
“And I love you, Brogan Campbell. Forever and always. I love you.”
NINETEEN
There was something about Eve, Brogan decided, that just made it impossible to maintain distance.
She’d declined the job offer before they had shared a shower, then cussed him out when she realized she was too sore to take him again. She’d decided instead to make the trip to the store for the groceries her mother needed, kissed him with enough heat to damned near blow his tiny mind, then drove off.
Shaking his head at her particular brand of revenge, Brogan mounted the Harley, listened to the smooth throb of the motor, then pulled out of the inn’s gravel parking lot and headed toward the Mackay Marina.
He’d accomplished what they wanted; now he wondered what those three intended to do with, basically, a license to kill with impunity.
It would have been damned concerning if he didn’t know the Mackays as well as he did.
Fortunately, he did know them that well, and he knew they weren’t stupid men. They wouldn’t risk the agreement, especially considering the compensatory package was for the single purpose of ensuring that nothing risked their ability to protect their family, friends, and the county itself from the undercurrents of treason and homeland terrorism, and the people who had been attempting to use the sheltering mountains as a cover for their activities.
The same thing he intended his own agreement for. He wasn’t a stupid man either. While ensuring the Mackays’ protection, he’d taken steps to ensure his own, as well as that of any family he might have. How much more dedicated could a loving husband and father be?
He intended to find out.
Pulling into the marina’s nearly full parking lot, Brogan wasn’t in the least surprised to see the three men leaning against Natches’s black-on-black Mercedes Roadster, waiting for him.
They didn’t look too damned happy with him either. Especially Dawg. Brogan was guessing Eve had gone to her brother for advice while he was gone. Not that he could blame her. It wasn’t as though Brogan had been there for her, or had given her reason to believe he would return.
Pulling the Harley in behind the expensive little Roadster, he inhaled for strength. For a man who prided himself on never asking anyone for a damned thing personally, he was about to ask the Mackays for a hell of a favor.
Stepping from the bike, he moved the slight distance to the three men and stared back at them without so much as a hint of the nervousness he could feel in his gut. His nerves were on edge, a sense of foreboding that made no sense filling his gut.
As he stepped to them, the three men watched him with narrow-eyed suspicion.
“Dawg, Natches, Rowdy.” He nodded in an attempt at politenes
s. “Before we take care of business, I need to ask a favor.”
Dawg’s gaze sparked with anger as the other two watched him with cool suspicion.
“Seen Eve since you got back?” Dawg actually showed his teeth.
Brogan turned his gaze to Rowdy, usually the tolerant one of the group. There would be no hope there.
“Dawg, could you stop . . .” being an ass, he wanted to say.
“Have you stopped breaking her heart? Because once was too damned many times to hold my sister while she cried over your worthless ass.”
“I still say, get the papers we need, then tie his feet to cement blocks and dump him in the middle of the lake,” Natches grunted.
Brogan forcibly controlled his grin as he turned back to Dawg. As he started to speak, the door to the marina offices opened and Ray Mackay stood in the doorway. Dawg might be Eve’s brother, but Ray was the acknowledged patriarch of the clan.
“Brogan, son, is Dawg giving you problems?” Ray shot Dawg a warning look.
“Sir, I’ve been trying to ask Dawg to accept my request to marry his sister Eve, but he doesn’t seem too inclined to let me get the words out.”
Even Ray appeared completely shocked by the request.
“You’re joking,” Dawg said, the look in his eyes nearly dazed as he stared back at Brogan.
“And you’re trying to piss me off,” Brogan decided. “Now, while I’m away from her, I’d like to go to the bank and take my grandmother’s ring out of the safe-deposit box I have there. But it will do no damned good if you refuse the request.”
“Why?” Dawg was still staring at Brogan as though uncertain whether he should believe him.
Brogan shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans to keep them away from Dawg’s throat.
It would be simpler, easier to explain what he wanted, further, he decided.