Following a fitful night’s sleep, Torie grabbed a cup of coffee from the thankfully empty kitchen and escorted Gigi out into the glorious morning. Springtime in Texas was hard to beat, she decided. The huge blue sky, perfect weather, and flower-dotted fields soothed her stormy soul.
Torie had grown a thick skin over the years, but Matt’s accusations the night before had hurt her. Yes, she’d landed in some unusual, unpleasant situations of late. Yes, she seemed to find more trouble than others of her acquaintance, but the argument she’d given him during their escape from Soledad Island hadn’t changed. Her job was vital to the entertainment industry.
Yes, that wasn’t nearly as important as having a job vital to the country, but a balanced life needed some fun mixed in with the serious, and different people had different definitions of fun. For some of them, that meant knowing a tidbit about a celebrity’s everyday life. Too bad, so sad for Matt Callahan if he couldn’t see it.
“... worried about Matt.” A male voice floated on the air.
Always curious, Torie drifted closer. “Because of Ćurković?” another voice asked.
Didn’t sound like Bill the bodyguard. Besides, she thought Bill was upstairs sleeping after his overnight guard stint. Torie paused at the corner of the house and peered around cautiously. Two men stood on the back patio, steaming cups of coffee in their hands, staring out at the lake, where Matt was getting in a cold, early swim. Must be the brothers, she thought.
They were both tall and broad with dark hair and really nice tushes. The Callahan men all shared a resemblance in that respect. Torie couldn’t see their faces, but she suspected they’d be as fine to look at as Matt.
But their looks weren’t nearly as important as what they were saying, so she listened harder. “... know he wanted to rip his balls off and make him eat them. I wanted the bastard dead as bad as anyone, but Matt ... he’s been intense.”
“You know what I think, Luke?” the man—Mark, by process of elimination—said. “I think Matt knows something more he hasn’t shared with the class.”
“Something like what?”
“Something not good, that’s for damn sure. Did you see the look on his face last night when he told us Ćurković died in his sleep? Matt’s tortured by it.”
“I don’t know.” Luke Callahan sipped his coffee, then said, “The thing you can’t forget about Matt is the still-waters-running-deep factor. Maybe it’s from being the oldest, but I think he carries responsibility on his shoulders like an anvil. He was bad with us when we were kids, worse after Mom died, and then the fallout from Branch’s splitting us up topped with the job he’s been doing for years—Matthew needs to lighten up. When he told us he’d bought this place, I had hopes he’d finally begun to chill. Much better to use his downtime growing grapes than his more usual pastimes.”
“Like speedboat racing, you mean?” Mark asked. “Hang gliding? Rock climbing? High-altitude skiing? I have to admit, I’ve never pictured him as a vintner. The man is an adrenaline junkie. Farming isn’t in his blood.”
“No, but payback is. Remember how he was when we were kids? You’d do something to Matt, you could count on the payback being twice as bad. And he can be subtle about it, too.”
“Like buying this land to stick it to Branch.”
Luke nodded. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he hadn’t been planning a particularly nasty bit of vengeance that Ćurković up and spoiled by dying on him.”
“Yeah, you may be right. But that begs the question of how we ended up here. I know he’s angry about what happened yesterday, but that doesn’t explain why he asked me to investigate Torie Bradshaw’s problem to begin with. Is it part of some sort of elaborate revenge for her tearing up his leg?”
Torie almost dropped her coffee cup at that.
“Could have started out that way. He’s certainly done more diabolical paybacks in the past. I figure that what happened yesterday will supersede any other plan. You could have been killed. Now Matt will go balls to the wall to find out who’s responsible.”
Mark Callahan rubbed the back of his neck. “He needs to relax. Hell, he needs to retire. Wish he’d find himself a woman like your Maddie and settle down, raise some kids, be a Little League coach.”
“Can’t argue with that. Matt could use a dose of normal. It’s done wonders for me.”
“You call your life normal?” Mark asked, snorting with amusement. “You’re married to a rock star’s daughter and you live on a houseboat with the dumbest dog ever born.”
“Knucklehead isn’t dumb.” Luke gestured with his coffee cup. “That’s dumb.”
Torie glanced in the direction he indicated, and groaned. Gigi was sniffing at a fire ant pile. “Gigi!” she exclaimed, abandoning her eavesdropping on account of her dog. “Get away from there!”
The dog jumped away whining before Torie took two forward steps. “Gigi, what were you thinking?” Torie scolded. “One of these days your curiosity is going to get you into serious trouble.”
“Like mother like daughter,” Luke Callahan observed.
Torie glanced at him, at them, and forgot all about Gigi for a moment. Holy cow, Mr. and Mrs. Callahan had bred true. Matt’s brothers were gorgeous, and except for Mark’s temporary bruises, as identical as she and Helen, right down to the curiosity in their gazes. “You must be Ms. Bradshaw,” Luke drawled. “We’re—”
“Matt’s brothers. Mark and Luke.” She pasted on a smile and walked toward them. Addressing Mark, she said, “I’m so sorry you’re hurt.”
“Thanks.” His lips twisted in a wry grin. “That’s some welcome mat you had in your apartment.”
“Wasn’t it, though? I’ll have to speak with my decorator about that.” Sensing Luke’s intense gaze, she met his stare and arched a brow.
Before he responded, Mark said, “Here comes Matt.”
He had a towel flung over one shoulder as he climbed the walkway from the dock, and his blue swim trunks clung to his muscular form. “James in Casino Royale,” Torie murmured. It was all she could do not to purr in appreciation.
“Good. Y’all are early. We have a lot to do today. Faxes came in overnight. I want you to look at them while I’m getting dressed.” Glancing at Torie, he nodded. “G’morning.”
“Well, hell,” Luke muttered. He reached for his wallet and pulled out a twenty, then handed it to Mark, who pocketed the cash with a grin. Matt opened his mouth, then obviously thought better of it.
Twenty minutes later, the Callahan men ate doughnuts with their coffee and discussed the information Matt had discovered about the former senator’s actor friend. “Given his wife and new baby and new job, I doubt he’s our boy. But it won’t be a problem to stop over in Vegas and talk to him on my way to LA to visit with the boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Torie muttered, seated at the kitchen table playing with a carton of yogurt. The last thing she wanted was for Matt and Jason to meet. “Luke would be a better choice.”
The Callahan men continued to ignore her. Any suggestion she made fell on deaf ears. Stubborn deaf ears.
“Idiots.”
Matt asked Mark a question that required information from the computer in the study. A few minutes later from his position in front of the window, Luke said, “Great. Got trouble coming, Matthew.”
Matt went for his gun.
“Not that kind of trouble. This one rides in a Lexus and uses a cane.”
“Branch?” Matt threw a glance in the direction of the study, and muttered, “How did he find out this place is mine? I’ve kept it quiet.” To Torie, he said, “This is gonna be ugly. You probably want to go upstairs.”
In the spirit of “Turnabout is fair play,” she pretended not to hear him.
“I’d listen to him, sweetheart,” Luke told her. “Branch can be a mean sonofagun and he has a grudge against you.” Glancing at Matt, he added, “Although she might make a good decoy, giving Mark the chance to make an escape.”
“No. I’m tired of running interference between those two,” Matt said. “Torie, quit being stubborn. Go upstairs.”
She acquiesced only because she decided she’d probably learn more by eavesdropping. She climbed the staircase, then stopped, out of sight, but well within listening distance. This is becoming a habit.
Moments later she heard wheels creaking across the porch. A hand pounded the door. “Matthew? Matthew, let me in.”
“Hello, Branch. What are you doing here?”
“Maria’s granddaughter dates a boy who works at the drugstore. He said he delivered medicine out to the vineyard. For Mark. And Luke was there, too. I went there, but that old fart wouldn’t talk to me, so I came here. Is it true, then? Mark’s here? You boys are all here?”
“Hell no.” Mark stood in the doorway of the office. “John Gabriel isn’t here. He’s dead.”
It went downhill from there.
No one paid a bit of attention to Torie, so she moved out onto the staircase landing, where she had a better view. The elderly man stood just inside the house, a white-knuckle grip on his cane. Matt stood at his right, facing his father, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans. Luke was positioned at Branch’s left, his stance spread, his arms folded, as he frowned at the older man. Mark Callahan stood just outside the semicircle of men, his back straight, shoulders squared, his hands fisted at his side.
“Get him out of here, Matt,” he growled, his voice low and hard and ugly.
Torie’s eyes widened. Whoa. Lot of hate in one little sentence.
“Mark, they said you’d been hurt.” Concern shone in the old man’s eyes. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“All right? You have the nerve to ask me that? I haven’t been all right since you—” He bit off the sentence, set his teeth, clenched his fists. Utter hatred beamed like lasers from his eyes straight at his father. “Not doing this. Matt, get him out of here before I—”
Luke stepped toward Mark. “Hey, man, you gotta calm down.”
“Matt?” Mark’s soft voice was a warning.
Matt stepped between his father and his younger brother. “Branch, you don’t need to be here.”
“But I do.” He used his cane to try to shift Matt aside and, when that didn’t work, walked around him until he could see Mark once again. “Mark, I need to talk to you, son. There’s so much I need to say to you. So much I want to explain.”
“There is nothing you can say that I want to hear. Nothing that will change anything. Not then, not now, not ever. But here’s something I want to explain to you, old man. You’re dead to me. Get it? Dead.”
Wow, that’s hard. Torie saw shock register on Matt’s and Luke’s faces. The two brothers stood staring speechless at the third until Mark spoke again. “Matt, if you don’t get him out of here, then I’m leaving.”
Mark pivoted on his heel, went into the study, and slammed the door shut.
“Damned muleheaded boy. My boy.” Branch shook his head and closed his eyes. Torie thought he looked ten years older than he had the moment he’d shuffled through the door.
Luke muttered a curse. “Look, Branch. Today isn’t a good day for this. Just ... give him some more time. He needs a little more time.”
“I thought ... maybe ... they said he’d come home because he was hurt. I thought maybe he’d ... changed ... his mind. You two haven’t had any use for me, but Mark ... he hates me because ….” He stopped and visibly tried to compose himself, looking pale and old and tired. Looking pitiful, like a man who’d lost everything. “He’s hated me for a long, long time. I guess that’s not going to change.”
Torie waited for Matt or Luke to contradict their father, but both men remained silent. And she thought she came from a dysfunctional family.
Finally, Matt stepped toward Branch. “C’mon, Dad. You need to get on back home. This isn’t doing anyone any good. Mark will be fine—we’ll see to it.”
Branch’s lips silently formed the word “Dad” and some of his tension eased. “Is he all right? What happened to him?”
“He’ll be fine. He’s just banged up a bit.”
“Why did he come here? Why are all three of you here? Is Maddie here, Luke? What’s going on?”
“Maddie’s busy with work, but she’ll visit as soon as she can,” Luke said. “She’ll be by to see you when she gets in.”
“But what are you doing?” Branch insisted.
“We’re planning our next fishing trip,” Matt said, trying to ease his father toward the door. “Gonna take the Siren Song down to the Keys again this fall.”
“But you’re all here, in Brazos Bend. You don’t ... do that. At the service for John y’all swore you’d never ...”
“Technically, this isn’t Brazos Bend, Branch.” Luke stepped forward to assist in herding his father back outside. “The oath holds.”
As the men moved outside, Torie went back downstairs. She heard a crash of glass in the study and she debated whether or not she should check on Mark. The emotional undercurrents swirling around this place pushed all her curiosity buttons. The expressions on the faces of the four Callahan men had hinted of a story that fired her imagination. She wished she’d had her camera with her on the staircase. Her fingers had actually itched.
Hearing a scratch and a demanding yip at the kitchen door, she wandered into the kitchen to let Gigi outside, her attention focused inward as she mentally reviewed what she knew about the Callahan family. What all had Helen told her? The sons were estranged from their father because of the youngest brother’s death and something else. Torie couldn’t remember if she’d ever heard exactly what.
She’d no sooner exited the kitchen with thoughts of checking on Mark than a commotion erupted in the front yard. It sounded like ... “A dogfight?” she murmured. Looking out the window, she added, “Oh no.”
Gigi and Paco stood inches away from each other barking their little heads off. Then the Pomeranian lunged at Gigi and Torie dashed outside, calling, “Oh, Gigi, no. Get away from him. Matt, do something!”
Matt scowled down at the dogs, now a rolling, circling, yipping fur ball. Luke Callahan stood with his hands on his hips laughing, while Branch banged his cane on the stone sidewalk, yelling, “Stop that, Paco. Come to Daddy.”
“Gigi. Gigi!”
“Paco. Paco!”
Matt grabbed the water hose and turned it on. The spray hit the dogs and they separated, their barks turning to whines.
Paco took a running jump into the backseat of a chauffeur-driven Lexus, while Torie went down on her knees and held out her arms. “Gigi. Come here. What got into you, girl? You know to leave nasty mean dogs alone.”
“Nasty mean!” Branch Callahan exclaimed. “I’ll have you know that Paco ... wait. What the hell are you doing here? Matt said you had a plane to catch.”
Matt tossed down the water hose and stepped forward. “Dad, let me help you in the car.”
“Matthew, why is she here? I demand to know what’s going on. I demand to be told... . Oh.” Branch Callahan gasped in pain. “Oh ... oh ...”
“Dad?” Matt and Luke said simultaneously.
Branch’s face went pale. He swayed and his right hand clutched his cane. He brought his left hand up and slapped it against his chest. “Help me, son.”
Matt and Luke rushed forward, catching their father seconds before Branch collapsed to the ground.
“HIPAA laws, schmippa laws,” Maddie Callahan railed as she paced the ICU waiting room. “This is Brazos Bend. We have our own way of doing things here. Federal law can go hang. That doctor needs to tell us what’s wrong with your father!”
“Calm down, Red.” Luke draped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze. Maddie had rushed to town from Fort Worth, where she’d been lobbying a state senator to support a bill to improve conditions in Texas prisons. “He’s new in town. He’ll learn in time. The important thing is he said Branch is doing all right.”
“Why would he forbid the doctor to give us details?”
“Because he’s a crotchety old fart who refuses to give up control of anything.”
“I want to see him,” she said, in a small voice.
“You know how he is about weakness, honey.” Luke pressed a kiss against her hair. “He doesn’t like anyone seeing it. That’s why he ditches his walker for a cane whenever he goes outside, even though that’s when he needs the walker most.”
“Mark needs to be here, Luke,” she added. “If Branch ... well ... Mark should be here!”
“Let Mark be. I think he’s wrestling with demons we don’t understand.” When he’d started on the liquor, his brothers had taken possession of the pain pills. There hadn’t been time for questions.
“He’ll regret it.”
Luke’s only response was to hold his wife tighter.
Matt sat slouched in a hard plastic chair, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He had his hands folded across his belly and his eyes closed, but he wasn’t napping. Far from it. His mind raced a million miles a second.
He was shaken. He didn’t need the doctor to tell him what had happened. It was obvious. Branch had a heart attack. He’d gotten worked up emotionally over Mark’s situation, then taken a second punch from Torie’s presence at the lake house. The stress might not have caused the attack, but it sure as hell hadn’t helped.
Matt figured he was the one to blame. He was the one who’d involved Mark in Torie’s troubles. He was the one who had taken her into his home. Hell, if Branch knew he’d taken her to bed, he’d have had both a heart attack and a stroke.
Matt let out a sigh. As if his feelings toward his father weren’t complicated enough already. He hated the man ... but he loved him. He was furious with him over his part in John’s death, but unlike his brothers, he understood the desperation behind Branch’s efforts.
Hadn’t Matt been just as desperate?
Against his will, his thoughts returned to that night in Sarajevo, that fateful encounter that no one—not his brothers, nor his father, nor his employers—knew anything about.
He recalled the café, Natalia’s ruby lips and smoky voice. John’s surprised, “Matt? Is that you? What are you doing in Sarajevo, brother?”
He’d lied. Curse his black soul, he’d lied and denied and turned his back on his own brother. And even worse, he’d failed to warn. An hour later, his brother had paid for Matt’s failings.
In the hospital waiting room, he lurched to his feet and shoved the memory away. “I gotta get out of here,” he told Luke. “I’ll catch up with you later.” When he hit the hospital front doors a few minutes later, he was all but running. Maybe Mark had the right idea. Numb the pain. Numb the memories.
No, Matt needed to think. To plan, to plot, to scheme. That’s what he did best. He needed to figure out just what to do to bring this whole debacle to an end. He needed to get Torie Bradshaw out of his life and out of the lives of his family before he didn’t have any family left.
But the sweet bliss of oblivion called to him. Maybe he would hit a bar in town, buy a bottle, and get stupid on booze. Liquor was a good way to lose yourself for a while.
A woman is better.
Instinct led him to his truck, then back to the lake house. The bodyguard assured him that all had been quiet. The dog was upstairs in Torie’s bedroom. He’d find the woman herself down by the water with her camera.
Matt saw her in the boat, lying on her stomach on the sun deck , taking photos of a turtle sunning himself on a big flat rock against the shore. Her ponytail drooped over one shoulder. She wore a blue swimsuit top and short white shorts, her shapely legs bent up behind her, her bare feet crossed at the ankles in the air. Matt couldn’t take his gaze off the intriguing curve of her ass. His hands itched to touch her, to trace a lingering, meandering path along her silky skin.
He shouldn’t be here. This was wrong on a dozen different levels.
But she was so ... alive. Driven by the instincts and urges he couldn’t resist, didn’t want to resist, he strode down the walkway onto the dock.
“Matt.” She rolled to a seated position. “How’s your father?”
“Alive.” He stepped into the boat.
“Thank God. What happened? Why did he collapse?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk at all.” He leaned down and captured her mouth with his, pressing her down onto her back as he came over on top of her.
He kissed her, devoured her mouth with his lips and tongue and teeth. She tasted of mint and chocolate and smelled of sunshine. He wanted to lose himself in the sweetness of her, to move out of the darkness that haunted him and into the blinding light that resulted from joining with a shooting star like Torie. She was hang gliding and skydiving and ice climbing all at once.
He shifted her body sideways until they lay full atop the cushioned deck. His hand smoothed up the bare length of her leg, across the cotton-covered curve of her hip, then again onto the bare skin of her waist. He reached for the button at her shorts when she yanked her mouth from his. “Wait,” she panted. “What are you doing?”
Nipping at the pulse in her neck, he murmured, “That’s a dumb question.”
She pushed hard against his chest, but Matt didn’t budge. “All right, then. Why are you doing this? I thought we were just a one-night stand.”
“I don’t like those words, the term. Not in reference to you, to us. You are more than that.”
“More, how?”
“I don’t know. I know anything, really, except that I need you to make me whole again. I want you, Victoria. Right now.” He lifted his head and stared down into her eyes. “I need you.”
Her gaze searched his features. She moistened her lips with her tongue. “What’s wrong, Matt?”
He ignored her question and pressed his point by dipping his head and licking the valley between her breasts.
“Oh, you don’t play fair,” she murmured.
“Never.” He tugged her swimsuit top with his teeth and bared her to his gaze. He seduced her with his hands, his mouth, his eyes, and ultimately with his words. “Please, Victoria. Say yes. Let me have you.”
She surrendered with a sigh, and Matt smiled in triumph. In deference to the daylight and the exposed location, he dragged her off the sun deck and onto the cushioned bench seat. It was his last conscious thought as he allowed his instincts full rein and plunged into the mindless heat of lovemaking.
He forgot about his father. He didn’t think about Mark. When he gazed at her glistening beauty, when he lowered his mouth to taste her, his mind harbored not a single thought of John.
Matt saw nothing but Torie, heard nothing but her needy whimpers, smelled only her musky scent. She filled his mind. She accepted his body. She journeyed with him into the dark, sensual oblivion of basic, primal sex.
When it was over, when he collapsed onto her sated body with a groan, he knew that things had changed.
The plan had changed. He’d changed.
God help them both.