She’d been crying for a week and she was tired of it. She hated it.
Not that fighting the tears often did her any good. Just as they did now, there were those tears that escaped her control and eased down her cheek.
“I’ll have to kill him if he’s the reason you’ve been crying for a week.” Dawg’s declaration had her eyes flying open as she quickly swiped the tears from her cheek.
“I can’t talk to you yet,” she whispered, refusing to look at him.
She couldn’t look at him. She felt too guilty. She’d made a promise, and no matter what he’d done, that didn’t change the fact that she had broken her word to him.
Dawg let out a hard breath and a second later she felt him sit down beside her.
Leaning forward, his big hands clasped between his spread legs, he stared at the floor thoughtfully.
“Do you hate me now, little sister?”
Swinging her head around, she stared at him in surprise. “Hate you? For what? Caring enough for me that you tried to protect me?” She sniffed back more tears. “Wouldn’t that just make me more awful than I already feel I am?”
Her voice was hoarse with the effort to hold back her emotions as she watched him, despising herself for the brooding look she saw in his eyes.
Finally he shook his head slowly. “You’re not an awful person at all, Eve,” he seemed to chide her gently. “What would make you think you are?”
Her breathing hitched as she pushed back a sob. “I lied to you. I didn’t mean to, but I gave you my word and I broke it. I broke it and I blamed you for my own guilt when I knew, you may not have been able to explain why, but you were only trying to protect me.”
His brows lowered, his expression becoming dangerously still.
“Eve, do you think I’d hold that against you?”
She couldn’t maintain his look. Turning away, she whispered, “One of the few things asked is that we not betray family.” She shrugged. “I lied . . .”
“And I think I’ll kill Brogan and just have it done with,” he threatened as her gaze swung back to him. “Because it’s obvious that falling in love with him has somehow weakened your mind.”
Never let it be said that Dawg Mackay was afraid to state his opinion.
Eve shook her head in confusion. “I promised . . .”
“Pretty much because I manipulated you into that promise and exerted as much guilt as I could to ensure you made it.” He snorted. “Eve, sweetheart, you can’t let the people you love do this to you.” Reaching out, he wiped a tear from her face as his expression eased. “Honey, I never blamed you for breaking your promise. Hell, I knew you would break it.”
“Then why did you come to the cabin?”
“Because the night before, someone had broken into your room and trashed it maybe?” He sighed. “It took several hours for me to find out you had left with Brogan. He wasn’t answering his phone, and yours was going straight to voice mail. No one knew where the two of you were or where Brogan planned to go. If it hadn’t been for Timothy and the fact that he knew the location of the cabin, then I would have driven myself wild thinking that you were hurt, or worse.”
Lips parted, Eve stared back at him in surprise. “I hadn’t known about my room until I returned home.”
“I was going to tell you before you left the cabin.” He sighed. “It’s just . . . Hell, sis, I took one look at Brogan that morning and I knew you’d slept with him. Then all I could think was, ‘That bastard was sleeping with my baby sister.’ Sometimes I forget you’re an adult. I still see that wary, uncertain teenager who watched me with that sure and certain knowledge I was going to let her and her family fend for themselves.”
Eve looked away from him.
She’d been terrified when she’d returned home to find her suite trashed. So terrified she’d accepted her mother’s offer to move into the extra bedroom above the inn.
She was still in that bedroom.
“Come on; you’re not crying because you broke a promise I knew you’d never be able to keep,” he chided.
She was almost amused. Sliding a sideways look toward him, she caught the concerned look on his face.
“Then why did you ask me to promise, Dawg?” She didn’t know how to feel about anything this week. Or how to deal with such strong, stubborn men.
“Because I was fighting to find a way to protect you, Eve.” He reached back and rubbed his neck with an air of weariness. “I could see what was going on between you and Brogan. I’ve watched it building between the two of you, and when I saw it was going to happen, and it was going to happen soon, I needed time to finish some things.”
Did he know?
Her eyes narrowed on him. “What are you talking about?”
He sat back on the sofa and watched her quietly. “I know Brogan’s an agent for DHS, Eve. I suspected at first, but then I knew what he was doing here. You don’t have to keep that secret for him, from me.”
“I never asked to be told.” She picked at a loose thread on the knee of her jeans as her throat thickened with emotion. “Is he okay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“He’s not been at the inn in a few days,” she revealed. “I was just wondering.”
“You’ve been worried as hell,” he corrected her. “Timothy says you’ve been pacing your bedroom.”
She shrugged again. “I was just wondering.”
“He had some things to take care of in D.C.,” he told her. “He should be back in a few more days, from what I understand.” Thank God.
Eve felt a sense of relief expand inside her. She hadn’t realized how worried she had been until Dawg had confirmed that Brogan was okay.
“Do you love him, Eve?” he asked, his gaze so heavy she felt her lips tremble.
“Does it matter?” She had asked herself that question all week.
“You don’t think it does?”
“It didn’t seem to matter to him.” A bitter laugh escaped past her lips as the ache in her chest echoed to her soul. “He had a job to do. I was a way to do that job.”
“Hmm,” Dawg murmured. “I guess that was why he waited two and a half years to do it, if that’s true? Strange, if I knew that there was an asset that could help me solve a case, I believe I’d be on her ass first thing out.”
She picked at the thread on her jeans again, not certain what to say now.
“Eve, do you know what having you meant for him?” Dawg pressed.
Eve shook her head.
“It meant dragging you into a case and endangering you for the very fact that you were there. I may be pissed at him for not keeping his hands off you until this was over, but I’m not a stupid man, honey. You want him as much as he wants you. You didn’t know why he was there; all you knew was that you couldn’t believe the rumor that he could do anything illegal. A man can fight himself, but he can’t fight the woman who can break down his defenses with a smile. Or a tear.” Lifting his hand, he used his thumb to wipe away another tear. “I don’t know the man as much as I know his history, but I do know he was engaged once, years ago. Until his fiancée had their baby aborted while he was at the training academy, just before joining DHS. It damn near killed him. He had relationships, but never with a woman close enough to an operation to be identified or endangered.”
Eve was so thankful she hadn’t been looking at Dawg when he spoke of Brogan’s fiancée’s abortion that she nearly closed her eyes thankfully.
“I met Brogan just before he joined the academy,” Dawg reflected as Eve hung on every word. “I think it was a few days after he left his fiancée. He was talking to his father as I walked up to the table.” He shook his head regretfully, compassion filling his odd green eyes. “His fiancée had informed him within minutes of his arrival that she had aborted the baby. It damned near broke him. He looked his father right in the eye and told him he’d wanted that kid. That he’d have never turned his back on his child as his father had. Then he stood up and walked away from this big, tough FBI director as though he didn’t have the power to yank his placement at DHS in a heartbeat.” He rubbed his jaw before scratching at it thoughtfully. “I’d trust Brogan Campbell with my life, Eve. I know I never showed it, but he was undercover. Showing it would have endangered him, and though I trust him, there’s not a whole lot I know about him. But I know he’s not a man who trusts women, and he’s not a man who ever gives all of himself except to his job. I guess I worried about that. Worried about you and your tender heart.”
And he was right to worry, Eve thought as she swiped at another tear. Here she sat, her heart broken, wishing she knew how to deal with what Brogan had done, and the impact it had had on her heart.
“What would you do,” she whispered, tears thick in her voice. “What would you do if it were you, and something happened?” She swallowed tightly, lifting her gaze, knowing he would know once she asked. “If something happened and there was a possibility your lover was pregnant after that happened to you?”
Another tear fell.
For a moment it was all she could do not to start sobbing, to beg him to fix it like he had every other problem she’d ever brought to him.
He watched her in confusion for only a second before understanding filled his gaze, darkened it, and shadowed it with pain.
“Ah, Eve, sweetheart,” he whispered sorrowfully, that understanding filling his voice along with the pain. “What happened?”
Briefly, her voice breaking, she explained the condom breaking, then Brogan’s admission that he hadn’t intended to tell her. At least, not until it had been too late for her to do anything about it.
Dawg didn’t appear to get angry, though he did tense, and for a second his eyes flashed with something dangerous.
Finally, he exhaled roughly as he rubbed his hand over his face.
“Do you know yet?”
She shook her head. “But that’s not why it hurts, Dawg.” Her breath caught as she continued to fight her tears. “What hurts . . . He knows me,” she cried, her fists clenching, the pent up sobs escaping. “I know he does. Everyone thinks he’s a traitor, but I knew better. All the nights he was sitting on the porch when I would come in from the bar, we’d talk.” She sniffed. “For two and a half years, Dawg. We talked and we’ve laughed. And through those conversations I knew things about him, and he didn’t have to say it.” She swiped at more tears. “But something this important, as important as a child, and he thought I was that cold?”
Dawg’s arms were suddenly around her, pulling her against his broad chest as she sobbed. As the grief tearing her heart in two escaped once again.
She knew things about him, she knew him. Why hadn’t he known her?
She knew he loved his mother, but he resented her, even though he hadn’t told her about the resentment. Resented her for dying and leaving him to a father who had no idea what to do with his bastard son. She knew he loved his sister and his baby brother, but he worried because his sister wouldn’t let him protect her and his brother refused to try to protect himself. He loved the color green, but he hated the color blue just because it seemed to be everyone else’s favorite. She’d known he loved children because whenever her mother had the kids at the house he always found time for them. She hated, hated with a passion, anyone who dared to so much as speak ill to a child. He loved dogs but didn’t care much for cats.
He hadn’t told her any of these things, but she knew.
She knew.
When the worst of the tears finally eased, she drew back and accepted the tissues he pulled from the box on the table next to the couch. Wiping them away and blowing her nose, Eve finally managed to pull the ragged threads of her control around her emotions enough to sit up and stop sobbing like a baby.
