Secrets and Lies (19 page)

He tugged the band from his hair, letting his hair fall loosely on his shoulders. “Stop torturing yourself, McGregor,” he mumbled. “Just enjoy what time you can with her. Figure the rest out after you solve this case.”

He looked at the clock. It was late, and he had work in the morning. She had work too and he was sure she wasn’t going to skip a day. She was that kind of woman, the kind who worked extra hard to prove herself in a world where everybody already knew she was capable of great things. She wouldn’t give in easily. It’s why he knew he was going to have to think of another way to keep her in his house until he had a chance to find answers for her, a chance to keep her safe. Otherwise, if he didn’t think of something, she would be back in her own bed by tomorrow night.

He went back up the stairs. She was still asleep in his bed as he shed his own clothes. She looked so peaceful, so angelic, so perfectly lovable. He pulled back the covers and eased into bed beside her, trying not to wake her as he did so.

She moaned and started to roll toward him. He placed one hand against the back of her shoulder to stop her from rolling over onto her injured arm. He nestled closer to her and pulled her flush against his body. His chest pressed hotly against her back as he draped one arm over her waist.

“Hmmm,” she mumbled.

“Shhh, sleep now; just sleep.” He kissed her temple before settling completely into bed and drifting off to sleep himself.

“I need to go home and change and then I’m going to work, Thomas.” He had to know she wasn’t going to sit around and cower in fear all day. She had a company to run, a construction site to check up on, and way too much to be done before tomorrow’s visit from the city’s code inspector.

“You can’t do anything with your arm like that.” He pointed to the fresh bandages he had applied this morning.

She knew he was right. It was more painful today than it had been yesterday. Her arm felt stiff. Raising her arm to certain levels wasn’t an option. There was no way she would be functional on the site, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t go and make sure things were coming along as planned. “I won’t get myself into any trouble by trying to actually do any labor, but I need to check up on the site.”

He nodded. “Okay, but I’m taking you and I’m picking you up, and there’s no room for negotiations on this one.”

She shrugged. “Fine. But I’m sure that will mess up your day because I don’t need to be on site for more than a few hours today. I could just get a ride back to my office.” She stopped speaking when she saw him shaking his head. “Okay,” she laughed. “Well in that case take me home so I can change.”

“Be sure to pack enough clothes for the week.”

She stopped dead in her tracks. “Excuse me?”

“You’re staying here.”

“No, I’m not. I’m staying at my home. I will not let some crazy person scare me out of my home.”

“Your window is a mess, there’s a bullet in the wall, and that guy could come back at any moment. I don’t want you there by yourself. I don’t want you there at all, but especially not by yourself. Help ease my worry a little by staying here with me, please?”

He had asked nicely, although she was sure that was his way of trying to sweet talk her into saying yes. “Okay,” she sighed. “But, I’m going to have a new window ordered and put in, and then I’m going home.” It wouldn’t take long to get the window, and she could pay one of her guys to install it for her. Then, once her arm was completely better, she could set about fixing the guest bedroom wall.

“Humor me for a little while. Stay here. I can promise great sex nightly.”

She laughed. “Are you trying to bribe me with sex?”

He shrugged. “Will it get you to say yes?”

She laughed again as she shook her head. “You’re too cute for your own good. Fine, I’ll stay for a little while, a week minimum, but eventually I have to get back to my place.”

“Deal,” he nodded. “I’ll take a week, and we’ll renegotiate after that.”

After a brief stop at her home Thena arrived on her construction site, waved bye to Thomas and set about inspecting things for herself. There were only a couple problems that she could see right off, and it was nothing major, but she wouldn’t want the inspector to come out and see it. A simple move of some materials took care of the problem, making her stress level decrease. That is, it decreased until she saw the big city truck pull up into the driveway. She was just getting ready to return Kyle’s calls. Her cell showed fifteen missed calls—all from Kyle. She didn’t have her cell last night and this morning had been so busy already. She needed to call him, but clearly that wasn’t happening right now.

“He’s early,” she peeped out the window. “That’s just great. A day early.” She walked out the front door, and down the steps.

“Hello,” she approached Eddie with a professional smile on her face. “We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

“I know,” he placed his hard hat on his head. “Do you have any objection to me inspecting today?”

“None,” she said. “Go on in.”

“I’ll need to speak with you once I’m done.”

“Okay.” She tried to keep the hesitation out of her voice. Eddie never spoke to her when he was done. He always just sat in his truck scribbling notes before pulling away from her site. He was as non social as they came when it came to inspections. She wasn’t sure the change in his usual operating procedure was a good thing.

“Take a break guys,” she allowed her workers to exit the room as Eddie did his walk through. It made more sense to have them leave than to have them keep trying to work around him.

Fifteen minutes later he was done. Fifteen minutes was that good or bad? Bad, she deduced because it usually took him longer. Fifteen minutes was definitely bad. Unless he had a date he was trying to get off early. If that was the case then fifteen minutes was a non issue. Eddie might be hardnosed, but he was definitely a man the ladies would flock to. He was six feet, golden brown skin, with hazel eyes and a very sexy goatee. He was slender, yet muscular, and his voice was so deep it was almost sinful. She was always attracted to white men, but if ever she did date within her own race, Eddie would fall at the top of the list by way of looks—personality she wasn’t so sure on because he had uttered more words to her today than he ever had.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” he said and it shocked her. “I heard about it. Trust me; the find is the talk of the guys at the office.”

She nodded. How could it not be the talk of the profession? She was sure it was the talk amongst her workers too, at least when she wasn’t there that is. While she was on site nobody mentioned a thing. “Thank you,” she steadied her voice.

“If you need a shoulder to cry on, I’m available.” He handed her his card. “My cell number is on the back. Call me anytime.”

“Mr. Mason…”

“Eddie,” he reminded her. She knew he wanted her to call him Eddie; she just wasn’t sure she should.

“I heard you and your boyfriend broke up.”

“Kyle?” Her voice rose just a little. They broke up a long time ago, what did that have to do with anything now.

“I tried to tell your father that guy was no good for you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your dad didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“I told him about Kyle’s arrest.”

“Kyle was arrested? For what?”

“He stalked his last girlfriend when they broke up. He couldn’t let it go. He followed her to work. He vandalized her property. Her house was broken into and some very personal items taken. The cops arrested him, but they couldn’t make the charges stick so they had to release him.”

“No way. Kyle wouldn’t do that.”

“He did it. Trust me; that woman was afraid for her life. She moved away to get away from him. A few months later he had moved on to you. I warned your dad. I just didn’t think you should be with him given his track record.”

Her father hadn’t told her that. There was just no way. She couldn’t believe Kyle had ever done anything like that. Kyle was sweet and gentle and so protective. He would never hurt anybody.

“Anyway, your dad said he was going to talk to him, but then…well, he died in that accident so I don’t know if he ever had a chance to.”

She was still trying to make sense of the fact that Kyle had been arrested, let alone that her father knew about it and hadn’t told her. Is that why he insisted she get the alarm? No, she couldn’t think that way. Kyle had been there for her through one of the most difficult times in her life. He was her friend. She knew him. Or at least she thought she knew him.

“I never thought he was good enough for you, Thena. You need a more stable man. You should try dating a brother; we don’t do that crazy stuff.”

She tried to ignore the complete lack of truth in his statement. She tried to ignore the fact that his hand had found its way to her shoulder and was consistently rubbing it in a way she didn’t think appropriate.

“Well,” she shifted out of his reach, trying not to draw attention to her eagerness to get away from his touch. “I don’t think I really should think about any of that right now. There’s just so much to deal with.”

“Of course. But if you need somebody to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, I’m here for you.”

She smiled politely. “I will remember that.” She sighed, trying to figure out the best way to extract herself from the situation. Fortunately she didn’t have to dwell on it for too long because Eddie ended their conversation and left her site. Before he left he assured her she had passed, once again, with flying colors and that there would be no need to shut her down for any length of time, or write her up on violation of anything either. She would have felt some sense of relief except for the fact that the conversation she had just had with Eddie spooked her more than the thought of getting a violation warning. Kyle had been arrested? He had stalked a previous girlfriend? She didn’t believe it. She just didn’t believe it. He had never said anything about it. She mentally slapped herself. “Right, because that’s the first thing a guy is going to tell you, Thena.” She shook her head. It’s not as if Kyle would walk up to her and say, hey, I got arrested for stalking Sandy. She knew their relationship had ended, but Kyle had never said anything about it ending badly. No way, there was just no way Kyle had done any of the things Eddie mentioned.

She knew Kyle for years. They were friends first. Then they dated for about five months before he hooked up with Sandy and then a few months after he broke up with her they dated again. They broke up about a month after her dad died, but they remained the best of friends. She just couldn’t believe he had been mixed up in something so sinister. But if she were being totally honest with herself, while he was dating Sandy they hadn’t been in touch as much as they were now. Their first breakup had been amicable. They were better off as friends than they were lovers. They both knew that. But the break still caused a smidge of distance in their relationship. She assumed it was because Sandy didn’t like that he was still close to his ex. Once he and Sandy were splitsville he found his way back into her life, offering to help her with Twist of Fate, and she allowed him to. On that build they reconnected. They had clearly forgotten that they were better off as friends because they ended up back in a romantic relationship with each other. She knew before her father died that she and Kyle were going to break up again. They just didn’t have that passion for each other, not the romantic passion that was needed for a more than platonic relationship. Actually, if her father hadn’t died that night she was sure they were going to agree to break up then. The only thing that kept them hanging on for another month was that Kyle thought she was too fragile at the time to end things, and she just didn’t have the strength to go through it alone.

A month after her father died she broke it off with Kyle. It wasn’t fair to either of them to hang on to each other, her for his support, and him because he was afraid of her emotional fragility. She had thought he would walk out of her life again, but he hadn’t. Their friendship was stronger than before. Still, she guessed there were some things neither one of them would ever know about each other. There were some secrets that not even friends shared with each other.

Chapter Thirteen

L
istening to Phoebe try to cover up the lost body issue once again was making Thomas’ head hurt. If she was just going to lie to him why did she bother to ask him to come in? He figured she wanted to find out how close he was to the truth. She probably wanted to see if he would let any information slip, but he hadn’t and he wouldn’t. He needed to get back to the construction site to pick Thena up in two hours. He could sit through the lies for a little while longer and then he was going to have to find another reason to excuse himself.

“So you see,” Phoebe leaned forward. Her basic blue blouse fell away from her body. Since she had conveniently forgotten to button a few buttons he had unobstructed view of her plain white bra that barely covered her sizable breasts. He gathered that’s exactly what she wanted. She was trying to distract him. He nearly laughed. He was a man of great focus—most times. If Thena had been in front of him flashing her skin, then maybe he would lose his head, jump across the desk and take her right where she sat. Thinking about Thena brought a smile to his face. He could tell from the curve of Phoebe’s lips that she assumed that smile had something to do with her. He mentally shrugged it off. The more she thought he was buying her lies, the better off things would be—for now anyway. Never tip your hand before you’re ready; that’s the one poker lesson his big brother had taught him that he hadn’t ever forgotten. As Gavin had said, that rule didn’t just apply to poker; it applied everywhere.