Busted (Barnes Brothers #3) (34 page)

Trey waited. Her hands clenched and unclenched, her jaw went tight. Finally, she shook her head. “It wouldn’t have done any good. I told her that son of a bitch was not getting in my house—that the police would be there and I hoped like hell they arrested him. And she went to the door. I told her if she left with him, she’d better not keep dragging me back into her life—told her I was trying to take care of her baby, trying to take care of myself—I couldn’t take care of her, too. I was mad, I was scared . . . I . . . I shouldn’t have said it.”

“You were thinking about Neeci, it sounds like. About
yourself and your safety and the fact that you had to take care of both of you. Kiara wasn’t going to worry about her daughter—somebody had to,” Trey said.

He didn’t think she even heard him.

“I don’t know much of what happened between the time she left and the next phone call. Kiara said he hit her again and she thought she passed out. When she woke up, he was gone and she was alone in a motel where they’d ended up. She called Hannah. She was scared and alone and I’d told her not to keep dragging me into it, so she called Hannah.”

*   *   *

Ressa tried to think of the first time she’d met Hannah. A pretty girl who had just come fresh from the farm—and she looked liked it, too—all golden hair and blue eyes and sunshine. She’d been a hot mess half the time they’d known each other. Hannah had dropped out of college and ended up the mistress of one of the men she’d met through Sharon.

Ressa rarely saw her friend after she left school, but sometimes they’d have coffee and Hannah had seemed happy.
We never did . . . you know . . . while I was one of Sharon’s girls,
Hannah had said, blushing the entire time.
But I needed the money and I called him, asked if he’d still like to have me go to dinner and stuff when he was in town . . . this is just how it ended up.

Hannah had been at home, a cute little cottage where a fifty-nine-year-old married banker kept her in the kind of style she’d always wanted. She was pampered and spoiled and she had a sweet heart.

“She told Kiara to come over. Promised she’d help her. Give her money . . . whatever. Kiara went over. A couple hours later, Christo came looking for her. It turns out he’d put a GPS thing on her phone—she never went anywhere that he didn’t know about. He went over there, broke in. Had Kiara by the hair and was dragging her out when Hannah went after him with a baseball bat. She hit him once . . . and he got it away from her. Killed her. Kiara was there—saw the whole thing. And when he was done and said they had to get away, get rid of the evidence, Kiara just went along with it.”

Trey thought he might be sick. For so many reasons—the
mark. The fucking
mark
. A girl dead. His head pounded.
Son of a bitch
.

“Somebody heard the screams, saw them leaving,” Ressa said, her voice faint. “They released a sketch. I saw it on the news the next day. And I knew. I wanted to be wrong. But I knew. She came over that night, crying. She begged me to be quiet, said she hadn’t meant for anything bad to happen. Christo was sorry and he hadn’t touched her since and they were just going to leave . . .”

Her fingers twisted with his, clung tight.

He doubted she even realized how desperately she held on in that moment.

“She was going to just
run away
. It was like Hannah’s death meant nothing—just a sad accident, and if she left it would make everything better. She’d come that night to tell me that she wanted me to get things together for Neeci. So she could take the baby with her . . .” Her eyes searched his. “I couldn’t do it. I lied and said,
Okay. I’ll be quiet . . . I’ll get it ready.
I told her exactly what she wanted to hear and I made her believe it . . . and then I called the cops. I turned my cousin in, Trey.”

For the longest time, he didn’t speak.

Then, just when Ressa was about ready to pull away—no,
run
away—Trey cupped her face in his hands.

He pressed a kiss to her brow, one to each eye and then brushed his lips over her cheeks. When he pressed his mouth to hers, she almost choked on the sob.

“You did the only thing you could have done,” he said softly.

“I—”

“You
did
the
only
thing you could have done.”

When he looked at her, his eyes were intense, that surreal blue green all consuming. “I can understand that she was probably scared of this guy. He probably had her convinced that she had to lie. I can’t imagine how she felt, or what she went through. But he’d killed somebody. She wanted to take her baby and run off with this guy. What else were you going to do?”

She grabbed at his wrists. “I didn’t even try to look for another way out. I just called them.
All
I could think about was Neeci. I didn’t think about Kiara or what might happen. What does that make me?” she demanded.

“I think it makes you a mom,” he said softly.

She sucked in a breath.

His thumb brushed over her mouth. “You reacted out of a need to take care of a baby you loved.”

“I’m
not
her mother,” she said. “What I did caused Neeci to
lose
her mother.”

“What you did protected her—her mother, or at least the woman who gave birth to her—sounds like she’s already lost.”

“I . . .” She stopped. Slowly untangling her hands from his wrists, her legs from his, she stood up. “I’d do it again. In a heartbeat. I told Mama Ang what I did and I lied to her face when I said I was sorry, but I’d do it again.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less. Honestly, Ressa . . . do you think that little girl would have been happy with Kiara? Shit, we can set that aside completely—would she have been
safe
?”

“No.” She didn’t even have to think it through.

“Then I’ll say it again—you did the only thing you could do.”

He got up and rubbed his hands over his face before he tipped his head back.

“
Fuck
,” he snarled.

“Trey, I . . .”

He just shook his head and held up a hand. “Nothing’s changed,” he said softly. “Not for me. But . . .”

He blew out a breath and moved to the closet.

She stared at the black raven that stretched out over his back, watched the wings flex as he reached up to grab a box down from the shelf.

“Your sister . . .” When he looked back at her, his face was grim. “Her last name isn’t MacAllister or Bliss, is it?”

“What?” Confused, she shook her head. “No, it’s . . .”

“Oxford,” they said it at the same time.

Ressa sucked in a breath. “How do you . . . ?”

She stopped as he moved to the bed. He took the lid off the box.

“The night of my wife’s funeral, I couldn’t come home,” he said, taking out a folder and flipping it open, then closing it. “I couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping in the bed I’d shared with Aliesha—not without her.”

Ressa’s gaze involuntarily moved to the bed they’d shared.

“It’s new.”

She looked back at him.

“I donated the old bedroom suite a few years ago. I wasn’t even able to sleep in here for almost a year—used a guest bedroom. Then I decided I’d avoided the truth long enough . . . it was hard. I had to go through it twice . . .”

He found something—a letter. When he opened it, something fell out.

“Twice?” she asked, distracted by whatever it was he held.

“Yeah.” He looked over at her now. “I’d gone out. Went to a hotel and rented a room, then hit the closest bar. Got shitfaced drunk—I don’t remember much. Much—shit. I don’t remember
any
of it. The next day . . .”

He paused and looked away. “I woke up in the hospital. Travis was there. I’d forgotten. For a few minutes, I’d forgotten that Aliesha was dead.”

“Why—” She stopped the question when her voice cracked. Holding up a hand, she took a deep breath and then forced the question out. “Why were you in the hospital?”

“I think you already know, Ressa.”

Ice replaced the blood in her veins. Turning away, Ressa shoved her fists up by her temples, shaking her head. “No.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“You—” She spun around, questions and denials and rage choking her.

And he held out the letter.

She almost dropped it when she caught sight of a name on it.

Mr. Barnes

My partner and I understand that you didn’t want to file a report regarding the events of . . .

Her heart lurched as they landed on the date.

Most of the letter turned into a blur but her heart froze as she read her cousin’s name and read a brief, concise version of the charges that were placed against Kiara for the thefts she’d been involved in—thefts, and several sexual assaults.

A few of the victims had filed reports.

And Christo had kept more than a few pieces of evidence . . . souvenirs that had ended up weighing very heavily against him and Kiara.

Your wallet was found among the items recovered. As it had a picture of you and your wife and was monogrammed with your initials, I feel fairly confident it’s yours.

Kiara Oxford and Christo Klemons were both found guilty in separate trials. Christo matches the description of the man you were seen to be fighting with the evening of the events.

I realize this happened at an awful time for you. I hope this doesn’t add to your grief, but offers some closure. If you’d like to claim your belongings, please contact me.

It was signed Detective Julie Maynard.

Julie . . . She barely remembered her, but she knew her.

Julie had been Hank Moritz’s partner.

Two of the detectives involved in the case against her cousin.

The letter fell.

She didn’t even notice.

“It was you,” she said, the words a flat monotone. It didn’t even sound like her voice.

“Looks like.”

She rubbed at her mouth, her fingertips feeling oddly numb. “How . . . I . . . I don’t . . . why are you telling me this?” she whispered.

“Why?”

*   *   *

The haunted look in her eyes would haunt him.

She wanted to know
why
.

It was now or never, he realized. Either what they had was strong enough, or it wasn’t.

He closed the distance between them and didn’t know if it was a good sign or not when she didn’t move. She looked trapped, frozen in place.

Wrapping her in his arms, he pulled her up against him.

“The why is easy.” There, he pressed his brow to hers, held her gaze. “I love you. It started months ago . . . seeing you with Clayton, watching you act like you weren’t trying to watch me even while I was doing the same. I think I was already half in love with you the first night we were together.”

“You . . . What . . .”

She twisted away and he had no choice but to let her.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?” He kept his voice level, stayed where he was, although what he wanted was to grab her, hold her.

She spun back around and stared at him, eyes half wild. “Don’t do that—don’t sound all reasonable right now. I’m terrified. I’m confused . . . and I’m mad at her all over again. Don’t sound . . .”

She blinked and shook her head. “You make it sound like that’s all that matters.”

“It is.” He reached out, traced his fingers along the bow of her upper lip. “I love you. For me,
that
is what matters. And I don’t know about you, but if the two of us can work through this? I’d say we can handle just about anything else life throws at us.”

Ressa stared at him, her eyes wide and he thought he almost saw a flicker of hope in them. A flicker of . . . everything.

“So . . . can we work through this?”

She sucked in a deep breath and looked away, but he caught her chin and guided her face back to his. “I’m not asking for a declaration of undying love, but if you care—”

“If I
care
?” she interrupted. Her voice cracked. “You stupid idiot. I love you—if I didn’t
care—
”

I love you
—that was all he heard. All he needed to hear. Pulling her up against him, he slanted his mouth across hers. When she didn’t open right away, he nibbled on her lower lip and whispered her name.

Her lips parted as she curled one arm around his neck.

A fist banged on the door.

“Not now!” Trey was going to hurt whoever was at the door. That was all there was to it.

The knock came again. “I said, not
now
!”

“Yes, now.” Travis’s voice sounded grim. “Your agent has been calling half the morning. Your editor just started calling.
A hell of a lot of other people who shouldn’t even have your number are calling, too.”

“Tell them to go to hell.” Trey didn’t looked away from Ressa’s face. He cupped her chin and angled her head back. “Tell my agent to call back in two hours. Unless the world is ending. Then call back in one.”

“Unless the world is ending?” she asked, laughing weakly.

“I figure if the world is ending, there’s not much I can do to help anyway.” He shrugged, and then he hooked his arms over her shoulders. “We can’t undo the past. Any of it. And hell, the past—your past, Kiara’s past—all of that gave you Neeci. Would you undo that?”

Ressa closed her eyes and then buried her face against his neck. “No.” It was a soft, barely audible whisper. “And I feel awful for saying that. I mean . . . Hannah . . .”

“Don’t.” He pressed his lips to her temple. “You didn’t cause her death, baby. You didn’t.”

“Trey!” Travis.
Again
. “Two seconds warning! I’m coming in.”

That two-second warning was literally all they got because the door opened and Travis filled the doorway. He looked at the two of them standing there half-dressed and cocked a brow. “Damn. I was hoping that two-second warning wouldn’t be enough.”

“Travis.” Trey kept his voice level. “Didn’t I just tell you to come back? Do you want to die?”

“It’s going to happen sooner or later.” Travis shrugged and then held out the phone in his hand. “You need to talk to your damn agent and don’t give me this shit about the world ending. He’s already tried to rip me a new one and I was in a bad mood to begin with.”

“Shit.” Frustrated, he looked at Ressa and then snatched the phone from his twin’s hand.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Ressa duck into the bathroom.

“What the hell is so important that I had to be dragged out of bed?” He almost sagged in relief when Ressa appeared back in the doorway a moment later, tying his robe around her waist.

“It’s almost noon, son. I take it you haven’t been online.” Reuben’s voice had that brusque, clipped tone—a sure sign that his temper was edging near the boiling point.

“No. It’s Sunday. I kind of take that day off—also, if I want to stay in bed until almost noon, well, bully for me.”

He slid Ressa a look then glanced at his brother, saw that Travis was slouched in the doorway. Travis had his own phone out and there was a muscle pulsing in his twin’s jaw.

Shit
.

“What is going on?”

Reuben said, “You’d be better off seeing for yourself.” He named a popular publishing blog and said, “Pull it up. I’ll wait.”

Trey sighed. “I’m not in front of my computer right now, man.”

Travis just held out his phone.

Trepidation filled Trey as he took it. “Never mind . . . I got it.”

“Are you reading?” Reuben asked.

“I am now.” Something that started out as fury brewed in his gut. Only to give away to disbelief and then settle down into something cold and tight.

He kind of hates to talk about his writing in any way.

He did it for his wife, you see . . . Started them on the anniversary of the day she died.

He still loves her. It’s going to take a long time before he gets over her.

Each book is written for her.

Every sentence made that knot of cold fury draw tighter. And every time he saw the name the so-called article was attributed to, he wanted to hit something.

Sebastian appeared in the doorway and either the youngest Barnes was too tired or too senseless to realize the stupidity of it, because he stood there for a long moment, just staring at Ressa, gaze roaming over her with a little too much leisure.

Travis smacked him across the head.

“Fu . . .” He rubbed his head and then looked down the hall with a grimace. “Ah, sorry. Sorry. Ah, Ressa? Your phone has been vibrating non-stop for the past ten minutes. Clayton
almost answered it, too. The kids are getting restless downstairs, too.”

“The kids?”

“Yeah.” Sebastian gave them both a look. “Angeline brought Neeci over not that long ago.”

Sebastian’s gaze drifted once more to Ressa, his eyes lingering on legs left bare by the robe she’d tied around her waist. Trey bared his teeth at his younger brother. Sebastian held out her phone and when she accepted, Sebastian gave Trey an unabashed grin.

“Trey, damn it, son, are you even awake?” an irate voice bellowed from the phone.

He lowered the phone he still held to his ear, glanced at it. Then sighed an answered, “I’m here, Reuben.”

“Who is this Bliss woman? Did you pick up some crazed stalker?”

Trey managed to keep his voice neutral through sheer will. “No, Reuben. She’s my girlfriend.”

There was a faint pause and then Reuben said, “Part of me is glad to hear that. The other part is wondering what the hell?”

“Stick with the first part. Somebody is messing with me.”

Then he hung up.

He tossed the cordless to his brother and turned to find Ressa staring at her phone, ashen. Her hands were shaking and he reached out to the electronic device. She clung to it but he persisted and finally, she let go.

She sagged back onto the bed and lifted her eyes to his. “I didn’t do this,” she said, her voice a low rasp.

He held her gaze for just a moment. “That was never even a question for me.”

Then he started to read. It was a different blog, one geared more for readers and the blogger had taken a different slant; the post was filled with more than a little speculative doubt. The comments, though, they ran the gamut from scathing to outright cruel, and most of the condemnation was directed at Ressa.

His vision went red because a few had already dug up information about her cousin’s trial. In that moment, more than
ever, he was glad he hadn’t decided to take any kind of legal action for what happened that night.

Right there, in the comments, people were already laying her cousin’s crimes at her feet—
testified against her own blood . . . what kind of woman does that
?

He did see more than a few snide comments about how naturally he’d hidden behind a name because he was too embarrassed to claim the romances.

Bite me
, he thought. He scrolled down to read more but before he could, a text popped up.

Girl, I am not kidding. You need to call me and now. Thompkins is on my ass and they are talking about firing you over this. Call me. Now.

He stared at the name, frowned. Farrah. Tapping on it took him to the contact and he found himself staring at a woman that was vaguely familiar. He’d seen her a time or two at the library where Ressa used to work, he thought.

Sliding Ressa a look from under his lashes, he asked, “Who is Thompkins?”

“What?” She stared at him. Her eyes looked too dark, almost stunned.

“Who is Thompkins?”

She blinked and then rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. “Technically, my boss. Or one of them. He’s in administration, but I never really see him.”

*   *   *

Staring at the phone Trey still held, Ressa rose.

At some point, Sebastian and Travis had left the room, but she didn’t know when.

She couldn’t think.

Every time she tried to get a concrete thought in her head, her mind spun right back to that headline.

The secret side to one of America’s most popular authors.

She didn’t even have to read the article to get it. The L. Forrester book was side by side with Trey’s latest, the two covers so completely at odds with each other.

“Hello . . . would this be Farrah?”

The sound of Trey’s voice, hard and flat, dragged her attention back to the present and she jumped up, gaping at him.

He stared at her.

She made a grab for the phone.

He moved out of her reach, evading her with an ease that was almost pathetic. Steaming, she tried again while listening to one side of the conversation. “I understand somebody wants to talk with Ressa. . . . yes, I assume it’s about the article that went live earlier today . . . ? Yeah, thought so. So, there’s a problem . . . , no. No. That’s not the problem. Here’s the thing—you’re
talking
to Trey Barnes and there’s no way Ressa did that interview.”

She gaped at him. “Give me my damn phone. This is
my
problem.”

“No.” He lifted his phone away from his ear for a minute. “You got pulled into something because of me. I don’t know why but that makes it
my
problem, too.”

“This is
not
how people make relationships work.” She glared at him, chin raised. She wanted to punch him.

He caught her chin in his hand and then, while she continued to glare at him, he kissed her.

“Okay, so we
are
in a relationship? Good.” He broke away long enough to ask that question and then he kissed her again—hard and fast.

She was balling up her hand to punch him when he moved away. “We also don’t make relationships work while letting one person handle a problem that the other person
somehow
caused. You’re not getting fired because of me, Ressa, and I’m not going to watch somebody drag you through the dirt, either. Deal with it.”

Then he turned his back on her.

“Arrrghhh!” She grabbed a pillow from the bed and swung it at his head.

He caught it halfway through the next swing, approaching her with a glint sparking in his eyes.

“Yes, I’m aware of what the article says, but there’s a problem with all of that, because Ressa has spent pretty much every second of the past thirty-six hours either with me or traveling. She hasn’t had time to do any sort of interview on this.”

Another pause and Ressa held out her hand. He cocked a
brow. “No . . . but I’ll find out,” he said. “You can pass
that
on to whoever wants to talk to her. She didn’t do shit so don’t try to pass this off on her.”

Then he ended the call and tossed it on the bed.

“You still wanna fight?”

She grab another pillow and threw it at him. “I would have handled it!”

As she reached for another pillow, he tackled her and took her to the bed.

Breathless, trapped under one hundred eighty pounds of hard, lean male, she tried to hold onto the anger. Tried not to think about the fact that a robe, her panties, the shirt he’d all but tucked her into earlier and his jeans were the only things separating them.

“What was I supposed to do . . . let you get raked over the coals because somebody was screwing with me?” he asked. He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to the skin bared by the open vee of his robe. “Let somebody try to fire you? I don’t think so.”

“I don’t believe in having a guy fight my battles.”

“But this wasn’t
your
battle—it involves both of us so that makes it
ours
,” he said, dragging his lips up. “Also . . . you said relationship. Ressa, does that mean we still have one?”

She froze.

She had said that.

He stared down at her.

Neither of them spoke and he sighed, lowered his head back to hers, rubbed his lips over her cheek. “Ressa, have I ever told you how much I love the way you smell?” He went to kiss her and she bit his lip.
“Ouch!”

Jerking his head back, he glared at her and touched his throbbing lip with his tongue.

“Stop trying to distract me.”

“You’re distracting me.” He gave her a quick kiss and then rolled off. Drawing his knees up, he hooked his elbows around them. “It’s not just
your
fight. It’s about both of us and I figure there were two ways to handle that and you wouldn’t like either of them. I could either tell whoever that was that you didn’t have shit to do with that so-called interview, or I could go with you when you leave. You’d bellow at me about either one.”

“Damn straight.”

He shrugged and looked away. “So you’re mad either way. But I’m not going to say I’m sorry. If you
had
been involved, this would be a different discussion, but you weren’t. That means it has to do with me. Why should you bear the brunt of it?”