Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #2 (44 page)

“I'm done being patient!” Hawk's voice rose to a bellow. “That rat Brian died owing us weeks of pay! She's gotta answer for that!”

Daniel stood firm and held his ground. “You're right. Brian shortchanged your paychecks. But Sarah's just a kid, and it's going to take time to sort things out. You're just going to have to trust the process.”

“Like we trusted Brian to do right by us? Like we trusted the courts to settle this?” Another laugh from Hawk, this one with teeth. “You think we're stupid? You think we don't know some lawyer can decide the company is too broke to pay us while pretty little Sarah still walks away inheritin' plenty of family assets? You think we don't know suing could take more money and years than we got? Some of us haven't worked in weeks. We got crew defaultin' on mortgage payments. We can't even get unemployment insurance, thanks to how Brian messed with the books.” He leaned his bulk in so close, Daniel almost choked on the stench of his beer breath on his face. Hawk's lips curled up in an ugly sneer. “We're not going anywhere until we're convinced little Sarah understands just how important it is she makes things right.”

SEVEN

D
aniel's blood ran hot in his veins.
Lord, I don't want to have to fight this man. But I will, if it means keeping someone else from getting hurt.

Another man stepped up behind Hawk. Younger, stronger, with wavy black hair and dangerous eyes. Trent something. Trent was much newer to the team, but seemingly cut from the same cloth as Hawk.

Hawk glanced at Trent and smirked. Two against one. Three, if Rita decided to jump in the fray.

Lord, I could really use some backup.

Hawk stepped forward. His knuckles cracked. Daniel raised his hands in a fighting stance and tensed his body to deflect a blow.

“Excuse me, Mr. Reginald Hawkins!” Olivia appeared behind him. Her voice was strong, professional and crisp enough to cut glass. “Isn't it true you actually asked Brian Leslie to keep your work off the books to help you avoid child support?”

Daniel's jaw nearly dropped. Something told him that nobody—not even his grandmother—ever dared to call Hawk “Reginald.” Yet here Olivia was. A tiny, slender little spitfire of a woman, staring down a man three times her weight, who could probably level her in a single blow. Didn't she realize how dangerous the situation was? He bent his head toward her. “What do you think you're doing?”

“My job.” Olivia's eyes glanced at Daniel, but she was making no attempt to lower her voice. “Did you know Hawk and some of the others were complicit in what Brian was up to?”

“No,” he admitted. “Who told you that?”

“Some of the ones who weren't in on it. It's amazing what people will tell a sympathetic journalist when you know how to ask.”

True. In all the years he'd worked in war zones he'd seen plenty of reporters risk their lives to simply ask questions. He'd accompanied them behind enemy lines and into the dens of warlords. A good reporter could get to the bottom of situations that seemed impenetrable. But he'd never felt his heart lurch quite the same way with any of them as it did at the sight of Olivia staring down Hawk armed only with a notepad and pen. Daniel's arm slid around her shoulders. His fingers tapped a Morse code warning on her bare arm, exactly as he'd tapped it out on the table when they were talking in the diner. Olivia froze. For a moment, he hoped she'd recognize his attempt to subtly warn her of danger and run back to the safety of the house. Instead, she just patted his hand.

Hawk looked Olivia over and muttered a swearword that made every muscle in Daniel's body tense with the urge to deck him in the jaw. “This your girlfriend, Danny boy?”

Olivia stretched her slender hand toward Hawk. He ignored the attempted handshake. “Olivia Brant,
Torchlight News.
You and your friends were in the courtroom just before Brian Leslie was killed in the parking garage, and you all looked angry enough to kill when the charges were dropped.”

She nodded at Trent. “In fact, you were so upset, you had to be dragged off by police. It's Trent, right? No one I spoke to seems to even know your last name, as apparently all of the work you did for Brian was off the books. Wouldn't you all agree that since you gained the benefit of being paid under the table by Mr. Leslie, it's going to make it harder to determine just how much Leslie Construction actually owes you?”

A pen clicked in her hand, and somehow it managed to sound every bit as loud as the sound of the safety of a gun. Rita's face paled. Hawk swore under his breath. Both of them looked jittery enough to explode.

Only Trent stood calm. He eyed her for a long moment. Then he chuckled. “You are some gutsy piece of work, Ms. Brant. You know that? If you're not careful, one of these days you're gonna get yourself into some real trouble.” Trent turned and sauntered toward a truck. Rita hesitated, then followed after him.

Olivia glanced at Hawk. “How about you? Any comment?” She glanced down at her notepad “I already have confirmation from two other people here that you actually pushed Brian to, and I quote, ‘cheat those government pigs any way he could.' Certainly sounds as if you were supportive, if not complicit, in his actions, at least until you realized you were going to lose out.”

“You're kidding me, right?” Hawk's eyes were so wide they were practically bloodshot. “So what if I worked a few jobs off the books or told Brian some little ways he could shave off taxes? Brian was our guy. He was supposed to be on our side and he cheated us!”

Olivia's pen moved across the page.

“Stop writing things down!” Hawk shouted so hard his voice nearly cracked. “Or I will punch you in your pretty little mouth.”

“Except for the fact that with a rap sheet as thick and full as yours, you wouldn't want to risk the fallout for beating up a reporter.” Her bright green eyes flashed with determination. That woman was fearless. “Don't even pretend for one second that everyone else up here would have your back. They just came here to party, not to watch you commit a felony.”

Hawk turned around and only now seemed to notice his backup was gone.

Scattered raindrops hit Olivia's notepad, smudging the ink. Daniel pulled her closer into his side. He leaned his head toward hers. “Looks as if you've got some good stuff there. But now I'd feel a whole lot better if you'd go into the house and make sure Sarah's okay. This is a lousy place and time for you to go around trying to be a reporter.”

She bristled and slipped out from under his arm. “I
am
a reporter.”

“But you're not
just
a reporter, are you? You're also a...” His voice faded as he couldn't find the right word to finish the sentence.

“I'm a what, Daniel?”

You're a person I feel responsible for. You're someone I don't want to see get hurt.
“You're a guest in my home and on my property. Please at least go check on Sarah and make sure she's safe.”

She stepped back. A pair of taillights illuminated her face for a second. Her mouth opened as if to argue. Then she closed it again. “Fine.”

She started back toward the house.

“Hey, Hawk!” Trent hopped up on the tailgate of a truck. His hands cupped around his mouth. “A bunch of people are going to head back to that campsite and motel place. Come on, man. It's got clowns. This place is the pits!”

“Yeah sure. I'm in,” Hawk called. “Just as soon as I teach this guy a lesson.”

Hawk turned, raised his fist and charged toward Daniel.

EIGHT

O
livia froze just outside the kitchen door. Hawk charged toward Daniel, stumbling and bellowing like a drunken rhino. Daniel stood firm as though he was bracing to take the blow.

Dear Lord, please don't let Daniel get hurt—

Hawk swung. Daniel stepped sideways. He ducked under Hawk's fist, grabbed the bigger man's outstretched arm and twisted it, using the man's own momentum to throw him flat on his back. Hawk yelped, his arm now wrenched and trapped in Daniel's grasp.

Daniel stood over him. The night was eerily silent for a beat. Then Daniel's voice floated calm and clear through the muggy night air. “Now please get off my property.”

Her heart skipped in her chest. His self-control was incredible. Impressive. Maybe even rather attractive. He glanced up her way for a moment, still standing there in the driveway with the thug who'd just tried to attack him pinned on the ground at his feet. Daniel's eyes met hers for barely a second with a look so raw and unguarded she could feel her already shaken heart speed even faster.

She pushed through the door to his kitchen. It was empty. She leaned her back against the door frame and pressed her palm into her chest. What was it with him? One moment he was capable of giving her a look that took her breath away. But just moments before, she had been absolutely infuriated with how deeply he seemed to need to control everything around him—including her. If she hadn't been out there “acting like a reporter” and asking questions, they might never have known that a handful of Brian's construction crew were complicit with his cheating scheme.

There was a heavy thud, followed by the sound of a muffled cry coming from behind the bedroom door.

She yanked it open. Sarah was pressed with her back up against a wooden dresser. A young man's hands were on her shoulders. For half a second, Olivia froze, thinking she'd interrupted a stolen romantic moment. But then Sarah's eyes, wide with a fear bordering on panic, met hers over his shoulder.

“Help me!” Sarah gasped, struggling to push him back. “Get him out of here!”

In three steps Olivia had crossed the tiny bedroom floor. “Back off and let her go.”

“Drop dead,” the young man replied with a snicker. “This doesn't concern you.”

But Sarah's panicked eyes said differently. “Please, Jesse. Just leave.”

“No.”

Right. With one hand Olivia grabbed a fistful of Jesse's scarecrow-blond hair. With the other, she cuffed him hard in the side of the head, just enough to send his ears ringing. Then before he could react, she grabbed his ear like an errant child and yanked him backward. “Sarah says she wants you to go!”

Jesse stumbled backward and nearly fell into Olivia. A good, hard blow to the eardrum could knock even the toughest man's sense of balance into chaos.

“Let go of me, you stupid cow, or I'll beat you into the floor!” Jesse's hand raised to slap her. But before the blow could even land, Olivia kneed him in the gut, knocking him back just enough to lessen the sting of his fingertips striking her cheek.

“Jesse!” Sarah yelled. “Stop it! Please!”

But Jesse's hand clenched into a fist. He started to turn toward Sarah. Olivia kicked his back leg out from under him. He stumbled to his knees.

“Come on!” Olivia grabbed Sarah's arm and pulled her into the kitchen. “Let's get out of here!”

“Wait.” She glanced back toward the bedroom. “Jesse could be hurt.”

“I hope so!” Olivia's hand tightened on her arm. “Now come on!”

She started to throw her weight into the screen door. But it flew open from the outside. Olivia tripped over the ledge, dropped Sarah's arm and pitched headfirst into Daniel's chest. He caught her with both hands. The warm, woodsy smell of him filled her senses. His clothes were rumpled and his hair was damp with sweat like a man who'd just walked away from the right end of a fight. “What's going on?”

“It's not what it looks like, Daniel!” Sarah's tone was almost defiant.

Daniel let Olivia go. “It looks as though Olivia was trying to drag you outside.”

Olivia retreated into the kitchen and glanced back to the bedroom door. Jesse was nowhere to be seen.

Daniel walked past her into the kitchen and over to Sarah. “Are you okay?”

Sarah shook her head. “Yes. No. I don't know. It all happened so fast. I didn't know what to do...”

Daniel dropped one arm over Sarah's shoulders and looked at Olivia. A hard, searching look crossed his face. “Do you want to explain what's going on?”

“No, let me.” Jesse walked in from the bedroom and for the first time Olivia could get a decent look at the man. She pegged him as midtwenties. Messy hair that tried hard to be stylish, gray eyes and broad shoulders now slumped nonthreateningly like a dog trying to get away with something.
What an actor
. “Sir, I think I might owe your stepdaughter an apology.”

“Might!” Olivia's voice rose. “You grabbed her!”

“It was a misunderstanding.” Jesse shot her a dirty look. “Sarah and I were talking. I misread some signals and I think I accidentally frightened her.”

Olivia's eyes flew up to the ceiling. “You threatened to beat me into the floor—”

“I didn't mean it. I was just running hot.”

“You
hit
me!” Her voice rose.

So did his. “I barely touched you!”

Sarah was still standing there, watching the fight unfold without saying a word.

Jesse turned to Daniel. “Please, sir. You've got to believe me, this was just some big old misunderstanding. Everyone misread some signals and I apologize for my share of the blame. I certainly meant no harm. But that woman attacked me. I can't be blamed for losing it. She was totally out of control.”

They were out of line... I can't be blamed for losing it... I was totally justified... They were out of control...
Olivia stopped short as she heard her father's words echoing in her memory. How many times had she stood in some rented apartment kitchen, surrounded by packing boxes and listened as her dad explained he wasn't at fault for the fight that had cost him yet another job? No matter how many jobs he lost. No matter how many times the family had to move. She'd always believed him when he said he wasn't in the wrong, because what little girl wouldn't believe her daddy? Then she'd grown up thinking the world was full of volatile people, that everyone was at risk of suddenly losing their job for no reason and every good situation would be inevitably blown to pieces.

Except that just a few minutes ago she'd watched Daniel calmly hold his own and maintain self-control in the face of those thugs.

Olivia took a deep breath. “Daniel, I know how this looks. Jesse's right that I laid hands on him first. But he's lying about everything else that went down. He's the one who was way out of line. I was trying to protect Sarah.”

* * *

For a moment it was as though the scene had frozen around Daniel in the same eerie, slow-motion way he used to assess a violent skirmish, looking for an exit. Sarah was pressed against his side. Jesse's hand was raised as if ready to strike Olivia's words right out of the air. And Olivia... She lit up his kitchen like a firecracker. Anger flushed her cheeks. A fierce, determined strength flashed in her eyes. He couldn't remember ever seeing someone more alive.

What happened here?
Jesse Sinclair had always struck Daniel as the kind of quiet but arrogant guy who mostly kept to himself. The kind of man who pretended to be a gentleman instead of openly being a brute. Then again, too many others on the construction crew were the type to turn flirting into something that bordered on harassment. Just one of the many poisons that seemed to run in the Leslie company veins. But was Jesse really the kind of person who'd manhandle Sarah and Olivia? If so, why wasn't Sarah standing up for her? Could Olivia have blown this whole situation out of proportion?

But that particular train of thought stopped dead in its tracks as he let his gaze deepen on Olivia's face. It was pale, not from anger but from fright. He saw the slight tremor shaking her lips and the tears she was fighting to keep from falling from her eyes. His gut twisted into knots.

He may not have witnessed what had happened, but he could see the results as clear as day. Olivia was shaken, and deeply.

He kept his right arm lying over Sarah's shoulders and reached his left hand out for Olivia. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, but didn't take his hand. “I'm okay.”

“Let me explain—” Jesse tried to slip between them.

Daniel's hand shot up before the young man could take another step. “Look, I don't know if you accidentally misread Sarah's signals or if you intentionally misread them because you didn't much like the message they were sending. But I don't actually care. Either way, you should be far more concerned with making things right than making a bunch of excuses, because there's
no
excuse for frightening either of them the way you did. Let alone actually laying a hand on Olivia!”

“Dude, it wasn't my fault.” Jesse scowled. “That stupid cow was totally out of line.”

So much for “sir.”

“Get out of my house.” Daniel pointed to the door. “Right now. Or I will throw you out. And don't ever let me catch you hassling either of them ever again. Got it?”

Jesse's eyes met Sarah's and held them for a second. Then he raised both his hands.

“I'm going.” He strode out of the kitchen. Within moments, there was the sound of a truck engine turning over outside. Sarah pushed away from Daniel and dropped into a chair.

“Sarah,” Olivia said gently, “none of that was your fault. It's perfectly normal to freeze up or get flustered and not know what to do in a situation like that.”

“Jesse wouldn't have hurt me.” Sarah crossed her arms. “Not really. He just wanted me to go talk with him somewhere and didn't like that I wouldn't.”

“About the money Brian owed him?” Olivia asked. “Or about something else? When I walked in, it looked as though he was trying to kiss you.”

“I don't know. It doesn't matter now, does it?” She stared down at the table. The teenager looked angry enough to punch something. But this would hardly be the first time she'd used anger to cover fear.

Daniel sighed. “Olivia's right. This isn't your fault. He laid his hands on you without permission. You can press charges for that.”

“No, I won't do it! And if you call the police I won't cooperate! None of those people you just chased out of here take me seriously as it is!” Sarah's head dropped into her hands. “Everybody thinks I'm some weak, pathetic little kid who can't do anything for herself and has to hide behind
you
. You think it's going to do anything to help my image if word gets out I called the police on Jesse for basically nothing?”

“I understand.” Olivia sat down, too. “Your image matters a lot to you, and sometimes people, or even the media, might say things about you that aren't fair. That's going to be a battle you're going to face sometimes. But you can't let that stop you from standing up for yourself.”

Sarah's head snapped up. “Do you really think I'm going to listen to you when you're trying to use Daniel and get an article out of me? You think I don't know you have an agenda? I saw you running around outside trying to interview everyone even while Daniel was trying to get them to leave.”

Daniel's eyes met Olivia's. “Give us a few moments?”

“Absolutely.” Olivia nodded. “But you should both know that before I got through to the police, I got an anonymous threatening phone call on your home line. It sounded like the same guy who tried to kidnap me. Basically just said something like, ‘Hey, sunshine, you're not going to get away from me this time.' I told the police.”

Daniel sighed heavily. But Sarah didn't even flinch.

“Sarah's been getting a lot of anonymous threats,” he said. “It could be one of those.”

Or it could be whoever had tried to kidnap Olivia had somehow tracked her down to his house. Either way, he wished she'd told him in private, so he could have decided what and when to tell Sarah. But maybe telling them together was Olivia's way of trying to show Sarah she respected her.

Olivia slipped through the door and out into the night.

“Olivia's right, you know,” Daniel said.

Sarah shot him a withering glance that reminded him of Mona. “I don't know who you think you're fooling. You knew I didn't want to be interviewed by a tiny little paper like hers. You only called her because you're attracted to her.”

“Not true.” Sure, Olivia was an attractive woman. Remarkably so even. Anyone with a pair of eyes in their head could see that. But since he wasn't looking for a relationship, her attractiveness made no difference to him. “I read enough of her stuff to know she's a really good writer. Her newspaper has integrity and she knows a lot about your family's company. Besides, this conversation isn't about her. It's about what just happened between you and Jesse.”

“Jesse doesn't matter. He's just some guy who wanted whatever. He isn't important considering everything else going on with Uncle Brian. I should've handled it myself. I shouldn't have asked Olivia to help me make him leave. I never should have involved her in my business, and neither should you!”

* * *

Daniel tried to talk things out for a while longer. But after going around the same circles of conversation a few times, he finally wished Sarah good-night and walked outside to find Olivia. His eyes scanned the empty lawn, now marked with tire tracks and the remains of a party that had never really started. Olivia was nowhere to be seen. His feet sped up, taking his heartbeat along with them, as he strode down the driveway, kicking over beer cans and garbage as he went.