Dirty Little Lies: A Men of Summer Novel (24 page)

His heart was racing in his chest, perspiration dripping from his hair and the sensation sizzling along his nerve endings as the violence of his release slowly eased. Boneless, exhausted beneath him, Grace was breathing was just as heavily, faint little cries spurred by the aftershocks of her release fell through her occasionally.

Pulling from her, Zack clenched his teeth at the rush of pleasure he could still feel even after such a powerful release. Still half-erect and far too sensitive, he was certain that if he could muster the strength to move, he could fuck her again.

Just the thought of the pleasure awaiting him had him wishing he could make his muscles cooperate. Instead, it was all he could do to drag the blankets back and tuck them both beneath them. With Grace’s head cushioned on his shoulder, sleep already washing over her, he knew he was in trouble.

Slade once told him that he’d known before he ever took Jesse the first time, that she would own him. When a man was so focused on one woman, the scent of her, each expression, even the way the wind blew through her hair, then he should have enough God-given sense to know she owned him.

Zack hadn’t wanted to hear what he was saying at the time. He’d been watching the wind play with Grace’s dark blond hair, watching her solemn expression and wishing she would smile, just once, even if it wasn’t for him. He hadn’t wanted to admit what a part of him had already known. Grace belonged to him.

She belonged to him.

And he’d betrayed her every day since the day across a coffin, lying into her tear-washed face and aching to shelter her from the pain of the loss of an aunt who had been more like a mother to her. Ached to shelter her from the ragged fear and uncertainty and the knowledge that she could be taken from him as easily as her aunt was taken from her.

He’d known and he’d slammed that door as quick as he’d realized it was opened inside his soul. Slammed it so hard and fast that the pain of it had caused his stomach to tighten in rejection. He’d lost enough, he couldn’t have survived losing more at the time, and Zack had known it. Just as he’d known that when the teenager became a woman, the need to comfort her would become a far different need.

The need he was feeling now.

The need to keep her.

If he’d done things differently, he thought regretfully. If he had found a way to convince Ben and Clyde that taking her out of Loudon was better than allowing her to stay, then it might have been different. If he’d been old enough, mature enough to tell her the truth once she reached adulthood, then it might have been different.

But he hadn’t done any of those things.

He’d stood back, watched out for her, tried to make her smile and tried to keep enough distance between them so that if, when, she learned the truth, her hatred wouldn’t destroy him. That the agonizing loss and betrayal she’d feel wouldn’t rip his guts into shreds and leave his soul bleeding.

“I’m sorry, Grace,” he whispered into the darkness of the bedroom. “I’m so sorry, baby…”

*   *   *

The light in the guest room was extinguished, leaving the house dark but for the security lights outside it. The light in the master bedroom hadn’t come on, indicating Zack had gone to the guest room where Grace slept rather than stay his own room.

“He on ma bad side, dat boug is,” Beau-Remi sighed as Joe’s chains clanked from the edge of the water where he lay in wait for any prey dumb enough to come close. “Da poor lil ting, she gonna have da heart broke fer sure.”

“English, Beau-Remi. English,” Mad grunted from the sleeping bag he rested on, one arm thrown over his eyes.

Fine, he wanted English.

“I’m going to kill that motherfucker Maddox,” he enunciated clearly. “Skin him out, then feed his body parts to Joe.”

Mad lifted his arm from his eyes and peered over at him, a hint of wariness in his expression. “It’s her choice,” he was reminded quietly. “She’s not a kid.”

Mad had been repeating that advice for days, as though trying to convince himself of it as well.

Beau-Remi snarled back at him, his lip lifting in contempt at the reminder. “Dey lie to her,” he muttered, reverting back to the colloquial speech of the swamps. It was easier to keep his temper under control that way. “All of dem. Dey keep her from us.” He waved his hand between the two of them. “Dey lie to us.” Anger threatened to engulf the control he wasn’t good at to begin with. “Dey tell us she is safe an’ happy, and den we hear da truth.” He shook his head at the information they’d uncovered over the past days. “Ah, Mad, dey shame us wit’ da blood we carry.”

Maddox blood.

Benjamin Maddox’s blood. The worst of the liars and conniving bastards who kept their baby sister in danger until it damned near out of control now.

“The mission hasn’t changed, Beau-Remi,” Mad just had to go and remind him. “She’ll never be safe if we just steal her away. We’ll just distract everyone from identifying the problem. You know that.”

“You know dat,” he sneered in contempt. “I know, Mad, dat dey are da reason danger comes for her,” he bit out furiously. “Dey are da reason we sit here while dat capon betrays our baby sister,
oui
? When his lies, dey break her heart, what say you den?”

Mad laid his arm back over his eyes. “I say I can’t understand a fucking word you’re saying,” he muttered.

He understood every word, Beau-Remi knew; he just chose not to address them. Mad was one who kept it all inside, refusing to speak of it, refusing to acknowledge the problem until the moment he could use his knife on it.

Mad was damned good with that knife, though. Still, keeping the anger pushed back wasn’t something Beau-Remi dealt with very well. Venting kept him in control, he often told his twin.

“Chill out, Beau-Remi,” Mad sighed then. “You’ll make her hate us before she even knows who we are if you kill the bastard. Besides, the best revenge will be watching his soul being peeled apart, slice by slice, by Grace. She’ll not forgive him easily.”

Beau-Remi almost rolled his eyes at the statement. “You don’ know, Mad,” he sighed instead. “Dat girl, her heart will forgive, you see, she won’ make him pay.”

“Then we will,” Mad sighed. “Now, go to sleep, dammit. We have things to do tomorrow, and I’m tired.”

Beau-Remi stared out into the darkness instead. Yes, they had things to do tomorrow, things to prepare for. At that thought, the cell phone lying on the ground next to him vibrated. Again. The dim display showed the number calling.

Beau-Remi’s lips tightened. “Dat capon, he don’ give up,” he told his brother despite Mad’s admonition to let him sleep. “He done callin’ again.”

“Good ole Dad,” Mad muttered, no more pleased with their sire than Beau-Remi was. “How about you kick his ass when we see him?”

“He gettin’ ole enough.” Beau-Remi grinned. “Maybe no’ as quick as before, huh?”

“Find out for us,” Mad yawned again. “If I do it, I’ll end up using my knife. Whoremongering son of a bitch.”

At least after his so-called death, he’d learned a bit of fidelity. Not once had he stepped out on the little Richards girl. Poor payment for nearly getting her and their unborn daughter killed, though. Her as well as the child she carried, the daughter Ben Maddox had raised, trained, and loved. Unlike the daughter he’d left sobbing for her papa with heartbreaking cries.

“I do no’ forget,” he said then. “To see her lay on dat dirt, da dark aroun’ her, begging her papa to take her wit’ him.” He shook his head at the memory. “An’ to den sen’ us away, Mad.” He shook his head once more. “Dey lie to tell us to say dey take care of her.”

“Go to sleep, Beau-Remi,” Mad sighed heavily. “We’ll remind them of it. I promise you that.”

And they would, but still, that memory, unlike many others, was one he couldn’t push away so easily. The night he and Mad had gone to pay their respects to the father they’d believed was dead and found their baby sister lying upon the bare earth, weeping her broken heart to a father who hadn’t cared enough even to secure her safety before seeking his own.

Ben Maddox, bastard that he was, might have been lying in a coma at the time, but he’d come out of it, he’d lived, and still, he left little Grace in that nest of vipers.

Would he ever forgive that betrayal of his baby sister? Beau-Remi wondered. It had seared his soul so deep that when Ben showed up, alive and well in the Bayou several years later, and told them of the lover and daughter he was then living with, Beau-Remi had refused to lay eyes on the girl. It had taken years for him even to acknowledge her.

“Stop frettin’ over this, Beau-Remi,” Mad demanded, his voice harsh despite the whisper of sound. “Go to sleep, because you’re only pissin’ me off more.”

And he had to smile at the warning.

They were twins, that connection as natural as breathing.

Settling back against the wall at the mouth of the small cave they’d found shelter in, close enough to water to allow the gator comfort, he closed his eyes and drifted into that half sleep he allowed himself.

He wasn’t back home in the Bayou, where he knew what surrounded him and connected with the land. He’d be home soon, though, as soon as he took care of the threat against his sister and hopefully got to feel his fist against his sperm donor’s face.

He could go home happy then, he thought. Or at least as close to happy as he could imagine knowing. After all, he was Ben Maddox’s son, and that wasn’t a gentle legacy to the male offspring the bastard had helped create.

It was a curse.

chapter seventeen

Nightmares twisted and swirled through Grace’s dreams until she awoke, groggy and still exhausted early the next morning. It had been years since she’d dreamed of her father before his death or let herself remember them once she woke.

These dreams refused to be forgotten, though. She could feel the feel tie between the past and her present, and in her dreams what he was trying to tell her was always drowned out by static. But she saw his eyes, saw the pain and regret in them, and as she jerked awake, she’d glimpsed tears.

She’d never seen her father look like that, so somber and sad, desperately trying to make her understand something so painful that it brought tears to his eyes instead. It had never happened.

Her father had always been teasing, playful, even in the face of Lucia’s bitchiness or petty rants about their daughter. He’d wink at her and send her from the room, then deal with her mother’s temper himself. It had never been allowed to touch Grace, until after his death.

With his laughing green eyes and wide smile, handsome features and strong build, women buzzed around him like bees to honey, it was said. He was more outgoing than his twin, Vince, and found it harder to keep his pants zipped as well.

At last count, there were six sons, all older than Grace. When he married Lucia and Grace was born, everyone thought he’d settled down. There weren’t even rumors of an affair with anyone. Grace would have heard about it over the years if so, and Lucia would have found great pleasure in hurting her daughter with that information.

He hadn’t been faithful, though.

The pictures. The proof of it was in the pictures Zack had showed her that first morning. There were several of Zack’s aunt, Ureana, John Richards’s baby sister. She’d visited the summer before the deaths of Grace’s father and Zack’s parents. And in those pictures, she’d stared at the photographer with shy though unabashed love. The look of a woman who believed the person she stared at loved her. And in those pictures, she was pregnant. Barely showing, but enough that anyone searching for the truth in the picture would find it. Or someone who put puzzles together would see it as a cornerstone to a past she was trying to figure out.

Whatever had really happened all those years ago, Grace could feel its ties to the danger swirling around her now. It wasn’t the fact that her father had kept an affair hidden—that was surprising but not worth killing over.

According to Zack, they’d been investigating treasonous activities, even then, she remembered as she showered. Someone had been working to betray the family or the Kin, and her father had found reason to suspect it. He’d drawn Zack’s father into it, and the result had been the death of Zack’s family and her father.

Whatever Benjamin and Zack’s father had been close to uncovering was still thriving, and thanks to Lucia, Grace was in danger because of it now.

Why had Luce believed Grace knew where that information was hidden? What would make her mother believe her father would have trusted her with the hiding place?

That question was still running through her mind as she entered the kitchen for coffee and breakfast. As soon as she saw Zack, he was hauling those damned files and pictures out. Then he could just keep his promise that her uncle would transfer his computer to Zack’s house.

Stepping into the kitchen, she came to a slow, surprised stop, her eyes widening as her gaze went around the room.

Kenni and Jesse both sat at the kitchen table, steaming cups of coffee beside plates piled with eggs, bacon, and muffins.

Jazz and Slade stood next to the counter closest to the women, arms crossed over their chests, scowls on their faces. They weren’t pleased in the least. They were evidently angry enough that they’d hit Zack. Past rumors indicated that happened only when one of the foster brothers neglected to tell the others something vitally important.

What could Zack have hidden from them that would cause such a reaction? Grace had a feeling she knew exactly what it was he may recently have revealed.

“Food’s on the stove,” Kenni indicated the covered skillets with her fork and a smile and a wink of one emerald eye. “There’s fresh coffee, too. Help yourself.”

Grace’s gaze was locked on Zack again, his glare daring her to say a word about the bruise forming on the left side of his face. Or the fact that he seemed to be comforting his side with one hand. Kidney shot, too?

Whoa, they were excessively pissed, it seemed.

She turned back to Kenni and arched her brow in question.

“Some things, we just stay out of,” Jesse stated, her smile commiserating as Grace met the rich amusement in her gaze. “We find it much easier on our nerves.”