Leverage (The Brannock Siblings) (2 page)

Like seeing the original
Mona Lisa
for the very first
time.

"So, what can I do for you, son?" Dad asked and
wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

He was really happy that I was back home again. Even though
the situation made him furious and he felt bad that it happened to me when I
had been attempting to be independent. He liked having me around and I loved
being around, I just always wanted my own life away from the suffocation of
everyone steering clear of the captain's daughter.

Oxymoron type phrase? Yes. But it
was
suffocation.
The loneliness had been stifling.

My thoughts must have been given away by the look on my face
because Lucas was watching me intently now and his brow was back to being
furrowed, but his expression went back to neutral a split second later.

"I was just hoping to speak to you about the Banetti
case before we got to the station, sir. I wanted to make sure I was fully
updated on anything I might have missed over the weekend."

That was my cue to leave.

I needed some space anyway before I ended up sprawled out on
the floor. I felt like such a pathetic mess. I had dealt with this for years.
Years!
I should be able to control the emotions that coursed through me whenever he
was around. It had been seven years for hell's sake, I should be over it.

"I'll be upstairs unpacking if anyone needs me. If not,
then have a good day." I kissed Dad on the cheek and he smiled sweetly at
me which in return, got him another kiss. He was such a good guy. A man
everyone in the family and those outside of the family who were close friends,
looked up to.

I turned to Lucas and he smirked. "Do I get one of
those, too?"

I felt my face burn with a blush, but I didn't look away
from those perfect blue eyes. I'm a woman now. Yes, I had a crush on him for
most of my life and yes, I was mortified that he had been told how big of a
crush by my brothers, but I wasn't going to let that turn me back into the
little girl I had been on my birthday so long ago. The little girl that he wouldn't
dare to care about more than he would care for a sister.

So what did I do?

I shakily stepped forward until we were toe to toe and my
hands lifted to his shoulders because he was tall enough that I would need the
support to reach his face. My efforts were rewarded when I saw his eyes widen
in surprise. He never expected me to take risks.

Good.

A little surprise would be good for him. Show him that I had
grown up and I was strong.

I raised to my tip toes and turned my face up to him until
my lips touched his cheek. I made it quick because I had been holding my breath
since I made the decision to do this and I was starting to feel lightheaded.
Plus, the warmth that spread through me from the touch and the smell of him was
heady.

I stepped back and did my best to smile elegantly. His eyes
were still wide, but he was grinning now and if I wasn't mistaken, a little
pink around the cheeks.

"It's good to see you, Aislinn," he breathed.

"It's good to see you, too, Lucas," I replied and
successfully kept the quiver out of my voice.

My lips were burning from the short second they had been on
his skin and they wanted more. I turned away and climbed the stairs without
looking back, feeling his gaze on me and smiling to myself.

I heard a soft smack when I reached the top and was out of
sight. Dad must have smacked him because when I peeked around the wall, Lucas
was rubbing the back of his head.

"Eyes, Lucas."

He cleared his throat, "Yes, sir."

Then they disappeared through the kitchen door.

As I made my way to the bedroom I had grown up in, that Dad
hadn't felt the need to change
at all
, I thought of the only thing that
my brothers didn't know about Lucas. The thing only I knew and would never
share because I was selfish like that and wanted it all to myself.

My birthday may have been an awful reminder of the day my
mother died of cancer, but it was also the day that Lucas gave me a gift that
made the memories of her brighter.

On my 18th birthday, one year after she passed, he had given
me a locket with her picture inside. She was a beautiful woman and Dad always
said I looked just like her with my long brown hair, grey eyes, and genuine
smile. It was my favorite picture of her and it may have been nothing, but I
always hoped his gift meant he felt something more for me than just brotherly
love. The next three birthdays, he made me my favorite S'more cupcakes, the
ones Mom discovered when she was pregnant with me and always baked for me on my
birthday. Lucas would come over early in the morning, before my brothers woke up
and would light the lone candle he had sunk into the cupcake and tell me to
make a wish.

He said he did it because he knew how to bake and my
brothers and dad didn't, so he was just trying to save me from getting sick on
my birthday. He would never know how much it actually meant to me.

After the incident on my 21st birthday, I thought it was
over. No more S'more cupcakes, no more wishes.

When I arrived back at my Ohio apartment after a long day of
work the next year on my 22nd birthday, there was a package waiting for me at
the door.

A cupcake with a candle and a note that said
'Make a
wish'
.

Every year for the past seven years, the package was there.
It was the only brightness I ever really got on that day.

And why wouldn't it be? After all, the name Lucas means
'light'.

Okay, so my parents obsession with name meanings had rubbed
off on me a little. So what?

When I came back to Oakland, I didn't think I would run into
him right away. I hoped I would be able to find a place of my own and be doing
my own thing first, but life has a way of surprising people.

I started unpacking and hanging my clothes in the tiny
closet that still held the pink and purple hangers Mom insisted I have. After
Conall and Fergus, her only little girl was going to be thrown into a world of
fairytales and unicorns. Unfortunately for her, I never really liked unicorns,
and fairytales always bummed me out because they could
never
really
happen.

Now, at 28 years old, I read romance novels and went into a
short period of depression afterwards because there were no circumstances in my
life that I needed a hero to rescue me from and end up falling in love with me
and having a happily ever after with. Granted, I didn't want to experience any
situation where the people I loved or even myself were in danger, but a little
excitement now and then never killed anyone. Right?

After hanging the last of my clothes I started to organize
my shoes and it made me smile. If Mom did one thing right, it was showing me
how important shoes are. I had a lot of them, but never had the opportunity to
wear most of them. They went into my just in case pile.

I knelt on the floor of my closet and rummaged through the
mess, frowning at the heels I would probably never get to use and humming to
myself and trying not to think about the man sitting in the kitchen downstairs.
I stared straight ahead and took a deep breath and let it out, feeling my
nerves go back to a less frenzied state. I noticed the tiny button that blended
into the back wall, one you would never see unless you knew it was there.

Mom may have tried to get me into princesses and rainbows,
but Dad got me into adventure and mystery. He spent a whole weekend building me
a tiny space behind my closet that I could hold my most prized possessions or
crawl into so I had the best hiding spot in the house that my brothers never
knew about.

Hide and seek with me was a bitch.

Dad told me it was just for fun, but the dim light in his
eyes told me there was more to it. The man had seen things I hoped to never
see. He wanted his little girl safe if it ever came down to it because being in
law enforcement didn't mean you were never in danger.

I pressed the small button and a portion of the wall popped
out and swung open. It was big enough that I could still fit through it and the
space behind it was as tall as the closet itself so I could stand and move
around a little bit. There were a couple shoe boxes off to the side that I
didn't dare open. I knew one of them held pictures of Mom and me and ticket
stubs and post cards from all the different events she took me to, just me and
her. The other held three items, all of which were precious to me but forced
too many irrational emotions to surface.

The locket from Lucas, Mom's wedding rings, and the only
wedding picture of her and my dad that they hadn't lost in the years they had
been married.

I used to wear the locket all the time, but the night my
brothers decided to mortify me beyond repair and Lucas decided to laugh it up
with
them, I put it in this box and walked away. Maybe if I kept his gift away from
my heart, my heart would slowly let him go.

I sighed and shut the secret door that only three people in
the entire world knew about. Me, Dad, and of course, Lucas. I mean how could I
not let him know about it? He had convinced me to reveal my hiding spot long
ago when playing with my brothers. He never told anyone about it, though, and
whenever he was the one looking around, he never came to find me.

Another reason why the pieces of my heart belonged to him.

"Let him go? Yeah, right. You are doing a great job so
far, Ash," I snipped to myself.

"Great job of what, my beauty?"

I startled and fell back onto the huge pile of shoes while
clutching at the clothes I had just hung, ripping them off the hangers. Dad had
always been the master of stealth and grace. Me? Not so much. I still smiled at
the familiar nickname in my moment of pure terror, though.

Dad stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his
chest and a huge grin on his face. Of all the people who knew about my infatuation
with Lucas, Dad was the only one who was aware of how deeply I had actually
fallen for him. He was the one I went crying to that night after all. He was
the one who told me that things would work out for the best in the end and that
no matter what happens in my life, I should follow my gut.

At the time, my gut was telling me to run away. He helped me
run.

Got me into a nice apartment and helped me contact the
people I needed to transfer my college credits and get set up to attend school
in Ohio.

Why Ohio?

It's where my mother, Isabelle, grew up. It was the only
place he was going to allow me to go. Isabelle means 'devoted to God', so you
can imagine why he thought Ohio would be perfect. I was going to be close to my
mother's parents who agreed to look out for me and who were also extremely
religious. Unfortunately for Dad, they were already really old and both of them
passed away within the first three years of me being there.

However, he still trusted me and he still knew that I needed
this time on my own no matter the fierce protectiveness he felt for me. That's
why Dad was my real hero. Regardless of what he actually wanted to do, he knew
what he
needed
to do when it came down to it.

Let me live a life on my own.

"You scared the hell out of me, Dad!"

He chuckled and moved over to the foot of my bed and sat
down. "I apologize, sweetheart. You looked like you were thinking pretty
hard about something. Had me worried."

He still had a little of an Irish brogue when he spoke, but
it was gone for the most part. Mom begged him to never let it go because it was
what made her fall in love with him in the first place. He held onto it until
the day she died, then he gave it up because what was the point?

I loved the few times it came out. Reminded me of how much
they loved each other and how much he loved all of us. He had left his family
behind to make a family with her. The reason why that wedding picture was so
important to me. It reminded me to never settle, to hope for something as
wonderful as what my parents had. He gave up everything to be with my mother.
Love like that is rare these days.

I had only ever met his parents twice. Once the day I was
born and once at Mom's funeral. Neither time really gave me the opportunity to
get to know them, but they supported Dad when he found Mom and they never
fought it.

"I wasn't expecting him to come over," Dad
muttered and ran a hand through his still thick and nearly black hair. "He
took a few days off, which he never does, and wanted to make sure he was ready
for the meeting."

"You don't have to explain anything, Dad. It's fine.
I'm over it," I lied.

"Really?" he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.
His dark blue eyes twinkled with mischief.

I sighed and stood with my chin held high. "I will
be."

He grinned, "If that is what you want."

I didn't respond, because any denial would be another
complete lie so, he watched me for a moment while I attempted to hide the
turmoil running through me. Why did I have to care about that man so much? Why
did he affect me like no one else could? It was really annoying.

"He lives down the street."

My head snapped up.
No, no, no.

"He moved into the old Johnson house several years ago.
Left his mother behind in that nasty shack, made a name for himself. He is the
youngest detective I have, but he is the best. I invited him over for dinner
tonight."

"What?" I gasped. My legs were starting to wobble,
but by some miracle they didn't give out. The last thing I wanted was to act
like more of an idiot in front of him. Especially when Conall and Fergus
weren't here. I wasn't completely prepared to act like the grown woman I wanted
him to see. I had little scenes ready here and there, but a whole dinner?

I was so screwed.

"We won't be off until after 6 o'clock tonight. Would
you mind whipping up something special?"