Raven (Kindred #1) (19 page)

She held up a hand and waved it in time with her shaking head. “I’ve already had two and a half glasses.”

“If this is a drunken booty call, you really should’ve called first,” Art said, skirting the kitchen island to reach the coffee pot. “Brodie isn’t home.”

“You said that already. Forgive me for asking,” she said, putting her purse on the lower portion of the center island and curling her fingers around it.

He glanced over his shoulder as he poured black coffee into two mugs. “What?”

“Why did you let me in? I got the impression last night that you didn’t think much of me.”

“I was the black sheep of my family,” he said, carrying the mugs down the opposite side of the island and indicating with an eye roll that she should follow him. When they got to the couches, he sat and put the mugs down on the low coffee table. “Brodie and me spend most of our time in here, in our bedrooms, or using the facilities downstairs. The houses were built structurally the same but the boys have remodeled in their own ways over the years.”

She wasn’t sure who “the boys” were, but she wanted to know where Art’s story was going before she asked about anything else. “You were saying,” she said, attempting to get the conversation back to where it had been. “About being the black sheep?”

Opening his mouth, he took a large lungful of air before continuing. “I was the second of four children. There was eight years between me and my eldest sister, Melinda, that’s Brodie and Grant’s mom.”

“Why did you take Brodie after she died? Do you have a wife and kids of your own?”

“Neither,” he said, reaching for his mug. “I lived here with Melinda when I was in the country. Brodie idolized me. I spent my life traveling, learning from indigenous people, backpacking, trekking, and mountaineering. He loved to hear my stories. After our mother died, Brodie’s grandmother, Melinda didn’t see much of our younger sisters. One of whom was a single mom and the other had serious issues with her problem child. After Melinda died, we found out it had been written into her will that I should become guardian of the boys.”

Intrigued, she speculated. “But you didn’t want to be tied down?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but… Grant Junior took to business; he idolized his father and trotted into work with him as often as he could. He was fifteen when his parents died, it had been his birthright, and his lifelong ambition to take over at CI… no one thought it would be so soon. Brodie wanted nothing to do with the company. That was when Frank and I sat down with the boys and they made their decisions. It was never our intention to keep them apart, but… Brodie started traveling with me, Grant went to college, and our paths rarely crossed… especially since Grant refused to come here to the manor.”

“This is fascinating, but…”

He smiled. “What has it got to do with my reaction to you last night?” he asked.

Nodding while freeing her feet from her shoes, Zara retrieved her mug from the coffee table and cradled it with both hands as she brought it close to her body. Then twisting herself to face Art, she drew her legs up onto the couch and tucked them beneath herself. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“When I was young, I was a bit of a crusader. I thought myself a bit of a… hero, I guess. We built homes for those who had lost them in natural disasters and fought injustice as we found it. I had more than a few contacts myself and I made money by tracking people down or getting information. Over the years, one thing led to another and we found ourselves going after bigger and bigger fish. Brodie took to fighting and shooting like a tiger takes to his stripes. Eventually I was obsolete. Support staff for this tower of a man who really was a hero. Brodie has killed dozens of men, hundreds of them, and I guess he’s lost a bit of his humanity because of that. But everyone he’s killed, he’s killed for a reason.”

The ferocity of Art’s pride made him lose the easy, approachable demeanor he’d had on receiving her. She couldn’t think of any parent who would defend their child with more vehemence than Art took on when talking about Brodie.

“I think he still has a lot of humanity in him,” she said, sipping her drink through the delightful steam rising from it.

He relaxed and drank from his own mug. “I think so too. I’m incredibly proud of him. He didn’t go to school or college. He didn’t get married, have kids, and live a traditional life… He turned into me… only a better version of me, the version of me I wanted to be but couldn’t.”

“You’re protective of him,” she said, understanding his frosty reception yesterday. “Were you worried I was some sort of Mata Hari?”

Considering her words, he took his eyes away from her, choosing instead to enjoy his coffee for a while before putting it on the table and answering her. “The other day, when he wasn’t in his bed in the morning and I called him… When I heard he was at your place… that he’d spent the night…”

“You were a worried parent,” she said, wearing a smile. Brodie was all man, all grown up, and capable of caring for himself. It was funny to imagine someone waiting up for him.

“No,” Art said, shaking his head. “No, I… he spends all night out a lot of the time because he works at night, he scouts at night. He spends two thirds of the year overseas, and it’s not like I don’t know that he can take care of himself. He stays out all night for the job. He’s never stayed out all night for a woman.”

“Never?” she asked, struggling to believe such a thing.

Leaning forward with open hands, he let his palms join and fall together as he angled himself toward her. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s had plenty of women. That’s an area he never needed any coaching in,” Art said and she saw the paternal satisfaction swell in his chest. “Sometimes when we’re abroad somewhere he’ll spend the night with a girl, especially if we have nowhere else to sleep that night or we need cover. But here, at home”—his lip turned out as he shook his head—“never happened.”

Fishing for information and maybe a compliment, she tried to be casual when she probed further. “There’s never been anyone special in his life?” she asked, especially interested as to what “plenty of women” might mean.

Before he spoke, Art seemed to debate with himself whether he should be honest. “There was a girl once, Mischa. He met her in Italy and did some work with her father. But… Mischa was cosmopolitan, social… She didn’t mind having him locked in a cage for her private use, but she wouldn’t be seen with him in public.”

“Brodie wouldn’t have minded that,” Zara said, learning that jealousy tasted more bitter than coffee. “He doesn’t like to be seen in public.”

Art was shaking his head and wearing a sneer of revulsion. “She was cold and ruthless. Brodie was blinded by her beauty, but I could tell, she was rotten all the way to her core. She did some work with us and she took a… psychopathic enjoyment from it. We called her Cuckoo, she hated it, but Tuck and I agreed it made sense. She was half a step away from asking Raven to kill just to get her off. That was when I knew enough was enough.”

So Art had been instrumental in ending the relationship. Brodie would listen to his uncle’s advice, but she was surprised to hear he hadn’t fought for his woman if there was a chance of love between them. Maybe the association had been more sexual than emotional.

Taking another drink of the delicious coffee, Zara shrugged off her distaste at the turn of the conversation. Pushing her mug onto the table, she sidled a little closer. “I wish I could say he got carried away with me, but it wasn’t any emotional connection that made him stay,” she said. “I told him to. I told him if he spent the night and had breakfast with me that I would tell him anything he wanted to know.”

Art’s lips slanted up. “You might think that’s the reason. But I know my nephew. Painting him into a corner like that… you gave him an excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged.

“Cuckoo made me wary of what a woman could do to him. But you… you’re not like her. You’re exactly what he needs.”

Art’s optimism made her draw back a little. “Like I said, I wouldn’t read too much into it. He wanted information from me and he got it. It just so happened that he got some sex into the bargain.”

“When we first started researching you,” Art said and she squirmed at the notion these men had been investigating her. “It was because Albert Sutcliffe’s men were watching you. We wanted to know what had them intrigued. So Brodie went to check you out and when he came back… it had been years since I’d seen him smile like he did that night. He never smiled like that with Mischa… You had him at that very minute. I don’t know how or why, but you did.”

“He told me he thought I looked naughty the first time he saw me,” she stated.

Art held up his hands. “Hey, what happens between a man and his woman—”

“I know that he’s told all of you the dirty details,” she said, pointing at her coffee mug. “How else would you know I drink my coffee black? And your friend on the computer knew intimate things about—”

“My friend on the computer was kicked out of the room when you started questioning who he was… which was very smart by the way,” Art said, turning his whole body in her direction. “You should never admit details when you don’t know for sure who you’re talking to. Brodie kicked us out after your question about lovers. We didn’t get back in until he was done.”

Art could just be telling her what she wanted to hear. “If that’s true, why didn’t he just announce himself?”

“It pays to hide your identity from others and you have to be humble enough to realize there’s always a chance that someone is watching you.”

They were concerned about insulating themselves, but weren’t so concerned about her safety. “So you were happy for them to know that I was giving out company secrets, just not who I was giving them to?”

“Look here,” he said, elevating an arm onto the back of the couch. “Brodie has gone above and beyond to keep you safe. He’s risked exposure for you and he has never done that for another soul… I taught him better than that.”

Lifting her own arm to the back of the couch, Zara laid her hand over his. “I’m sure he’s very grateful for everything you’ve done for him.”

Fixing her in his sights, Art’s eyes grew heavy. “You cut him deep,” he said, sliding his hand back a bit, though his fingers stayed under hers. “Last night with that murderer bullshit.”

Never had Zara thought she would be involved in anything like Game Time. Terrorists and ambiguous “demonstrations” weren’t meant to be a part of her life. Last night, she’d acted on impulse, speaking before she had a chance to process. “I didn’t know what he did,” she said, shrinking in light of the truth.

Her actions, her words, they did hurt Brodie. All along, he’d been honest, and had never made himself out to be a saint. The shock of being drawn into his world made her lash out because being taken advantage of was her greatest fear.

Coming from a small town, Zara had wanted people in the big city to believe she was street smart. More than once she’d had it proven to her that she wasn’t as savvy as she wanted to believe. Since arriving here, she had come a long way, so far that those in her hometown probably wouldn’t recognize her.

Art’s scowl was a return to his disapproving parent manner. “He saved your life, that’s what he did, and you should be grateful for that.”

“I am,” she said, thrusting her shoulders back to beseech his gaze. “Please don’t think I’m not, I… I guess I was reacting rather than thinking because I was hurt… It’s not like he and I made any promises to each other. But it just… I tell him I trust him, then his buddy communicates through my computer and I come home to you erasing every shred of evidence that he ever existed in my life.”

Art relaxed some. “You were hurt. You thought you were being dumped.”

She wasn’t going to deny the truth. “I thought he used sex to get what he wanted and I was disappointed in myself for letting it happen. He told me he was watching the people who were watching me. Who was that?”

“Tim Sutcliffe was supposed to sweep you off your feet so that you’d talk him up to Grant. His uncle, Albert Sutcliffe, was meeting with Grant in New York that Monday and it was at that meeting that Grant led him to believe you knew everything about the deal.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why would he say that?”

“Grant probably wanted to cover his ass and saying he has an accomplice helps to insulate him and makes others believe he is not ashamed of what he’s doing. Divulging that his actions were a secret would open him up to blackmail and the threat of assassination.”

“Oh my God,” she exhaled, curling her fingers around her throat. So she was his safety net and the one who was supposed to ask questions if he suddenly vanished. The sad truth was, if Grant had disappeared, she probably would have gone on a crusade to find him without any idea of the danger she’d be walking into. “Are they still watching?”

He shrugged. “Brodie’s been keeping an eye on their positions and so far it looks like you’re in the clear. I guess they didn’t expect to lose young Tim. It’s probably not worth the risk of someone else’s life to have you watched. Who knows what would happen if anyone else tried to move in on you, especially now that you’ve got Brodie’s attention.”

“Do they know that?”

“That you’re with him? No.” Art shook his head. “No one can see into your bedroom and Brodie’s discreet. He knows how to cover his tracks.”