Taken by Lora Leigh
“You’re funny.” This time, she did roll her eyes. “I’m not evading either,” she promised him. “I’m trying to get this mountain of paperwork finished.”
“No, dear child, you’re flat-out lying.”
And at that point, she had to drop her eyes, because he was right, she was lying through her teeth and she hated it.
“My business,” she told him firmly.
He watched her for long, silent moments.
“Hmm, that means it’s a man,” he guessed.
“It means it’s my business and I prefer not discuss it with you or anyone else, Captain,” she informed him.
Her father could be like a dog with a bone. She never appreciated being the bone. It was highly uncomfortable.
He glared at her again. “Then that means it’s a man I’d know.”
There was the displeasure. How the hell had he known?
Duh! He knew everyone she knew. There was no way to be wrong.
“No, Dad, it means someone you know might know him, and I’d prefer he be unaware of the fact that I’m displeased with him.”
Not exactly a lie, not exactly the truth either.
At that point, he frowned again in confusion. “But dear, how else is your young man supposed to make the situation right and win your heart if he doesn’t know why you’re upset?”
Sheila leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and stared back at him firmly. “Dad, I don’t want him to make anything right and I definitely don’t want anyone else to tell him if he’s done something to upset me. I prefer to take care of these things myself.”
Her father reached up and scratched at his weathered cheek, and Sheila could see that he had no idea what to make of his daughter. He often lamented that she refused to fall in love and marry fast to suit him, because he had always insisted on probing into her dates’ lives.
It wasn’t a refusal to love, she knew how to love, it was simply a refusal to beg or to play the games she watched so many other women play. Those relationships rarely worked, she had found. It had left her friends and acquaintances with broken hearts and disillusioned lives. If a woman had to beg, plead, or hint at a need for commitment from a man, then she didn’t need that man.
She didn’t want that. She wanted to be like her mother. She wanted to marry once and marry a man that she not only loved, but one that loved her just as much. She didn’t want to guilt Casey into loving her. Where would the satisfaction be in that?
Yet Casey had been convinced she was playing games instead.
“So, who is he?” her father asked, his tone indicating a demand for an answer.
Sheila shook her head. “Sorry, Dad, but I don’t need your help in this. I’ll take care of it myself. I’m rather good at that now.”
She had only been young and dumb once.
His frown deepened as concern filled his eyes. “I promise to say nothing to anyone,” he promised her. A huge concession from him.
“Sorry, Dad, it’s not going to happen.” She shook her head slowly as amusement tugged at her lips. “I know better than to tell you. You like trying to fix my life too much. And I don’t need this fixed.” At least, not by her father. There was nothing her father could do anyway, except make the situation worse.
He was a busybody. A loving one. A caring one. He would never do anything to hurt her. But she knew him too well. If he knew who her lover was, he would no doubt make it an order that Casey find a way to fix it.
“So why won’t you let him fix it? Tell me that and I’ll let it go,” he said gently. “Otherwise, you know it will drive me crazy.” Because he was her father and he felt it was his place to fix her problems. She believed differently, but she could tell him the least of what he wanted to know.
“Because, if he loved me, then he would love me enough to know what to do, Dad,” she said somberly. “Like you knew with Mom.”
And how many times had her father told her how he’d known the second he met her mother what she would be to him? That he had loved her from the moment he had met her and had been willing to die for her if he could have?
She wanted that kind of love as well.
Her father shook his head sadly. “Sheila, your mother led me on a merry chase. I didn’t say I recognized the emotion in that first moment. It was only later I realized what I was feeling. No man that I know of recognizes love for what it is until he’s absolutely forced to do so.”
“So will he, if that’s what he feels,” she told him. “Don’t mess with this, Dad.”
She couldn’t handle it. She wouldn’t tolerate it. She wouldn’t be able to bear the thought that her father had somehow “ordered” Casey to love her.
She wouldn’t play games with Casey, and she wasn’t going to allow her father to step in to fix this for her. Only Casey could fix it and she had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen either.
She had always suspected the fact that she was Captain Rutledge’s daughter had kept Casey away from her for years. If her father intervened, no doubt Casey would feel that pressure to make promises he wouldn’t want to make or keep.
God, she wanted him though.
She almost wanted him—no, loved him—enough to risk it. Enough to almost consider it. She was dying for him and it was all her own stubborn fault for wanting more than he had to give.
And in all the months they had been coming together, not once had Casey suggested that there was more between them than the few nights a month they spent in his bed. He hadn’t asked her out, he hadn’t suggested that their relationship could ever develop into anything more serious. Just as he had never indicated to anyone else that they were together in any way.
And that hurt. As though he were ashamed of her, or too frightened of her father to risk him knowing, which she knew wasn’t the case. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to be a couple with her.
She was tired of it. Each time he touched her, she felt as though he had torn another part of her heart from her chest and carried it away with him. She didn’t want to lose more of her heart. She didn’t want to be in this relationship alone.
“You’re frightened,” her father finally said softly, his head tilting to the side as he regarded her with gentle admonishment.
“Frightened of what?” She couldn’t believe he had said anything so ridiculous or with such fatherly chastisement.
“Of being hurt,” he guessed. “You know, Sheila, I haven’t heard even a whiff of a rumor that you were seeing anyone. That you were interested in anyone. You’ve kept him very well hidden and that makes me wonder if the problems are your fault or your unknown lover’s.”
Her lips thinned. “I’m not telling you who it is.”
He shook his head slowly. “My dear, you wouldn’t have had to tell me, if you weren’t frightened of this man breaking your heart. A woman doesn’t hide something so important as the man she’s in love with, unless there’s something holding her back. Or,” his voice lowered further. “Or, she doesn’t love him at all. And if that’s the case, then I don’t want to know who he is.” He shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “I only want to meet the important ones and this one obviously isn’t important at all.”
At that point, he straightened and moved back to his office without saying anything further, leaving Sheila to stare at his back with narrowed eyes as she wondered what game he could be playing with her. Her father could be amazingly devious when he wanted information. That was why he made such an efficient commander for the Covert Information Network.
She only wished Casey didn’t matter.
She wished she didn’t miss him with everything inside her; missing him was killing her.
She wished the only thing holding her back was the fear of losing the rest of her heart.
It was the fear of losing so much more than her heart that terrified her.
Because what she was beginning to feel, she felt as though it went much deeper than her heart, went much deeper than any other emotion she had ever felt.
It went clear to her soul.
* * *
Casey sat at the bar tapping his fingers against the gleaming wood. His gaze was locked on the mirror behind the bar, giving him a clear view of the entrance.
The large, cavernous building was nearly at its limit with the threat of a line forming outside once they were forced to close the doors against additional customers. Once customers arrived at the Broken Bar, they seemed to stay until last call. Which made it hard for any additional customers arriving unless the owner, Ethan Cooper, used the one-hour limit he was often forced to set.
The band, positioned along the wall at the center of the room on the opposite side of the building, was belting out another of those sensual slow tunes they were inclined to play. Broken hearts, broken loves, and beer-drinkin’ nights. He was damned sick of hearing about it. Every wailing note did nothing but remind him of Sheila and the fact that he’d been waiting on her all day and half the night. He reminded himself of a lovesick teenager.
The door swung open again, but the couple that entered weren’t Sheila. She should have been here by now. It was her job to pick up the information the team had acquired over the past week. Instead, he was still here waiting on her. It felt like he had been waiting on her all his life.
He glanced at his watch before his gaze lifted to the door once more. Yep, that was him: lovesick teenager.
Sheila knew he didn’t work tonight. Son of a bitch, she always showed up on Tuesday nights. Tuesday nights were theirs. Slow loving and her sensual cries as they drove each other crazy with every kiss, caress, and stroke they could bestow on each other.
Casey tapped his fingers against the wood again, his teeth clenching as a surge of hunger and anger struck at his gut. She wasn’t going to show up. He could feel it. She was avoiding the bar and she was avoiding him and he was damned if he was going to let her get away with it.
His jaw bunched in irritation.
If Sheila was going to cut him off like this, the least she could have done was give him a reason why she was breaking off what they had. He didn’t even know what the hell was going on, what he had done, or why she had ended the relationship the other morning as she left.
Hell, he had no idea what had happened, and it wasn’t as though he could talk to her about it. He couldn’t even catch up with her long enough. And now, she was late arriving to pick up the files it was her job to transport to her father.
He had asked her what he had done, something he had never asked another woman and wouldn’t have bothered to even care about with anyone else.
Her reply had been “nothing.”
There had been an odd tone to her voice, though. One he hadn’t wanted to delve into at the time. Something about the sound of her answer had immediately had his stomach clenching. Not in dread, but in an impending … something that still didn’t make sense. What did make sense? He was dying for her.
And he had no idea how to fix any of it.
“Hey, Casey, you look down.” Sarah Fox Cooper, God love her heart, his boss’s wife. Trust her to get right to the point and thankfully to keep her voice down while doing so.
A charming, shy little thing, he’d once believed. Until she came out of her shell, stole Cooper’s heart, and became a regular at one of the most dangerous watering holes in the state. She was like a breath of fresh air in a trash dump. Pretty as a picture she was, and from the look on her face, determined to get an answer to her question. Determined and firm, she moved through the crowd as though it were a family reunion.
Cooper was never far behind her, either. And if not Cooper, then at least two of his most trusted bouncers were planted on her ass. Cooper never, at any time, took his wife’s safety for granted.
Tonight, as on most nights, it was Cooper following his wife. With an indulgent smile on his face, he kept a steady eye on the woman who had stolen his heart the summer before.
“I’m tired, Sarah,” he answered. “Your husband is a slave driver.”
He was tired of waiting and watching for a woman who hadn’t arrived. She had five more minutes, then he was going after her. Five minutes, that was it.
“Yeah, but such a damned sexy one,” Sarah replied, her smile infectious and filled with warmth as she cast her husband a flirty look over her shoulder.
“I guess it takes a feminine eye to see the sexy part,” Casey snorted as he glanced toward the entrance again and caught himself glaring at it.
“Hmm, that could be possible.” Sarah shrugged as she lifted herself onto the bar stool beside him, drawing his gaze from the door. “But that doesn’t tell me why you’re looking such a grump this early in the week. I thought you reserved the bad moods for the weekend?”
Not lately he hadn’t. Weekends had meant Sheila, too. It had meant wild, hot, explicit sex, earthy feminine moans, and sharp little nails clawing at his back.
Fuck, he was hard. His dick pulsed and throbbed in his jeans.
That fast. His erection was all but pushing past the zipper of his jeans and drawing his balls tight against the base of the shaft. It felt as though it had been years rather than days since he had fucked her.
Damn.
He glanced at his watch again. Two minutes and he was going after her.
He couldn’t handle this. He wanted her to the point his back teeth ached with it.
For three nights in a row, he’d existed in a state of miserable arousal and confused anger. There was nothing worse than caring that he’d fucked up and being unable to figure out how.
“I’m fine, Sarah,” he promised as he realized she was watching him expectantly.
He glanced at the door again, then his watch.
One and a half minutes and he was going after her.
“She slipped in the back entrance about three hours ago, collected the reports, and ran,” Sarah leaned forward and informed him quickly, her voice low. “Ran as though the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.”
Sarah straightened in her seat then and cast her husband a teasing look as he shook his head at her. Sarah was known to matchmake. Or at least, to attempt to. It had been making all of them crazy. They indulged her, were amused by her, but seriously, she made them crazy with it.
Well, all of them except the new guy, Morgan Keane. One of the six new bouncers Cooper had been forced to hire in the past year. He was a former special forces soldier referred by one of the U.S. Marshals who were protecting Sarah’s father. A former Italian mafia boss who had immigrated to America, Giovanni Fredrico.
Morgan was a brooding, grouchy son of a bitch with an attitude that managed to keep even the most aggressive jackals in the place at bay.
Nothing Sarah or anyone else did seemed to faze Keane much, though. He took it all in stride.
“Did she now?” Casey finally forced himself to mutter, irritation mixing with the lust and surging through his bloodstream with a hit of spiked adrenaline.
Yep, there it was. That shot of elixir that kept him perpetually hard whenever he thought of Sheila.
“She did.” Sarah grinned. “It was all rather curious, too. I thought she was running scared, but she swore she was simply in a hurry. What do you think?”
The gleam of knowledge in her eyes was highly discomforting. It meant she was matchmaking.
“Hell if I know,” he muttered, deciding in that second he didn’t need her help.
“Confused on that, are you?” she asked.
He leveled a suspicious glare in her direction. It only received another of her infamous smiles. Those innocent, I’ve-done-nothing-wrong grins.
Bullshit. She was obviously up to something, and he had a feeling he knew what. He was getting into trouble just fine all by himself. He didn’t need Sarah’s help.
“I shouldn’t be?” he asked softly.
She shrugged again as she brushed back one of the thick, heavy brown curls that had fallen over her shoulder.
“Well, it should have been rather obvious,” Sarah sighed. “Most wome
“She doesn’t play second anything, period,” he informed her. “Where are you going with this?”
Why was he letting her “go with it”? The “it” being the head game she was playing.
“It would depend on where you intend on going with things,” she suggested lightly. “And perhaps that’s all she’s waiting on from you, to decide if you’re worth risking her heart for. Sometimes, all a woman needs is to know she’s wanted for more than what she provides her lover in their bed.”
“Troublemaker.” Cooper stepped forward, growling the accusation in a tone filled with pure adoration. He was damned crazy over the girl and everyone knew it. But he did make attempts to limit her interference in other people’s lives.
“Of course I am,” she admitted as she lifted her face and accepted the quick kiss he placed against her lips. “That’s why you love me so dearly, though. I never let you get bored.”
Casey watched their byplay until Cooper helped his wife from her seat and they headed for the door behind the bar. That door led to the stairs that would take them to the office/bedroom Cooper kept upstairs. From there, Casey didn’t even want to guess what they would be doing. It was better not to.
Because then, he would start thinking of all the things he could be doing with Sheila, and it would just piss him off worse.
He glanced at the mirror again and narrowed his eyes.
He knew where Sheila was. He knew where she lived and he knew how to get to her. And he knew he was really getting tired of waiting on her.
She was his, he’d made that decision a long time before and had been forced to wait far too long to claim her. But he had claimed her, and now, letting her go wasn’t something he was going to do. Not now, not ever.
chapter 4
for the third night in a row, sleep was a hard time coming. For the past months, Tuesday night was one of the three reserved for Casey. At any other time she would be in his bed.
Sheila rolled over to her back with a groan and stared up at the darkened ceiling morosely. What was he doing now? Was he alone in his bed or had he found someone else to share it with? Had she made a mistake? Had she let him go too quickly, before he could have realized she could mean something to him?