Never Say Never Again Read online

  Connor rested a hand on his father’s shoulder and gave a grateful squeeze. “Yeah.”

  The sound of someone else entering the room caught Connor’s attention. He turned to see Melanie’s mom, Wilhemenia, standing stiffly near the door. Her gaze lifted to his, then she quickly glanced away. “Sorry. I’ll come back later.”

  Connor caught the flash of pain on his father’s face—pain he didn’t want to see. Hadn’t they all suffered enough? He cleared his throat, but had to go so far as to reach out and touch Wilhemenia’s sleeve to halt her quick retreat. “It’s all right. You don’t have to go on account of me. After all, that’s the reason I called you.”

  He was aware of a sudden hush in the room. Even little Sean’s crying had choked off to a quiet hiccup.

  “You called her?” Mel was the first to speak, although judging by the way Pops’s mouth stopped moving, the words could have just as easily have come from him.

  Connor grimaced. Had he really been that awful? Yes, he realized, he had. And he owed it to Wilhemenia, and to Pops, to make up for it. “Yeah. I thought…well, I think it’s about time I stopped acting little Sean’s age here, you know what I mean?”

  Melanie looked at him and smiled. “Yeah, we know what you mean.”

  Connor cringed, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of a single, solitary word to say. How, exactly, did one go about talking to the woman he had shunned for so long? A woman who just might very well become his step-mother?

  Mel’s laugh saved him from having to say anything. “Actually, all of you might want to go outside together. The rest of them have undertaken a treasure hunt in what’s left of the barn.”

  Connor looked at his father, then Wilhemenia, then motioned for them to lead the way out. Moments later, they were standing in the midday sunlight, watching the others ferret through the pile of wood still left in the yard. They’d already loaded a great deal of it onto the back of an old flatbed, but now, protected by sturdy leather gloves, they tossed aside some of the smaller pieces so they could gain access to the barn floor. Goliath ran back and forth along the perimeter, barking up a storm.

  Pops coughed as a still uncovered portion of barn fell in on itself, kicking up a cloud of dust. “Didn’t you guys check the interior out before you knocked the damn thing down?”

  All five looked at him as if he was insane. “Are you nuts?” Marc asked, tossing a rusty old tool into a pile of salvageable items. “The thing could have fallen in on us.”

  Pops shrugged. “Just thought I’d ask. Might have been easier to find things if you had done it the other way.”

  “I think I found something.”

  Everyone turned toward where Jake was combing through another corner. He drew back, as if confounded by what he saw. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He picked up something and beat it against his jeans to rid it of debris. “It’s my INS ID.”

  “What?” David looked closer, verifying that it indeed was.

  “Hey! That’s my wedding bouquet.” Mel had come out, little Sean quietly clinging to her hip. Everyone looked at her. “Oh, sorry. It’s what would have been my bouquet if Marc here hadn’t convinced me to marry him instead of the other guy.”

  Connor tucked his chin into his chest to hide his smile. He remembered that day in the kitchen as if it were yesterday, simply because it marked the first of many changes that would come. Authorities had been at the place again, but that time because of Marc, not him. How upset Wilhemenia had been then, engaging in a battle of wills with Goliath, who’d had his slobbery jaws locked around the bouquet in question. He glanced at Mel’s mother, finding her so unlike that woman, who would have had her daughter marry for security, rather than love. Now she stood smiling next to his father, every bit the image of a woman in love, herself.

  “What else is in there?” Kelli asked, stepping into the sliding mess and poking around.

  Connor turned his head from Wilhemenia and his father. He watched as Kelli plucked up something red and blew on it.

  “I’ll be damned.” Mitch reached out, holding what was now noticeably a red shoe up to show Liz. “Remember this?”

  The spreading of color on Liz’s cheeks revealed that she did, indeed, remember. She gently took it and smiled. Mitch curved his arms around her from behind and she leaned against him, closing her eyes.

  “Goliath, you little thief, you,” Mitch said to the mutt panting at their feet.

  Connor didn’t have a clue of the significance of the find, but he could guess. He glanced at the wrought-iron archway at the end of the driveway. Red Shoe Ranch.

  Connor turned back to find Jake bent over, frowning as he spotted something else. Using the edge of a stick, he fished around, only after two tries coming out with a scrap of neon pink material.

  Kelli’s gasp startled everyone. “Oh my God! David, you didn’t!” She grabbed the pair of what Connor guessed were panties from the end of the stick.

  David turned ten shades of red. “I wondered where those went.”

  “You’re such a perv,” Kelli said to her new husband, then whacked him in the arm when he started laughing.

  “What is it?” Connor overheard Michelle asking Pops as she held Lili’s hand.

  Lili’s face lit up. “It’s a pair of underpants, Mama!” Then her face puckered up into one of consternation. “What was Uncle David doing with Aunt Kelli’s underpants?”

  “That’s something we’d all like to know,” Jake said.

  The group as a whole broke into laughter.

  “Well, I think that’s it,” Mitch said, tugging off his gloves. “I say we all call it a day. The basketball game’s scheduled to start in ten.”

  Everyone started heading toward the house, but Connor stayed behind. It was odd how everything worked out. He glanced after the departing group, taking special interest in the way Pops and Wilhemenia walked together, yet apart, glances meant to be secretive saying a lot. Connor absently rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work out how he felt about everything, though his easy smile told him he felt good.

  Sunlight glinted off something in the pile of cinder from which Jake had uncovered Goliath’s stash. Connor squinted and stepped a little closer. A silver letter stood out against brown leather. C. He slowly bent over and brushed off the remaining dirt, uncovering the rest of the letters. C.A.M. Connor Alexander McCoy. His initials. In fact, as he picked up the item, he realized it was his old key chain, and dangling from the ring was a single key. His key to the house behind him. The same key he had lost the day he came out here to find his bedroom had been taken over, making him feel as though he’d been evicted from his life.

  A sharp bark sounded.

  He glanced up to find Goliath sitting at the edge of the debris, his tail wagging a million miles a minute. Connor stepped from the wood and motioned for the dog to come to him. He did. Connor crouched down to pet him thoughtfully. “Well, boy, either you’re a scoundrel in need of punishing—” Goliath growled “—or you’re much smarter than any of us give you credit for.”

  The dog barked and Connor chuckled. Yeah, he’d pretty much figured the latter was the case.

  Strange, really, that he should recover a key he hadn’t even realized was missing at a time when he’d figured out that his connection to the family in the house behind him was more tangible than any physical object.

  He slipped the key chain into his pocket then stood up, leading the way back to the house, the little matchmaker in a fur suit panting at his heels.

  14

  “SIGN HERE, AND WE’RE ALL DONE.”

  Bronte stared at the delivery man as though he was speaking a foreign language. Then his words sank in. “Oh. Okay.” She took the clipboard from him and signed on the dotted line.

  Within moments, she had closed the door behind him and stood in the middle of the foyer…alone.

  Funny, but she’d gone so long without furniture it seemed odd, somehow, seeing her house looking again like someone lived there.
/>   Through the archway to the living room, she distantly appreciated the neat lines of the early American design sofa and coffee table, liking the touch of Americana with the antique quilt draped over one arm. Beyond that, a heavy pine dining room table with six chairs gleamed in the early evening light, the spring flower arrangement completing the look she’d been going for.

  Everything was as it should be.

  Yet Bronte felt that it was all wrong.

  Oh, she didn’t regret the change. All the contemporary leather furniture and matching accessories had never quite fit the house. Still, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to feel anything but distantly pleased by the appearance of her new furniture.

  She stepped past the living room and down the hall to the kitchen, the only room that seemed to be hers out of the whole place. The tiny television played in one corner of the counter, while the new coffeemaker she hadn’t been able to put, or throw, away still gleamed on the other side. Standing in front of the table, she sifted through her stack of evening papers without much enthusiasm, then pushed aside her untouched gourmet microwave dinner.

  She knew what was bothering her. It had been bothering her ever since the day Connor had effectively proven he didn’t have what it took to maintain a healthy relationship. This place—no matter how nice, no matter how much in demand—wasn’t home. Not like the small house in Prospect, New Hampshire, her parents had spent the past thirty-five years in. Not like the place in Manchester, Virginia, that the McCoys called home. Not even like the old place where she and Connor had finally given themselves over to the passion searing a path through their veins.

  This town house was just an imitation of a home, and a poor one at that. No, it wasn’t even that. Ever since her breakup with Thomas Jenkins, this place had become the equivalent of a jail for her. A pretty jail—but jail nonetheless. It’s the place she had hidden out in, afraid to expose herself to the world outside, afraid of what that exposure would reveal to her. Then Connor had found her where she lived and revealed even more about her. She’d realized why it had been so easy to say goodbye to Thomas without looking back. Their type of love had been the sunny-day kind. The type that collapsed the instant rain appeared on the horizon. Had she really loved him, she would have tried to work things out when he’d separated from his wife.

  She saw that now. And the reason for the fresh insight was due completely to her love for one rough and tumble U.S. Marshal.

  She sank down into a chair and sighed. She didn’t know why she was even exploring this newly discovered fact. Yes, it was important to examine everything that had happened. Even learn from the experience. But every time she did, she experienced a discomfort so complete that she couldn’t seem to sit still for long periods of time.

  She now knew that her reaction at the McCoy place had been motivated by frustration and fear. It wasn’t every day a woman found out a man had set out to protect her, especially at his own expense, and when the stakes were so very high. That’s where the fear entered…quickly followed by the frustration that she should have known it was coming. Should have expected it, really. But she knew that even if she had, there would have been nothing she could do about it.

  “Coward,” she said to herself, jerking open the paper on top of the pile and leafing through it. Her eyes caught on a snippet that had been front page news a few days ago, but had been quickly replaced by the latest breaking scandal of a congressman with a past that included drugs.

  Former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burns’s Trial Date Set.

  Bronte scanned the brief piece, though she already knew most of the information. It was the other information, data that the media didn’t have access to, that still made her uneasy.

  The more time that passed, the more she understood that Dennis’s killing of Melissa Robbins had been an accident. He’d become intimately involved with Pryka’s ex-mistress early on, trying to convince her to request him for her case. Only Melissa hadn’t been the pushover he’d initially thought she was. She’d had an agenda of her own. First and foremost, revenge against her ex-boyfriend who had left her high and dry. Second, she wanted to be placed in a rich environment similar to which she’d grown accustomed. When it became increasingly obvious that Dennis couldn’t provide her with these luxuries, she’d threatened to swear out a complaint against him. But he’d convinced her to swear one out against Connor instead, promising that the new twist would put him in charge of the case, and by extension, in a position of power to get her what she wanted.

  But Melissa hadn’t been able to wait. And in a fit of passion-induced rage, Dennis had strangled her.

  While it helped to know those details, facts Dennis had volunteered under intense questioning with his attorney present, it was what had been uncovered next that had shown just how far he’d been willing to go to cover up the murder—and how close he had come to doing just that.

  The very day he’d placed his hands around Melissa Robbins’s neck, he’d paid a visit to Leonid Pryka himself, offering his services. Only it appeared accurate that Pryka wasn’t the least bit concerned about what his ex-bed bunny did or did not know about his business dealings and he’d laughed Burns from his house.

  Bronte closed the newspaper. For long moments, she just sat there, staring at her stone-cold dinner, and the barely touched pile of newspapers she would have inhaled every word of only a short time ago. God, her life sucked.

  “Coward,” she mumbled to herself again.

  She glanced at her watch, wondering if Kelli was home from work yet. She could call her friend. Ask her to come over and commiserate with her over her bad luck with men.

  Or she could do something to change that luck.

  Her spine snapped upright.

  Yes…she could do something to change it.

  Or die trying.

  She twisted her lips in grim determination. So Connor was a fool. Too thickheaded to see that he loved her, could trust her and believe that forever was a possibility. Okay. That didn’t mean they couldn’t have today. And tomorrow. And the next day.

  It wasn’t so long ago that she’d judged women who were determined to change men’s minds as masochistic, juvenile. Now she knew her viewpoint had been nothing but a convenient cop-out. Either that, or she’d never had anything worth fighting for before.

  And Connor, in all his stubborn, sexy glory, was a prize worth spending the rest of her life fighting for.

  Hmm….

  She already knew he was weak when it came to turning her down physically. If they were in the same room together, chances were they’d end up all over each other before either of them could say the word “boo.” All she had to do was arrange to be in the same room with him.

  Scorching heat spread across her skin, making her shiver in anticipation, even as her heart gave a gentle, painful squeeze.

  She sat back in the chair. “Coward.”

  But she wasn’t a coward. Despite recent proof to the contrary, she had always been a fighter. Always one to go after what she wanted and get it. Why was it any different when it came to Connor McCoy?

  “Because he has the power to hurt you more than any other person you’ve ever met.”

  She fingered the pile of newspapers. Yes, that was true, but didn’t it stand to reason that he could also make her happier than any other person she’d ever met? Pleasure wasn’t half as sweet without the threat of pain that loomed alongside it. The fear that she might be rejected, turned away, or might never convince him to give marriage and a family a try choked off her breath. So did the thought of spending the rest of her life pondering “what if.”

  She slowly rose from the chair, waiting for her body to betray her and plop back down. When her knees didn’t collapse, she walked to the television and switched it off. So far so good. Okay, now all she had to do was go into the hall and put her shoes on. Good…good.

  She paused in front of the closed door, stretching the building tension from her neck. So what if she had to lay everything on the lin
e, while Connor laid nothing? It was enough to know that she loved him and that if she didn’t try she’d never forgive herself.

  She violently pulled open the door—then stopped dead in her tracks.

  There on her front steps stood one completely delectable-looking Connor McCoy.

  She blinked once, twice, then stared as if the aberration would suddenly disappear. But it didn’t. In fact, it ran a hand through short-cropped hair and grimaced at her, telling her it wasn’t a ghost at all, but the real thing.

  Her stomach pitched to her feet.

  “Hi,” Connor said quietly.

  She pushed the words through her tight throat. “Um, hi yourself.”

  He glanced behind her, as if afraid someone else might be there, then gestured toward where she held her purse. “If this is a bad time, if you’re going somewhere, I can always come back another time.”

  Bronte dropped her purse, then clamped her right hand around his wrist and yanked him inside. “Not on your life, McCoy.”

  She slammed the door behind him. The expression on his face was one of a trapped rabbit. She planted her hands on either side of his head against the door, trapping him even further. “As luck would have it, I was just about to come see you.”

  Her gaze dropped to his throat, where he swallowed visibly. Her own heart felt irreversibly caught in her own throat. “You were?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why?”

  Only a short while ago she had wanted him here, and now here he was. A smile spread across her face. “Oh, no, Connor. Since you made it here first, it’s only fair that you go first.”

  “Fair, huh?”

  She began to nod, but was stopped when he moved his hands to either side of her face, and brought his mouth down roughly on hers.