“They’re the image of each other now.” Eve laughed lightly. “Christa thinks it’s a hoot when people mistake Zoey for Laken’s mother.”
“And how did Dawg react to Zoey?” he asked her, his tone husky with amusement.
“Zoey swears he looked like he was going to cry. She says his hands were shaking. But as soon as she mentioned Momma was sick again, Timothy rushed outside to the truck where we were waiting. After that, it was like Dawg had always been there watching over us.”
She glanced up at Brogan, seeing the understanding in his eyes. “He made sure Momma got the tests and medication she needed. He moved us in with him and Christa while Momma was in the hospital. When he learned Momma had always wanted her own bed-and-breakfast inn, he had one waiting for her when she came out of the hospital. He’d completely remodeled it and had everything perfect for her. He told her he didn’t have just four sisters; he had five. And he had to take care of her, too.”
Rounding a bend in the path, Eve came to a surprised stop, delight racing through her at the sight of the small trickling stream flowing past a nearly hidden grotto.
Beneath the canopy of wisteria and honeysuckle was a wide padded bench almost half the size of a bed.
“Can we go in?” she asked, the urge to stretch out on the padded bench nearly overwhelming.
“Of course.” Catching her hand, he held it with his own as he led her beneath the wide opening.
Releasing her to explore, Brogan leaned against the heavy support post as she sat on the padded stone bench before stretching out on it and staring up at the fragrant, colorful clusters of flowers hanging above her from amid the leafy green.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said wistfully, wishing she could hold back time just a little longer. That she could still the questions raging inside her.
Turning her head, she stared back at him. His gaze met and locked with hers, regret flickering in the blue-gray depths. Did he wish time could be held back as well? That they could have just a few more hours before reality had to be dealt with?
Sitting up slowly and tucking her legs to the side, she took a deep breath.
“Are you going to lie to me?” she asked, somehow knowing she would sense it if he did.
“I won’t lie to you,” he promised. “I may not be able to answer some questions, but I won’t lie.”
Eve looked away. She gazed down at her lap and watched her fingers for long moments as they twisted together. When she lifted her gaze to his once again, it was to see the regret he made no effort to hide now.
“Why did you wait so long?” she finally asked. “And why now?” She had flirted with him since she had first met him the day he arrived in Somerset two and a half years before.
“I waited because I didn’t believe it was fair to drag you into my world,” he explained, his voice heavy as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Why now? Because I couldn’t stand it any longer, Eve. I’ve wanted you since that first day, and waiting simply wasn’t any option any longer.”
His answer only made her next question harder. Twisting her fingers together in her lap, she watched his eyes as she asked, “How do you know Chatham Doogan, and why did you show up at the restaurant last night?”
“Fuck, we couldn’t start with the easy questions first, could we?” He grimaced before his eyes narrowed on her. “I’m going to be honest with you, Eve, but I’m telling you now: No one—not your brother, your sisters, or your mother—can know about this. It goes no further, no matter what.”
“It won’t go any further,” she promised. She knew his answers weren’t going to be easy to hear, though.
“Chatham Bromleah Doogan the third.” He gave a short, bitter laugh. “He’s my boss, sort of. He’s the operations director for the regional office of the Federal Protective Service. It’s a division of Homeland Security that deals with the protection and security of federal buildings, employees, assets, and possessions. And if you tell anyone what I’m telling you today, then Doogan is going to jump on it like a dog on a bone and drag your brother and cousins into something I don’t think they want to be a part of.”
Eve stared back at him, expecting him to declare, “April Fools’,” despite the fact that it was already June. If not that, then, “psych,” or, “joke,” or some declaration to indicate that he certainly wasn’t serious. But the longer she stared at him, the more she knew it wasn’t coming. The more sense it made.
“You’re not a traitor then?” she finally asked. “You haven’t been stealing government files left and right or attempting to weaken the pillars of society?”
A bitter smile pulled at his lips. “I don’t know about the pillars of society, but sorry, baby, the thieving is pretty much true. For the past two and a half years I’ve been a thieving son of a bitch.”
Her hands were shaking. As Eve stared at her hands in her lap she realized they were trembling like leaves in a storm.
“Why?” she asked, keeping her gaze on her hands, wondering whether she could will them to be still.
“It’s part of the investigation FPS is conducting to catch the thieves actually stealing government files from independent analysts who were contracted to study them,” he explained.
Okay, so he was pretending to be a thieving son of a bitch, she thought as her gaze lifted to him again. That was the easy part. There was much more than this going on; Chatham’s presence at the boat dock proved that.
“Before you ask this next question be damned sure you want the answer,” he warned her as her lips parted.
“How do you know what I’m going to ask?” Her voice was faint, cautious.
She could feel things she didn’t understand. Feelings and suspicions she wasn’t certain were hers.“The hell if I know, but I can tell,” he growled in annoyance.
“So tell me.” No. She really didn’t want to know. She needed to know, but she didn’t want to. The truth truly could hurt.
Brogan’s jaw clenched savagely. “You want to know why Doogan asked you to dinner and why I came back and dragged you out of there. That’s what you’re ready to ask.”
She wasn’t exactly ready, but . . .
She stared at him in shock before turning away for long moments. How had he known? The same way she knew he didn’t want to tell her? The way she knew he’d never intended for her to ever have the opportunity to ask even the questions she was asking?
She turned back to him and nodded slowly.
“Doogan asked you to dinner to force me to do exactly what I did,” he revealed. “Donny heard him invite you to dinner, heard the location and your answer. The bastard let me get three hours out of town before he was good enough to tell me. And I came back for you, by God, because you’re mine! And that’s besides the fact that I’ve never fucking cared for Doogan’s poaching tendencies. Coming back for you was a hell of a lot easier than trying to get out of a murder charge.”
Eve could feel her insides shaking now as well. She was trembling from the inside out, shaking with the desperate need to deny what he was telling her.
“That doesn’t make sense, Brogan,” she whispered. “How could I be of any use to Homeland Security or to Chatham?”
“Not so much you as your brother and cousins. Doogan wants the Mackays to solve this for him, without his asking. If he has to ask and they solve it, then he owes them major. They solve it because you’re possibly in danger or your lover endangers you, then it’s just a freebie and he doesn’t owe them a damned thing.”
There had to be more, though. She could feel it, sense he was holding back. But if she didn’t ask the right question, then he wouldn’t tell her. But she knew it wasn’t just a case of pulling her brother and cousins into some conniving bastard’s operation.
Staring back at him, she whispered, “Is everyone in Homeland Security manipulating bastards with nothing better to do than scheme and interfere in innocent people’s lives?”
Brogan shook his head. “Timothy and Doogan are freaks of nature best avoided.”
“So Chatham Doogan asked me out knowing you would return once you found out about it and then make me your lover?” she asked dubiously. “How could he be so certain it would work?”
“Because he’s a freak of nature,” he repeated. “Men like that can calculate the odds and then find ways to turn the situation to their favor. That’s what Doogan is best at.”
“All of this just so Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches would help solve a case for him?”
Brogan nodded.
“How are they supposed to accomplish something you’ve not yet managed?” she bit out, her fingers forming fists as offended anger began to surge through her senses.
Brogan’s lips tilted in a smile, more rueful than mocking. “They know this county and the people in it,” he told her. “Even more, they know which rocks to turn over and the heads to knock together to get the answers they need.”
“And you think they haven’t gotten tired of waiting and are doing it anyway?” she asked in disbelief. “Brogan, this is their home, and they wouldn’t let this go on without helping if they knew about it.”
He shook his head, his arms dropping from his chest.
“No, Eve, I don’t think that’s what they’re doing,” he said acerbically. “There’s doing what’s required because the director of operations of the Federal Protective Service threatened to imprison you if you stuck your nose in another agency operation. Then there’s active determination to finish the job before something happens to the baby sister you swore you would protect. The first kind of man steps in only when asked to. The second doesn’t wait to be asked.”
And Dawg wouldn’t wait to be asked if he thought Eve, Piper, Lyrica, or Zoey were in danger.
“And you think Dawg won’t figure it out?” she questioned him harshly. “For God’s sake, Brogan, I promised him I would stay away from you. That I wouldn’t take as a lover the only man he couldn’t bear to see me with. Trust me; Dawg will question me. He’ll want to know why I broke my promise when I’ve never done it before.”
What had she done to betray her brother?
Disbelief crashed through her system as the reality of it, of the fact that she had done the one thing Dawg, her brother, had asked her not to do. The only thing he had ever asked her not to do.
“He should have never made you promise to stay away from me.” His brow arched, mockery gleaming in his eyes, but Eve could feel the thread of anger emanating from him.
“You’re a suspected traitor, Brogan,” she reminded him.
“Living in the same house as a former Homeland Security special agent,” he reminded her. “Don’t fool yourself, sweet pea. Dawg Mackay knows a traitor when he’s in the presence of one. Just as he knows an agent when one’s around.”
Eve stared back at him, hurting, her heart aching so fiercely she reached up to rub at her chest, trying to ease the burning tightness.
He was right. Dawg would have known Brogan was no traitor, so why would he deceive her? Make her believe he suspected Brogan of being exactly that?
“Maybe it’s because everyone else believes you’re one?” she questioned him, her voice rough. “Or maybe it’s because he suspected what your boss is capable of doing.”
Still, Dawg had led her to believe he, too, suspected Brogan of treason, or acting against his country. And because he had believed it, Eve had questioned her own instincts where Brogan was concerned.
“Tell me, Eve, when you made that promise, did you intend to keep it?” The look in his eyes warned her he wasn’t happy she had given in to Dawg’s demand.