No one had questioned Tory’s ability to raise her brother. After all, she’d been shouldering responsibility for years and had grown into an independent young woman. A woman who’d vowed never to make herself the kind of burden her mother had been. Growing up, it had taken all her energy to deal with the people who needed her, so she’d never let herself need anyone. Not even the man she’d run off and married.
How ironic that she’d lost her head over a cop for whom it was run-of-the-mill to deal with other people’s problems. A broad-shouldered, gorgeous man very willing to let her shift her burdens onto those impressive shoulders. A dream made in heaven for most women, Tory conceded, but not her. Never her.
And that was the crux of her and Bran’s problem. According to his youngest sister, his first wife had been a slim, shy brunette who’d welcomed having a husband who shielded and protected her. She’d been happy to have him manage the problems life had to offer. From all accounts, Patience McCall had lived contentedly in Bran’s shadow, quiet, deferring to him without conscious thought.
A visceral little pang of envy for the happiness Bran had shared with another woman tightened Tory’s heart. As did the knowledge that Bran had spent the entire time they’d lived together comparing her to his first wife. Oh, he’d done so in silence, but Tory was well-versed at reading people, and she had seen the comparison being made in Bran’s face often enough. Just as she’d seen it last night in the kitchen when his expression went distant with what she knew had been memories of another time, another woman.
A happier time with a woman who’d shown him in every way how much she needed him.
A woman whom Tory knew she could never come close to emulating. She just didn’t have it in her to allow herself to lean on a man. On anyone, for that matter. Not when just the thought of her mother’s clinging neediness put a sick feeling in her stomach.
Her gaze settled again on the workbench, sweeping over the tools that had gone untouched for months. Before she could block it, her mind flashed a picture of Bran standing there, his hands and muscled arms covered with a fine mist of sawdust, a lock of sandy hair falling over his forehead as he worked with the tools.
She felt the ache of loss through every bone and muscle. She’d felt that same sense of loss last night, lying crushed beneath his weight while everything that was female in her responded to the feel of his corded biceps, his hard chest against her breasts, the scent of his musky cologne. The damn chemical signals that sizzled through her whenever Bran got near had started nerves and needs pulsing through her in fast, greedy waves.
For the first time she allowed herself to open the door in her mind that she’d locked tight when Bran walked out. Even at the beginning there had been more between them than just that basic attraction. That physical pull. There’d been a shared affection, and what she thought had been love. All those feelings had gotten swept into the background by the conflict that had so quickly developed between them.
A bright, swift pain twisted in her heart, and the mental door she’d opened slammed shut. It hurt too much to think about how swiftly their marriage had crumbled. It was over. They were over.
Outside, the muffled honk of a horn sounded, and she figured Rocco was there to pick up Danny. Seconds later, the front door slammed.
Shoving away the memories, she glanced at her watch. She had paperwork to deal with and equipment to check before starting what would probably be a week of nighttime surveillance on one of her new cases.
While out tonight, she also planned to connect with some of her street contacts. Most of the individuals she knew who fell into that category would rather eat dirt than talk to a cop. It was possible one of her contacts had heard something about the killer who might possibly come gunning for Bran.
The thought of that happening sent a twinge of icy premonition drifting through her. Just the thought of Bran getting hurt made her throat go dry. So, while he watched her back, she intended to watch his.
One week later, Bran steered his patrol car into the driveway of the house he’d shared with two very diverse women. One calm, serene and elegantly quiet. The other wouldn’t know calm, serene and quiet if they kicked her in the head.
It was that woman he’d come to see. The fact he wasn’t sure why had him scowling.
Sure, he needed to update Tory on what the cops had found regarding Vic Heath’s associates. It was vital she have the latest info in case the escaped killer sent a pal by to exact his revenge. But Bran had already e-mailed her some of that information. And he could have driven by and slid the paperwork he’d put together last night into the mail slot. Instead, he’d called to make sure Tory was home.
So, why was he here? he wondered as he sat in the idling black and white, staring at the two-story Victorian white frame house with green shutters and a wraparound porch. After he’d walked out, he and Tory had gone three months without any contact. He hadn’t even called her on Christmas Day when thoughts of her were weighing heavily on his mind.
Their latest encounter had changed things, he conceded. It wasn’t the dismal state of their marriage that had clung like a burr in his brain over the past week. It was how it had felt to have her lying under him again. Granted, his plowing her over in the dark and her winding up beneath him had been an accident, still, it had reignited a fire inside him he had thought dead. Had wanted dead.
He dreamed about her now. Every night since then, he’d dreamed of her. Smoky, erotic visions in which he felt her soft skin and slim body under his. Saw her desire-filled green eyes gazing up into his. Felt her shudder while their sweat-slicked bodies mated and they took each other over the edge to heaven.
Those nightly carnal fantasies had left him itchy and unsettled and irritated. Like a drug, he could feel Tory seeping into his system again, and he wasn’t sure how to deal with that.
Wasn’t sure if he even wanted to. Dammit, why the hell did the woman have to be such an exact match for him in bed, and so unsuited for him in every other way?
The thought of how she had never hesitated to debate him when their discussions turned to music, politics, TV shows or even at what restaurant they should eat dinner had him shaking his head.
That wasn’t why he’d left, though. In truth, he admired the way she could hold her ground and take him to the wall in a debate. What he couldn’t handle was a wife who would rather choke on her stubborn independence before she turned to him for anything. A wife who’d totally shut him out when it came to handling problems about her brother, leaving Bran battling feelings of impotence and hot fury. Their final confrontation over her bailing Danny out of jail without giving one thought to calling her husband—a cop—had led to the type of verbal argument that could be broken up only with a fire hose.
Dammit, her concern over her reprobate brother hadn’t been the issue. He had understood her need to get Danny out of jail fast—in the holding cell, the kid had gotten on the wrong side of a skank drug addict and gotten the fire beat out of him. Bran would have done whatever it took to get his own brothers or sisters out of there and into the hands of a doctor. What he’d no longer been able to swallow was that he had a wife who refused to turn to him. To need him. So he’d walked.
That had been three months ago, but the thought of what had transpired between him and Tory still stirred his temper.
As he had so often in the past, he gritted his teeth against those stirrings. No matter how he felt about what had happened between them, she was still his wife. Because of that she could wind up an unintentional target of Heath’s vengeance.
So, here he was, Bran thought as he climbed out of the patrol car into the cold bite of the January day, coming to see the woman he’d married in a sexual