Defender: A Stepbrother Romance Page 11

  Dad came in when he saw my Mom’s bridge partner drive up, and it was his idea to call Eden. I was hoping someone would. I just didn’t want it to be me because I was afraid someone might hear the eagerness in my voice. It was bad enough that I found myself glancing out the window every few seconds, but when I saw her walk up…was it possible for my heart to stop and pound all at the same time? She was in jeans and a thin t-shirt that hugged her shape like a second skin. My palms physically itched to slide underneath, to feel all the promises of pleasure her body had fulfilled the previous night, my lips swelling just at the thought of tasting her again.

  I grabbed a sheaf of papers and stared down at them, trying without success to forget all the things she did to me.

  “Hey, darlin’,” Dad said as Eden walked into the room. “Thanks for coming.”

  She accepted his kiss on her cheek, her eyes drifting over me before shifting to Kendra. The flash of jealousy that filtered through her eyes made my heart stutter again. After everything she put me through that summer…it seemed only fair she should be tortured just a little.

  “Has anyone seen any pictures yet?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Mom said even as she negotiated the growing clutter to greet Eden. “But we haven’t opened half the boxes yet.”

  “What can I do?” Eden asked.

  “Why don’t you help Kendra organize the emails,” Mom said.

  There were a lot of emails. They had included every email that was even remotely related to this case. And we were going to have to read through each and every one just in case there was a little hint of strategy or evidence on any of them. Kendra already had a stack two inches high, and that was only the beginning. I suspected there would be enough emails to fill a five-inch binder.

  Eden hesitated only an instant. She glanced at me, inclining her head slightly in greeting, before taking a chair beside Kendra. Kendra smiled, offered her hand, and then explained what she was doing. After just a few minutes, Eden had her own stack of emails growing in front of her.

  I turned my attention toward a couple of boxes shoved off into a corner. I thought I hit pay dirt when I found a group of records from a local doctor, but it turned out to just be a follow-up on Joel’s visit to the family doctor. There was nothing there but the mention of a whiplash injury that was probably just the doctor’s desperate attempt to find something wrong with the boy.

  I kept digging, losing myself in the legal jargon. It was one of my favorite parts of legal work. I’d always enjoyed research. When I wrote a history paper in high school, I always took the research far beyond where it had to go because I just loved discovering every little nuance of a subject. That’s why I was a good lawyer, why I won so many of my cases. Because I was prepared. And because I loved what I did.

  I was elbow deep in the last box when I found something that got my attention. At first I thought it was just a random receipt the prosecutor had put in here to throw us off the trail. But then…Shit! It was from a liquor store just two doors down from the restaurant where Eden ate that night. A receipt for five bottles of vodka.

  Joel was buying vodka—an excessive amount of vodka—just moments before the accident.

  We really needed to find those blood alcohol tests, especially the one performed on Joel. If I could prove they were both over the legal limit at the time of the accident—talk about your reasonable doubt!

  I got up and stepped behind Kendra, glancing over the growing stack of emails. “Have you found anything about breathalyzers or blood alcohol tests yet?”

  She shook her head.

  I glanced around the room. My mother and Alistair had their heads together by the windows, studying the contents of one of the last boxes. Mother’s bridge partner, Winnie, was organizing a stack of receipts of some sort. Eden was sitting to my left, the tip of her tongue just peeking out between her lips as she studied the papers she was organizing. I slid my hand under her hair, squeezing her neck lightly.

  “How about I call Sara’s and order some lunch for everyone?” I offered.

  My mother shot me a look like I’d just offended everything about her. “No. I’ll go throw some chicken in the oven.”

  I shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t matter to me. But that was exactly what I was hoping she’d say. My Mom’s chicken was like nothing else…my stomach grumbled impatiently just at the thought. Her cooking would beat a local fast food restaurant any time.

  I slid my fingers under the back of Eden’s collar, wanting so badly to touch her. She glanced back at me but didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. I could read her thoughts as they danced through her eyes and it made it almost impossible for me to breathe. How long had I wanted her to look at me that way? To have her do then, finally, frustrated me in a way that even adolescence had never done.

  “Why don’t we take a break?” Dad suggested.

  Dad, Kendra, and I moved into the living room while the ladies went into the kitchen to put on lunch. The moment Eden was out of earshot, Dad muttered, “I’m worried about her. She seems pretty worried.”

  I sat on the edge of the couch and leaned forward, burying my fingers in my hair for a second. I had to get my thoughts together or the first word out of my mouth would give me away. I couldn’t stop thinking about Eden, about touching her. I wanted to go into that kitchen and pull her into my arms, make her mine again and again…but then I imagined the look on my mother’s face when she realized what was happening, and it cooled my need.

  I looked up and immediately realized that Alistair thought I was upset about Eden’s legal case. Kendra shot me a look that suggested she thought I’d gone insane or something.

  “She’s got no reason to worry,” I said. “The prosecutor is pushing this forward, hoping to catch us off guard. But we know what we’re doing.”

  “You’re prepared to go to trial now?”

  “I we went to trial tomorrow I could poke so many holes in their case that it would turn this whole thing on its head.”

  Relief washed over Dad’s face. “Are you sure? That’s great.”

  I patted his knee lightly. “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

  I glanced at Kendra. She inclined her head slightly as I got up and stole out of the room. I could hear her explaining the accident reconstruction stuff to him. I wasn’t sure we should be putting so much into that one basket, but if it kept him from panicking, so much the better.

  I slipped outside, craving a little space. I love my family, but like any normal American male, I could only take so much. I walked along the driveway to the barn where Dad had his workshop. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood took place out there. When my mother and I first came to live with Alistair and Eden, I didn’t trust anyone, let alone men. My real father just wasn’t a great example of what it meant to be a man. The only thing I ever learned from him was to fight.

  That’s why my stepdad was something of an enigma to me those first few years. I kept waiting for him to raise his voice, to dictate the behavior of the people in his home. I expected to see bruises on my mother’s face, on Eden. It was a long time before I realized that not all men hit the people they cared most about. And when I did figure it out, when I figured out there were other things a man could do with his hands besides hurt…it was a revelation for me.

  I walked along his work benches, touching a random tool, then a chisel. He taught me how to carve in soap those first few times out there. I made a car once, complete with moveable wheels. I still had it somewhere, drying out and cracking, but you could still tell what it was. And then I moved on to wood. I once imagined I might work in clay and marble and some of the other mediums Dad used. But then I took a debate class in high school and those dreams were replaced with others. I still liked to use my hands, though. I had a wood burning kit in my apartment that got a good workout from time to time.

  “I thought I’d find you here.”

  I turned and watched as Eden walked toward me, the warm afternoon su
nlight like a halo around her slender figure. She was quite a sight in any backdrop. But I liked that, liked the way the sun shone against her pale skin, making the contrast of alabaster and black seem that much deeper, that much richer. And it didn’t hurt that it made her shirt almost transparent.

  I grabbed her arm and pulled her around in front of me, trapping her between my body and one of Dad’s workbenches. She giggled until I kissed her, until my lips pressed firmly against hers, until my tongue stole the words right out of her throat. She groaned, her body relaxing as it melted in my arms. I slid my hand under her shirt as I had wanted to do all day, rewarded by the silkiness of her skin, the goosebumps my closeness brought out against her ribs. Damn! I could never get too used to the feel or taste of her.

  Her hand slid over my shirt, and her fingers wrapped around my tie as she tugged me closer. And then she twisted her head, her lips moving from mine to burn a path over my jaw, her tongue sneaking a taste of that delicate little spot under my ear. I made a sound that was somewhere between a moan and a chuckle, and need soared through me until I thought I might explode from the tension that was building in places that didn’t take kindly to pressure.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” I hissed against her ear.

  “Am I?”

  That sound again. “You know you are.”

  She looked up at me, her eyes rounded with innocence. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

  She ruined it by laughing. And then we were kissing again, my hand sliding under the bottom edge of her bra, searching for that nipple that seemed to stand up and mock me each time I touched at her. My fingers just grazed it when I thought I heard a car on the gravel outside. I pulled away to look, but she tugged at my tie again, her lips skating over my jaw. And then I was lost, the need destroying all common sense I might—or might not—have had.

  I lost myself for a while, her kisses more addictive than any drug, prescription or otherwise. I’d waited for so long that I couldn’t wait a moment longer. I wanted her. I needed her. Only her.

  It was a thought I had never had before. And the moment it floated through my mind, it elated and terrified me all at the same time.

  Twenty-Two

  Eden

  I could still taste him on my lips. Even as I sat at the kitchen table with Dad on one side and Vera on the other, all I could think about was the feel of Crawford’s hands on my body. I wondered—a ridiculous thought—if they could see the heat of his touch glowing on my skin. I wondered if they could tell simply by looking at me how hard it had been to let him walk away from me when Mom called everyone in for lunch. Perhaps they could see what was happening between us when he looked at me and my train of thought evaporated.

  I almost expected someone—anyone—to say something. But the only one who seemed even remotely aware of the tension between us was his assistant. She shot me a few confused looks during our meal. But other than that, all anyone seemed interested in were the files we’d been going through for the last few hours.

  “What exactly happens when we go to trial?” my Dad asked Crawford.

  “We begin with opening arguments. The prosecutor will lay out his case, describing how he believes the accident happened and how it proves that Eden was drunk and that she was reckless in getting behind the wheel of a car.” He glanced at me, his eyes softening as they moved over me. “Then I get my chance. I’ll outline how I think the accident happened and discuss the fact that Joel, the other driver, was likely drunk at the time of the accident and how his recklessness contributed to the accident.”

  “You think he was drunk too?” Daddy asked.

  “I do. And I think the police are covering up that fact.”

  “But the cop at the hospital said they had a test that showed Eden was quite intoxicated. He told me that it was more than twice the legal limit.”

  Crawford focused on him a little closer. “What exactly did he say?”

  Daddy shrugged, his eyes moving to Mom. “You were there, babe. Didn’t he say twice the legal limit?”

  She nodded. “We were in the emergency room. It was loud and chaotic. She was still unconscious,” she said, gesturing toward me. “But, yeah, I remember hearing him say that.”

  “Then why didn’t they arrest her then?” Crawford asked.

  “Should they have?” I asked, imagining myself in handcuffs while I was still unconscious in a hospital bed.

  Kendra seemed surprised that I would even ask such a question. “It is routine.”

  That made my head spin a little. My arrest had been traumatic enough. The thought that it should have happened sooner made me a little sick to my stomach.

  “We should talk to the cop,” Crawford said to Kendra. She nodded and immediately got up, pulling her cell phone from her pocket. I watched her go, torn between jealousy at her relationship with Crawford and gratefulness that she seemed so completely competent. I needed as much competence on my side as possible.

  We went back to work a little later, but I couldn’t concentrate on the task at hand. I literally couldn’t read the sheets of paper I was trying to organize because each time I saw my name attached to such an official looking case number, my vision got cloudy. Dad came up behind me and slid his arm around my shoulders.

  “You want to go for a walk?” he asked.

  We went out through the back door and wandered along the pasture that once fed dozens of cattle but now was overgrown except for the well-tended flower garden Mom put in shortly after she moved in with us. I remember how much I hated it. Every day of my short life at that point had been spent waking in the morning and looking out at the overgrown grass and sage brush. And, suddenly, there was a bright spot of color that really pulled the whole thing together. But I hated it because it wasn’t mine anymore. It was hers.

  “I’m sorry,” I said aloud as I remembered the temper tantrums I had at the time.

  “For what?”

  “For making it so hard on you when Vera and Crawford came to live with us.”

  My Dad laughed. “You were six, Eden. If you hadn’t acted out a little, I would have worried.”

  “Yeah. But I was a little terror.”

  “You were difficult. But that was partly my fault, too. I felt so bad for you, growing up without a mother that I gave you everything you ever wanted.”

  “You still do,” I said, moving closer to his side. “And I love you for it.”

  He kissed the top of my head. We walked in silence for a few minutes, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I found myself thinking about my childhood, of all the times Dad and Mom had quiet arguments over something I’d done, I wanted, or I said. There was once or twice I remembered seeing hurt and accusation in both their eyes.

  Maybe more than once or twice.

  “Was I really all that spoiled?”

  My Dad missed a step as he glanced at me. “What do you mean?”

  “Did I make your life difficult?”

  He chuckled under his breath. “You’re my child. You enriched my life in ways you will never understand.”

  “But look at all I’ve done. Look at this mess? You’re spending time you could be using to work on your art to go through legal documents—“

  “I would do anything for you, Eden.” He stopped in front of me and grabbed my shoulders. “You are who you were meant to be. And I love you all the more for it. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “But I’ve embarrassed you.”

  “Psssht,” he snapped. “Who cares about small town gossip?”

  “What if I go to jail?”

  A pain sliced across his face, but he never looked or pulled away. “Then we’ll deal with it.” His expression softened, and he touched the side of my face. “You don’t have many memories of your real mom, do you? I don’t suppose you would since you were so young when she died.”

  I shook my head even as a flash of dark hair rushed through my mind.

  “She was a free spirit, not unlike you. So full o
f life that it was hard to realize that life was being slowly snuffed out of her when she was diagnosed with cancer. But she continued to dress each day, continued to make a presentation of herself because that’s who she was. Nothing could stop her from being who she was.” He touched the side of my face again. “Nothing will stop you from being who you are, either.”

  “Not even jail?”

  “Not even jail.” He drew me into his arms and held me for a second. “But I do believe Crawford knows what he’s doing and I think he’s going to give these local lawyers a run for their money.”

  I nodded as I reached up and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  * * *

  I went back to my place a while later. I’d done all I could in helping Kendra organize the emails. I tried to be cheerful about the whole thing, but it was hard. Some of the words I saw written on those papers—manslaughter, intoxication, reckless—they were like tiny paper cuts on my soul. And each one allowed a little more doubt to sink in until I could hardly look at the people around me the same way. They all believed in me, believed that I was innocent. But what if I wasn’t? What if I’d never really been innocent? What if I really was the spoiled brat Crawford had always accused me of being?

  I stood in the shower for a long time, those thoughts dancing in my mind. Maybe I deserved to go to jail. Maybe it was finally time for me to pay for all my mistakes. And Lord knows I made a lot of them. It wasn’t the first time I’d crashed a car. There was that time when I was fifteen and I snuck out of the house with Jeannie. We took her Dad’s car and ran it up a light pole, because we hadn’t yet learned how to drive, and I thought I could do it better than her. Or the time in college when I borrowed my roommate’s car and my Dad had to pay to have it completely repainted after I left it under a tree in the library parking lot. Who knew that bird shit was so corrosive?