The Detective's Undoing
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Jill Shalvis
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16
Chapter 1
Twenty years later
He was stuck.
Stuck, while the powerful wanderlust within him tore him apart, driving him crazy with the need to roam far and free.
It wasn’t a physical sort of stuck. He couldn’t imagine anything as simple as that keeping him in one place.
No, it was a promise that held him, his own promises, no less.
The woman he’d made the promise to, Constance Freeman, was dead. But to Cade McKnight, a vow of any kind was as good as gold. He’d never broken one before, and he didn’t intend to start now.
But with all his heart and soul he wanted to be free of the promise.
It was past midnight, but he’d been unable to sleep. A long hard ride in the saddle hadn’t helped.
It took only a second to let himself in the huge ranch-style house that would serve as the main lodge when there were guests at the Triple M. There were no guests yet, but four people—three of them his friends and one a complete baffling mystery—owned and operated the place, and lived here.
They were sleeping now. Grateful for the silence and the time to think and yearn, Cade stood just inside the front door.
A sound drifted from the sleeping house, from the kitchen. Not a normal sound, but a choked nearly silent whisper.
Tense, Cade moved lithely through the large living room, coming to a stop just outside the double swinging doors to the kitchen.
No light was on.
The Triple M Guest Ranch was a fairly secure place, located in the vast wilds of western Idaho hundreds of miles from the nearest big city. But Cade, who was not a country boy but rather a certified city rat, never took chances.
Especially when he had friends sleeping upstairs. He cared about those three friends, Zoe, Maddie and Ty—and that one baffling mystery, too—far more than he wanted to.
Which reminded him of how much he wished he was clutching a one-way ticket out of here. He was chomping at the bit to get moving once more.
The sound came again.
Cade shoved his way through the double wooden doors and turned on the overhead light all in one movement.
Blinking in the sudden light was that one mystery—the cool calm Delia Scanlon.
She was stunningly, shockingly beautiful. Alabaster skin. Long thick luxurious pale blond hair that fell in waves past her shoulders. Full sensuous lips guaranteed to drive a man wild.
She stood in front of the opened refrigerator, bathed in the white light of the refrigerator bulb, her lush curves not entirely concealed by her surprisingly plain terry-cloth bathrobe.
Her eyes, the color of a brilliant mountain sky, seared through him.
They were tear-ravaged.
He swore, hating the way his heart twisted from just looking at her. He hated having his heart do anything, but to have it feel, and feel so passionately, suitably terrified him so that he stood rock still and offered no comfort. “What are you doing?”
“Me? Oh, just dancing with the moon.” Turning away, she wiped at the tears he had pretended not to see and she had pretended not to have shed.
The hunch of her usually ramrod-straight shoulders tore at him and, furious with himself, he turned his back on her. “Dammit, next time flip the light on or something. I thought you were—”
“What? A burglar out in the middle of nowhere? Get a grip, McKnight.” Her voice, with its low grainy sexy tone of a 1930s movie siren, sounded full of temper.
That was good, he told himself. Temper was far preferable to tears.
“Go away,” she said.
She still hadn’t looked at him, but then again, he wasn’t looking at her, either. He couldn’t.
If he did, he’d feel that strange inexplicable absolutely unacceptable tug. He didn’t want to believe it was attraction, didn’t want to believe it was anything, so he ignored it.
So did she.
It suited them both. Delia was no more country than he was, raised as she’d been in the Los Angeles child-welfare system. He knew this, not because they talked much—by tacit agreement they avoided each other—but because he was the private investigator who’d promised Constance Freeman he’d find her long-lost granddaughter, heir to the Triple M.
It should have been an easy open-and-shut case. But of course, given his luck of the past few years, it hadn’t been. He’d found an heir all right, three of them. Delia, Maddie and Zoe, all foster sisters, dumped into the system at approximately the same time and age.
It was his job to narrow the choices down to the correct woman, a feat that had so far escaped him.
“Stop staring at me,” Delia said.
He glanced over his shoulder to find her still glaring into the refrigerator. “I’m not even looking at you.”
“You are so.”
He smiled then, because they were both obviously tired, cranky and…well, he didn’t want to think about what else they were. Because whatever it was, they were it together and he didn’t want anything to do with it.
“Why don’t you just leave?” She was again looking into the refrigerator, scowling hard, as if she could find the answers to world peace and hunger, but it was her voice that reached him. She sounded confused and hurt, and he had an insane urge to soothe her.
“You know I can’t,” he said, wishing yet again that he could.
She pushed at a jar of mayonnaise and peered behind it, searching. “You’ve proven Zoe isn’t the heir.”
“Which still leaves you and Maddie.”
She pulled out an apple and examined it, then rejected it. “Not me. You know it’s not me.”
“I know no such thing.”
“My father was a cop.” Her fingers turned white with their death grip on a bottle of soda. “An undercover cop who never knew of my existence, remember? You yourself found this out just last week when you tracked down my so-called birth mother and found out that she was dead.”
Because he sensed the fragile hold she had on her emotions, he stayed where he was and said quietly, “Yes, I remember.” He also remembered how she’d looked when he’d told her, the shattered emotions that had swum in her expressive eyes when she’d realized her mother was gone forever, the mother who’d left her in a foster home.
She didn’t look shattered now, but with the tears wiped away, she looked strong. Fiercely independent. And despite himself, admiration filled him for her ability to roll with the punches life had thrown her.
He, more than anyone, knew exactly how painful those punches could be.
“And Constance’s no-good jerk of a son was a drifter,” she continued. “Not a cop. So really, I couldn’t be her granddaughter.”
“I don’t think your mother was real good at truths, Delia,” he said gently.
That had her snapping her gaze back to his, but when she spoke, it was not with the heat of temper, but with the slow precision that only pain and sorrow could bring. “I’d like to be able to deny that.”
It was a surprising admission from a woman who’d been very careful to keep herself hidden from him. He understood perfectly, as the attempt was mutual. “I’m on the case until I have answers.”
She muttered something, but he missed it. When he raised a brow in question, she sighed with exasperation.
“I said thank you for finding my half brother.”
Given how she’d ground out each word, especially the “thank you” part, Cade knew how difficult the words had been. For some reason, this lightened his mood, made him want to grin. “I’m sorry…what was that?” He ignored her growl of frustration and cupped a hand to his ear, giving her an innocent smile.
“Thank you,” she said again through her teeth. Then she swallowed, hard, and all traces of resentment vanished. Her voice and expression softened. “I didn’t even know Jacob existed and I owe you for that. I’m going next week to Los Angeles to meet him for the first time and…”
“And…?”
“And I’m grateful, okay?”
She looked close to tears again, which he couldn’t take. Cocking his head, he ran his gaze over the body that could make a grown man beg and gave a wicked smile designed to claw at her temper. “How grateful?” he asked.
For a second she gaped at him before her composure returned. It was fascinating to watch.
She was fascinating to watch.
Without a word, she sauntered past him, chin high, walking regally from the kitchen into the recesses of the dark house.
Which left him alone.
That was nothing new. He was always alone.
* * *
Learning to ride. Oh, the joy of it. Not.
The day stretched out before Delia, glorious and cloud-free. Good thing, too, because though it was only October, they’d been battered by a series of storms, and she was already a little tired of the bone-numbing cold.
She was also tired of worrying.
There was so much, she didn’t know where to start. She worried about Maddie and Zoe and how hard they had to work. She worried about her newly found little brother, living far away in Los Angeles with a distant aunt, because no one had known to contact her. She worried about this big bad wilderness she was living in, when all she knew were shopping malls and Thai takeout. She worried about—
“Hey.”
Him. She worried about him.
Silently cursing her sisters’ good humor—which had included this so-called riding lesson, courtesy of one Cade McKnight—she shifted in her saddle and looked into Cade’s mischievous eyes. As always, her heart skipped a beat, which annoyed her since her heart never skipped a beat over something as simple as a male.
“You’re not paying attention,” he said. “You’re letting that horse have her way.”
“I am not.” But good old Betsy betrayed her, bending her long neck down to graze. Delia turned away from Cade’s laughing gaze, trying to no avail to pull on Betsy’s reins.
The horse continued to graze peacefully.
“Try harder. With authority.”
Delia did…and broke a nail. She gritted her teeth and pulled harder.
Chewing complacently, Betsy twisted her neck and gazed balefully at Delia, but when she finished her mouthful, she didn’t go for more. Instead, she shifted, as if considering taking off for a nice long run.
Delia’s eyes widened slightly, her only concession to alarm. “Stop,” she demanded of the suddenly restless Betsy, the gentlest horse on the Triple M.
Cade reached over and stroked Betsy’s nose. “Shh, baby, it’s okay.”
“I know I’m okay.” Delia said. “Talk to the horse!”
“I was.” Cade grinned when Delia made a sound of frustration. “But you’re looking pretty okay, too. Baby.”
She rolled her eyes and looked away. Anywhere but at Cade.
They were still on Triple M property, but far enough from the house and barns that the vast land before her felt like another world. The hills were dotted with early frost, and the Salmon River raged more loudly than her thoughts. There wasn’t a freeway, let alone a car, in sight. No smog, no sirens, nothing. And to make it worse, she was sitting on a horse. A horse, for God’s sake.
She missed her city.
Cade’s lips curved as he tipped his head, studying her. A lock of wavy dark hair fell into his eyes, eyes that always seemed to see right through her icy calm to the Delia she didn’t want exposed.
“You’re thinking of your message,” he said.
“Humph.”
“The judge finally reviewed your request for custody of Jacob. You have a hearing set for next month.”
Her greatest hope and terror all mixed into one. Oh, she definitely wanted Jacob, but what made her think Jacob wanted her?
Cade was watching her closely now, and she returned his stare with one of her own. He was tall and built like an athlete, with powerful muscles born more from physical labor than any gym. With the sun behind him, every one of those muscles was outlined beneath his dark T-shirt, along with the ones in his long legs, which were encompassed in faded snug denim. And every one of those muscles was tense as he sat in the saddle looking at her. “This is good news, remember?”
“Of course.”
He bent closer, peering into her face. “Then where’s the smile?”
Baring her teeth, she gave the smile her best shot.
His big body shifted back, but he still watched her with that probing gaze.
As if he knew.
She assured herself that her secret fear was safe. No one must know that she was afraid and ashamed that she might be found lacking, not good enough to gain custody of her half brother.
But as she looked into Cade’s melting brown eyes, eyes that were filled with questions, she swallowed hard.
She could trust him.
The thought came from nowhere and was quickly squelched.
With one click of his tongue, Cade moved his horse right next to hers. “Why were you crying last night?” he asked bluntly.
She closed her eyes, blocking out the pretty but too-cool autumn sun, the breeze and his too-curious gaze.
“Was it Jacob?”
She didn’t—couldn’t—answer.
“You don’t have to go meet him alone,” Cade said as if she’d responded. “Your sisters—”
“It’s too expensive.” And none of them had a spare cent to their name. “And then there’s the upcoming opening. Plus, we’ll have guests soon.”
“You need support for this.”
“I can handle it.” She could handle anything.
“So strong.” He gave her a look that said he saw right through her. “You can do it all, right?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “No one is that strong.”
“I am.”
He stared at her until she felt that odd fluttering in her stomach. It annoyed her since she could see nothing in his gaze but his irritation at the worry he didn’t want to feel for her.
It was ironic that once upon a time she’d wished for a prince to solve all her problems, but life had taught her the hard way that she needed to be self-reliant—at all times. She would handle this, by herself.
And besides, Cade was no prince.
“Delia—”
“Look, I don’t know why you won’t just drop it.” She felt more desperate than ever, but her voice was sure and calm. Her voice was always sure and calm, thanks to years of practice.
“I can’t,” he said with real regret.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t shake the feeling that…that you need me.”
She managed to laugh at that and toss her head. “I don’t need anyone, Cade, especially you.”
“Yeah. I can see that.” Not a man to hide his feelings for anyone, his voice was tight. She’d stirred his male pride.
In a way, Delia admired him for showing her that. With Cade, she never had to guess what he was thinking, not when his face expressed every emotion, even when he obviously didn’t want to feel that emotion.
What would it be like not to worry what people thought? To just be? Delia didn’t have a clue. She’d been playing at being strong and independent for so long she no longer knew how to do anything else.
“It’s not a bad thing, needing someone,” he said after a long moment, and because she’d often wondered about that very thing, she closed her eyes.
She thought she felt a light caress in her hair, but when she opened her eyes again, he held his reins in one hand, the other lay on his thigh.
It must have been the wind, she decided.
Cade was a man seemingly at rest. Yet power and restless energy emanated from him in waves. There was a dangerous edge to Cade McKnight, one she didn’t understand. For all his casual smiles and laughter, there remained a part of him always prepared for anything. Maybe it was the bright day or the isolation, but she thought she saw a surprising depth to that edge now, and it made her take a good long look at him.
He looked back just as steadily, without a hint of discomfort.
Hurt, she realized, startled. He was hiding a wealth of hurt, just beneath his rough surface, and this unexpected side to the man she’d thought of only as a pain-in-her-own-rear was unsettling.
She looked away first.
The day around them was gloriously white, green, blue—a whole array of colors so brilliant that her eyes welled with stinging tears. It almost hurt to breathe, the air was so cold and crisp and pure.
So different from Los Angeles where she’d worked all her life in busy upscale beauty salons. Yes, she most definitely missed everything about it, especially the weather. Right now, she couldn’t remember what fifty degrees felt like, much less seventy.
And God help her, it was only October.
But her sisters were here, she reminded herself. They loved it and she loved them. It would also be the perfect place to raise the brother she’d never known existed—if she could ever get Jacob here from Los Angeles.
That, unfortunately, depended on Cade’s help. And he didn’t even know it yet.
“We going to ride?” Cade asked lightly.
“Yes.” She drew a deep breath and urged Betsy to walk. The stark wild land before her was the most incredible she’d ever seen, she’d give it that much. When they’d first arrived, the Triple M had been nothing more than two run-down barns and a house ready to collapse.
Over the past few months she and her sisters, along with Ty Jackson, their neighbor and now Zoe’s fiancé, had worked their fingers to the bone and their bank accounts to the limit. Due to inexperience and lack of funds, they’d been forced to give up the idea of ranching. Instead, they’d opened a guest ranch.
It was harder than anything she’d ever done, and if she was in an admitting sort of mood, she’d have to say it was also the most rewarding thing she’d ever done.
Now, looking over the land they’d worked so hard on, Delia felt a fierce surge of pride for what they’d accomplished.
It was all thanks to Constance Freeman, a woman she hadn’t gotten the chance to meet, but who could have been her paternal grandmother. Family.
In a shocking move, Cade came close and cupped her jaw in his leather-gloved hand, gently but firmly bringing up her chin so that she was forced to look at him. “You’re a million miles away and you don’t want to talk about it, right?”
“Right.”
To soothe her, or maybe to combat the glare she knew she’d shot him, his thumb slid over the skin of her cheek once, then again. Her skin rippled in reaction to the touch that should have been impersonal, but wasn’t.
Not even close.
With his hand on her, his eyes hot and intense, it became difficult to think, much less speak. His big body sat in the saddle as if he were born to it, his long, loose limbs at rest, but as the master of control, Delia wasn’t fooled.
The darkly handsome man was battle-ready.
For her.
For some reason, that shot a pure undeniable thrill through her. Control, she reminded herself. She had it. Or she had, until Scott Felton, Jacob’s caseworker, had informed her of the possible trouble she was in for, since the courts were happy with Jacob’s current custody situation. Jacob’s father had originally had custody, but then he’d died and custody had gone to Delia’s mother. When she’d died as well, years later, with no will, Jacob had had to move again. He’d nearly gone into the welfare system when they’d finally located a distantly related aunt. No judge wanted to uproot the boy yet again, especially for someone Jacob didn’t even know.
But Delia wanted her brother safe and sound, and with her. She thought she might know how he felt, for she’d been five years old when she’d been left in a group home. Those first years had been spent dreaming of a family taking her and making her theirs.
It hadn’t happened.
Most people didn’t want a little kid, they wanted a baby.
Back then, Delia had decided she didn’t care. She had Zoe and Maddie, and they were more than enough.
All their lives, they’d had nothing but each other. They’d survived. Zoe had done it by being unruly and defensive, and tough when she had to be. Maddie had done it by being quiet and reserved. Accepting.
Delia had survived by masking her emotions so thoroughly that no one could see what she was feeling or thinking. She donned this protective mask every day, just as she did her makeup and clothes. It was a part of her. She needed no one, and no one needed her.
But now she had a brother—eight-year-old Jacob. He was alone, too, or had been. That gave them a kinship she couldn’t ignore. Yet it went deeper than that, far deeper.
For the first time in Delia’s life, she faced the truth…she needed to be needed by someone. Yes, she had her sisters, and yes, they loved one another with all their hearts.
But they were independent.
Jacob was too young for that. He was just a child, and needing was part of his life.
Yet whenever she called him, which had been daily, he’d been distant, reserved. She understood.
Still, protective feelings welled up. So did frustration and, yes, a good amount of bitterness and humiliation, for her mother hadn’t left a will. She’d left no information about her other child—Delia.
She’d meant that little to her own mother.
As a result, she was last in line for Jacob now. And because of his sizable inheritance from his deceased father, the court was doubly leery of Delia’s request. It didn’t help that she didn’t have a penny to her name. She worked sixty hours a week trying to make a success of their guest ranch, but the fact remained—she was a poor nobody.
It was natural to think of Constance’s inheritance, the one Delia hadn’t cared about until now. If she was owner of the Triple M…well, that would be different, right? She’d have collateral, a real job. Importance.
The court would have to consider her seriously then. As much as she hadn’t wanted to believe it, money did make the world go around.
The wind blew, making her shiver. Reminding her that she was all too mortal. Reminding her that she was nearly twenty-six years old and still wishing for her prince to save her. He’d sure come in handy now, because no one could laugh at her if she was married to royalty. He’d be mature and kind. He’d love her above all else.
He would not be big and broody and tough and rugged.
He would not be rowdy and mischievous.
He would not be anything like Cade McKnight.
“I’m done riding,” she said.
“You mean you’re done with me.”
“Nothing personal,” she muttered.
Which had him letting out a grim laugh. “Like hell.” But he turned his horse away without another word, almost as if he was just as eager as she to be alone.
They made it halfway back to the ranch in silence. She watched the landscape, and Cade watched her. She felt his gaze on her hair, her face. Her body.
She was used to men staring at her. Men had always stared at her since she’d hit maturity—it was a fact of life. She was five foot eight, willowy yet curvy, and blond. And yes, she supposed, beautiful.
To her, it was a curse.
But Cade’s gaze was different, she had to admit. It made her feel funny, rubbery in her limbs, liquidy in parts of her anatomy she didn’t usually pay attention to. And if a portion of her, a deep private portion, tingled with a strange anticipation, she could ignore it.
She was not attracted to him.
“I’m your friend, Delia,” Cade said into their awkward silence. “Or I could be.”
It was just a word—friends. There was no reason for her heart to tip on its side.
No reason at all.
“We’re not. You usually ignore me, and if you don’t, we can hardly stand in the same room without shooting sparks off each other.”
The expression on his face made her toes curl.
“You going to deny it?” she pressed.
He let out a short almost baffled laugh as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Hell, no. Maybe I used to be able to ignore you. But then I found you crying in the kitchen. It’s the funniest damn thing, but now I can’t get that out of my mind. And yeah, we shoot sparks off each other, enough to light up the city of Boise with electricity for a year, and it only seems to get worse.”
She nodded, satisfied.
Then he shattered that satisfaction. “But lust tends to do that.”
“Who said anything about…”
“Lust?” His crooked grin was appealing enough to coax one out of a saint. “Because you do realize that’s what those sparks are, right?”
“Dream on, McKnight.” She pulled back on the reins and was grateful when her horse actually stopped. “This isn’t about lust or even friendship.”
Cade stopped his horse, as well, again with no visible sign or word. “What, then?”
“Ego.”
“Ego?” He looked shocked.
“Foolish male pride. Whatever you want to call it.”
He stared at her for a second, then threw back his head and laughed. The rich sound echoed around them while she gritted her teeth.
Eventually his amusement died and he sighed as he wiped away a tear of mirth. “I’m not certain what kind of jerks you were used to in L.A. But out here in the real world—” he snagged her reins and pulled her horse in close “—we do things different.”
With one hand in front of her holding the leather, his other behind her bracing himself on the seat of her saddle, he leaned close. So close she could see that his eyes weren’t just dark brown as she’d thought, but layered with golden specks that danced with the sunlight. So close she could smell the one-hundred-percent male scent of him.
So close she could do nothing but catch her breath and stare, feeling completely surrounded.
Held.
Good Lord, he just might be right about the lust part. “A man is a man,” she managed, proud of her steady voice.
“Wrong,” he whispered. “And any time you want me to show you how different some men can be…” His voice had gone husky. His gaze dipped to her mouth, made her tummy flutter again. “You just tell me.”
“Never going to happen.” Her voice wasn’t so steady now.
He noticed and, damn him, his lips quirked. “Never say never.”
She thought it would be safe to say it in this case, but she wisely kept her mouth shut.
And they rode the rest of the way back to the Triple M in complete silence.
