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  Okay, now she was lost. If he didn’t know about the phone call from Wayne, why was he behaving like this? Was he just being overprotective? She knew he worried, but until now, she would have said that he was good at keeping his concerns under control.

  For his benefit, she went over the event. “Marco Wayne called my office. Called me,” she corrected. “I know I should have hung up right away,” she followed up quickly, before he could voice the same sentiments, “but I did talk to him.”

  Janelle saw anger rise in her father’s eyes. She had never seen him look this angry. “What about?”

  That seemed like an odd question, considering that she was part of the D.A.’s team trying Anthony Wayne’s case. But pointing it out would only fan the flames of a fire whose origin she didn’t quite grasp yet.

  “About his son. He said that he wanted to make sure that Tony got a fair trial. He also said that Tony was innocent, that his son was being framed. You know, the usual.”

  No, Brian thought, not the usual. Not when it involved Marco Wayne and his daughter. He looked at her darkly. “You shouldn’t have talked to him.”

  She didn’t want a lecture, especially not here. This just wasn’t like her father, she thought again. What was going on? Was there something more going on here than she was aware of? Was this personal?

  “I know, I know, but it was just that for a minute, Marco sounded very sincere and I guess I was caught off guard.”

  A feeling of déjà vu passed over him. It was almost as if he were hearing Susan’s voice instead of Janelle’s. “Funny, your mother said almost exactly the same thing to me twenty-nine years ago.”

  Janelle stared at him, stunned by this unannounced, unexpected piece of information. “Mom? Mom knew Marco Wayne?”

  Brian regarded the amber liquid in his glass, seeing something else. Seeing his past. “We both did. The three of us grew up together. Same neighborhood. We weren’t exactly friends.” He raised his eyes to Janelle’s. “More like rivals. Marco always had a thing for your mother. And he had more money to shower on her. And he had that sexy, sophisticated thing going for him.” His lips twisted in an ironic smile. “I was surprised when she picked me over him.”

  “I wouldn’t have been.” She reached across the table, covering his hand with her own. Talk about their mother always made him sad, she thought. “It’s a no-brainer. You’re a hell of a lot more man than he could ever be.” The worried expression remained on her father’s face. “I’ll be all right, Dad, I promise. I not only have Neanderthal Man as my protector, but half the Aurora police force. And that’s not counting you,” she said, smiling at him warmly. “We all know what a difference you make.”

  He sat quietly for a moment, memorizing her smile. Absorbing it as he wondered if she would even forgive him for not having the courage to tell her years ago.

  “Janelle,” he finally said, “I have to tell you something.”

  She could feel nerves tap dance through her body. Her father wasn’t given to melodrama. She braced, telling herself to think positively. “Okay.”

  Brian sighed. He would rather have faced an army of snipers than have to tell her this. Leaning forward, keeping his voice as low as he could and still be heard, he began.

  “I should have told you this a long time ago, but the time never seemed right.” There was another reason he’d held his peace. “Besides, it was your mother’s secret to tell.”

  She could almost taste the metallic bite of fear along her tongue. “Go on.”

  He detoured for a moment. Perhaps the last moment he would ever have with her like this, he thought. “You know I love you, Janelle.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes never left his face. “That’s not where this is leading, Dad.”

  He tried again, aching for what was about to be lost. Trust. Innocence. A bond. “Your mother and I had a couple of rough patches.”

  She was aware that while her parents had loved one another, theirs was not exactly a storybook marriage. Her mother had been high-strung and, in the later years, given to depression, although she’d tried to keep it from her children. “Yes, I know.”

  “It wasn’t easy for her,” he continued, making excuses for the woman who no longer could defend herself. “She was a little anxious and I was working a really rough section of town then. She worried and we argued a lot about that. One thing led to another.” He shrugged, not wanting to talk about the separation, that chasm that existed in their marriage right after the last of his sons had been born.

  He paused, taking Janelle’s hand in his. Mutely asking for her understanding. Her forgiveness for tearing down the image of her mother. For shaking her faith in him.

  “I was hoping to never have to tell you,” he admitted. “I didn’t want you thinking any less of your mother.”

  Janelle was desperately trying to pull in the pieces so that they made some kind of sense, offered her a reason for her father’s strange behavior. “So what are you going to tell me? That Mom had an affair with this Marco character?”

  Even as she said it, she hated to think of her mother with anyone else other than her father. It shook the foundations of the happy family unit she had always wanted to believe existed. Her mother had had pockets of depression, pockets that had grown worse just before she’d died. Was this why? Because she’d felt guilty for having betrayed her husband and her vows?

  “This is the twenty-first century, Dad,” she pointed out, trying to cover up the disappointment she felt about her mother. “They don’t attach the sins of the father to the sons, or sins of the mother to the daughter—”

  As much as he wanted her to get sidetracked, he knew he had to see this through to the end. No more lies. No more hidden truths. “There’s more.”

  The knot in her stomach grew larger, threatening to cut off her air supply. Janelle felt the roots of her hair tightening, tingling along her scalp.

  “How much more?” And then, the reason behind her father’s discomfort suddenly came to her. “Is Tony their son? Is that why Marco called me? Because Tony’s my half brother?” Oh God, she thought, this was big. Very big. Her poor father—

  As far as Brian knew, Marco didn’t know the truth. Only he and Susan did. And Andrew. In a fit of despair, not knowing whether he could forgive Susan for what she’d done, he’d turned to Andrew for support. He’d gotten advice, as well. Advice to put the past behind him, reap only the good out of whatever presented itself before him and never look back.

  Except now, even though it was against his will, he had to. “Tony’s your half brother,” he confirmed. “But he’s not your mother’s son.”

  Now he was talking in riddles. “I don’t understand.” But even as the last word left her lips, she did. She suddenly understood.

  And desperately didn’t want to. Wanted more than anything in the world to be wrong.

  She felt her eyes stinging as she fought against the truth. “You’re not telling me—” she began hoarsely, then tried again. “You’re not telling me that Marco Wayne is…is my…”

  He didn’t want to hear her say it. Didn’t want the word father to leave her lips and be applied to anyone else. He’d earned the right to be the man she thought of when she said the name.

  “You were mine from the moment you came into the world, Janelle,” he told her, his voice so filled with emotion, he had to block it in order to talk. “Mine even before then. I was the first one you looked at, the first one to hold you. You were always my daughter,” he insisted fiercely.

  Everything went pitch-black as the noise in the restaurant swirled around her, echoing the rhythm of her throbbing brain. Janelle took a deep breath to keep from giving in to the darkness that beckoned to her, that threatened to swallow her up whole, offering comfort within its belly. Comfort along with oblivion.

  “In name only,” she whispered.

  “In every way that counted,” he countered. He was not going to lose her because of this, because of his own cowardice. He couldn’t.
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  “Except for blood,” she snapped back. She was numb and furious at the same time. Her mind raced around, trying to make sense of this. Trying to find an explanation she could cope with. “Why didn’t you tell me? When I think of all the times I prattled on about how much I looked like you, how much I acted like you—” She finished because she felt like such an idiot. And so betrayed she couldn’t even begin to put it into words. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she demanded again. She stared at the man sitting opposite her. Who was this man she’d thought she knew so well. “Were you laughing at me? Was I being entertaining enough for you?”

  “Damn it, Janelle, nobody was laughing at you. I just told you why I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Especially after I lost your mother. You were my daughter, I loved you—”

  She didn’t believe him. “How could you love me?” she demanded hotly. She shot to her feet, ready to run off. “How could you not be disgusted? Every time you looked at me, you saw the living proof of your wife’s infidelity, her betrayal—”

  Brian caught her hands in his before she could get away. “How could I not be disgusted?” he echoed. “Because every time I looked at you, I saw a little girl I loved. And I watched her grow up to be a young woman I was proud of—”

  “A young woman you lied to—” Janelle insisted angrily, trying to work her way around the pain that was ripping her in half. She wasn’t his daughter. The man she adored, the man who was her key to a huge family network, to the people she had loved since forever, wasn’t her father. She felt betrayed, alone. Lost. And angry. Oh, so very angry. At her mother, at this man she’d thought was her father. At Marco Wayne. And at herself for having to hear this.

  Brian refused to release her hands, trying to hold on to the only bond he still had with his daughter.

  She pulled her hands away from him, her heart breaking in too many places to count. Omitting something was the same as lying. “Damn it, Dad, or whatever I’m supposed to call you, you know better.”

  Just as with Susan that awful night she’d made her confession to him, he wasn’t an impartial cop, he was a man. A man who hurt. Who was afraid of hurting. “All I know was that I was afraid of losing you. Afraid you’d react just this way—”

  Questions materialized. “Who else knows?” she demanded, sinking back into her seat. Embarrassment all but swallowed her up. She couldn’t bear having her brothers, her cousins, look at her with pity. “Does everyone know?”

  “No, the only people who knew were your mother and me. And Andrew.” He saw Janelle’s eyes widen and quickly added, “Andrew was the one who told me to put this all behind me and forgive your mother if I still loved her. And I did. With all my heart. I still do.”

  She would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that there were no secrets in her family. That everything that went on eventually came to light. The laugh was on her, she supposed. Especially if she was the only one who’d been kept in the dark. “And Dax, Troy, Jared, the others, they—”

  “They don’t know,” he told her firmly, before she could finish her question. “Not even Marco knows.” This time, his assurance was for her benefit alone. Since the man had called her, Brian wasn’t a hundred percent certain that Marco didn’t suspect that Janelle was his. “Your mother never told him.”

  She thought of the phone call, trying to recall if there were any nuances in the man’s voice. Had Wayne known? Was there a reason for him to suspect? Or had he known all along?

  Was that why he’d sought her out? Or was it just a coincidence, based on nothing more than that she was the daughter of someone he’d once been acquainted with? A man whose wife he’d once had an affair with.

  A straw floated by. Desperation made her clutch it as if it could bring her safe passage to shore. Her mother made love with Marco. If she’d had relations during the same period of time with her father— “Maybe there’s a mistake, maybe—”

  “No mistake, Janelle,” he said softly. “The timing,” he explained. “Your mother and I hadn’t been together as husband and wife for a while when she realized that she was pregnant.”

  Everything around her crashed and burned. Everything she believed about herself, about her life, her family, none of it was true. It was all based on illusion. On lies.

  She had to get out, had to get away. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. If she stayed here any longer, she was going to pass out. She needed air.

  On her feet, Janelle hurried away from the booth. From things that broke her heart. She heard her father calling her name in the background, but all she could focus on was reaching the front door. On putting distance between herself and the pain.

  Her hands flat against the door, she pushed it hard so that it groaned as it flew open. Bursting outside, Janelle took in huge gulps of air, filling her lungs as far as she could, then releasing the breath. Trying to pull herself together.

  It wasn’t helping.

  Swallowing an oath, she hurried to her car, knowing only that she had to get out of here.

  Sawyer had watched her the entire time. For form’s sake, he’d nursed a club soda, much to the bartender’s disdain. The latter had walked away muttering something about recovering alcoholics being the death of him. Sawyer had only listened with half an ear as he’d continued to observe Janelle at the booth.

  Granted, the lighting left a hell of a lot to be desired, but he had a great ability to focus and concentrate. That more or less helped balance out the deficiencies.

  Sawyer settled back, an elbow against the bar he had his back to, prepared to nurse his carbonated drink for about an hour or so, when he saw the look on Janelle’s face. Even at this distance, with this light, he could see that she’d just listened to something that had a major impact on her life. A major impact that was unwelcome.

  Guessing, he figured it probably had something to do with her extended family. Not his business as long as it didn’t involve having a bullet aimed at some part of her body. And she was, after all, with Aurora’s chief of detectives, so that pretty much kept her safe.

  But whatever thought he’d had about relaxing for the next hour or so instantly fled when he saw Janelle abruptly get up from the table. It seemed completely out of character, especially since she was talking to her father. Rumor had it they enjoyed a healthy, respectful relationship.

  Didn’t look like that from here. His assignment looked as if she had just been ambushed by an eighteen-foot Gila monster.

  Damn it, he thought as he strode quickly through the restaurant toward the door, plowing his way through the crowd, guarding Janelle Cavanaugh just kept getting trickier.

  Chapter 9

  Janelle’s hands were shaking as she took her car keys out of her purse and she dropped them. Her hands never shook, she thought angrily, stooping to pick up the keys. But then, why should she be surprised? It was obvious that she couldn’t count on anything being what she thought it was.

  Her chest ached.

  Aiming the remote at the car, Janelle pressed down on the small button. Nothing happened. She tried again with the same results. Frustration flared so quickly, it almost frightened her. Getting a grip, she stabbed the car key at the keyhole. She managed to scratch the area around it, but miss the opening. Twice.

  Finally, Janelle unlocked the door. Swinging it open, she got in, narrowly avoiding being hit by the door as it swung back. Biting off a curse, she tried to get the key into the ignition. Her hands were shaking harder and she dropped the key ring again.

  “Damn it!”

  The keys had fallen directly beneath the steering wheel. She had to snake her way under it in order to retrieve them.

  By the time she’d secured the keys and sat up, the door on the driver’s side was thrown open again.

  “Get into the passenger side,” Sawyer growled. From where he stood, she looked as if she were having some sort of a breakdown, which meant she was in no condition to drive.

  Janelle glared at her intruder. Where the hell had he
come from? Her brain felt numb, unable to process anything. It took her a second to remember that she’d left him back at the bar. Why couldn’t he have just stayed there?

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Janelle snapped in response.

  Anger he could deal with, but he had a problem coping with the hint of tears on the horizon.

  “I’ll tell you what to do if I think you need telling,” he informed her almost passively, then repeated his instructions. “Now get out and move over to the passenger side.” He appraised her face again. Damn it, she was going to cry. He’d bet a month’s salary on it. His only chance was to get her too angry to shed tears. “You’re in no condition to drive.”

  What the hell did he care what condition she was in? She was just his assignment, an inanimate object to guard as far as he was concerned. Only good thing she’d just learned was that she could send him away now.

  “You’re free,” she declared, barely controlling her voice. She waved her hand at him dismissively. “I emancipate you. Go home, Detective Boone. You don’t need to guard me anymore.”

  “Stop babbling and do what I tell you to do.”

  Her hands gripped the steering wheel. She needed something solid to hold on to, even if just physically. Everything else felt as if it were crumbling around her.

  She wasn’t a Cavanaugh.

  She wasn’t anything, she thought.

  “Don’t you get it?” she demanded angrily. “You don’t need to be my guard dog anymore. I’m taking myself off the case. Maybe off the D.A.’s team altogether,” she added. She felt completely disoriented. How could she possibly be of any use to anyone else? “Go back to your Batcave and wait for another assignment,” she added cryptically.

  Rather than stand there and argue with her, Sawyer physically pulled her out of the vehicle. Stunned, Janelle began to shout at him, raining a few choice names down on his head. His face impassive, he didn’t seem to hear her.

  Hooking his arm around her midsection, Sawyer literally carried her to the other side of the car as if she weighed next to nothing. The fact that she was beating on his chest with fisted hands left no impression whatsoever.