Long Way Home

Also by HelenKay Dimon

The Hanover Brothers Series

A Simple Twist of Fate

No Turning Back

Long Way Home

HelenKay Dimon

InterMix Books, New York

INTERMIX BOOKS

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UBLISHED BY THE
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ENGUIN
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ROUP

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ENGUIN
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ROUP
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UDSON
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10014, USA

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

LONG WAY HOME

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

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InterMix eBook edition / August 2014

Copyright © 2014 by HelenKay Dimon.

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To Michelle Gorman for being a good friend and enthusiastic reader.

Callen Hanover slowed down as he turned into the long driveway leading to Shadow Hill, the three-story rambling mess of a falling-down house he and his two brothers inherited from their grandmother about three months ago. It came complete with acres of overgrown land, an unpaid mortgage, skunk-infested outbuildings and a location in Sweetwater, Oregon, the small town with a big dislike of all things Hanover. Not that Callen could blame anyone for that way of thinking.

But he could make his brother Declan shut up. Maybe one well-placed shoulder punch would do it. Because much more off-key singing and Callen might just slam on the brakes and try to jerk Declan into silence.

Callen settled for a quick but lethal glare. “Any chance you’re almost done?”

“Singing?”

“That ain’t singing.”

“You’re just jealous.” Declan smiled as he rolled down the window and let the cool early fall breeze blow through the car.

“Of your ability to scare the hell out of innocent stray cats? Thanks, but I’ll stick with the skills I’ve got.” The rough unpaved lane had them bumping along as gravel crunched under the tires.

“I am better-looking and I can carry a tune. Fucking deal with it.” This time Declan turned up the radio to screeching levels that almost drowned out whatever awful tune he was in the process of torturing.

Callen reached over and turned it off before the hammering in his head put him in the hospital. “Wrong on both counts.”

“Leah loves to hear me sing.”

Leah Baron—the tall, slim strawberry blonde who had Declan wrapped around her . . . well, some body part a lot more interesting than her little finger. She was five-foot-seven-inches of attitude and smarts wrapped in a package that made Declan’s brain misfire and his common sense scatter.

He’d had it bad for the woman from the first time they met. The same woman many viewed as the town’s personal welcoming committee, which she technically was, since she was in charge of public relations for Sweetwater. Kind of a funny position, since the least hospitable man in town had to be her hypocrite of a father, Marc Baron. He hated Declan and anyone else in the Hanover gene pool.

“Except for her piss-poor taste in men, she’s otherwise a catch,” Callen joked, but he got them as a couple. Declan happened to be the best man Callen knew. Not that he’d admit that out loud. Between the hot girlfriend and the win-everyone-over personality, his brother had enough good news for a while. “Why she wants you—now, that’s a mystery.”

Declan hummed. “Says the guy who hasn’t gotten laid in, what, a decade?”

Shit, it was starting to feel like that.
The idea of sex led Callen’s mind away from Sweetwater and back to her . . .
that
her. The same
her
he blocked and refused to think about, pushing out every memory before it could take hold. Every memory except the nasty one relating to her deception.

And just like that, all sexual thoughts left his head. Amazing how concentrating on a woman’s lies could make him forget the parts of her he really did like.

Still, he didn’t need to be reminded of his dry spell, which at this point seemed like it would never end. “Why don’t you get out of the car so I can run you over?”

“Fine, but then you’d get to fix up Shadow Hill by yourself.” Declan held a hand out in from of him, gesturing toward the top half of the house they could see. “All of this grunt work will be yours.”

“Congratulations. You’ve finally hit on a winning argument for keeping you around.” Not that Callen wanted his brothers going anywhere. He’d moved money and emptied his savings to take care of the overdue mortgage payments for Shadow Hill, saving the place from foreclosure. How to handle the monthly bills going forward still qualified as a great big question mark.

But the rehab wasn’t. Working with his hands soothed Callen. He appreciated the mix of cool air and warm sunshine in this part of Oregon, midway between the towering trees of the forests on one side and the ocean a few miles away on the other.

But that didn’t mean he could handle the rehab on his own. He needed Declan’s considerable skills and work ethic, honed by his years in the Army. Add in the handyman they took on, Tom Erikson, and the three of them almost counteracted their baby brother Beck’s ability to maneuver out of any hands-on, actually-doing-something situation.

The guy was pure lawyer: a fast talker when dealing with contracts and strategies. A slow mover when it came to actually picking up a piece of wood and hauling it somewhere. Even now, with the yard all dug up and bad weather moving in, he left town to check on a legal aid district office for his job with the Legal Services Corporation. Whatever that was. All Callen knew was Beck’s new girlfriend, Sophie, had tagged along so they could swing through and deliver some missing jewelry to her aunt.

Yeah, good luck with that. The one thing Callen didn’t need right now was more family shit. He’d had a heap of unwanted crap shoveled on him over the last few weeks and relished the idea of picking up a hammer and pounding on things to smash it all out.

“Uh-oh.” Declan sat up straighter in his seat.

As they rounded the last corner, the front of the house came into view. Four thousand square feet of needing-to-be-repaired space with a chimney on each end and a turret in the middle. A turret . . . Callen still couldn’t get over that part. The house had a name and a damn turret. It was a sharp turn from the life he knew living in seedy motels and taking any job that would pay for dinner.

His grandmother sure did have a flair for the dramatic. Probably explained why, after her husband died and she was living alone, she picked a place tucked into the woods and spread over all that space. Might also provide some insight into what went so drastically wrong with her son, their father, Charlie. She made some questionable decisions, and all of Charlie’s choices turned out to be bad. Most of them illegal.

Today, instead of focusing on the work to be done, Callen saw something else. A woman sitting on the porch steps. She stood up as they approached and lowered the scarf she had wrapped around her shoulders and head. Long dark auburn hair slipped out and . . .
shit
.

After a humming sound and a
huh
, Declan blurted out a question. “Who’s that?”

Not that Callen was in any position to answer. Not with his fingers frozen on the steering wheel and a blankness filling his mind.

His hiccupping brain finally sent a message to the rest of his body to move. To do something to wipe the wide-eyed, stunned expression off Declan’s face. Callen pulled into the space closest to the house and shifted the car into park. Cutting off the engine took another few seconds. Then he sat. Just sat.

“I’ll be damned.” That’s pretty much all he could muster.

“Most likely, but that really doesn’t answer the question of her identity.” Declan glanced at Callen, then did a double take. “Hey, you okay?”

Callen fought the urge to rub away the sudden tightness in his chest or shake his hands to clear away the numbness. He’d weathered a series of emotional body blows lately, and it looked like he was in for one more round of near-death pummeling.

At thirty feet away he could see her carefully composed expression, but his eyes refused to believe. He shook his head. “It can’t be her.”

His gaze locked on her body as she took one slow step after another to get to the bottom stair. Bulky sweater or not, he recognized the sexy walk, all long legs and determined strut.

Yeah, this was the same woman—tall, with wavy hair that cascaded around her face and over her shoulders. Slim jeans tucked into boots. She loved boots.

He could call up her husky voice without trouble. The deceit proved tougher to forget.

“Another member of the Sweetwater Hanovers-Get-Out Club? I thought we’d weeded most of them out.” Declan opened his car door. “Though I have to admit this one is prettier than most of the folks who find their way to the door to tell us to leave town or demand money as reimbursement for some fucked-up Charlie scam.”

Charlie Hanover, their con artist father who brought a shitstorm of trouble with him wherever he went. And that didn’t stop with his death. No, Callen continued to unbury one secret after another, each worse than the one before it.

But he couldn’t deal with his old man’s memory now. He had a walking, talking nightmare right in front of him he had to survive first. “This visit isn’t about Charlie. It’s about me.”

“Well, now. That’s interesting.” Declan tore his gaze away from their guest to stare at Callen. “Do tell.”

“Any chance you could get lost for ten minutes?” If Callen were lucky—and life had proven over and over that he was not that—she would disappear in a big poof of smoke as well.

“Absolutely none, big brother.”

Interesting how it took only a second for Declan to confirm Callen’s title of Unluckiest Man Alive. That left Callen with one choice. Scoop her up and off his property. Out of there to anywhere else. Preferably somewhere off the West Coast, somewhere at least two thousand miles and hopefully an ocean away. He’d settle for out of Oregon, but feared he’d need a greater distance.

“I’ll get rid of her.” He opened the car door and slammed it behind him, only then noticing the compact car with the rental company sticker on the opposite side of the wide driveway.

“About that.” Declan tapped his hand against the roof. “You sure you want to?”

Callen almost hated to turn around again, to take his eyes off her for a second, but he did, and shot his best let’s-get-this-done gaze in Declan’s direction. “I’ve done it before.”

“Damn, I’m happy I caught a ride back here with you instead of waiting for Leah to get off of work.” Declan didn’t rub his hands together with glee, but looked one step away from doing just that.

“Shut up.” Callen mumbled the warning under his breath but knew it landed wrong when Declan chuckled.

The brothers walked around from opposite sides and met at the front of the car. With Declan by his side, wanted or not, Callen stalked through the loose gravel and over the grass to the porch steps. Being one stair below her put them at almost the same height. Not that he checked. Not that he let his gaze wander over her or the memories of her smokin’ body and hot mouth seep into his head.

She did a good bit of looking of her own. Up and down, face to torso then back again, all with a small smile on the corner of her lips. “If it isn’t Callen Hanover.”

There it was. The same deep voice that scratched at his common sense and kept his temperature spiking.

Not this time. “Grace Pruitt.”

Declan shook his head. May even have slipped in an eye roll. “I’m guessing you two know each other.”

Callen ignored Declan and focused on her. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.” Typical of Grace—she dropped a bit of information certain to cause a whirlwind, then stood there and waited for the dust to kick up.

“Nice,” Declan said as he nodded.

“Yeah, this could have been a happy reunion if Callen hadn’t run off and hidden from me on the Oregon coast.” She glanced around the front yard. “Interesting residential choice, by the way.”

The nod turned to a frown as Declan shot Callen the side eye. “Hiding? That’s not really your style, is it?”

No way was Callen playing along with this annoying game. Not after everything that happened and how hard he worked to forget her, failing almost daily at the latter.

“I didn’t do either of those things.” Okay, technically, he did exactly what she described, but he liked to think he managed to pull it off in a manly way.

“I’m Callen’s brother, Declan.” He reached over and shook her hand as he made the introduction.

She treated him to a warm smile. “I figured.”

“How?”

Her smile faltered. “What?”

Declan didn’t drop her hand. Didn’t show any sign of letting go and walking away. “How do you know who I am?”

The wind caught her hair and she had to use her free hand to tuck the wild strands behind her ear again. “Callen talks about you a lot.”

Declan leaned in. “
Talks
, as in you guys are in touch currently?”

And that was more than enough of that. Another minute of mindless chitchat and Callen knew the grinding sensation in his head would turn into full-on brain trauma.

“Go do something else.” He eyed their joint hands until Declan finally let go. That was only part of what Callen wanted. “Anything else.”

Declan shook his head. “No way that’s happening.”

“Really, Callen?” Grace added in a sigh. One of those long-winded ones women let fly when they wanted to let a man know he’d misstepped. Then she turned to Declan. “Your brother didn’t tell you about me, did he?”

This was not how Callen wanted this information to roll out. “Grace—”

“No.” Declan cut Callen off with a flick of his hand before turning back to Grace. “But you can fill me in.”

“I’m the woman your brother lived with before he dropped everything and took off for, well”—she looked over their heads and across the wide expanse of open land to one side and the cluster of trees on the other—“here.”

“Lived with as in—”

“Come on.” Frustration swamped Callen, knocking out the last of his patience. “What the hell do you think she means?”

Declan shrugged. “You could have been platonic roommates. I don’t know. Hell, you could have worked for her for all I know.”

“No.” She laughed, rich and deep. “We shared a condo. My condo. My bed. Our lives. For four months.”

This time Callen verbally swooped in before Declan could pepper her with more questions. “I’m guessing you used your work contacts to find me.”

“Former.” She dropped the word and let it sit there.

Declan swore under his breath. “I’m lost again.”

So was Callen. Last he checked—and he did check on her now and then, damn her—she had continued in the job that helped to drive them apart. “Since when is it
former
?”

“I planned to explain it all to you the Thursday night you walked out.” For the first time since she walked down the steps, she fidgeted. Shifting her weight from one foot to another, she moved around, and her eye contact bounced to his face, then away. “And other things.”