Authors: HelenKay Dimon
“Money from a lifetime of construction jobs while living in shitty places so I could stockpile enough to never have to depend on anyone again.” Callen’s comment earned a questioning look from Declan, but Callen ignored it and continued. “What are you going to do once you get fired, Reeves?”
“I’m not.”
Being unsure what his response meant, Grace tried to move the conversation in another direction. “You’ve been in town for personal reasons.”
Something in Walker snapped. He went from a looking attacked to being in control. He pulled up, taking on the confident stance and familiar stoic affect as he launched into his lecture. “The victims deserve to be compensated.”
“We agree,” Declan said.
Walker greeted that with a snort. “Oh, please.”
“You’re ignoring the original question.” Kim stopped studying Walker, but she kept staring at him. “Kristin is older than you, but not old enough to be your mother.”
“His mother died.” Grace thought she had filled in that piece, but at this point she didn’t remember. So much had happened.
Callen’s gaze zipped to her. “When?”
The rain fell and Leah cuddled closer to Declan, but Grace couldn’t break eye contact with Callen. Something ran through him. Those intelligent eyes gave him away. He was thinking and analyzing.
“She was in a hospital.”
“What kind?”
Walker turned to leave. “I’m leaving. I can come back with a team and take the house and this yard apart and—”
“Sophie Jenkins.” Callen called out the name and everything stopped.
Declan’s eyes grew wide and his mother went pale.
“What about her?” Leah asked, speaking up for the first time.
Walker stopped but didn’t turn around. “You don’t get to say her name.”
“It can’t be,” Kim whispered.
They were outside, in the open, with fresh air to keep them sharp. Still, Grace felt like she was drowning. Clawing and kicking and not getting anywhere. “I don’t understand.”
“Sylvia didn’t have one son.” Callen closed in on Walker. “She had two, didn’t she?”
Then the haze cleared. Grace remembered how both Callen and Walker had been abandoned by their fathers. How Callen’s birth mother had been in a hospital, as had Walker’s. The similar personalities. The comparable builds. The way they handled problems. Hell, even the way they fought with her.
The answer settled in as if it had been at the back of her mind the whole time. Callen had two half brothers—Beck and Declan—and one older brother he never knew about. Until now.
Reality crashed in on her. She had no idea how she didn’t see it before. Now it seemed so obvious, and her heart broke a little for all of them. So many lost years. So much hating. All because of Charlie.
A harsh kick of air got caught in her chest. “Oh, Walker. No.”
“This . . .” He held up a hand as he shook his head. “We’re not . . . No.”
“How old are you?” Kim asked.
Grace didn’t wait for Walker to brush them all off. She understood now the personal vibe of Walker’s investigation and the way he focused so hard on destroying the family he’d been shut out of. “He’s eleven months older than Callen.”
Kim kept blinking. When Tom went to her, she leaned back against his chest. “It can’t be.”
Callen nodded. “It is.”
“Holy hell.” Declan grabbed on to Leah’s hand where it rested on his arm.
Through all the talking and deciding and wading through it, Walker stayed quiet. Now he practically vibrated with sick energy. He took another step away as he fumbled with the car keys in his pocket. “I’m leaving.”
Kim eyes stayed wide and worried as she approached Walker. “I didn’t know.”
He put his hands up as if fighting off her attempts to placate him. “You picked Callen. You did and Charlie did.”
“That’s not true.” Pain moved through Kim’s voice.
The enormity of the conversation smacked into Grace with the force of being pummeled by a prize fighter. She felt weak and sick and so desperately sad for everyone. “Oh my God.”
“Fucking Charlie.” Declan said it once, and then a second time.
The waves of shock kept punching through Grace. She rubbed her stomach and tried to soothe her frayed nerves, but nothing worked.
And one question kept bumping around in her brain. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Walker didn’t hesitate. “You picked him, too. Not in the same way Charlie picked, but you did. When it came between your loyalty to me and your feelings for Callen, he won. Again.”
Desperation clawed at Grace. She hovered on the verge of losing Callen and she watched Walker retreat into himself; she was losing him, too. “You never said anything.”
“About being the forgotten son?” He scoffed. “I wonder why.”
Kim tried again. “Walker, we honestly didn’t know.”
“Fine.”
With every step forward she took, Walker took another one away from her. The crazy dance kept the chasm between them wide and seemingly unbreachable. “If I had known—”
He shook his head. “Don’t say it.”
“I don’t know much about your mother. Charlie lied about everything and he forged records and . . . it doesn’t matter.” Kim inhaled when Tom touched her back, supporting her in silence. “The point is I thought she was very sick and then died leaving a son behind who needed a mother. That’s why I took in Callen without a thought and made him mine. He needed me as much as I needed him.”
Walker threw up his hands. “Good for both of you.”
Grace didn’t know how to make any of this better. “Walker, please.”
“My mother wasn’t dead. She was in a psychiatric ward.”
Declan and Callen just stood there, quiet and unmoving. Visibly they remained strong and engaged, but Grace could feel Callen leaving her. Just slipping away as he got crushed under one more family secret, this one about a brother he never knew.
“I would have come for you,” Kim said in a quiet voice.
“Don’t say that,” Walker shouted back.
“Would have taken you in. Would have loved you as much as I did Callen and Declan and Beck. The blood tie never mattered to me and it wouldn’t have with you either.”
Walker’s whole body shook now. “You don’t get to say that to me.”
Grace never expected this fallout. She thought maybe Walker knew someone who had been scammed by Charlie and this was all about guilt or revenge or something identifiable that could be conquered. But this . . . this was beyond anything. “You need to listen to Kim. You were wanted.”
Walker turned on her. “You don’t get to say anything to me.”
If she hadn’t known he blamed her for everything that happened in the last few minutes on her, Grace did now. She also noticed Callen did nothing to ease her anxiety or support her.
A quick look around the group brought the realization no one bothered to give her eye contact. The tension pulsed between them, but the Hanovers, with Tom and Leah at their sides, stood as a unit. Grace lingered on the outside looking in. She and Walker—though Kim at least tried to include him.
“We didn’t have much, but we would have stretched.” Kim said, clearly not giving up as she tried to get through to Walker. “I would have fought to keep you like I tried with Callen.”
“I don’t know what it was like with your mom, but life with Charlie sucked.” Callen’s voice sounded rough and pained, like every word was a trial to get out.
Walker’s mouth dropped open. “So you’re saying I was the lucky one?”
“I’m saying—”
“Forget it.” Walker stalked away that time. His dress shoes squished in the mud and the rain fell all around him, but he kept walking until he disappeared around the side of the house toward the front.
It all played out so fast that it took Grace another second to snap out of her stupor. By the time she called after him, she no longer saw him. “Walker, wait.”
“Let him go.” Kim caught Grace from behind and guided her back to the group.
A mix of confusion and distrust slammed into Grace. One look at Callen and she felt something else—hate.
His eyes darkened. “Did you know?”
She couldn’t get her hear to beat or her muscles to move. “What?”
He shook his head. “You know what I’m asking, Grace. Did you know?”
“I had no idea.”
“You’re in the FBI,” Declan said in a slow and measured tone, as if he was turning everything over in his mind as he talked. “Surely this stuff is on record somewhere.”
“Is it?” Leah asked.
“Charlie used a fake name. The one on Walker’s birth certificate is likely wrong.” Kim bit her lower lip. “But he’s Charlie’s son. I don’t need confirmation to know that’s true. I can feel it.”
“Did you before?” Declan asked.
“No, never.” She shook her head. “I didn’t ask questions back then. I bought his stories, including the one about his first wife being dangerous.”
Callen shook his head. “Jesus.”
“But this is absolutely something Charlie would do. Always working an angle. He probably thought I wouldn’t ask questions about his claims if we were dealing with one little boy but that I might with two. I would think to protect and nothing else.”
As they talked to each other, pushing her out, Grace felt it all slip away. The small amount of trust she’d built and the caring she’d enjoyed. One look at Callen and she got spun up in the fury whipping around him. “No one in the office knew about Walker’s connection to Charlie. At least I didn’t.”
Callen didn’t back down. He didn’t raise his voice, but he didn’t really need to in order to make his point. “But you brought him here today.”
“I wanted to warn him about Marc.” The truth about her wanting to meet Walker elsewhere didn’t matter. They’d all walked out and seen her there in the yard with him, and there was no one to blame for that but her.
“At our house.” Callen pointed to the dirt mound closest to them. “In this backyard with the holes and all the secrets.”
He didn’t say he blamed her but it was all there in his words—betrayal, lies. When he looked at her, he no longer saw the mother of his child. He circled back to the time when he viewed her as the enemy.
“Don’t do this, Callen.” She could barely speak, so the plea came out as a whisper.
“I’m asking simple questions.”
Her vision blurred, and she held up a hand as if she could hold back his words and keep the pain shooting through her at bay. “You are testing me and hoping I’ll fail.”
“Why was he really here?” Declan asked.
Her gaze switched between the brothers. “Because I need this feud to end.”
Callen shook his head. “Not good enough.”
With those words, her world flipped upside down. Bile rushed up her throat and her heartbeat hammered hard enough to knock her down. She couldn’t take one more second of standing there under the glare of angry gazes. Even though she was outside, she needed air. A chill had settled in her bones and she feared she’d never be warm again.
“He wasn’t supposed to come here.” Truth or not, the explanation rang hollow even in her own ears. “We were supposed to meet at the diner.”
“But he
was
here,” Callen pointed out.
“I’m sorry.” When they all stared at her, just stood there looking, she almost lost it. Chalk it up to the hormones or the upheaval in her personal life. All she’d lost and the rough days ahead. She couldn’t take one more minute of distrust and anger lobbed her way. “Fine.”
That’s all she got out before she took off. Not jogging, for fear of falling and hurting the baby, but not a gentle walk either. She raced to the porch and into the house . . . and no one tried to stop her.
For the second time in only a few weeks Callen’s world crumbled around him. He stood there with rain sliding over his face and soaking his shirt and tried to make an assessment of his wounds. But there was so much more happening. Things he never could have predicted or found armor against. A growing family he never expected.
He didn’t just have two half-brothers; he had an older one he never knew. A guy who dedicated his life to ruining Callen’s. He put his hands on his hips and paced the wet grass as he tried to take it all in.
And then there was Grace.
When he first walked outside earlier that old wallop of anger and shock came rushing back. He saw her standing with Walker and jumped to conclusion after conclusion. He pushed away reasonable explanations and vowed not to let her come up with more lies to cover her excuses.
But then everything shifted. She pleaded with Walker. She tried to put an end to all the secrets. Her face went pale and her body shook. Those were not the actions of a woman on the verge of winning a battle of vengeance against him. She was a woman falling apart.
The realization made him crazed with guilt. All those months of doubting with the pain of losing her bunching up on him. It exploded now, covering everything in its path.
He wanted to bend over with his hands on his knees and draw in huge gulps of air until his head stopped buzzing. But they all stood there. All the people he loved, except for Beck . . . and Grace.
“Are you okay?” Declan sounded winded and wild in his concern.
Callen knew his brother had to be reeling. After all, they’d all found a brother today.
Fucking Charlie.
“You should—” Kim began.
“Wait.” Callen cut his mother off and knew he shouldn’t. Knew Tom was two seconds away from unloading on him about respect, but Callen had to know the truth. “Did you mean it?”
She frowned, the confusion evident on her face. “Mean what?”
“You would have taken Walker in?”
She didn’t think about it or hedge. “Absolutely.”
The answer, so simple, proved so important. Hearing the words, listening to her try to assure Walker that he meant something and would have made him a vital part of her family, broke something loose inside Callen. That’s what a real parent did. The bone-deep love for a child, blood or not, that made her put her life on hold and take every risk. She’d done it for him. She would have done it for Walker.
The world shifted and a strange sensation washed through Callen, leaving him shaken and a little sick. He’d pushed his mom away, treating her like she meant nothing. He’d pushed Grace away. Even when he took her in, he’d acted like he was doing her a favor. Like the baby was an afterthought. He’d made excuses and focused on the sex.
He’d been a complete fucking jackass.
She came to Sweetwater after him. She made sure he didn’t lose his child. She tried to fix the mess with Walker. She loved him, and he’d never done anything to deserve it.
The kick of self-loathing nearly knocked him over.
“Callen, listen to me.” His mom put her hands on his upper arms and squeezed. “I know this is a shock, and we’ll talk about Walker and what we do from here and how we can help him, but your focus now needs to be on Grace.”
He hadn’t figured out what he could say to convince Grace he loved her after spending all that time showing her he didn’t. His mom talked and it all made sense, but his mind was in that house, up in his room.
He needed to get to Grace.
He looked down into the eyes of the woman who showed him today what being a true parent meant. Who broke open the gates until a fierce love for his own unborn child swamped him.
“Man, don’t mess this up. You can get through this, and you can trust Grace again,” Declan said.
Callen wasn’t sure what was happening. “I don’t—”
“You can’t let her go.” Gone was the tone of stunned confusion. Declan sounded angry now.
That snapped Callen out of it. Here he was trying to figure out how to fix this mess, and his family thought he was crawling into an even bigger one. Maybe Grace was right that his communication skills needed work. Hell, she was right about just about everything else.
“When I almost blew it with Leah, you stepped in,” Declan said. “Now I’m returning the favor. Fix this.”
“I know.”
“What?” Leah asked.
“I love Grace and she is not fucking going anywhere.” The words rang inside Callen, and he knew they were true.
The tension snapped, and Tom laughed. “I guess that’s romantic. Sort of.”
Callen’s mom smiled. “It definitely is.”
But Callen didn’t have time to stick around and talk. He had a woman to catch.
***
Grace sat on the edge of the big bed she shared with Callen and tried to figure out how much fight she had left in her. With a hand on her stomach and her gaze locked on her suitcase, she’d texted Walker. He ignored her, as expected. She then debated calling Mallory and giving her a warning about what happened so she could be ready if Walker went to her.
But it was all busywork meant to keep Grace’s mind off the six-feet-something of trouble standing outside. Once again when faced with a choice of believing her or running out on her, he picked the latter. Maybe this time was just an emotional sprint, but she still felt him go.
She’d never been the type to stick around in a bad relationship or run after a man she was attracted to. With Callen, she’d sort of become both. Part of her wanted to shove him for that.
“What are you doing?”
She didn’t hear him on the stairs or in the doorway until he spoke. For a second, she studied him. Really looked. Took in the drawn features and lines around his eyes. All the stress of the last few hours showed on his face, and he looked ready to drop.
Not that she could blame him. If she’d had any idea the afternoon would have rolled out like that she never would have sent Walker that text.
But it was too late call it all back now. “I’m trying to figure out if I should move back to the motel. Maybe find a rental in town.”
That had been the original plan anyway. Knowing Callen, she really didn’t expect him to forgive and cuddle her close again. When he insisted she move in, she knew that stemmed from obligation and his need to do the right thing, not out of love for her or the baby.
But she’d hoped. She’d believed that they could get back to the place where they were before it all fell apart. She’d bet everything on that idea and lost.
“You’re not thinking about leaving town?” His tone didn’t give away whether he thought that would be a good thing or not.
Little did he know, or maybe he didn’t care, but every word he said shredded her heart into tinier pieces. Her insides felt raw and exposed, and all she wanted to do was climb into bed and sleep.
Instead she got out her one shot. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m staying. You’re going to be a dad whether you like it or not.”
He pushed off from the door frame and came to sit next to her. The scent of the rain and the outdoors followed him and water clung to his clothes and hair. At this rate they’d both be sick.
“We need to work on communicating,” he said.
Whatever that meant to him. She didn’t even know anymore, but she did want one thing to be clear between them, even if he refused to believe it.
She stared at her hands on her lap. She didn’t even have the strength to wind her fingers together. “I didn’t know Walker was Charlie’s son.”
Callen nodded. “I know.”
“And I didn’t invite him here to show him the dirt mounds and get you all in trouble.” Callen’s words finally sunk in and her head shot up. “What do you mean you know?”
“How about I talk for a few minutes?” He picked up her cold hand and pressed it between both of his, resting it on his thigh.
The gentle touch sent her mind racing in five different directions. Confusion and worry took the lead, but hope flickered to life inside her. The realistic side of her, the same side that had gone through months of pregnancy alone, stamped out any light.
Time after time he gave her a little peek at how good it could be, then snatched it away again. She couldn’t keep playing this game. She had to get off the emotional merry-go-round that was sure to turn her bitter.
Using every ounce of strength left in her body and battling her heart to do it, she stood up and walked as far away from him as she could, even though that only amounted to a few feet across the room. “I won’t take your child away, Callen. I came here so you could be a dad. Maybe you don’t want that, but—”
He jumped to his feet. “I do.”
She worried this amounted to another sign of his spirit of obligation. His desire not to be Charlie Hanover.
“You’ve only shown a little interest.” In her, in the baby, in reconciling in a meaningful way that extended past the bedroom or a few nights of fun.
He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Fear.”
She wanted to fall into him, forgive him and think they could skip over this like they had with everything else, and move on. Not this time. If it were only her, she could keep spinning, maybe. Even then, it was no way to live. But there was a baby involved, and that child deserved better than to be emotionally yanked around.
She was trying to come up with the right words to tell him that when he moved in closer. With a hand under her chin, he lifted her head to face him. “The idea of being a father, of loving a baby so much and screwing it up, terrifies me.”
She got that. She really did. But what happened in the yard went so much deeper than that. “Callen . . .”
His thumb rubbed over her lower lip. “For the last few weeks I’ve been thinking my parental role models weren’t all that great, but I was wrong.”
Grace knew that admission cost him something. It meant coming to terms with how he had acted and where all those swirling emotions dumped him.
“Your mother made mistakes, but she is a good woman.” Grace hoped she could be that kind of mother. Dedicated to the point of sacrificing everything.
“I know.” He lowered his head and touched his nose against hers. “So are you.”
The move was so romantic, so sweet and unlike Callen, that tears pushed at the back of her eyes. She had to break away or risk being pulled under again.
She shook her head as she backed up. When the dresser dug into her hip, she wrapped her arms around her middle for added protection. “I can’t do that thing where you like me one second and think I’m a liar the next.”
He stood there, giving her space, but not targeting her with his intense gaze. “I trust you.”
No, no, no.
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
She wanted to believe, was so desperate to believe that she ached with it. “You didn’t see your face outside.”
“That was about Charlie and his lies and realizing what I’d done to mom and how I’d taken you for granted.”
He said all the right words, and she felt her resistance shake. “Why now?”
“Because I know I love you and I will always love you, and if I don’t stop messing up and hurting you, I’m going to lose you.” He touched her again. His fingertips skimmed her cheeks. “And that is the one mistake in a life filled with many that I can’t make. Won’t make.”
A gasp, a moan—she didn’t even really know what the sound was—escaped her throat. “You’ve never said that before.”
“I have loved you from the beginning.” He pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “It’s why I spun so far out of control when I thought you betrayed me.”
Her heart stammered, and the last of the wall she’d erected to shut out the pain crumbled. She wanted to dive in and not look back, but a barrier stood there. A very real block to keeping them from moving on. “I did lie to you at the beginning. I wanted to pretend it wasn’t a big deal because it was an omission and not an out-and-out lie, but that was wrong. I messed up.”
He winced. “Please don’t. You’ve already apologized.”
“But you haven’t forgotten.” And that stood between them like a wall that couldn’t be scaled.
“If I hadn’t I would have believed you and Walker were in the yard setting us up.”
“Didn’t you think that?” It sure felt that way.
“For two seconds, which, for me, with my trust issues, is a huge step forward.” Callen wrapped his arms around her. “But I’ll keep working on it. I will do whatever it takes to earn your trust and show you how much I love you and the baby.”
She thought about his drinking and the vow he took to stop. Her mind zipped to how he had acted in the yard earlier and how different it was from how he would have acted in the past. Not perfect, but making strides. Trying. Being the man she knew he could be.
“I love you.” He kissed her chin. “All I want is the chance to prove it.” His lips moved to her nose, then her cheeks. “Because when I ask you to marry me, and that is happening soon, I want you to say yes.”
Her heart jumped but she forced it to calm back down. “Because of the baby?”
There was a part of her that knew if she hadn’t come to town and told him about the baby, they’d still be apart. That was a tough reality to accept. That he was willing to let her go.
“I don’t know the baby yet. I know you, and I love you.”
“But you left me.” The words ripped out of her. She grabbed on to his shoulders, because without the support she would have fallen to the floor in a
whoosh
.
“It was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m sorry.”
She tried to remember the last time she’d seen that expression, so warm and open and full of love. Or the last time he shouldered part of the blame. He put it out there so they could overcome it.
The change made all the difference.
“I think maybe I wasn’t ready until I got closer to my brothers and watched them fall in love.” His hand moved to the back of her head, then to her neck. “I wanted that, and then I realized I’d had it and thrown it away.”
“But the next time you get angry—”
He fingers caressed and his lips wandered across her cheek. “You’re worried I’ll punish you.”
Her mind started blinking out. He was close, with his arms and scent wrapping around her, and she had to fight to hold on to her thoughts. “Again.”