Oklahoma Moonshine (The McIntyre Men #1) (11 page)

Okay, okay, this all bore thought, but later. She shook loose a couple of ibuprofen from the bottle in the medicine cabinet, took them back downstairs and
handed them to Rob, who was hobbling back from the kitchen with an open long neck in one hand.

“Rob, you should’ve let me get that.”

“It’s purely for the pain,” he said, sinking back into his spot on the sofa, moving slow, grimacing a little.

When he lay down, she put the two tablets into his hand and said. “So is this.”

He swallowed the pills with a drink of beer. “Thank you, Kiley.”

“I think you were the one who said doing nice things for each other would be good for our business relationship. I’m just following your
suggestion. So on that note, why don’t you relax here and let me make our dinner tonight.”

He nodded, but when she turned to go, he caught hold of her hand and pulled until she sat down beside him again. “Do you know any oversized thug who
would have reason to come looking for you?”

“Of course not.”

He touched her face, turned it so he could look her right in the eyes. “I promise I won’t judge you, no matter what you ever tell me about
yourself. You get that, right?”

“Yeah. I get that.” It was hard to believe, but she was starting to think it was the truth.

“And you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. But I’ve gotta ask you for a promise in return. I’d really be
grateful, Kiley, if you could promise not to lie to me. I’d rather have you tell me nothing at all, than tell me a lie.”

His eyes were so intense that she knew this was a big, fat deal to him. And she’d like to know why. Hell, he was so big on honesty that maybe if she
asked him, he’d tell her.

She took a deep breath, then sighed and figured what the hell. He’d fought for her today. She probably owed him something. “Okay. I promise
that I’ll…try my best not to lie to you. And the answer to your other question is, yeah, I can think of several thugs who might have an ax to
grind with me.”

He lifted his brows and she thought his surprise was real.

“Sometimes...in the past...I’ve...maybe...used men, a little bit, to get...you know, what I wanted.” Then she shrugged. “But I
mean, they used me to get what they wanted, too, so it’s really pretty much even. Though they… probably wouldn’t see it that way.”

He nodded. “This guy, he called you a criminal and a con artist.”

That hurt. She frowned hard in reaction to it and said, “I am
not
a criminal.”

Rob seemed to consider that for a long moment. “He said you owed him money.”

“That really doesn’t narrow it down much,” she admitted. “Did he give you a name?”

“Dax J. Russell.” Rob pulled out his phone and scrolled to the photo Selene had sent. “From New Jersey.”

“I’ve never even
been
to Jersey.”  He turned the phone to show her the guy’s face. She looked at it, then frowned and
looked closer. “My God, he’s
huge
.”

“Huger in person.”

Lowering the phone, she looked into Rob’s eyes and said, “I don’t know this man, Robby. That’s the truth. I’ve pissed off a
lot of men in my past, but this guy is not one of them.” She handed the phone back to him.

He was looking at her hard, looking for signs she was lying. And that hurt a little, though it shouldn’t. She closed her eyes, lowered her head. Part
of her wanted to tell him that she’d been both of those things, a criminal and con artist, for her entire life. Right up until she’d decided to
change.

And it was only just then that she realized something inside her
was
changing. Up until that moment, it had only been words. A vague intention.
I
’m going to change.
Now it felt more like,
I
’m changing
.

“He said your name wasn’t even Kiley. Just as he left, he said that.”

She blew air between her teeth. “Well now I
know
he’s a liar. What is it, then?”

“Kendra,” he said. “Wasn’t that your sister’s name?”

She blinked. Just hearing her sister’s name brought the pain rushing back to her. “Yeah.”

“Where was she when she died, Kiley?”

Don
’t tell him. Don
’t tell him. Don’t tell him.

“New Jersey.”

Why did I tell him?

 “Do you...I mean, did you look that much alike? That Selene and Edie could see a photo of her and think it was you?” he asked.

She met his eyes, and knew she was in too far to back off now.

“Probably,” she said. “Her eyes are green, mine are blue.” She got up and walked to the kitchen. “You have any ideas about
dinner?” she asked, and her voice came out deep and thick. “I’m not a great cook, I’ll warn you in advance.” Dammit, there
were hot tears burning down her cheeks. She kept her back to him, started opening cupboards and the fridge as if looking for ideas. But she wasn’t
seeing anything but her sister’s face.

Hearing Kendra’s name had hit Kiley like a mallet. Rob had seen it very clearly. She’d tried hard to hide her reaction, but he’d seen it.
Shock had paled her skin and widened her eyes and caused her full lips to part on a soft gasp. There had been tears welling before she’d managed to
shoot off the sofa and head for the kitchen. Real tears.

Kiley hadn’t denied she was a con artist. She’d implied there could be a number of men angry and claiming she owed them money.

She seemed to feel genuinely bad that he’d gotten into a violent altercation on her behalf, though. And she was trying, she really was, to give him a
few crumbs of honesty.

Maybe it was enough for one night. That guy, whatever else he might be, was big and damn scary to a little thing like Kiley. Rob would defend her against him
whether she was in the right or in the wrong.

The problem was, he liked her. He liked her a lot. He even liked her shady ways. And he was attracted to her, too, in a purely physical, me-Tarzan-you-Jane
sort of way. He hadn’t felt like that in a long, long time.

But the lies. God, he felt them hanging over his head like Poe’s pendulum, swinging closer with every pass. The only difference was,
he
wasn’t strapped down. He was voluntarily lying there, waiting for it to gut him.

Or for her to come clean, and pull the lever that would stop its deadly swinging. She was the only one who could. His goal in life, right then,
crystallized for him. He was going to win Kiley’s trust. She was going to tell him everything about herself of her own free will. Even if she never
showed anyone else her true self, she would show him.

She puttered around in the kitchen, finally putting some homemade chicken pot pies, courtesy of Vidalia, into the oven and setting the timer. While they
cooked, she did other things. Noisy things. She might have been washing dishes. He was too busy trying to figure out whether Dax Russell actually knew her
or not.

Eventually, he gave up, and looked around the room. Something was different. And then he realized what. A very large television was mounted to the wall in
front of him. How he’d missed it, he didn’t know.

Yes he did. When Kiley was around, he didn’t notice much else.

“Hey, was the TV fairy here?”

She leaned through the doorway from the kitchen. “Isn’t it amazing? The remote’s on the coffee table.”

He reached for it and
hit the power button.

“How did you manage to mount it by yourself?”

She didn’t come in, just called from the kitchen. “I’m not all
that
handy. I called the cable company, but there’s no cable on our road. So then I called the satellite dish people. They said they
couldn’t come for a week, but I asked them to come today instead.”

“And they just agreed?”

“Well, yeah.” She hesitated. “I kind of...talked them into it.”

“Uh-huh. And how did you do that, exactly?” He listened intently, but all the same, started skimming channels.

When she spoke again her voice was closer, and he turned. She was leaning in the doorway again, a potholder in her hand, looking at the big screen.
“I
might
’ve
said that my husband was going to be one of the guest pundits on
Meet the Press
this week. He’s a
journalist and it’s his first appearance, and I promised not to miss it and....”

“And they came right out,” he said.

She nodded. “It was only a little white lie.”

“And the fellow who showed up to turn things on just...decided to do the wall mount to be a nice guy?”

She shrugged. “You may not have noticed, Rob, but I clean up kind of nice, and I can flirt pretty well. I didn’t lie at all. Not even a little
bit. He just volunteered.”

He looked her over and realized that, yes, she was wearing makeup, and she’d done something sexy to her hair, flipping it all over to one side and
letting those waves cascade down to her shoulders. She wore a snug-fitting tank top with a soft cotton shirt over it, unbuttoned, and jeans that fit her
like a second skin.

“Don’t judge. You promised that if I was honest, you wouldn’t judge.”

“I’m not judging.” He shrugged, let his eyes roam down to her feet and up again, and said, “Well, I am, but only to the point of
thinking how good you look tonight, and wondering how the hell it took me this long to notice.”

“Cause I’ve been up in your face and you have one eye swollen shut,” she said. “And thanks.”

Her cheeks went all soft pink and pretty. Then a timer pinged, and she said, “Find us something amazing to watch while we eat in front of the TV like
a couple of uncivilized savages. I’ll bring dinner right in.”

So he channel surfed, found a comedy that had something for both of them. She brought in the pot pies on giant plates, spread out to cool more quickly, and
set them on the coffee table.

“It smells fantastic.”

“Yeah, I’m a wiz at reading instructions and setting oven timers,” she said.

“I smell something else.” He looked toward the kitchen, following the scent. “Chocolate?”

“I threw a brownie mix in
while the pies were baking. They should be just cooled off enough by the time we’re ready for dessert.” She sat down beside him. “Are you
mad at me?” she asked. “For lying to the TV people?”

He looked at her freckles, thought about how much he liked her, in spite of the secrets she was keeping. And he said, “It’s none of my business
who you lie to. I’m trying hard to win your trust, here, Kiley, in case you haven’t noticed that. The only time I’m gonna care about lies
is if you lie to me. Okay?”

She seemed to think about that for a long moment. To really let it sink in. And then she said, “There are things...I haven’t told you. Do you
consider that lying?”

He shook his head slowly. “As long as it’s not pertinent to us...to our...partnership, our friendship, our business, then you don’t have
to tell me anything you don’t want to.” He shrugged. “I’m hoping eventually, you’ll want to.”

“I’m already starting to want to,” she said. “And if you knew how unusual that was for me, you’d be super flattered.”
She looked down at her plate, moved the veggies and gravy around with her fork, and watched the steam spiral up off them. “I was telling the truth
about that Dax guy, though. I don’t know who he is. He doesn’t look familiar to me at all. And I’ve never been to Jersey.”

Rob nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay? You got the stuffing kicked outta you, and you can just say okay, like everything’s fine?”

“Everything is fine. And you don’t have to worry about that guy, or any other guy like him. Not as long as you’re with me.”

She just sat there blinking, looking kind of shell shocked and stunned.

Caleb Montgomery’s law office was on the ground floor of a tall, old-fashioned building that looked as if it could’ve been standing back when
horses instead of cars parked out front. He was married to Maya, the oldest of Vidalia Brand’s daughters, Kiley thought as she waited in the leather
chair in his reception area, wondering why there was no one at the desk.

She knew Caleb was in his office, but the door was closed and she could hear voices from the other side, so she wasn’t going to knock and interrupt.
She’d just wait.

Damned if she’d ever thought she’d be sitting in a lawyer’s office, short of needing one to defend her. But here she was. Life sure did
change.

The big wooden door opened, and a very tall, beautiful blond woman came out, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. She spotted Kiley sitting there, and quickly
sniffled and tucked the tissue out of sight. “So sorry to keep you waiting,” she said. “I didn’t think we had any appointments
until—”

“I don’t have an appointment,” Kiley said. “I was hoping Mr. Montgomery could sort of squeeze me in.”

She glanced past the woman, who turned out to be the missing receptionist, through the still-open door into the office. 

The lawyer was already smiling at her from the doorway. “Kiley. Brenda, this is Rob McIntyre’s new partner. Kiley, my receptionist,
Brenda.”

“Hello,” Kiley said to the blonde. She was seriously curious about why the woman was crying in her boss’s office. Seemed suspicious as
hell. None of her business, though. Odd how much it pissed her off on Maya’s behalf, though. If he was having a fling, he ought to be skinned. She
hoped that wasn’t it.

“Nice to meet you, Kiley,” Brenda said, sliding into her seat at the desk.

“Come on in and tell me what I can do for you,” Caleb called. “Brenda, give us a few minutes, okay?”

“Sure, boss.”

He waited for Kiley to enter, then closed the office door. Impressive, but not braggy. Bookcases full of books and sturdy leather furniture and a gigantic
shiny hardwood desk that looked like an antique. “Nice,” she said with a nod. “Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Montgomery.”

“Call me Cal. You’re practically family.” He nodded toward a big chair and when she sank into it, she felt a little like Goldilocks. The
thing was huge. “What can I help you with?”

“It’s a small favor, really. Nothing big. Shouldn’t take you more than a phone call. But um, the thing is, I’d like you to keep it
between us.”