when I’m not here.” She held out her hand. “House key.”
“Geez, Tor, you’re being kind of hard, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t have to be if you’d act like a responsible eighteen-year-old.”
After Danny handed her the key, she continued. “Bran and I also discussed your driving my car.” Her stomach knotted at the memory of how their tempers had flared. “You went to jail because you racked up so many tickets and didn’t bother to pay them. The judge who granted your bail suspended your license. If a cop had pulled you over last night, you’d be in a cell right now. Did that beating you got in jail teach you nothing?”
He arched his dark brows. “Taught me I don’t want to go back there a second time.”
“Then why take my car? You’ve got one week left until your license gets reinstated. Why chance driving now?”
“I didn’t think. But at least I won playing poker.” He grinned. “How could I not when I had the best teacher in the world?”
“I taught you to play when you were ten years old. We used toothpicks, not chips. I never intended poker to become your main source of funds.”
He pulled a layer of bills from the wad in the pocket of his jean jacket and handed it to her. “Here’s the first installment on the bail money you and Bran fronted me.”
Tory glanced at the bills. The bail had not come with Bran’s blessing. She’d told him after the fact she’d used a thousand dollars of their savings. In her mind, her doing so without telling Bran first had been justified—she’d had to bail Danny out of the jail’s infirmary. He’d been beaten so badly she was afraid he would be permanently scarred without good, fast medical care.
Even now she could still feel the heat of Bran’s anger over what she’d done. Still hear the harsh words they’d exchanged. Still see the grim look on his face as he packed his bags.
Water under the bridge, she thought. Right now she had Danny to deal with. She jammed the bills into the front pocket of her jeans then leaned a hip against Bran’s workbench.
“Listen up, pal. If you get arrested again, the money I used for your bail goes down the drain. That happens, it won’t be Bran who comes after you, but me.”
Danny looked at her car. “I guess you’re plenty steamed right now.”
When she didn’t answer, he rocked back on the heels of his scuffed running shoes. “I was hoping you’d give me a ride to Jewell’s apartment. She’s probably mad, too, over me being out all night.”
“You think?” Tory asked. All she knew about the woman Danny had moved in with was that she danced at some bar under the billing “exotic performer.” Stripper was more like it, Tory suspected. “You want a ride, call your pal Rocco.”
“Yeah.” Danny moved to the door that led into the kitchen, then paused. “Tor, I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“You never do.”
She fisted her hands as he stepped into the house. Considering the way he’d been raised, she couldn’t totally fault Danny for assuming he could forever shirk responsibility.
Their mother had been brought up by overindulgent parents who had never seen the need for their only child to learn to deal with whatever complications life tossed at her. They’d just handled them all for her. And unwittingly raised a daughter who was codependent in every aspect.
Tory had no trouble picturing their mother clinging to their father, the air of helplessness hanging around the woman almost palpable in the air. Just as easily she could see her father’s face, transforming over the years until the only thing left was unbridled disgust for his wife’s pathetic weakness. He hadn’t even stayed around long enough to see his son born.
Tory had been nine years old when her father walked out, a young girl to whom her mother transferred as many burdens as possible. It was Tory who’d been saddled with making decisions about everything from finances to meal planning. Tory who’d learned everything there was to know about responsibility while their mother raised Danny into the mirror image of herself.
Then, when Tory was eighteen, their mother had died in a car wreck. Their father had passed away several years before. Since they had no blood relatives to turn to, Tory had stepped in to raise her then nine-year-old brother. That’s who she also saw when she looked at Danny: the grief-stricken boy who’d clung to her while sobbing over their mother’s grave. The boy who’d collected and recycled tin cans and bottles to help earn enough money to buy a stone to mark that grave.
No one had questioned Tory’s ability to raise her brother. After all, she’d been shouldering responsibility for years and had grown into an independent young woman. A woman who’d vowed never to make herself the kind of burden her mother had been. Growing up, it had taken all her energy to deal with the people who needed her, so she’d never let herself need anyone. Not even the man she’d run off and married.
How ironic that she’d lost her head over a cop for whom it was run-of-the-mill to deal with other people’s problems. A broad-shouldered, gorgeous man very willing to let her shift her burdens onto those impressive shoulders. A dream made in heaven for most women, Tory conceded, but not her. Never her.
And that was the crux of her and Bran’s problem. According to his youngest sister, his first wife had been a slim, shy brunette who’d welcomed having a husband who shielded and protected her. She’d been happy to have him manage the problems life had to offer. From all accounts, Patience McCall had lived contentedly in Bran’s shadow, quiet, deferring to him without conscious thought.
A visceral little pang of envy for the happiness Bran had shared with another woman tightened Tory’s heart. As did the knowledge that Bran had spent the entire time they’d lived together comparing her to his first wife. Oh, he’d done so in silence, but Tory was well-versed at reading people, and she had seen the comparison being made in Bran’s face often enough. Just as she’d seen it last night in the kitchen when his expression went distant with what she knew had been memories of another time, another woman.
A happier time with a woman who’d shown him in every way how much she needed him.
A woman whom Tory knew she could never come close to emulating. She just didn’t have it in her to allow herself to lean on a man. On anyone, for that matter. Not when just the thought of her mother’s clinging neediness put a sick feeling in her stomach.
Her gaze settled again on the workbench, sweeping over the tools that had gone untouched for months. Before she could block it, her mind flashed a picture of Bran standing there, his hands and muscled arms covered with a fine mist of sawdust, a lock of sandy hair falling over his forehead as he worked with the tools.
She felt the ache of loss through every bone and muscle. She’d felt that same sense of loss last night, lying crushed beneath his weight while everything that was female in her responded to the feel of his corded biceps, his hard chest against her breasts, the scent of his musky cologne. The damn chemical signals that sizzled through her whenever Bran got near had started nerves and needs pulsing through her in fast, greedy waves.
For the first time she allowed herself to open the door in her mind that she’d locked tight when Bran walked out. Even at the beginning there had been more between them than just that basic attraction. That physical pull. There’d been a shared affection,
