around her broom-closet office, then doubled back on her. ‘Overkill, don’t you think?’
Actually, yes, it was. Majorly. ‘I contacted Carly as a friend, not a Federal officer.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there’s something not right about Justin—’
His colour blanched slightly. ‘I’ve told you why that is. The near-drowning…’
Desperation started to pick at her fringes. Had she overreacted? Could she be wrong about Justin? She forced the doubt away. ‘Clint. Forget that he’s your brother, just for a moment. Why would he lie about his background?’
Clint finally lifted tortured eyes to her. ‘You’ve certainly wasted no time in getting your revenge.’
‘Revenge for what?’
‘For him trying it on with you.’
Hurt slammed through her. ‘You think that’s what this is?’
‘You tell me. First you tell me he hit on you, then you tell me he’s a liar.’
Her pulse started to hammer at the accusation in his voice. ‘I never told you he hit on me. You brought it up.’
Clint glared. ‘Actually, he did. He owned up to it immediately. Expressed his regret. Like a man.’
Her chest heaved with barely restrained anger. ‘How good of him. Have you not given any thought to why he might do that? What he had to gain?’
Clint shook his head. It matched the tremble in his hands. ‘I feel sure you’re about to tell me.’
Grief thickened her voice. Something beautiful was dying. Romy could feel it slipping through her helpless fingers. ‘Do I really have to tell you about pre-emptive strikes? Justin knew you’d take him to pieces when you found out he’d touched me and so he was getting in first. Shoring up support.’ Shields she hadn’t had to employ in some time started to creak back into position. The familiar thick, lead-lined walls that protected her for so much of her childhood. ‘It was pure strategy, Clint. He’s clever.’
He launched away from her, as far as he could get in the tiny room. ‘Make up your mind, Romy. One minute he’s damaged, the next he’s Einstein.’ He swung back to burn down on her. ‘There’s something I don’t understand. If you’re so determined to come between us why didn’t you tell me about him hitting on you yourself?’
Because his brother’s touch blew everything else from my mind, eclipsed everything that came before it. ‘Maybe because his weren’t the only hands I had on me that night!’
But one look at his bleached face and she knew how it sounded. Her stomach contracted.
‘Clint…’
He cut her off physically, pushing past her to leave the office. He threw the offending report onto her desk. ‘Stay the hell away from my family.’
‘CLINT’S here! Clint’s here!’
A human cannonball came thundering down the stairs two at a time. Romy froze where she was standing, in the midst of lighting her living room candles. She lit them every evening, an array of subtle, scented lights to ease away the worries of the day and fill her environment with beauty. Tonight she’d lit double.
It still wasn’t enough.
Leighton flung the door open before Clint even had a chance to knock. He hurled himself at the jean-clad legs, more like the little boy he had been last week. Her heart squeezed to see someone else making her son so happy. Wasn’t that her job?
‘Hey, champ, how are you doing?’
She hated the light, relaxed tone he employed with her son. It was so different to the way he spoke to her.
Leighton bounced at his feet. ‘Have you come to take me on our bushwalk? Mum said she was going to ask you.’
Clint’s cold green stare met hers. Her lashes swept down. Lord, she’d completely forgotten her promise to her son.
‘Sure did, champ,’ he covered smoothly, ‘and your mum, too.’ There was the barest pause before he added, ‘If she wants to come.’
Romy wasn’t certain which of them looked less enthusiastic about that. Possibly even herself. Spending time with Clint was the very last thing she wanted to do.
‘Right now?’ she hedged.
‘Unless you have something more important to be doing.’ Like lighting candles, his raised eyebrow seemed to say.
‘Yay!’ Leighton leapt back into the house and scampered up the stairs.
Romy raced through her options. She could beg off, blame her ankle, but that meant leaving her son with Clint unsupervised, and he was just as likely to teach him how to shoot something if she wasn’t there to stop it. Prohibiting Leighton from going would destroy what little repair work she’d managed to do to their relationship. Or she could go. Endure two hours in Clint’s company like an adult and try not to say something that might get her fired.
Leighton reappeared in the kitchen carrying his hiking boots. She smiled at him brightly. ‘What about our movie night?’ It was worth a shot.
He looked at her, crestfallen. ‘Can’t we watch the movie tomorrow night, Mum?’
That sweet face broke her. She knew only too well how it felt to try and please everyone all of the time. The pressure that put on little shoulders.
She sighed. ‘Okay, let me blow these candles out…’
Leighton let out another cheer and burst out the door, leaving Clint standing alone in the kitchen.
‘Let me help you with that,’ he said tightly.
‘No, thanks. I’ve got it.’ Her puffs of air were quick and efficient and extinguished each candle as if, with every one, she snuffed out one of her complex feelings for the man hovering in her doorway.
‘Romy…’
She spun around and faced him. What was he going to say? Sorry I ripped your heart out and threw it against the wall. My mistake. Can you ever forgive me?
Her stare felt as dead as her heart. ‘I assumed when you told me to stay away from your family, it was a given you’d stay away from mine.’
He sighed and dropped his gaze to the floor. ‘He’s my brother, Romy. You investigated him based on nothing but a gut feeling.’
‘Accurate gut feeling.’
‘It’s not an insignificant thing.’
She didn’t want to see the sense in that. She didn’t want to let him off the
