report it.’
A curse tumbled off his lips. ‘So sue him, Romy. If he hit the roo, then I’ll be giving him a long lecture about responsibility. It’s unfortunate but hardly a federal offence.’
If. Even now he had so little faith in her. She steeled herself to continue. To hurt him the way she knew she had to. ‘Clint, there’s more…’
‘Oh, I’ll bet there is. You’re nothing if not zealous in your pursuit of justice.’
The acid tone served its purpose. She felt the burning judgement as it spattered her. Her throat tightened and she clamped her lips, losing courage.
‘No, don’t stop now, Romy. Spit it all out. What else has my evil, damaged little brother done to offend?’
The sarcasm sliced her like tumbling scalpels. She wanted to hurl it at him now—the truth about Justin—but she knew she’d only get moments once she started. And hurting Clint was hurting her, doubly. Her chest collapsed in. This could only go one way. She was ripping out both their hearts.
‘I’m…I’m worried about the cockatoos. The breach in the fence…’ Tremors gave her a weak kind of vibrato. ‘I think Justin’s connected. The customs memo—’
‘Stop!’
He rounded on her then, his eyes a roaring furnace. The blazing fury in his expression burned her. He advanced and she stumbled over her own feet back into the corner, dipping her head instinctively. It was an ingrained survival technique, but she disgusted herself with her cowardice.
Clint froze. For long, cold, silent seconds. Then he stumbled away from her, her name a curse on his lips.
She fought the sting of tears. Not again. Not this time. She lifted her chin and met his wide, horrified gaze with critically dry eyes. Her blood thundered in her ears, her pulse throbbing in her temple, her throat, her mouth. The devastation on his face was nearly her undoing. But he had to know…And he was listening at last.
Her chest throbbed. ‘He was expelled from the US on drug charges, Clint. Serious ones. He has a criminal record.’
She watched the emotions play over his features, features she’d come to care for so deeply. The horror, the sorrow, the acceptance. Then he dropped his eyes.
‘I know.’
She almost missed his soft confession as an owl screeched in the darkness nearby. She sucked in a lungful of icy, aching air. Stared at him for endless moments until finally able to speak, raw and strained. ‘Then why have I torn my heart out to work out how to tell you?’
He sank down on the swing chair. ‘He had to come home. It was part of his conditions. That he live with me. Here.’
Romy sagged. Far from trouble. Under the watchful eye of his highly awarded, ex-military brother.
Clint went on. ‘He wanted a chance to prove himself. To make a fresh start.’
She dropped her head. ‘I can understand that.’
‘I think we all can.’
More silence. ‘You think I’m taking that chance away from him.’
‘Aren’t you?’
Romy’s heart lurched painfully. You’d think she’d have developed some immunity to condemnation after her childhood. ‘I’m not doing this to catch Justin out. I’m doing it to protect you.’
He lifted unreadable eyes to hers. ‘Why?’
‘Because he’s going to betray you.’ She stared at him steadily. ‘And because you love him.’
And because I love you.
Romy’s whole body reeled as the words clattered unspoken through her brain. She grabbed at the balustrade and clung to it, trying desperately to look as though she was doing nothing more than collecting her thoughts when in reality she was struggling to breathe. She forced her lungs to inflate. Once. Twice.
Oh, God, no…
‘Would you do something for me, Romy?’ His flat, lifeless voice brought her head back around. ‘If I asked you to…would you drop your investigation? Would you trust me to deal with this my own way?’
Her blood thundered past her ears in torrents and her stomach squeezed into a ball. Everything she’d ever believed in hung suspended in front of her, right next to everything she’d ever wanted. And she couldn’t have both. One would make her a traitor to the principles she held most dear. The other would effectively betray Clint.
She looked at the agony in his eyes and her heart answered for her, though it stretched to snapping point. Her conscience lowered its eyes. ‘If it was in my power. Yes, I would.’ There was no doubt that he’d put his brother’s misdeeds to rights. Stop Justin before he did anything to harm anyone more than he already had. But that meant…
‘But I can’t stay if that happens.’ The fracture in her voice echoed the one in her heart and salty tears seeped into her throat through the microscopic fissures. ‘I have to think about Leighton. He’s all I’ve got.’ He could take whatever risks he wanted to with his business but she was not risking her son.
Clint’s eyes fluttered shut. He nodded, his voice thick. ‘You should go. Take him far away from here. From me.’
She just nodded. Unable to speak a word for the rigidness in her throat. Knowing what was coming. And what she had to tell him.
Don’t ask…don’t ask…
He lifted tortured eyes and an invisible sword suspended perilously, aimed at her chest. ‘I know what this will mean to you so I wouldn’t ask lightly. He’s my little brother, Romy. My Leighton.’ He took her icy hands in his. ‘So I am asking. Will you trust me to deal with this in my own way? Will you let it go?’
For me.
If she said yes she would have to take Leighton away from WildSprings. And if she said no Clint would never forgive her. Her breath shuddered. The Colonel’s cruel laughter filled her brain, tight and hysterical.
Either way she was going to lose Clint.
Nausea washed through her in thick waves. As it happened, it was entirely irrelevant. She clenched the timber balustrade behind her for courage. Then she took a breath and fell forwards onto the invisible sword.
‘I’ve already emailed Customs.’
Clint closed his eyes. Dropped his head as though he couldn’t tolerate its weight a second longer. As though he’d expected her betrayal. ‘Of course you have.’
Panic started to flare deep in her chest. Her voice cracked. ‘I had to do what was right—’
‘I know.’
His quiet words ended it all. Awful, irreparable stillness fell between them. What else could she say? What else could she expect? They were brothers. And betraying the one that meant nothing to her had betrayed the one
