Tightening his hands on the steering wheel of his silver SUV, Connor pulled up into the gravel drive of the McCoy place in Manchester, Virginia. Pops’s car wasn’t there. Good. And at this time of the morning, Liz and Mitch would be busy in the ranch office. Even better. His mind had been so busy whizzing through all the details of his predicament in the past two days, he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. It wasn’t until he’d accidentally poured salt into his coffee instead of sugar at a D.C. diner that morning that he realized he needed a few hours to himself to get some major shut-eye. And the old McCoy house was just the place to do that.
He distractedly eyed the pen that paralleled the parking area. Kelli’s mutt, Kojak, was sitting inside with Mitch’s behemoth Goliath.
Clutching the keys to the McCoy place, and to his car, he climbed out then crossed over to the pen and crouched down. Kojak ignored him, but Goliath ambled over and stuck his wet nose through the fence. He absently stroked him. “What is it, boy? Feeling a little put out?”
Could he ever relate to that feeling. For the past thirty-six hours, he’d launched an all out attack to find out why he was under suspicion for Melissa Robbins’s murder. He’d come up with little more than nothing. He’d finally had to admit he needed access to inside info. Needed to find out exactly what the U.S. attorney’s office had on him before he could go any further.
Goliath nudged his other hand, causing him to lose his grip on his keys. Grimacing, he bent down to pick them up, then stood up slowly as Goliath sprinted away from the fence.
Giving the quiet grounds a once-over, Connor turned from the dog, then he walked toward the house and let himself in. The door was open, which wasn’t surprising. The crime rate in Manchester was basically nil. And what criminals might be lurking about certainly wouldn’t think of coming all the way out here.
He stepped into the kitchen. The telltale acrid smell of something having been burned permeated the room. He was growing used to that. It was the utter silence of the place he found unsettling. In his overtired state, he found it all too easy to imagine Jake sitting in his room studying the latest in international law; Marc camped out in front of the television, soaking in whatever happened to be playing that time of the day; Mitch repairing something or other upstairs; David tossing a baseball against the side of the house, the clunk, clunk each time the ball made contact irritating yet reassuring.
David….
It was impossible to believe the kid was married. Married, for cripe’s sake.
What was he talking about? He couldn’t believe he was the only one of the five of them unmarried.
He climbed the steps two at a time, then crossed the second-floor hall to the room that had always been his, even after moving out and getting his own apartment in D.C. over a decade earlier. He started pulling off his shirt even as he opened the door. At least the reporters hadn’t found out about this place yet. He could use it as home base until he figured out just how, exactly, he’d ended up in the mess he was in. And who had set him up to take a fall he hadn’t earned.
He drew to an abrupt stop in the middle of his room. Only a quick, startled glance told him it was no longer his room. He backed up into the hall, looked around, then stared at the door that still held the words he’d carved when he was ten. “Private. Keep Out.” He peered back inside.
It was his room, all right. Only it wasn’t. A wood, spindle cradle sat in the middle, stuffed full of tiny, brightly colored toy animals. A rocking chair was angled where his twin bed used to be. And someone had painted the walls white and decorated them with…was that Winnie the Pooh?
He grimaced. Where were all his sports posters? The collection of football cards he’d kept piled up in the corner? The photograph of his mother he kept on a nightstand that was no longer there?
“Aw, hell.” He realized that while he’d visited in the past three months, he’d never actually gone up to his old room. His new sisters-in-law must have turned it into a nursery for his nephew while he wasn’t looking, to use whenever Marc and Mel came for visits. Which was too often for his liking.
Connor scratched his head. Shouldn’t someone have asked him before doing something so drastic? And what about the other rooms? Why hadn’t they chosen one of those?
He strode down the hall, throwing open doors as he went. Pops’s room looked the same. So did Marc’s. Jake had added a double bed to his, and his old twin now sported a pink, frilly spread, more likely than not compliments of Lili, but it was still the same. Mitch’s was hardly recognizable now that his wife, Liz, had moved in, but there was no mistaking that it was still his room.
His was the only one they had screwed with.
He rubbed his hand over his numb face, feeling ridiculously like he’d woken up that morning to find he’d been evicted from his life.
He backtracked to Marc’s room, stalked to the bed, then sank down on the new mattress, curious as to why Marc and Mel hadn’t traded the twin for a double, or why they hadn’t put the damn crib in here—but he wasn’t up to dealing with the answer right now. He tossed his shirt to the corner, kicked his boots off, then stretched out, staring at the ceiling without seeing it, his feet dangling from the end of the too-short bed.
Almost immediately an image of Bronte O’Brien filled his mind.
Figured. The first free moment he had to himself and a woman intruded.
He supposed he should be used to it by now, given all the females that had taken over the McCoy place, but this was different, somehow. Bronte was different.
He closed his eyes and crossed his arms over them. Oh, he’d had his share of women in his lifetime. Mostly short-lived relationships that ended almost as quickly as they began. He’d meet someone somewhere, take her out a couple times, go to bed with her, then walk out when she started talking about something more serious.
He found it a little strange that he had never asked Bronte out. Not only now, but back in college. It wasn’t as if she had a sign around her neck that read, “Interested in marriage, only.” On the contrary, if she wore a sign it would probably say, “Mention of the word marriage is punishable by death.”
Normally his kind of girl.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been attracted to her. She’d always commanded his attention the moment she walked into the room. And that certainly hadn’t changed.
There. That was it. His epiphany of the day. He was attracted to Bronte. If kissing her the other night hadn’t proven that, then certainly his inability to stop thinking about her now did.
He jerkily rolled over, compensating when the move nearly threw him over the side of the narrow bed. Her wanton reaction to him hinted that she was as drawn to him as he was to her. By all rights, he ought to just sleep with her and get it over with.
He remembered the way she’d pressed her breast into his touch. How she’d boldly reached down to cup his erection in her hand. Recalled her surprised gasp when she ran her fingers down and around the length and breadth of him.
Connor’s stomach tightened and he turned his head the other way on the pillow. He’d never…wanted a woman the way he wanted Bronte O’Brien. He wanted to kiss her senseless. Watch her lick that full upper lip of hers right before she fastened her mouth around his erection. Grind into her like nobody’s business. Tug her hair until her head fell back, giving him free access
