What he didn't say screamed at her. Are you the third partner?
She should have hated him for spying on her. But she understood exactly why he had. To protect his friend, his brother.
The way no one had ever protected her. Or her brother.
She wanted to shout, I'm not the third partner. But the denial got stuck in her throat. Just because she hadn't known about the scam didn't mean she hadn't been an integral part of it. Her work on the website had lied to all those people just the way her father's smooth salesmanship had.
When she didn't answer, he added, "I wanted to get the story from you first. If there is one."
They both knew that he already had enough of the story to damn her. "I won't hurt Daniel, I promise." She heaved a sigh. "But my past...it belongs to me."
Saying nothing was probably worse than coming right out and saying Reggie Summerfield was her father and Drew was her brother and that she'd built the website for their scam. And yet she still couldn't manage to get the words out of her mouth, even ones that would have made it clear to Evan that she hadn't been an active partner in the con.
She could only contemplate where she'd run to next. She'd arrived in the mountains with one bag. She would leave the same way.
And Daniel would be saved from her lies, her secrets, and her past.
Evan regarded her, his eyes dark and assessing, the way they'd been from the moment he'd met her. "I'm sorry I had to ask. But Daniel's my brother." He shoved the phone into his pocket and left.
She was sorry too. So very sorry that she'd brought all this to Daniel's doorstep.
The only way to fix it now was to leave. Even if it killed everything inside her.
*
Tasha sat on the floor, alone in the house, for what seemed like forever. If she said good-bye to Daniel, he would try to convince her to stay--but she couldn't remain without telling him the truth. Yet she wouldn't be able to stand the way he looked at her once he knew. Her only choice was to sneak away after the guys had left for the day. Now, though, she'd say her good-byes to the puppies.
Outside, hunkering down by the pen Daniel had made for them, Tasha stuck the tips of her fingers through the chicken wire. Darla waddled over to lick her.
"It's okay, little one," Tasha said in a shaky voice. "You're going to be fine. Daniel will take care of you, I know he will."
Darla plopped over sideways, surely the cutest puppy in the entire world. Not to be outdone by his sister, Spanky bounded over, followed by Froggy. They licked her fingers exuberantly, then began wrestling with each other, Spanky ending up on top as he mouthed his brother's face in friendly abandon.
"I'll miss you all." Tears slid down Tasha's cheeks. "I'm sorry I have to leave you."
Oh, how she would miss them all. The puppies. The Mavericks.
Daniel.
It had been only a few days, but they'd been momentous. She'd gotten attached so fast and had come to think of this cabin as someplace special, even if it was a wreck. Daniel had helped her envision what her house could be. What home could be.
What being with him would be.
Because he was what truly made it home.
The heartbreak of losing it all--of losing him--would last forever.
Evan would tell them her story, if he hadn't already. He'd say she hadn't denied anything. Daniel would understand why she'd gone.
Staring at the puppies, she wanted to smile at their antics. But looking into a future without these loving, furry little creatures--without Daniel--she didn't know if she would ever really smile again.
With every minute that ticked by since Evan had shared his discovery, she couldn't stop asking herself--how could she possibly atone for her family's sins? Three months alone up here hadn't accomplished it. So what would?
She'd never told anyone about the resort scam, not a single one of her friends. She hadn't needed to tell the investigators; they'd already known as much as she did. Even with Evan just now, she hadn't been able to speak the words aloud.
Maybe, it suddenly hit her, part of true atonement was confessing what you'd done to people you cared about. Like a twelve-step program, where you had to state your problem before you could start to get better.
She'd run away from her friends, from her work, her life, because she feared they would blame her for her part in the scam. But ultimately, was hiding out here any different than what her father and brother were doing, lying low until they could strike again?
She'd been afraid of Daniel finding out, of what he would think of her. Of what his friends would think of her.
But telling Daniel, telling them all, finally coming clean--maybe that was atonement. Confession. Facing up to what you'd done. Admitting it aloud to the people who were important to you.
Was it possible that all along she'd been running from the one thing she really needed to do?
Yes, she realized. That was exactly what she'd been doing, running and hiding so that she didn't have to face anyone at all.
She felt the rightness of her epiphany in the fear that clogged her chest. She was terrified of confession. And wasn't that the very reason she needed to do it? Because she had to show she was not the same as her family, that she could face her mistakes.
She had to stop hiding out. She had to stop running from her past. From her family secrets.
No matter the cost to her pride.
Or to her heart.
Returning to the cabin, she was glad everyone was on the roof--including Daniel--so she could shower and change, not back into overalls and a baseball cap, but into the jeans she used to wear, jeans that had grown loose on her, and a purple top. She needed to make her confession as the woman she'd been when she stood in her father's office, dressed the way she used to when she was the person who, no matter how unwittingly, had been a part of her family's scam.
It was tempting to stay holed up in her bedroom, to delay facing the music just a little longer. But she'd been a coward long enough.
It was finally time to do one brave thing.
Hopefully, it would prepare her to keep on being brave, once she'd made it through today in one piece.
If she made it through today.
When she emerged from her bedroom, she was surprised to find Daniel standing in the living room. His eyes widened when he saw her in something other than work clothes for once. "You look beautiful."
"Daniel--"
But he wouldn't let her say what she needed to. "I tried to let you go, told myself to give you space, but every second I was up there hammering, I was thinking about you. About our kiss. And how you ran."
"I'm finally ready to stop running." Ready, yes, but still petrified of what he'd think of her.
A smile curved his lips. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear."
She held her hands up to keep him at a distance. "Actually, I'm sure it's not."
He ignored her cues to back off, taking her hands in his. "Whatever you've been so worried about, I'm sure it's nowhere near as bad as you think."
She was trembling like the leaves on the aspens outside. "I'm guessing Evan hasn't told you. He found an article on the Internet about my family."
Fire flashed in Daniel's eyes. "I told him not to butt in."
"Don't be angry with him for looking me up. He cares about you. That's why he did it."
"I understand why," Daniel said. "But I know my own feelings for you. And nothing he says is going to change them."
Her heart wanted to soar. But Daniel didn't know the truth, and once he did, everything would dive-bomb instead. "I don't want to come between you and one of your brothers."
"That's one thing the Mavericks never do," he told her. "We're there for each other through thick and thin, pain and heartache."
That's why they were such good men. She was certain there was a huge story there, for each of them separately and the group as a whole. But she had her own story to tell.
Finally.
She didn't start with any ice-br
eaking explanations. She simply laid out the truth. "My father and brother are con men." She made herself say each word, even though they tasted like poison on her tongue. "They bilked millions of dollars out of people for a resort that doesn't exist. And they got caught." She was sure Daniel would drop her hands, but his grip only tightened. "I worked with them. I didn't know what they were doing, but I designed the website they used to draw in their victims." She could no longer look at him. "I was a complete idiot. I didn't question anything. I was just happy that they wanted to include me in their fabulous new project." Sarcasm edged each word.
Daniel didn't wait a beat. "You didn't do anything wrong, Tasha." His voice was steady. Strong. And utterly certain. "It wasn't your fault. You didn't know."
She couldn't let him make excuses for her. "I should have known. Because the cons didn't start when I was an adult. They'd been going on since I was a kid. That's why we had to move all the time. My father had to run before he got caught, taking the money he'd bilked out of his investors. I was stupid and blind. I never questioned anything. I just enjoyed our fancy houses and private schools and cars and vacations."
He held on when she would have pulled away. "Even if you had figured it out as a kid, you couldn't have stopped it. That's not a kid's job."
She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering every time they'd had to leave, every completed con under her father's belt. "That's still the family I come from. They're my bad genes. I went to college on money they stole from other people. My dad bought me my first car with money he ripped off. I helped them scam unwitting investors with a beautiful website that made everything look legitimate when it was totally fake."
"You aren't your family." Certainty underlay his words.
The breath she took hurt like ice crystals filling her lungs. "But I went along with their lies. I loved my father and brother and believed in them."
"That makes you a loving daughter and sister. Not the person responsible for their lies to you and everyone else."
"Even now--" She had to finish her confession, no matter how he tried to minimize her crimes. "Even knowing that my brother was part of it, I still want to believe he's a good person. I want to believe that he hated the things he was doing." Daniel swept away a tear, and his touch was so beautiful, so totally unconditional, that she felt her heart crushed under the weight of his acceptance. "There's more," she whispered.
"Whatever you say, I'm not going to believe you're a bad person."
But once he heard the rest of it, she knew he would. "My father introduced me to a man--his business partner. And I was charmed. I thought Eric was wonderful. I thought he cherished me. Truly cared for me. But everything he told me, everything he did and said, was a lie."
"I'm so sorry." Daniel wrapped his arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his body as if he could erase the pain she felt and the mistakes she'd made.
"I don't miss my ex, I swear I don't. But I feel like the dumbest person in the world. A total fool who helped the three of them dot the i's and cross the t's on their cons until the moment they needed to run."
"Leaving you to fend for yourself." The words were barely more than a growl from Daniel.
"My father wanted me to run too. Before the police started asking questions. But I talked to the investigators. I answered everything, and they let me go as though I hadn't done anything wrong." Her voice dropped to almost nothing. "Then I came here."
"I'm so glad you're here, Tasha. So, so glad."
Daniel's words snapped the final thread of her control. Her tears soaked his shirt as he pulled her into the shelter of his arms, enveloping her.
Chapter Fifteen
Daniel held her tight for long minutes, absorbing her sobs until they softened into sniffles.
"Hey, look at me." He kept his voice gentle as he tipped up Tasha's chin. She'd stopped crying, but her lashes were still damp, the rims of her eyes reddened.
"I didn't mean to cry all over you," she said in a voice still thick with tears. "I just needed to tell you the whole truth, with nothing left out."
The pain of what she'd experienced clenched in his gut. Yet he was grateful that she'd finally given him her trust, confided her deepest secrets. Each of the Mavericks knew just how deep into the darkness family secrets could drag you if you let them.
"Your guilt, your belief in your culpability--those aren't the truth," he said. "You're not to blame, Tasha. Not for any of it."
She blinked, slowly, finally looking up. "It is the truth, Daniel. Everything I told you."
"Not the part where you load the blame on yourself, taking responsibility for not seeing through your father's lies."
His heart hurt for the loss of her illusions about her family. Hell, it made his chest tight just to skirt around the issue of possible bumps in the road between his mother and father, so he could understand how much her family's long con must have devastated her. But to blame herself? He couldn't accept that. He wouldn't accept it.
"We're not the products of our parents, with no ability to change. We don't need to live with their stigma. And we don't ever have to be like them. We can be better than they are and rise above our circumstances."
Every one of his friends had come from a hell created by their parents. That's why his mom and dad had taken them in. And still, the Mavericks had risen far above their backgrounds--and their bad genes, as Tasha had called it--not just in terms of money, but in their integrity, their loyalty, their kindness toward others.
"You wanted to see only the good in your dad." He cupped her cheek, stroking her skin with his thumb, the contact necessary to his entire being. "That's natural, even admirable. Children are born having faith that their parents will take care of them, watch out for them, love them. But if your parents blow it--that's not your fault."
"Can't you see how weak I was?" she insisted. "Living in la-la land where everyone is good and no one ever does anything simply for their own gain and at the expense of others."
"My mother always looks for the good in people," he countered, "and she's the farthest thing from weak."
"I didn't mean--"
He laid his finger on her lips, reminding himself of her sweet taste, how good she felt in his arms. "I know you didn't mean anything against her. I'm trying to show you that it's okay to give people a chance instead of judging them too quickly. Mom believes you have to see the good in people and everything around you. Or life is just misery. Even though she's wrong sometimes--because not everyone is good--I admire that about her more than I can say." He caressed the fine hair at Tasha's temple. "And I admire that about you too."
"I bet your mom never met anyone who did things as evil as my father."
He almost snorted. "Oh yes, she has." But he wouldn't tell Tasha about Whitney right now. Or the other Mavericks' parents. Or the selfish punk who'd run Jeremy off the road and left him with brain damage. This moment needed to be all about Tasha. The rest could come later. "You've got to remember that your father did those things, not you. All you did was miss the clues about him. That's not evil. It doesn't make you bad."
"I just don't know if I'll ever see it that way." Her words were harsh, full of pain.
And they broke his heart.
He couldn't make her see the truth in one blinding flash, but he needed her to understand what he saw when he looked at her. "You're loving and caring. You're loyal. You still love your brother and believe there has to be a reason he took the actions he did."
Tasha was a pure soul, even if she didn't know it. She was Maverick material.
He leaned his forehead against hers. "My mom is my hero. You've probably already figured that out. And you have so many of the same qualities. She would adore you."
Tasha shifted against him, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. "I've been so afraid of what you'd say when you learned the truth. How you'd hate me."
He ached that her words clearly proved she still didn't believe him. "I could never hate you." He kissed her cheek. "I couldn't c
are about someone who callously hurt others." He kissed her eyelid, tasting the lingering salt of her tears. "I would only want to help someone who can't resist rescuing puppies." He kissed the tip of her nose and slid his fingers into her hair. "Not to mention someone who loves my do-it-yourself videos."
She laughed softly, a sound he'd been desperately waiting for, and he took her parted lips with his. What he couldn't make her hear with words, he tried to say with his kiss.
It was a kiss of acceptance and forgiveness.
A kiss to say he didn't give a damn about her family or what they'd done.
Their first kiss had moved the earth like a 7.0 quake. Tasha's finally opening herself up to him, so beautifully, so completely, had been more than anything he could have hoped for. Better than any fantasy.
But this kiss was beyond his wildest dreams--pure, sweet, unconditional emotion, laced with sizzling heat.
Tasha's hands fisted in his shirt as if it were the only way she could remain on her feet as he cupped her nape in his hand and plundered her mouth the way he wanted to plunder her body. He forgot they were standing in the middle of her living room. All he desired was her body against his, to taste her, to show her with his hands, mouth, and soul that her past was immaterial.
Only the beautiful person she was inside mattered.
Her fingers loosened and she rose on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around him, her breasts pressed to his chest. She smelled like a fresh rain shower and tasted as sweet as fruit. Her hair fell in a silk web over his hands and arms, caressing him like the sweep of her fingers across his skin.
He lost himself in her sweetness, kissing her until his head swam, being kissed by her until he couldn't feel the floor beneath his feet.
Nothing existed but Tasha.
He would have kissed her forever if, behind them, someone hadn't cleared his throat.
*
Tasha felt lightheaded, not just from that glorious kiss, or from realizing Daniel's friends had been standing in her shell of a living room watching them for who knew how long.
No, she was dizzied by the miracle that Daniel didn't hate her.
She'd worried about his reaction for so long and so hard, convinced he'd think the worst of her. The fact that he hadn't was like drinking champagne bubbles so fast they went straight to her head.