Terri Reed - The Deputy’s Duty

“Your father is also Olivia’s biological father. Olivia’s your half sister.”

No! Not possible. His father was the best man he knew, as solid a citizen as they came. A churchgoing man who loved the Lord. The role model Ryan could only hope to live up to. Dad would not have ever cheated on his wife. They’d had the best marriage, until Maureen Fitzgerald had passed away from cancer a few years ago. Her death had hit them all hard.

Now this reporter was disparaging his father. He’d see Meghan Henry locked behind bars before he’d let her destroy his family.

Meghan waited, watching Ryan as he absorbed her announcement. The blue shirt of his uniform matched his eyes. Eyes that now gathered storm clouds. She’d known this wouldn’t be easy, and he wouldn’t take it well. But the truth had to come out.

Her body tensed, ready to react if he so much as twitched in her direction.

He remained very, very still. “How dare you make such a slanderous claim.”

“I’m not claiming it. Olivia is.” She’d been as shocked as he apparently was when she’d read the letter that outlined how Olivia had sought help with the situation from her biological father when she first arrived in Fitzgerald Bay. Aiden Fitzgerald had refused. “Your father and my aunt Tara had an affair.”

In one fluid, swift motion, he reached across his desk and snatched the letter from her hands before she even had time to react.

Stunned, her heart hammered in her chest and blood pounded at her temples. So much for those self-defense classes she’d taken. They hadn’t prepared her for Ryan Fitzgerald’s ninjalike moves.

Ryan unfolded Olivia’s letter and read the contents. His face paled. He shook his head. “This can’t be true.”

“You believed her about Georgina,” she pointed out.

She’d known the news wouldn’t be received well. She’d witnessed how the breath of scandal had rocked the Fitzgerald clan over the past few months as Charles Fitzgerald had become the number one suspect in Olivia’s murder.

Now with him cleared, she was sure the family would do all they could to keep this information about Olivia’s parentage from surfacing. But she couldn’t allow that. Aiden Fitzgerald had helped take away Meghan’s one known remaining relative. Meghan would make sure he atoned for his part in Olivia’s death, because now her only living relation was missing and in danger.

“My father wouldn’t have done such a thing.” Ryan’s voice shook with rage and disbelief. “And if you breathe a word of this to the public, I’ll lock you up so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

Oh, she’d known all right. But she was done being anyone’s victim, even a gorgeous lawman’s. She’d ditched that label a long time ago. Meghan would only bow down for God.

“You can’t suppress the truth,” she said. “You read the letter. Olivia came here and contacted her father first. He refused to help her. If he had done what he should have, she wouldn’t be dead now.”

“There’s no proof of any of this.” He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a thick file. He flipped through until he found what he was looking for. Holding up a sheet of paper, he said, “This is Olivia’s birth certificate from Ireland. There is no name listed under father. ”

“That’s because your father refused to acknowledge her. It was heartbreaking to read Olivia’s words of the father who hadn’t wanted her, but she had known about him her whole life. That’s why she came to him for help.”

“I refuse to believe it.” The letter fluttered to the desktop.

“Doesn’t matter if you want to or not, it’s the truth.” She reached for the letter.

He grasped her wrist with firm, but gentle pressure. The fight-or-flight response roared through her system like a runaway train engine. She reacted instantaneously, calling upon the self-defense classes she’d taken last year, by twisting her arm and jerking toward where his thumb lay against her wrist bone, knowing that was the weak point of his hold. She broke the contact and jumped back. She’d come a long way from the frightened young woman who’d been too afraid to do anything but accept the way her husband treated her.

They stared at each other for a long, tense moment. Ryan’s cold blue eyes drilled through her. She regained her step, aware on some level she had messed with his control. She rather liked having some leverage.

“I think you should leave.” He rounded the desk and crowded her back several steps.

The urge to cower gripped her, but she held her ground. However she couldn’t stop the instinctive flinch as he reached past her to open the door. His big warm body didn’t touch her, but the air swirled around her with his heat. The spicy scent of his aftershave filled her head, invading her senses. Her fingers curled into fists. She didn’t want him inside her head.

“Run along now, Miss Henry,” he said, stepping back.

Being dismissed like some errant child infuriated her to no end. “Look, you don’t have to like me, but you have to treat me with respect.”

“Respect?” He nearly sneered. “You come into my office and accuse my father of…” He made a noise in his throat. “You could have written that letter, for all I know.”

“I didn’t!”

He leaned in close, his voice tight and low. “Are you working for Judge Monroe? Has he put you up to this? Trying to smear my father now that the judge’s chances of winning the election are as good as gone because everyone knows he raised a bad seed?”

“Of course not,” she protested, strangely hurt by the suspicion written all over his face. She’d been as horrified as the rest of the folks in town to learn that the judge’s son, Hank Monroe, one of Fitzgerald Bay’s police officers, had tried to hurt Victoria Evans, the owner of the Sugar Plum Café and Inn.

If not for Ryan’s brother Owen, Victoria and her daughter would have been seriously injured, if not killed. And now Owen and Victoria were a couple. Again. Apparently, they’d been in love long ago but then Victoria had left town and only recently returned. With the daughter Owen didn’t know about. Seemed the Fitzgerald clan were chock-full of drama and intrigue.

A good thing for Meghan and the story she was piecing together about Olivia’s life and murder. And the investigation by the Fitzgerald Bay Police Department.

Ryan narrowed his gaze. “What are you after, Miss Henry?”

“The truth. Justice. And I want to make sure Georgina is found safely.”

For a moment he studied her, his gaze bold and assessing. She returned the favor. There was an intrinsic strength in the angles of his face, the slope of his nose, the firmness of his lips. She had the sudden craving to lay her palm against his clean-shaven jaw to see if the skin was really as smooth as it appeared. His features struck a fine balance between rugged and handsome.

A flutter whipped through her and she deliberately squashed the wayward attraction knocking at her consciousness.

He drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Then we want the same things.”

“Okay, good.” At least they were on the same page.

Though she had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well for one of them. She wanted justice for her cousin, safety for Georgina, and her job as a reporter was to expose the truth, regardless that doing so would tarnish the reputation of Aiden Fitzgerald.

A truth Ryan would just as soon suppress. He wanted justice because of his duty to serve and protect, but not at the cost of his family. Too bad.

Deciding it was time to retreat, she turned to storm away, but found her nose buried in a man’s chest. With a squawk she jerked back, bumping against Ryan’s hard chest. With Ryan behind her and his imposing father filling the doorway, she was sandwiched between Fitzgeralds.