Loreth White - Breaking Free

Something very personal, and very hot flickered through Dylan. “Is that what you want, Megan, to take me down?”

She swallowed, something reciprocal flickering darkly in her eyes. “What I want,” she whispered, “is for you to stay away from my aunt. You heard what Dr. Burgess said. She needs to relax. I don’t want you going in there and giving her another heart attack and actually killing her this time.”

He stepped closer, a combative anger beginning to hum deep in his gut as he bent close to her ear, lowering his voice to make sure he was out of anyone’s earshot except hers. “Seeing as you’ve taken the gloves off, Ms. Stafford, I have to admit I’m asking myself who’d benefit if she did kick the bucket? Or is it a bit too soon for you and your brother? Is that why you want me to drop this case, so you and Patrick have a bit more time to kowtow to the grande dame before she cashes in?”

“Oh, that is low.”

She was so close, he could smell her, kiss her if he dared, and she was making him hot enough to do it. “If you didn’t come for the inheritance, Megan,” he said, his voice thick, low, “then why are you really both here out of the blue?”

She blushed, eyes flickering.

And Dylan knew a liar when he saw one.

He’d stomached his fair share in police interrogation rooms, and her reaction made his heart turn cold, his unbidden lust for her simply hardening his resolve to win this one.

“How much do you really know about your aunt, anyway?” he said, watching her eyes closely, waiting for them to give her away again, trying to ignore the faint scent of sun lotion that lingered on her skin, reminding him of family summers at Bateman’s Bay, of happier times. “Because I suspect I know Louisa a helluva lot better than you do, Megan Stafford. I know just what she is capable of. I’ve seen the Thoroughbred set close ranks around their own. I’ve seen her and D’Angelo’s father buy ‘justice’ before.”

He’d seen it thirty years ago, when he was eight years old, and his brother Liam eleven. It had been the incident that tore his family to shreds, forcing them from their modest home in the Hunter.

It was what had ultimately made Dylan become a cop. And now that he was back, now that it was within his power, he was not about to let her kind get away with murder—again.

“If you want to be a part of the Fairchild team, if you want to take me down personally, then, Megan, you and I are going to be at war.”

He turned and headed for the doors, heart thudding. He needed to focus. He needed to cut Megan from his mind. She’d already proven an emotional distraction he couldn’t afford right now. His priority was to find officers he could rotate on twenty-four-hour guard outside Louisa’s door, and he knew it was going to be an issue. He couldn’t use Peebles. He was a probationary cop. It was against protocol.

His phone rang as he reached the hospital doors. He unhooked it from his belt, snapped it open. “Hastings,” he barked.

It was an officer at the Scone station. He said a Scone patrol officer had picked up Heidi on her bike. She’d had an accident, but she was fine.

Dylan froze on the spot. “Where is she?”

“We took her home.”

Confusion spiraled through his brain. Heidi was supposed to have been at home, asleep. “What happened?”

“She was cycling along a dark section of Burumby Road a couple of hours ago when an oncoming sedan swerved to avoid a wallaby, running her bike into a ditch. The vehicle didn’t hit her, but she’s quite shaken up. The driver called it in, tried to help her. He was worried about a young girl that age being out alone at night on that stretch of road.”

White-cold fear and anger lanced through Dylan.

He shot a look at Megan, who was watching him intently from the nurses’ station. And he felt suddenly, inexplicably, naked. Vulnerable.

Furious.

With himself. With her. With everything.

He hadn’t realized just how much he’d needed to talk, to lean on someone with his family issues. She had made him feel that need.

And suddenly her compassion, her interest, the way she’d drawn him out, felt deceptive. Deceitful. He felt cheated. Lured.

He spun on his boot heels and stormed through the hospital doors into the pale dawn, the threads of his life unraveling at his feet.

Be damned if he was going to let the Fairchild clan take him down again.

He wasn’t going to lose what little control he still had left over his family.

Over himself.

This time his family would not run. He would stand up and fight. And this time there would be only one winner.

Him.

His family.

Dylan arrived home as Heidi was getting ready for school. She was pale, eyes avoiding his as she ate her cereal at the round oak table in front of sliding glass doors that overlooked their garden and the fields beyond.

He had to forcibly tamp down a surge of anger. She was safe. That was the main thing. He closed the front door quietly behind him, and entered the kitchen area, struck suddenly by how much his daughter’s thick blond hair resembled Megan’s—and Sally’s—drawing another parallel between the two women he didn’t care to see.

He’d made a terrible mistake falling for Sally.

They’d both been too young to start a family, and completely incompatible on any long-term basis.

Sally had been sexy, flirtatious, artsy, full of vibrant laughter and energy, and it had translated into a dynamic experience in bed. But outside the bedroom her craving for the continual excitement of a metropolis, alternative lifestyles, and the flattery of men, had begun to cost them.

Sally had needed to be the centre of attention, and loved going out to parties all the time.

Dylan was more traditional. He liked the outback, bushwalking, the ocean. Winter nights by the fire. He liked things simple. Wholesome. Sally called it boring.

But by then they were married, and things had started going sideways.

And when she’d become pregnant at twenty-four, she’d felt overweight, unhappy and lonely with Dylan doing long, gritty hours of overtime to support them.

When Heidi was born Sally had detested being cooped at home with only other young mothers for company. She’d rebelled and had a raging affair, seeking validation in another man, an artist.

Her infidelity had completely broken Dylan.

He was a one-woman guy. A lifer. When he fell, he fell hard and forever. And falling for Sally had cost him a mighty big chunk of his life.

He’d avoided getting involved with other women while raising Heidi solo. He’d dated, but only superficially. His focus was his family.

“Hey there, kiddo,” Dylan said gently.

Heidi said nothing, just stared at her cereal.

He heaved out a lungful of air, removed his Glock, locked it in the gun safe, and undid his heavy gun belt, setting it on the counter with a soft clunk. He sat down, rubbing his neck, his back stiff.

“Talk to me, Heidi.”

She pulled her mouth into a tight pout, glaring at her cereal bowl, stirring milk with her spoon as she hunkered down behind the super-size cereal box.

Dylan moved the box aside. “Heidi, I’m not going to be mad,” he said, struggling to hold on to his temper. “I just want to know where you were going last night.”

Silence.

Irritation itched at him. Their dog Muttley scratched at the glass door, and Dylan got up to let him out. His mother usually let Muttley out first thing in the morning, but she hadn’t come down for breakfast yet, which was unusual for her. Tension knotted in his shoulders.

He took a seat opposite Heidi. “Were you going to the party?”

Her eyes flashed up at him. “No. I needed to see Anthem.”