Matt—The Callahan Brothers (Brazos Bend Book 2) (21 page)

“Matt’s brothers. Mark and Luke.” She pasted on a smile and walked toward them. Addressing Mark, she said, “I’m so sorry you’re hurt.”

“Thanks.” His lips twisted in a wry grin. “That’s some welcome mat you had in your apartment.”

“Wasn’t it, though? I’ll have to speak with my decorator about that.” Sensing Luke’s intense gaze, she met his stare and arched a brow.

Before he responded, Mark said, “Here comes Matt.”

He had a towel flung over one shoulder as he climbed the walkway from the dock, and his blue swim trunks clung to his muscular form. “James in
Casino Royale,”
Torie murmured. It was all she could do not to purr in appreciation.

“Good. Y’all are early. We have a lot to do today. Faxes came in overnight. I want you to look at them while I’m getting dressed.” Glancing at Torie, he nodded. “G’morning.”

“Well, hell,” Luke muttered. He reached for his wallet and pulled out a twenty, then handed it to Mark, who pocketed the cash with a grin. Matt opened his mouth, then obviously thought better of it.

Twenty minutes later, the Callahan men ate doughnuts with their coffee and discussed the information Matt had discovered about the former senator’s actor friend. “Given his wife and new baby and new job, I doubt he’s our boy. But it won’t be a problem to stop over in Vegas and talk to him on my way to LA to visit with the boyfriend.”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Torie muttered, seated at the kitchen table playing with a carton of yogurt. The last thing she wanted was for Matt and Jason to meet. “Luke would be a better choice.”

The Callahan men continued to ignore her. Any suggestion she made fell on deaf ears. Stubborn deaf ears.

“Idiots.”

Matt asked Mark a question that required information from the computer in the study. A few minutes later from his position in front of the window, Luke said, “Great. Got trouble coming, Matthew.”

Matt went for his gun.

“Not that kind of trouble. This one rides in a Lexus and uses a cane.”

“Branch?” Matt threw a glance in the direction of the study, and muttered, “How did he find out this place is mine? I’ve kept it quiet.” To Torie, he said, “This is gonna be ugly. You probably want to go upstairs.”

In the spirit of “Turnabout is fair play,” she pretended not to hear him.

“I’d listen to him, sweetheart,” Luke told her. “Branch can be a mean sonofagun and he has a grudge against you.” Glancing at Matt, he added, “Although she might make a good decoy, giving Mark the chance to make an escape.”

“No. I’m tired of running interference between those two,” Matt said. “Torie, quit being stubborn. Go upstairs.”

She acquiesced only because she decided she’d probably learn more by eavesdropping. She climbed the staircase, then stopped, out of sight, but well within listening distance. This is becoming a habit.

Moments later she heard wheels creaking across the porch. A hand pounded the door. “Matthew? Matthew, let me in.”

“Hello, Branch. What are you doing here?”

“Maria’s granddaughter dates a boy who works at the drugstore. He said he delivered medicine out to the vineyard. For Mark. And Luke was there, too. I went there, but that old fart wouldn’t talk to me, so I came here. Is it true, then? Mark’s here? You boys are all here?”

“Hell no.” Mark stood in the doorway of the office. “John Gabriel isn’t here. He’s dead.”

It went downhill from there.

No one paid a bit of attention to Torie, so she moved out onto the staircase landing, where she had a better view. The elderly man stood just inside the house, a white-knuckle grip on his cane. Matt stood at his right, facing his father, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans. Luke was positioned at Branch’s left, his stance spread, his arms folded, as he frowned at the older man. Mark Callahan stood just outside the semicircle of men, his back straight, shoulders squared, his hands fisted at his side.

“Get him out of here, Matt,” he growled, his voice low and hard and ugly.

Torie’s eyes widened.
Whoa. Lot of hate in one little sentence.

“Mark, they said you’d been hurt.” Concern shone in the old man’s eyes. “What happened? Are you all right?”

“All right? You have the nerve to ask me that? I haven’t been all right since you—” He bit off the sentence, set his teeth, clenched his fists. Utter hatred beamed like lasers from his eyes straight at his father. “Not doing this. Matt, get him out of here before I—”

Luke stepped toward Mark. “Hey, man, you gotta calm down.”

“Matt?” Mark’s soft voice was a warning.

Matt stepped between his father and his younger brother. “Branch, you don’t need to be here.”

“But I do.” He used his cane to try to shift Matt aside and, when that didn’t work, walked around him until he could see Mark once again. “Mark, I need to talk to you, son. There’s so much I need to say to you. So much I want to explain.”

“There is nothing you can say that I want to hear. Nothing that will change anything. Not then, not now, not ever. But here’s something I want to explain to you, old man. You’re dead to me. Get it? Dead.”

Wow, that’s hard.
Torie saw shock register on Matt’s and Luke’s faces. The two brothers stood staring speechless at the third until Mark spoke again. “Matt, if you don’t get him out of here, then I’m leaving.”

Mark pivoted on his heel, went into the study, and slammed the door shut.

“Damned muleheaded boy. My boy.” Branch shook his head and closed his eyes. Torie thought he looked ten years older than he had the moment he’d shuffled through the door.

Luke muttered a curse. “Look, Branch. Today isn’t a good day for this. Just ... give him some more time. He needs a little more time.”

“I thought ... maybe ... they said he’d come home because he was hurt. I thought maybe he’d ... changed ... his mind. You two haven’t had any use for me, but Mark ... he hates me because ….” He stopped and visibly tried to compose himself, looking pale and old and tired. Looking pitiful, like a man who’d lost everything. “He’s hated me for a long, long time. I guess that’s not going to change.”

Torie waited for Matt or Luke to contradict their father, but both men remained silent. And she thought
she
came from a dysfunctional family.

Finally, Matt stepped toward Branch. “C’mon, Dad. You need to get on back home. This isn’t doing anyone any good. Mark will be fine—we’ll see to it.”

Branch’s lips silently formed the word “Dad” and some of his tension eased. “Is he all right? What happened to him?”

“He’ll be fine. He’s just banged up a bit.”

“Why did he come here? Why are all three of you here? Is Maddie here, Luke? What’s going on?”

“Maddie’s busy with work, but she’ll visit as soon as she can,” Luke said. “She’ll be by to see you when she gets in.”

“But what are you doing?” Branch insisted.

“We’re planning our next fishing trip,” Matt said, trying to ease his father toward the door. “Gonna take the
Siren Song
down to the Keys again this fall.”

“But you’re all here, in Brazos Bend. You don’t ... do that. At the service for John y’all swore you’d never ...”

“Technically, this isn’t Brazos Bend, Branch.” Luke stepped forward to assist in herding his father back outside. “The oath holds.”

As the men moved outside, Torie went back downstairs. She heard a crash of glass in the study and she debated whether or not she should check on Mark. The emotional undercurrents swirling around this place pushed all her curiosity buttons. The expressions on the faces of the four Callahan men had hinted of a story that fired her imagination. She wished she’d had her camera with her on the staircase. Her fingers had actually itched.

Hearing a scratch and a demanding yip at the kitchen door, she wandered into the kitchen to let Gigi outside, her attention focused inward as she mentally reviewed what she knew about the Callahan family. What all had Helen told her? The sons were estranged from their father because of the youngest brother’s death and something else. Torie couldn’t remember if she’d ever heard exactly what.

She’d no sooner exited the kitchen with thoughts of checking on Mark than a commotion erupted in the front yard. It sounded like ... “A dogfight?” she murmured. Looking out the window, she added, “Oh no.”

Gigi and Paco stood inches away from each other barking their little heads off. Then the Pomeranian lunged at Gigi and Torie dashed outside, calling, “Oh, Gigi, no. Get away from him. Matt, do something!”

Matt scowled down at the dogs, now a rolling, circling, yipping fur ball. Luke Callahan stood with his hands on his hips laughing, while Branch banged his cane on the stone sidewalk, yelling, “Stop that, Paco. Come to Daddy.”

“Gigi. Gigi!”

“Paco. Paco!”

Matt grabbed the water hose and turned it on. The spray hit the dogs and they separated, their barks turning to whines.

Paco took a running jump into the backseat of a chauffeur-driven Lexus, while Torie went down on her knees and held out her arms. “Gigi. Come here. What got into you, girl? You know to leave nasty mean dogs alone.”

“Nasty mean!” Branch Callahan exclaimed. “I’ll have you know that Paco ... wait. What the hell are you doing here? Matt said you had a plane to catch.”

Matt tossed down the water hose and stepped forward. “Dad, let me help you in the car.”

“Matthew, why is she here? I demand to know what’s going on. I demand to be told... . Oh.” Branch Callahan gasped in pain. “Oh ... oh ...”

“Dad?” Matt and Luke said simultaneously.

Branch’s face went pale. He swayed and his right hand clutched his cane. He brought his left hand up and slapped it against his chest. “Help me, son.”

Matt and Luke rushed forward, catching their father seconds before Branch collapsed to the ground.

***

“HIPAA laws, schmippa laws,” Maddie Callahan railed as she paced the ICU waiting room. “This is Brazos Bend. We have our own way of doing things here. Federal law can go hang. That doctor needs to tell us what’s wrong with your father!”

“Calm down, Red.” Luke draped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze. Maddie had rushed to town from Fort Worth, where she’d been lobbying a state senator to support a bill to improve conditions in Texas prisons. “He’s new in town. He’ll learn in time. The important thing is he said Branch is doing all right.”

“Why would he forbid the doctor to give us details?”

“Because he’s a crotchety old fart who refuses to give up control of anything.”

“I want to see him,” she said, in a small voice.

“You know how he is about weakness, honey.” Luke pressed a kiss against her hair. “He doesn’t like anyone seeing it. That’s why he ditches his walker for a cane whenever he goes outside, even though that’s when he needs the walker most.”

“Mark needs to be here, Luke,” she added. “If Branch ... well ... Mark should be here!”

“Let Mark be. I think he’s wrestling with demons we don’t understand.” When he’d started on the liquor, his brothers had taken possession of the pain pills. There hadn’t been time for questions.

“He’ll regret it.”

Luke’s only response was to hold his wife tighter.

Matt sat slouched in a hard plastic chair, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He had his hands folded across his belly and his eyes closed, but he wasn’t napping. Far from it. His mind raced a million miles a second.

He was shaken. He didn’t need the doctor to tell him what had happened. It was obvious. Branch had a heart attack. He’d gotten worked up emotionally over Mark’s situation, then taken a second punch from Torie’s presence at the lake house. The stress might not have caused the attack, but it sure as hell hadn’t helped.

Matt figured he was the one to blame. He was the one who’d involved Mark in Torie’s troubles. He was the one who had taken her into his home. Hell, if Branch knew he’d taken her to bed, he’d have had both a heart attack and a stroke.

Matt let out a sigh. As if his feelings toward his father weren’t complicated enough already. He hated the man ... but he loved him. He was furious with him over his part in John’s death, but unlike his brothers, he understood the desperation behind Branch’s efforts.

Hadn’t Matt been just as desperate?

Against his will, his thoughts returned to that night in Sarajevo, that fateful encounter that no one—not his brothers, nor his father, nor his employers—knew anything about.

He recalled the café, Natalia’s ruby lips and smoky voice. John’s surprised, “Matt? Is that you? What are you doing in Sarajevo, brother?”

He’d lied. Curse his black soul, he’d lied and denied and turned his back on his own brother. And even worse, he’d failed to warn. An hour later, his brother had paid for Matt’s failings.

In the hospital waiting room, he lurched to his feet and shoved the memory away. “I gotta get out of here,” he told Luke. “I’ll catch up with you later.” When he hit the hospital front doors a few minutes later, he was all but running. Maybe Mark had the right idea. Numb the pain. Numb the memories.

No, Matt needed to think. To plan, to plot, to scheme. That’s what he did best. He needed to figure out just what to do to bring this whole debacle to an end. He needed to get Torie Bradshaw out of his life and out of the lives of his family before he didn’t have any family left.