Secrets and Lies Read online

  Thomas’ office hadn’t been what she expected. He had impeccable taste. She expected some dingy closed in office with an old desk and an astray sitting in the center. She didn’t know why, but maybe she was thinking of an office out of an old black and white film. What she saw was a very well put together space. He had panoramic style windows, a big interior office space with an antique mahogany desk, classic black and white artwork on the walls and slate colored tile floors. He had a chandelier instead of a floor lamp, comfortable sitting chairs instead of the standard wooden chairs she had seen some office complexes install. There was an orchid on a corner table. It was fake; she could tell because she raised orchids and she could easily spot the difference between a real one and a fake one without getting too close. It was still a lovely addition to the office space. Even his computer station was sleek and stylish. Whoever his designer was maybe she should hire him, or her, to decorate some of the office spaces she built. She loved her architecture, she even liked her ability to design the space’s interior, but she wasn’t so stuck on herself that she couldn’t appreciate beauty and style when she saw it. Even the waiting area was sleek and stylish with plush chairs, great city views and an inviting atmosphere. Best of all, it smelled good, like being in the mountains after a hard rain.

  It wasn’t just the office that stunned her. Thomas wasn’t what she expected either. She expected older, balding, and slightly overweight. What she got was a tall, perfectly fit muscular man with striking blue eyes and jet black hair that he wore long and pulled back in a ponytail. She imagined his hair was about shoulder length, maybe just a little shorter than hers. She wouldn’t have expected that. With a name like McGregor she would have been more inclined to expect a clean cut Irish man, not a cross between Pierce Bronson as James Bond, Steven Segal in his younger days meets GQ model with serious muscles. Two possible images she had of the man had been shattered with one look at him. When he had stood up to walk her out to her car she realized just how tall he was. Six four, she was sure of that because she was five four and he was at least a foot taller than she was. The man was big, all encompassing, and she imagined he could conquer a room just by walking into it.

  Something in her had stirred the moment she saw him. Something primal and needy, and that scared her. He had asked her a question, something about why the body in the construction site was important to her and she had hesitated, not because she had no intention of disclosing the information, but because she was starting to wonder if she should have gone with one of those old, balding, slightly overweight guys instead. She couldn’t let a charming, incredibly good-looking man distract her. On the other hand, it was he who needed to avoid distraction more than she did.

  Distraction didn’t seem to be a problem for him. She was wearing her dark blue skinny jeans that hugged her butt and curves in all the right places, the matching blue vest and a perfectly fitted blouse that showed just the right hint of cleavage. Not to mention the fact that she had on her almost knee length stiletto white boots that tied in the back. Most men gave her at least a second look for the boots alone, but he hadn’t even really looked once. Not that she should want him to; nor had she gone with the intent to impress and seduce. She had left from a day in the office, staying as far away from as many traffic and possible life threatening hazards as humanly possible. She worked on a new design to pass the time. If she hadn’t spent the day in the office she would have been dressed differently. Something in the recesses of her mind was glad she had been dressed to show her assets off in good fashion.

  “Get a grip, Thena.” She admonished herself. “He’s just a man—an incredibly good looking man who’s probably great in bed…” she sighed. “But still, he’s just a man.” She wasn’t sure what was wrong with her. She didn’t sleep around. She had one sexual partner in her lifetime and that man had been her steady boyfriend. She loved him, thought she would marry him, had given her heart and her body to him. And even with him, she could say now that she hadn’t felt the spark she felt tonight. Maybe that had been their problem. They loved each other, but they weren’t in love with each other. There was no real romantic spark—not like she had felt tonight. But with Kyle, she had the stability of friendship and it just felt like the natural progression to stay in the relationship they were in. The sex wasn’t bad, but the intensely passionate relationship she wanted, and they both deserved, just really wasn’t there.

  She liked Thomas at first sight. She didn’t even know the man and she liked him. Then, the more she talked to him; the more she heard his voice, the more she wanted to know about him. She was there for a reason, a very important reason, and there she was imagining what could be with a man she didn’t even really know. She had clearly read one too many romance novels as a child. No wonder her father had been against her reading such “sorted” stories. He literally confiscated every romance novel she had, even the ones she had hidden under her bed and in her closet, and he burned them all. Unfortunately for him that act alone cost him a bundle in library fees, since most of them were borrowed books. She had to laugh. If it hadn’t been for her obsession with reading what her father considered “filthy” novels she wouldn’t know half as much as she knew about construction now. She didn’t doubt that he took her on site to work because he thought being idle in her downtime would lead to trouble. At the time she thought he was crazy, now she wasn’t so sure. She had just met Thomas; one touch from him and she was already thinking about doing something she read in one of those books.

  She wasn’t into one night stands, but if she were going to have one—what a man to have it with. “He’s not even your type,” she told herself. “Get over it.” How could she when her body was still vividly remembering the strength of his hand and the thirst and hunger his touch had stirred within her. Every time she thought about his hands she thought of them holding her wrists to the bed while he let that luscious mouth of his explore her body. The image she had created was causing all sorts of problems for her. She hadn’t had sex since Kyle. She tried to chalk her lust filled fantasies up to just being hormonal…but hormones had very little to do with it. The man was a walking, talking fantasy machine.

  Was she wrong for her thoughts? She was doing exactly for him what she hated for people to do to her. She hated when clients looked at her and started sizing her up for sex instead of work. At least she hadn’t been as blatantly obvious with Thomas as some of her clients had been with her, but still…maybe he didn’t want women who came into his office for help to have those thoughts about him at all.

  She needed to stop thinking about the jolt of electricity that hit her when he had taken her arm in his hand to lead her out the office and to her car. Every bit of heat in her body sprung to life, warming her in the most intimate places. She wondered what would happen if he put that big, strong hand some place other than her arm. And then, when he actually did put his hand some place else she nearly melted from the heat. They had been walking out the door when he relinquished her arm and placed his hand on the small of her back. That was her spot, and while not every man’s touch elicited such carnal desires, this man’s touch had—more so than she had ever experienced even with Kyle.

  She had things she needed to stop at the store for, but her appointment with Thomas had run longer than she expected and it was getting dark. She wanted to be home, inside with the alarm set before nightfall. She was afraid; whether she wanted to let anybody know that or not. While the cops may have thought last night was just an accident, some drunk driver enjoying Memorial Day to the fullest, she was sure that driver had been aiming for her, had been waiting for her to cross the street so he or she could mow her down.

  It would have worked too. She would be dead if it weren’t for Reese Jenkins. Had he left when the other workers left he wouldn’t have been there to push her out of the way. Thank God for small favors, as they say, because she was so thankful she had recently hired Reese Jenkins. The other men had no problem walking off the site and leaving her behind
to clean things up or work out some plans, take some measurements, whatever she needed to do. She, until last night, didn’t have a problem with it either. She was one of the guys—well, technically she was the boss, but they treated her like one of the guys for the most part and as such they didn’t hand hold her or bother to do things like walk her to her car.

  Reese was like some knight in shining armor throw back to when people had manners. He had assured her his mother would never forgive him if he left a lady alone instead of waiting to make sure she got to her car safely. She had laughed at the time. Reese was in his forties and he still worried about what his mother thought. She had clearly raised him well.

  He didn’t look forty-three. She remembered when he showed up asking for a job. He stated his credentials, told her he hadn’t been able to find employment and he gathered it was because of his age. But he was, lock stock and barrel, in good shape for a forty-three year old. He looked not a day over thirty-eight. And he was strong. He lifted and moved bags of mortar mix easier than some of her twenty-something year old employees.

  Mostly, she was impressed that he had not only saved her life, but he had waited around for the police to show, and then he followed her home to make sure she made it there safely. Not many men would do that—especially for somebody they know only as their employer.

  She was in trouble, and she knew it. She was very close to the same age her mother was when she died, and her grandmother too. The thought of things happening in threes scared her. She didn’t want to die, and certainly not now. But why would anybody try to kill her? As far as she knew she hadn’t ended up on anybody’s bad side—not recently anyway. The bigger question was why now? Why that night? Was it because they found the body? Had whoever killed her mother and put her there inside those walls been watching the house, waiting for the day to come when it would no longer keep the secrets of the walls safe?

  They were knocking down another wall during the remodeling process. She hoped they wouldn’t find another body buried there. What were the odds they’d even find the one? In all her years in construction she had never had that experience, and she hadn’t heard any other construction workers talk about finding dead bodies on site either. She guessed the bigger question was what were the odds she would buy a house, renovate and find the dead body of her mother? After all of these years of wondering and waiting for answers, waiting for somebody to say we’ve found her, and she was the one to do it.

  Once the police released the body she would burry her in the plot next to her father. He had bought two plots long before her mother went missing. Her father was, if nothing else, a planner. He knew death was inevitable and so he prepared for it. Morbid, she knew that’s what people had called it, but she also understood it. He was trying, in his own way, to make the process of letting go easier for her. She didn’t have to pick out a casket, pick out a funeral plot or a tombstone. She didn’t have to fight with lawyers and courts over his assets because he had done the will far in advance. She didn’t have to think about the financial aspects, and she was able to grieve. That didn’t mean there weren’t things she had to take care of; she had to take over his business, pay his employees, keep them working and prove herself to every client that walked through the door. But, in a way, he had prepared her for that too.

  She wanted to cry, thinking about her father. For all of his faults he was one of the most amazing men she knew. He had survived, pushed on, even after the love of his life was gone. He had loved her mother so much she thought he might die when she disappeared, but instead he held on for her. He became more protective, almost insanely so. He rarely let her go anywhere by herself, not even to the corner store where he used to allow her to walk to as a way of giving her a measure of independence.

  She didn’t complain. She didn’t try to assure him that he was suffocating her. She knew why he held on so tight. He was afraid he would lose her too.

  She wished he were alive now. Perhaps that wish was purely selfish because she wanted somebody to cling to now. She was alone, no family left to call and cry with, to have support from. Finding her mother was like suffering the loss all over again. Knowing the cops didn’t seem to give a rat’s behind about the case made it that much more difficult. Why? That was the question ever present in her mind since they found her mother. Why, after all this time, was she the one to find the body? She could still see it vividly in her mind. They looked so much alike. The same button nose, the same high cheekbones…God, it was like looking at herself. Only her mother had that perfect dip in her lips, something she didn’t possess. She had almost forgotten the shape of her mother’s lips. She remembered some things, most of which came from the times she had studied the pictures her father kept around the house, like a shrine to Neenah Davis, the “love of his life,” the only love he had ever had in his life.

  She had never, ever seen anything like it. Her mother was perfectly preserved as if she had died yesterday instead of nearly twenty years ago.

  Thena pulled her car into the garage and let the automatic door down. She managed, with blurry eyes, to make it from car to kitchen before her legs refused to carry her farther. She sunk to the floor and she cried. For the first time since she saw the body, she broke down. The pain hit her hard. Emotions threatened to swallow her whole. Her father had always said no matter what life throws your way it’s important to press on. “Never let it break you, Button,” he would say right before pinching her nose between his thumb and index finger. Until now she had managed to follow his advice. But now, with everything that was happening, she wasn’t sure she could press on. She wasn’t sure she could stop life from breaking her down.

  She didn’t want to be alone right now. She needed somebody to talk to; somebody to assure her things would be okay. She didn’t have family. She had very few friends. She was always so busy tending to everybody else that she had spent very little time tending to herself.

  She picked up the phone and punched in the speed dial. “Kyle,” she heard the tremble in her voice when she spoke, but she couldn’t stop it. “I could really use a friend right now.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She started crying harder. “I found her,” she managed to say. “I found my mother.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  The phone clicked and she knew he had hung up on her. Kyle was one of those guys who would drop everything for a friend if that friend needed him. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t called him sooner, but she hadn’t. She had invested her energy into trying to keep the men working so they could put food on their tables, trying to meet with the police to see if they planned to investigate, and then trying to find alternative options when it became clear that they weren’t in a hurry to work on her mother’s case. She hadn’t had time to breakdown and grieve. Whether she had time now wasn’t the issue. Her emotions didn’t care about timing, they needed to be dealt with and they demanded she listen to them. She was listening, but that didn’t mean she wanted to listen to them alone. She needed a friend.

  Kyle made record time getting to her place. She would swear he broke every traffic law in the book because there is no way he should have made it in under a half hour.

  When he came inside she locked the door behind him before going into his outstretched arms. “Thank you for coming. You’re the best friend a girl could have.”

  He tightened his hold. “Tell me what happened?”

  She explained in detail about the events of that day, crying through most of her words. He held her, comforted her. Then she told him about the person who had almost run her down.

  “Thena, get the cops to get their butts in gear. This is serious,” he snapped.

  “I’ve tried, Kyle. I’m getting stonewalled everywhere. That’s why I’ve decided to hire a PI to help me.”

  “You can’t afford that; can you?”

  “I’ll make it work.” She would have to.

  “Look, you come stay with me until this is over. I’ll protect you.
You know that.”

  She laughed. “You always do. But no, I’m going to be okay here. I don’t want to run scared. Plus, the cops really think it was just some drunk driver—they might be right.” Although she wasn’t sure that she believed those words herself.

  “All right. But if you need a place to stay you come to me. Anytime, it doesn’t matter, you just call and I’ll keep the light on for you.”

  She smiled. “Were you really busy? I feel as if I might have pulled you away from something.”

  “Nah. I was just going over some blueprints.”

  “You’re starting another house this soon? I thought you liked to take a month off in between jobs.” She was sure he had just finished working a remodel job just a couple weeks ago.

  “It’s a personal project I’m planning. Nothing major…and trust me, your call gave me the break I needed. I’d rather be here with you.”

  “Well, since you’re here. At least let me feed you.” She could at least cook him dinner.

  “I ate earlier.” He brushed a hand through her hair. “Do you want me to stay over tonight?”

  She shook her head no. “I have a long and very early day tomorrow. I won’t be good company. Thanks for the offer.” She noticed the twinge of disappointment in his eyes. Kyle was the kind of man who loved being needed, especially when it came to his friends. She had long ago lost count of how many times he had dropped everything to come to her aid with a construction job.