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Tonight, she’d never felt less like the agent, the killer Raeg thought she was, or the woman she’d showed to the political elite she socialized with.
There had been days she’d been sickened by the life she’d once thought she wanted so much. An agent, kick-ass adventures by the dozens, she thought mockingly as she slammed her bedroom door behind her.
And she hadn’t been able to stand herself by the time it was over. Standing in a chapel, staring at the woman she’d killed, the woman she’d thought was a friend, Summer had known she was finished. Because she’d been so determined to be someone she wasn’t, to fit into a life she’d already known wasn’t hers, she hadn’t been able to see the truth of who and what she was allowing to happen to herself.
And she wouldn’t let it happen again.
Never again.
She wouldn’t be the woman Raeg thought she was just so he and Falcon would be comfortable with her. She would not be less of a daughter, less of a sister or a friend, just because he wanted someone that didn’t exist.
She was Summer Dawn Calhoun, she was not Summer Bartlett. And Raeg was just going to have to accept there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to get what he wanted. She never wanted to be Summer Bartlett ever again.
* * *
Falcon made his way downstairs, his heart heavy at the thought of the pain he’d seen in Summer’s face as she raced past him. He’d be angry, he acknowledged, if he wasn’t very well aware of the conflict also warring inside his brother.
“Don’t start,” Raeg warned him from where he stood next to the French doors leading from the living room to the wide wraparound porch.
Moving to the bar, Falcon poured a drink in the dim light, took a fortifying sip, then walked to the opposite side of the door frame, looking out onto the drifting tendrils of fog.
He’d been watching the emerging impatience Raeg was feeling where Summer was concerned for a while. It had begun coming to a head in DC the year before, while Summer had been at the Hampstead estate to help protect her friend, Alyssa, the senator’s daughter.
Summer and Alyssa had been friends since they were five. Alyssa’s mother Margot had actually been instrumental in Summer’s training and her eventual placement in the CIA. Not that Summer had really fit in with the agency. She hadn’t. In the space of eight years she’d gone from the CIA, to the FBI, the DEA, and then to the private security firm Falcon headed. But even in that less-structured atmosphere, she hadn’t found what she was looking for—and hadn’t realized it was the very thing she’d left behind in Georgia.
With maturity, Summer had begun missing home. Falcon had seen it, acknowledged it, despite the fact that he hadn’t wanted to. It was Raeg who still couldn’t see it, Raeg who hadn’t yet realized the woman he was determined to protect, even from them, was the only woman who was going to complete either one of them.
But Falcon had to admit that acknowledging it didn’t make it easier to accept the fact that they’d have to let her go when this was over. They simply didn’t have a choice.
“You know,” he murmured quietly, “her father hasn’t had a drink since the night Davis Allen and Margot flew out of Georgia with Summer all those years ago.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, remembering well the night Margot had told him about the fact that Summer couldn’t identify who had tried to rape her. “Caleb and the boys were given a month’s leave when the senator made a few calls. But when they got home, Cal was sober as a judge. He’s not had a drink since.”
“Fuck him,” Raeg snarled. “She was a baby, and he was passed out fucking drunk, his wife out God only knows where, and Summer nearly paid the price…”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Raeg!” Falcon’s voice never rose, it deepened, became savage in the guttural growl that filled it. “And keep your opinion of her father as well as her family damned quiet or risk destroying a woman who does not deserve it. One who will gladly force us to leave her home, and leave her undefended against Dragovich, if you continue to insult her father. Should she do that, and if anything—anything!—happened to her, I don’t know that I’d survive it.”
Raeg could only stare back at him in shock. No threats, no demands, simply that. The admission, finally, that she was more to Falcon than any other woman had ever been.
“I’m not going to threaten you to stay,” Falcon said several minutes later, his voice still low, though not as enraged. “I know your reasons for striking out at her, I know the horror you alone faced, and nothing can change that for you. You’ll always be my brother, Raeg, and I don’t want to change that. But if you can’t protect her without hurting her like this, then I ask you to go, and I will find someone who can help me without striking at her over what cannot be. I understand,” he said softly, compassionately. “Go. No harm, no foul. I’ll find someone to watch our backs. Summer has enough friends that such will not be hard to do.”
As he spoke, Falcon watched as Raeg seemed to stiffen from his heels to his hair. It was kind of amusing to watch when his brother got all worked up inside like that.
“The last time the two of you went off to save God and country alone, she almost ended up dead, and you would have died beside her if you couldn’t have gotten her out of there,” Raeg bit out in disgust as he pointed a finger at Falcon furiously. “I can only imagine what would happen if I leave the two of you alone here with her crazy-ass family.” He gestured outside with the hand holding his drink before bringing it to his lips.
It was tearing Raeg apart inside though, and Falcon knew it. Regretted it.
“I won’t have her hurt in such a way again, Raeg, I’
ve already warned you about that. Just because you’re my brother doesn’t mean I’ll put up with it,” Falcon snapped. “Get your head out of your ass and at least give her, give us, a few memories to hold on to when this is over. Something that will ease the pain of losing her instead of making it worse.”
Raeg’s gaze met his, the dark, golden brown gaze reflecting the emotions and his battle against feeling anything more for Summer than he’d felt for any other woman. And Raeg simply didn’t understand that it was far too late to stop it.
“She doesn’t belong here—” Raeg snapped.
“Yes, she does,” Falcon broke in firmly, surprised his brother hadn’t realized it long before they had arrived in Georgia with her. “That’s what’s pissing you off so much. You’re sensing what I already knew. Summer’s home, and you hate it. But you refuse to see why.”
Because they couldn’t keep her, they couldn’t stay here with her. When it was over, they’d have no choice but to walk away, and Raeg was fighting that, even though he knew it to be the truth.
“And I guess you have all the damned answers,” he snarled, his rough-hewn expression angry, suspicious. “Why don’t you just tell me what you think I don’t know, Falcon?”
