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“Of course it isn’t.” He waved the comment away. “His parents were agents for the company as well. His father and mother, Falcon’s mother too. They made an incredible team. It was his father who killed the young woman actually. She was an agent herself, determined to prove a suspicion that Raeg’s and Falcon’s mothers were alive and reveal where they were hiding. Some governments simply refuse to accept that enemies don’t live forever,” he snorted, rueful amusement crossing his face. “From what I understand, Raeg trusted her implicitly but the information she wanted didn’t exist. There’s rumors that while he was meeting with his brother she was making plans to kill him on his return. I gather his father was rather put out over that, and killed her instead.”
She’d known Raeg’s parents were CIA, she hadn’t known about this, though.
No wonder he refused to love anyone, she thought.
“He really loved her then?” she asked, the pain only growing inside her. “That’s why he’s willing to walk away from me?”
“Men can be stubborn,” he advised her. “We’re not exactly logical where our hearts are concerned. And we’ll often fight real love with the same determined force that we would any enemy.”
“He won’t stay, will he?” she asked the other man then, knowing the answer even before he paused and stared back at her.
“I doubt it,” he sighed heavily, compassion filling his gaze. “Raeg will always remember that first mistake, that trust he gave to someone planning to betray him. That’s a powerful memory for a man.”
A powerful enemy for a woman to have to face, she thought.
“I love them,” she whispered, saying it out loud, needing someone to hear the words.
“Yes, you have for a long time.” He nodded. “Just remember, my dear, whether returned or not, love is never wasted. And they may be angry over the parties at the moment, angry that you’re making plans to continue on without them, but remember this. There is nothing more powerful than the challenge of realizing a woman is strong enough to live without you. Never, never allow them to realize any different. If you have any chance of keeping them, then that’s it.”
There was no chance of keeping them, she already knew that. Her pride wouldn’t let her fall in front of them though. A terrible thing, her pride—she knew that. She would easily cut her own nose off to spite her face, as her mother was prone say.
“Cheer up, Summer,” he ordered her gently, the Scot’s accent a soothing burr. “True love can never be defeated. It’s invincible, I promise you this.”
She stared back at him, hoping she hid her disbelief. Hell, she’d never imagined Steven was more naïve than her little sister, but it appeared he might very well be.
* * *
She was fucking beautiful.
Steven had straightened every strand of her long black hair before pulling the front of it back to the crown of her head in a ponytail that trailed strands of tiny, silver bells whose muted sounds were heard only occasionally and so softly at first that he wasn’t even certain what he was hearing.
She wore one of those soft, feminine skirts that looked so damned good on her. This one fell to her ankles in muted shades of gold and pale blue, the loose material swaying around her seductively. It was paired with a soft bronze camisole top and strappy flat sandals.
She looked like a gypsy as she drifted about the crowd gathered in her aunt’s backyard, her sister and her mother at her side.
They stopped and talked to damned near every man there but just long enough for introductions before Summer just drifted away, sometimes in the middle of a conversation.
“We’re killing her,” Falcon said from beside him, his voice rough with fury, with pain. “It’s like watching her bleed out slowly.”
Raeg just watched her, his arms crossed over his chest, tight. The need to hold back that ache centered beneath them imperatively.
“Fuck,” Falcon cursed when Raeg didn’t answer. “I’m getting a drink.”
He broke his silence. “Get me one. A double.”
The drink was neutral. It didn’t take thought, it didn’t take restraint, or an awareness of his control to deal with. It was just a drink.
They’d been there for hours. The barbeque, the meal, and hours of watching Summer float around the yard from table to table, that facsimile of a smile on her lips, killing him with a knowledge of the pain she was holding back.
“That woman,” Mike Taggart, Caleb’s boyhood friend, commented as he stepped to Raeg, “is not Summer Calhoun.” His expression, his gaze, was filled with dislike as Raeg met his gaze. “What the hell have ya’ll done to her?”
Loved her, Raeg answered silently. They had been ambushed by the one emotion they’d sworn they wouldn’t let themselves feel.
“Find somewhere else to be, Mike,” Raeg suggested coldly. “I’m not in the mood for your bullshit.”
He’d only met the man twice, and each time, the bastard had done something to piss him off.
Mike grunted at the order. “It could be Caleb standin’ here instead. He’
