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“I’m fine.” Lifting his arms out, he silently beckoned her. She rose and walked to him, pressing her cheek against his chest and snuggling close. He rubbed his chin over the silkiness of her hair and inhaled her scent. For a second, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the soft woman in his arms. “The fridge is stocked with essentials. Make yourself at home. There’s take-away menus on the counter. Go crazy with whatever you want and order for me.” Not that he had any appetite, but he couldn’t let her go hungry. “I’ll be home in an hour.”
Maybe less if things totally went arse-over-tit.
Harper lifted her face. “Should you call one of the guys, maybe Heath, and get them to meet you there?”
Frustration hardened his tone. “No.” He cursed as she lowered her gaze. “Sorry, I’m edgy.” An understatement. “I need to meet with Lincoln. After that I’ll have something to tell the guys.” He lifted her chin with his finger. Her caramel gaze held worry and a hesitancy that kicked him in the guts. “I’ll be home soon.”
“Okay.” Her soft agreement was backed up by a tentative smile.
He released her and moved to the door, not looking back. Why did the uneasy feeling in his gut tell him that every step he took away from Harper further turned his evening to shit?
That apprehension hadn’t lessened by the time he entered the dark wood and green leather upholstered O’Shaughnessy’s tavern. The smell of beer and too little fresh air invaded his nostrils. He spotted Lincoln sitting at the bar and walked up beside him. “Booth, down the end.” He glanced at the barman. Though not a regular, Seth came enough to be on a first name basis. “Lager, thanks, Toby.” He dropped some notes, but the bartender pushed them back.
“You’re already covered.” Toby inclined his head at Lincoln, who had reached the booth. Lincoln slid in the side facing the door. The side Seth preferred. But considering Lincoln’s profession, Seth guessed the man wouldn’t sit with his back to a room full of people by choice.
“Thanks.” He grabbed his drink and joined Lincoln, sliding his body over the shamrock green leather, worn smooth from years of patrons doing the same.
He gave Lincoln a chin lift. “Appreciate the drink.”
The younger man nodded but remained silent.
Seth decided to start with one of the details that, with his family under threat, troubled him most. “I’m going to ask you straight up how you found me.”
Lincoln stared back, unfazed by Seth’s abrupt question. “Don’t you want to know how I am? What’s happened in the years we’ve been apart?”
Seth sharpened his gaze. “Lincoln, you just turned up without warning. Outside of your arrival, I have” some bastard gunning for me? “a situation happening that’s sensitive. Therefore, I’d like to know who’s investigating me.”
Lincoln nodded, the action catching the light above their booth and highlighting the short, blond strands of his hair. “Fair enough. My friend has a brother who works for ASIO.” Seth kept his expression blank. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation was the Aussie version of the CIA and who knew what else. “The guy can trade favors, get intel. I saved his brother’s life in Afghanistan and called in my marker.”
“And that was me.”
“Yep.” Lincoln slugged back a mouthful of his beer. “Years ago, I started to look on my own. When you became a ward of the state they didn’t change your surname; that didn’t happen until your adoption, and those records were sealed. I didn’t know anything about the details surrounding Aurora Justice adopting you. With my new contact, I had greater resources. When he accessed your adoption records, we had your new surname. Justice. That gave us Aurora, which led me here.” He paused and lowered his glass to the table. “I’m sorry she’s gone. Sounds like she was a great lady.”
“The best.” He wondered if Lincoln had ever experienced that kind of love. “Okay, what do you wish to happen now?”
Lincoln scrubbed a hand over his scalp, and for the first time, Seth noticed the tiredness shadowing the younger man’s face. “Some conversation. I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance to explain what happened when Gran—” He broke off, catching Seth’s body tensing.
Sit here in a bar with a near stranger as they “dealt” with their past? Not bloody likely. “There’s nothing to say about back then.”
“Yes, there is.” The resoluteness in Lincoln’s tone reminded Seth he was dealing with a trained fighter—a man hardened to take the punches and serve them back with deadly force.
Fair enough. Seth would serve up some brutal honesty.
“You lied. I paid the price. Seventeen years have passed. We’re here now, and we can’t go back.” Seth drank a mouthful of lager, but it tasted like water in his mouth. “There’s nothing to add to the fractured fairy tale of our upbringing.”
‘Did you steal from my purse, Lincoln.’ His brother shaking his head. Eyes wet. Looking at Seth for understanding. Lincoln had hidden the five dollars in a pair of Seth’s socks. So bloody stupid. The old harpy had found it before Seth had even known of Lincoln’s crime. ‘I didn’t think so. Not my good boy.’ Then his grandmother’s hand crashed against the side of Seth’s head with such force he’d hit the doorframe, cutting a gash above his eye. ‘But you.’ Her lip curled as cold eyes judged him guilty. ‘You’re bad.Just like your mother.A bad, bad boy.’
“Seth, I was ten years old. I made a mistake.” Lincoln fisted his hands on the table. “You have no idea how many times I’ve cursed myself for lying.”
‘Bad boys go to hell.’
Hell for Seth was foster care. The beatings. The hunger. The loneliness.
One phone call from his gran and Seth was gone. She’d locked him in his room and called the police. Social Services had turned up, and within two hours, he was in the state’s care.
“I tried to tell her I’d lied, Seth, but she wouldn’t listen. Told me I was just making that up to save you.” Lincoln swallowed, his face losing its hardness as the shadows cast from the booth’s light added a hollowness to his cheeks.
The man’s obvious remorse punched holes in Seth’s cool reserve. It had been easy to channel his anger and feelings of rejection at the memory of a person. But up close…
