Gavin tried to stop the queasy feeling in his stomach as everything Dex had said sank in.
“What the hell did you do, Gavin?” Slade asked, his voice barely audible over the sounds of traffic.
Gavin bit back the urge to put his head in his hands. He’d utterly mishandled everything. But that was the story of his whole f**king life. “Get your ass up here now, Slade.” He hung up the phone and couldn’t help but stare at the pictures in front of him. Hannah was in her bedroom, and the pictures were obviously taken from a distance. They had a grainy quality. In most, Hannah was reading or watching television in her tiny bedroom. She wore a nightgown in two of the pictures, but the majority featured her in a lacy bra and barely-there panties. So f**king gorgeous. She hid that body under nearly shapeless clothes and always kept her hair in a ponytail. In the pictures, her rich honey hair flowed down her shoulders in loose curls.
He loved the one where she leaned back on the bed, the phone in her hand and a smile on her face, like she was laughing. Her green eyes were bright, and that smile could light up the whole f**king world. The clock by her bed read ten o’clock. Gavin remembered calling Hannah at just around that time a few nights before. He’d lost an important phone number. She’d teased him about his organizational skills.
This was how she looked when she talked to him? Half-dressed, plump lips welcoming?
Fuck, he’d explode next time he had to call her at home.
Gavin flipped the photo over.
Don’t let those perverted brothers touch you. You’re mine.
Gavin shoved the photo aside and surged to his feet. Hannah was in danger, and he’d been getting a hard-on looking at evidence. What kind of man was he?
You know, that voice said. You know exactly what kind of man you are, ass**le.
He was a man who had just shoved his half brother aside in one of the cruelest ways possible.
He shoved everyone away. Now, he was going to lose everything if he didn’t get his shit straight.
Not this time. By damned, he was going to make things right.
Gavin paced as he waited for Slade, a plan already forming.
* * * *
Hannah Craig stopped and stared as Dex Townsend walked out of Gavin’s office and into the grand reception area she liked to consider her turf. Walked? Dex never walked. He strode. He swaggered. And now he charged out of the office like an angry bull.
She inched back into the hallway to observe him. She’d discovered that all of her men tended to put on a front when they realized she was in the room.
Her men. It was all she could do not to laugh at herself, but that was the way she thought of the James Gang—Gavin, Slade, and Dex. In her fantasies, they were her men, though she would never, ever tell them. But she’d fallen madly in love with them, and all three were way out of her league.
Now one of her men walked straight up to the wall across from her desk and scrubbed an angry hand across his head. He looked back at the door to Gavin’s office as though he wanted to march back in and give his oldest brother a piece of his mind. Something definitely had Dex in a state. His handsome face was a mottled red and yet…she swore she saw a slight sheen of tears in his eyes. With a little huff, he pulled back his fist and put it straight through the wall. The drywall gave without a fuss, merely cracking and sending up a little cloud of dust. Dex yanked on his hand to pull it free.
It was time to bring that man down from whatever had him so mad or he’d start in on the furniture.
“I never did like that wall,” Hannah said softly.
Dex turned, shock obvious on his face. His angry, red flush muted to an embarrassed pink.
“Hannah. I didn’t know you were here.”
She smiled at him and walked in as though nothing at all was wrong. Life was what a person made it, her Gran had always said. It was time to make Dex’s life a bit calmer. “I mean it. I’m glad someone finally put that arrogant wall in its place. I’ve slapped at it a couple of times, but it always just stands there.”
He huffed a little laugh. “You’re crazy, girl. You know that, right?” The tension in Dex dialed down several notches.
“I have no idea what you mean. And you’re one to talk. I’m not the one taking out my frustrations on a wall.”
She set her purse down and looked around for the mail. Nothing. Gavin probably had it. She was going to have to have a discussion with the man about his priorities. A CEO looking at the mail. Hannah sighed. If she let him, he would make the coffee, too. Gavin James was a micromanager. She opened her calendar to get ready for the day ahead.
“Hannah, I’m sorry.”
When she looked up, Dex was in front of her desk, six foot five inches of the hottest cowboy she’d ever seen forced into a business suit. Dex had the broadest shoulders and the deepest chest, but what got her every time was how often he showed off his big heart. He tried to hide it, but she knew he’d helped out more than one employee with money troubles or medical bills.
If she told him what was happening to her, he would move heaven and earth to fix the problem. More than once, the information had been right there on the tip of her tongue, but she held back. Dex had his own troubles, and she could handle hers. She was an independent, strong woman who wasn’t going to panic because some idiot sent her a few letters. And called a couple of times. And had potentially killed her cat.