No Turning Back by Helenkay Dimon Read Free Book Online Page A

time ago. I was going to forget all of this, but then she died and now the sons are here. That brings everything up again.”
    “
You’re
bringing everything up again. And, babe, it’s not healthy. This fight is over. I mean, what do you hope to accomplish with—” She flipped the lid off and grabbed a file. “Declan’s high school records? Good grief, Leah. How do you even have these?”
    By lying and calling in favors and even paying for an independent investigator, but Leah decided not to admit any of that. “My father and a few of his friends are determined to run the Hanover boys out of town.”
    Mallory sighed as she flipped through the file. “They’re men.”
    “Somewhere in these boxes might be the information I need to convince The Hanover boys to let me have the house and leave.”
    Her head popped up. “Men and let you?”
    “I can be very persuasive.”
    The snort was not one of Mallory’s best but it still made a point. “Not when it comes to this topic.”
    “What does that mean?”
    Mallory took a long sip and emptied the glass. She put it down on the coffee table with a soft clink. “Maybe you should think a little less about conning them—”
    “Hey!”
    “—and a bit more about finding something fun to do with that Declan guy.”
    At the mention of his name a vision of his face popped into Leah’s head. Well, not just his face. There were the muscled arms and that sexy tattoo. “That’s your answer for everything.”
    “Nope, just the answer for this.” She opened her arms and swept them across the room. “Look around you. You need a life, maybe some pills, but definitely some fancy bed time with that hottie, who you clearly have an unrequited thing for.”
    She needed to stop mentioning that idea because it no longer made Leah’s brain explode. It sounded almost . . . yeah, no way she could go there.
    The doorbell rang and Mallory smiled. “And you are saved from having to lie to me and deny you’re thinking about what Declan would look like naked.”
    “Never crossed my mind.” More like wouldn’t get out of her head.
    “We’ll see what you’re saying a few days from now.”
    ***
    Declan stood on the back porch with his hands balanced on the rotted post and stared out over the property’s back acres. The sun had long since faded, and the light by the doors cast everything beyond ten feet in shadows. It was after midnight and he and Beck had only managed to go through one room, and their “content review” amounted to cooking steaks on the small grill Beck grabbed at the convenience store on the way to town.
    A slight breeze had kicked up, cooling the early summer night. Declan stood in his tee. After years in the desert and additional time in Bahrain, he welcomed any hint of chill. Heat wasn’t the problem for him. The quiet was. Crickets chirped, but the quiet night fell over him. No car horns or people talking. No street lights or hum of activity.
    At this time of night at Shadow Hill it was just him and nature and quiet . . . and Leah. Even now he watched her walk the tree line at the far edge of the property where what used to be the lawn met the overgrown acres of trees. He couldn’t make out her face, but he didn’t have to break out the night goggles or any other equipment to see the pink shirt. She had something over it, but the bottom edge still buzzed around in the breeze.
    The woman had a nasty habit of being where she wasn’t supposed to be. Since she also carried a grudge against anyone with the last name of Hanover, he knew he had to handle this quietly and now. Then there was the part where seeing her there, on his land, touched off his interest. He wasn’t the nosy type, but he didn’t like unsolved puzzles either, and this woman amounted to one big, unfathomable game.
    Ignoring the creaking wood as he walked across the porch and down the three steps to the lawn, he kept his gaze locked on her. She stared at something in her hands, which