Especially after last night. He’d made love to her over and over again. She’d felt perfectly right in his arms. In the morning light, he had to think about the repercussions.

  Could he ask her to give up her career? Or give up his? It was naive to think that a long distance relationship could work for them. She wouldn’t know where he was most of the time and he wouldn’t be able to call or talk. That wasn’t a life she wanted. It wouldn’t make her happy. More than anything, that’s what Dax wanted to give her.

  Their relationship was just starting out and despite the fact that they’d obviously wanted each other for years, he had to accept that sharing their feelings was new and what lay in their hearts was fragile. It could be easily broken.

  “Good morning, son.”

  His mother’s familiar voice jolted him out of his thoughts. Dax smiled and jogged up the big wraparound porch to join her. She sat in a rocker, a cup of coffee in her hands. Despite the earliness of the morning, she was already perfectly dressed in slacks and a silk blouse, her hair and makeup done with an expert hand.

  “Were you waiting for me?”

  She set the cup down on the saucer and placed them on the table beside her. “It wouldn’t be the first time I waited up for you. I have to admit, sending you to boarding school saved my sanity. I can’t imagine how I would have worried during your high school years.”

  He grinned and took the adjoining seat. “It was for the best. How are you this morning?”

  The smile on her face didn’t reach her eyes. “Lovely. Your friends are fun companions. Augustine arrived last night and the four of us had a very nice dinner before she adjourned upstairs to unpack. Gabriel and I played backgammon. He’s such a nice young man.”

  “And Mad? Did he go out?”

  His mother sighed. “No. I believe he turned in early.”

  He was going to beat the shit out of Maddox, who was very likely not sleeping in his own fucking bed. “I’ll handle the situation, Momma.”

  “Don’t you dare. Augustine has always been a spirited young lady. She’s smart. She knows what she’s doing.”

  So did he. Gus was doing Mad. “She should have a little more respect.”

  His mother frowned, chiding him with soft brown eyes. “Respect for what? For my tender feelings? I’m not an idiot, son. I know that Augustine has run through most of the men in this town, and god only knows what she’s been doing in D.C. Maddox is a lively young man who looks as if he knows what he’s about. I’m not upset with Gus, just a little envious. She has a career she loves and she’s good at it. She does what and who she likes, when she likes, and she doesn’t answer to anyone. I wish I’d had that freedom when I was younger.”

  He hadn’t thought of it that way. “I’ll ask them to keep it down.”

  His mother waved a hand. “Gus will likely tell me all about it when she gets up this morning. We’re quite close, you know. I listen with a good ear. Would you like to talk about your night? Did you finally properly make love to Holland? You better have treated her right, Dax. She’s a dear friend and I don’t believe she’s had any sexual relations lately.”

  His jaw dropped and he couldn’t help but stare at his very genteel mother.

  She reached for her porcelain cup once more. “Oh, wipe that shocked expression from your face. I’m not a prude. And I’m not foolish. I know why you’re really here. I was hoping Holland would distract you, but you’ve brought her into your little investigation, haven’t you?”

  He forced his mouth closed and whispered a curse. “How did you know about that?”

  She sighed. “I always knew you wouldn’t let it lie. It’s not in your nature. I doubt Gus has, either, though she’ll go about it differently. I don’t like to think about it much myself. I wish you would concentrate on your relationship with Holland. She’s such a nice woman. She would make a perfect wife for you.”

  He agreed Holland would make a perfect wife if they could figure out their issues, but he had a job to do, too. He’d never meant to discuss this with his mother. Not until he’d cleared his father’s name. “You think he was guilty, don’t you?”

  He couldn’t not ask the question. He needed to know. They’d sidestepped the issue so many times he couldn’t count anymore. It was finally time for the truth.

  She looked away for a quiet moment, and Dax wondered if she’d go silent on the subject again. Finally, she set her cup aside and turned to him. She patted his hand with her own. “I loved your father. We were so in love in the beginning. But sustaining love can be difficult, son. Years go by, and one day you realize that you’ve changed. Your spouse has changed. You’ve grown apart.” She sighed. “Do I believe your father raped that girl? No. He didn’t need power over someone else to feel big and he didn’t have that sort of violent streak. Do I believe he could have been mistaken about her age and gotten into a situation he shouldn’t have? Yes. I do believe that because he’d done it many times before.”

  Dax felt his gut twist. His father?

  “Dax, I’m not trying to disillusion you or make you think less of your father,” his mother said quietly. “This is something I wish you never had to know. He was human. I know he seemed like he was larger than life and so heroic, but he was flawed like the rest of us.”

  “Are you saying he cheated on you? And you knew it?” He could barely fathom that. His father had been a good man. Dax had built his whole life on the fact that his parents had been good people who loved each other and their children.

  “Not at first. At least I don’t think so. But sometime after he hit forty, things changed. He had an eye for the younger ladies. He had several affairs, though they never lasted very long. I found out because one of the women contacted me. It was the only time I nearly divorced your father. He was careful, you see. He usually chose women who didn’t want more than a good time and some nice gifts. But this particular woman decided she wanted more. She wrote me and explained the situation. I sought a lawyer and threatened divorce. Your father talked me out of it. You were in college at the time. Gus had just started graduate studies at Harvard. A divorce could have derailed you both, so I stayed. I often wonder if that incident was what sent him to prostitutes.”

  He felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You can’t know that or blame yourself.”

  “If I’d ignored it or perhaps if I’d followed through, he might be alive today. He might not have walked into that seedy motel with that girl.”

  He gripped his mother’s hand. “Momma, none of this is your fault. He was the one with the problem.”

  Obviously more problems than Dax had imagined.

  “I wish everything had been different,” she murmured, and sipped her coffee again.

  Yeah, him, too.

  They fell silent until a Benz pulled up, stopping in front of their house.

  His mother patted his hand. “That’s my friend Gloria. We’re going to have a nice brunch and then go to afternoon bridge club. I’m so sorry I had to tell you that, Dax. I simply don’t want you to chase after some vindication only to get your heart broken. I love you very much.” She stood and he watched her school her face as she waved. “I’ll be back this evening. We’re having a lovely roast and the housekeeper made pecan pie. You bring Holland if you like. I know Gus would love to see her.”

  Dax watched his mother stride down the walk to join her friend. He sat there, his whole world shaken.

  The glow with which he’d started the day seemed a bit dimmer than before.

  Had he really been so blind and naive? How had he never known his father had cheated? His father had lied, broken his vows, and left his own wife crushed.

  Dax stood, feeling inexcusably weary. He needed a drink. God, it wasn’t even nine o’clock and he was going to have a Scotch.

  He stepped inside. He could hear the housekeeper humming to herself in the kitchen. He avoided her. That wasn’t where they kept the good stuff anyway. The expensive Scotch was in his father’s office, that shrine to a man he now wondered if he’d ever really known.

  Well, at least the booze had been stored there until his friends had shown up.

  When he sauntered in, Gabe was sitting in the dining room, a cup of coffee beside him, tapping away on his laptop. He looked up, his tawny brows rising. “Welcome home, Captain. Did you visit a new port last night?”

  He flipped his friend off and continued to the stairs.

  “Wow, touchy. I wouldn’t go up there if I were you. Sorry, but Gus couldn’t be convinced it was a bad idea. Believe me, I tried.”

  “Does Mad have the Scotch?” That was all he cared about at the moment.

  “Yeah, but . . . Whoa. Scotch at this hour? What the hell happened?”

  Dax didn’t know how to answer so he kept walking up the stairs and right to the room his mom had given Mad. The door was closed. It was almost too quiet at first but then he heard whispering. “I know you’re in there, Augustine. I don’t give a damn. I want the Scotch. Mad, you better not have drank it all or I’ll expect that replaced. This morning.”

  After a bit of shuffling, the portal opened and Mad poked his head around the door, looking somewhere between wide eyed and worried as he passed over the crystal decanter and what looked like a clean glass. Not that it mattered at that point. “Uh, Dax, it’s early.”

  “Like that matters.”

  “It doesn’t to me. It does to my very staid and buttoned-up Naval captain friend. He doesn’t drink at inappropriate times anymore. He also very politely ignores the fact that I’m sleeping with his sister.”

  “Hooking up.” Gus yelled from inside the room. “Sleeping with makes it sound important, Crawford.”

  “She wounds me,” Mad said with a pout. “Give me a minute and I’ll get dressed.”

  “Don’t bother.” He grabbed the Scotch and glass and strode off again. He knew exactly where he wanted to go and now he wished his friends hadn’t come. He needed to be alone, and there was no way they’d let that happen.

  But they didn’t know about the balcony off the upstairs library. It was hidden by heavy curtains that no one opened because in the afternoon the sun heated everything up to a broil. At this time of the day, he could hide away and drink and think about the bombshell his mother had dropped.

  He made his way to his hidey-hole and shut the curtains behind him before pouring himself that much-needed drink. He swallowed it down as he looked over the back gardens. He’d romped there as a child. He and Gus had played hide-and-seek and when their father had been home, he would chase them all over, calling them his little monkeys. He would catch Dax and his sister in huge hugs. He’d always felt safe in his father’s arms.

  Had everything been a lie?

  Had his mother and father begun their marriage with all the good intentions in the world only to see everything crumble? Would that happen to him and Holland?

  He took a drink and slumped into one of two chairs that graced the balcony. This had been his quiet place as a child. When he would come home for the summer, he’d often hidden here when he needed to be alone.

  He heard a rustling behind him and sighed because he should have remembered even back then, a certain sister of his had rarely left him in peace.

  “Hey.” Augustine stepped out. She’d donned pajama bottoms and a tank top, sans bra, her feet bare and her hair all kinds of sexed up. From Maddox Crawford’s hands.

  “Shouldn’t you go play with my friends? Gabe looked like he hadn’t fucked anyone today.” Dax was feeling mean.

  Gus simply chuckled. “Wow. That was low, especially for you. What happened? Usually that sort of hypocrisy takes time. I at least get a ‘how’s it going, Gus’ before you start in on me.”

  What was she talking about? He turned, watching as she sat in the opposite chair. “Hypocrisy?”

  “Yes, Scotch-at-nine-in-the-morning guy. I called you a hypocrite. How many of my friends have you slept with? I’m betting given the fact that you’re still in last night’s clothes you slept with one very recently. What’s up with the tear in your slacks? Holland get a little rough with you?”

  “It’s not the same. I’m serious about Holland.”

  “Were you serious about my sorority sisters? Because you plowed through them.” Her voice dropped. “I’m sorry I called you a hypocrite, Dax. My feelings got hurt and I lashed out. You’re right. I’m not serious about Mad. The only people who should be serious about that boy are doctors who should try to solve the mystery of how he hasn’t contracted a sexually transmitted disease yet. We used protection, by the way. He’s not touching me without a glove. The trouble is, he’s really good in bed. And he doesn’t fall in love with me. All the rest of them do. That’s what I like about your friends. They’re realists.”

  God, he hadn’t meant to make his sister feel bad. “I’m sorry, Gus. Though I would like to point out I’ve been way more circumspect about sleeping with your friends. I think Momma knows what you were doing.”

  “Of course she does. I told her. She’s my mother, not some dried-up prude. Dax, I’m not married. I have a healthy sex drive. Well, I have a raging sex drive and I like it that way.”

  “Just like dear old dad.” The words came out in a bitter huff. He hadn’t meant to say them out loud.

  “Whoa, I can’t believe she told you about that.”

  “You knew?” He shook his head.

  “I figured it out a long time ago. I was here more than you were.” Gus hadn’t gone to boarding school. She’d put her foot down and told their parents she wanted to stay home, so she’d attended a nice private day school instead.

  Sometimes he’d envied his sister. Mostly in the beginning because after he’d found his friends, he’d been happy to go back to Creighton every term.

  “What gave Dad’s cheating away?” he asked.

  “Dad would come home on leave and sometimes he and Mom would fight. He started sleeping in his office more often than not. Oh, he would tell me it was because he was working. That’s how I got used to bringing him his coffee there when I was home.” Her jaw tightened and there was no way she wasn’t remembering that last morning she’d brought their father his coffee.

  “Did you know about the woman who wrote Mom?”

  “After the fact,” Gus explained. “She told me later about that. And obviously we talked after Dad died.”

  “But no one thought to mention it to me?”

  “Mom didn’t want you to think poorly of Dad. You worshipped him . . . and you can be a little judgmental, as proven by your very dicklike actions this morning. You really think I’m like Dad? You think that because I like sex I’m hurting everyone around me?”

  He turned to her, reaching for her hand. “No, you’re not hurting anyone. I’m being a dick, Gus. I’m sorry. I kind of got gut punched. I know what you’re doing with Mad. I’ve just seen how he can treat women.”

  She raised a pale brow. “Quite well. I like Mad because he gives a damn about what a woman wants in bed. He has a reputation as a playboy, but he never lies about it. He’s up-front about what he wants and what he’s willing to give. All of your friends are. It’s what I like about them.”

  “All of them?”

  She didn’t even blush, simply reached over and poured him another drink. “Not all. Connor turned me down because he couldn’t sleep with his best friend’s sister. He’s a good egg. Do you have any idea how hard it was for a seventeen-year-old boy to turn all of this down?” She gestured vaguely toward her curves. “Gabe is too lean for me. Roman was fun. I actually liked him. We hooked up but that was a lifetime ago.”

  “Not Zack, though.” Dax willed it to be true. “Definitely not Zack.”

  “How do you think he got the nickname Scooter?”

  “Oh, god.” He dropped his face in his hands. “So many things have gone wrong today.”

  “Fine, not Zack. I was joking about that. He earned that nickname with a friend of mine, but I did hear about the incident.” She stared, her intelligent eyes boring into him. “Does it make you think differently of me? I’ve had about as many sexual partners as you. Why is it all right for you but not me?”

  “Because you’re my sister.”

  “Will you hate Dad now? Because he was your father and the people in your life aren’t allowed to be human?”

  Dax felt tears stinging his eyes and fought not to shed the damn things. He hated seeing himself through his sister’s eyes. Maybe his mother had been right to keep the truth from him. He’d been viewing the world in black and white. A man was either a hero or a villain. Why could he be tolerant of his friends’ foibles but not his father’s? “I came back to clear his name.”

  “I know.”

  “How?”

  “I work with Roman and I’m ridiculously good at eavesdropping. Also, I’m good at spying. Mad sleeps like a log. I got out of bed last night and couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d peruse some of the porn on his laptop but I found the files. Then he and Gabe were talking earlier this morning. I think they’ve found a couple of things they want to share with you.”

  His sister was kind of an evil genius. And she was the only person he could really talk to about this. And she was the one person in the world besides himself who knew what it meant to be Admiral Harold Spencer’s kid. “Should I give the investigation up? Am I just hurting Mom more?”

  Gus leaned forward, her stare serious. “Do you think he deserves less because he cheated? I don’t love him less, Dax. I was angry for a while. Still am. But he was my father. He loved us. He sacrificed for us. Whatever he was like as a husband, he was a good dad. I can’t let his mistakes take that from me.”

  Dax squeezed her hand, emotion rolling through him. He remembered all the times his father had shown up at Creighton unannounced. He would get some leave and drag the family up to spend a single afternoon, taking Dax and his friends out to lunch, to the movies. He would say he missed his boy.