Page 85 of I'll Be There
Or...yes he could. Confusion, and not a little gathering fury.Yeah, well, bring it, bro.Along with it, he might also answer where he’d been the lastseven years.
A touch on his arm unglued him, and Conner jerked back, eyes wide.
Liza, so much concern in her eyes it scared him. He backed up, not wanting to touch her, to infect her.
“Conner, calm down. Breathe.”
He held up his hands to stop her advance toward him. “No, you don’t understand, Liza.” He glanced at the man on the floor, shook his head, his voice wrecked when he looked back at her. “This is my brother—mydead brother—Justin.”
She drew in a breath. Softened her expression to something he knew well, too well. Compassion. Even, perhaps, pity. “I know.”
“You know? Youknow?”
She didn’t think it was possible for Conner to unravel any more before her eyes. Now, Liza watched as he put out a hand, took a step away from her, so much betrayal in his expression she just wanted to weep.
“Conner—”
“How did you—” He glared down at Justin, now climbing to his feet, his jaw tight. Justin picked up the baseball cap, knocked off by Conner’s punch.
Taller than Conner, he possessed Conner’s blue eyes, wary as he took in his brother, his chest rising and falling. Wide shoulders, tousled short brown hair, the slightest beard that now caught a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. He touched his thumb to it. “I guess I deserved that.”
“You most certainly did not,” Liza snapped. She rounded on Conner. “He was the one at the table today. He knew Blankenship was in town, recognized the man watching me, and sat down to protect me.”
Conner blinked at her. “How did youknowthat?”
“He told me. About five seconds after you took off to hunt down Blankenship.” She took a breath, softened her voice. “What happened?”
“Blankenship is dead,” Conner said without preamble. “He shot Micah, tried to kill Justin.” He looked at Justin when he added, “I killed him.”
The words turned her blood cold in her veins. “You killed...”
Conner turned to her then, and for a moment—a very long, raw, brutal moment—she didn’t know this man. The one who’d just laid out his brother. The one who’d so coldly admitted to killing another man.
She knew he’d been a soldier, but... “Oh.”
The wheels seemed to be turning in Conner’s head, however, and his voice turned dark, almost lethal. “You sent him to follow me.”
“No, I did that on my own,” Justin said. “Old habits.”
Conner said nothing, his expression completely blank as he stared at Justin. “How long?”
Justin frowned.
“How long have you been here? Did you—were you in Canada?”
“It took me a day to get here after Blue called you. I—”
“Blue! You know Blankenship had her shot her, right? Do you—okay...” Conner blew out a breath, shot a look past Liza. She followed it and found Pete’s steel-eyed glare on Justin.
“She nearly died, dude,” Pete said.
A muscle pulled in Justin’s jaw. “My fault, I know that. I should have called her, told her to ditch that phone. Sloppy.”
Liza had no idea what to make of this conversation.
“So, you two were—”
“I loved her.”
