Read Online Suspicions (The Battling McGuire Boys Book 3) by Cynthia Eden - Free Book Online

Brodie. They...warmed.
    It was obvious those two loved each other deeply. Just as much as Grant and Scarlett loved each other. Ava couldn’t help but wonder...what would it be like to have a man love her that way? So completely?
    “I think he did it to draw Mark away, too,” Davis added. “No one was in the house but the two of them. With Mark gone, the guy had free access to Ava.”
    That sounded bad. Very bad. “He hasn’t tried to hurt me before.”
    “He’s escalating,” Grant said flatly. “That’s why you should have told us about this joker before. I mean, we’re family and—”
    “You had enough to deal with.” That was a serious understatement. “And at first, I started to wonder if the cops were right. Maybe I was imagining things.” Hadn’t she worried in those first desperate days that she might be going crazy with the grief and the guilt that wouldn’t end?
    “Ava...” Sympathy flashed in Davis’s eyes—sympathy and pity.
    They weren’t the same thing. Not at all. And she hated the pity.
    Then Davis’s phone rang. No, it didn’t ring so much as it gave off a chiming alarm. He pulled out the phone and frowned at the screen. “I’ve got the gate’s security system linked in here,” he said as he lifted the phone. “It looks like we’ve got company out there.” He tapped the display. “It’s Mark.”
    Her body tensed. She looked up quickly—and found Scarlett’s gaze on her. There was no pity in Scarlett’s face, just plenty of speculation.
    “What is he doing here now?” Brodie muttered.
    “Can’t a friend pay a visit?” Ava shot back as she jumped to her feet. If Davis wasn’t going to key in the pass code to let Mark inside the ranch, then she’d go bring him in herself. “Let him in, Davis.”
    Davis tapped in a code on his phone.
    Ava exhaled and hurried for the door. “Maybe he’s found out something about the break-in.”
    “Yeah,” Brodie drawled from behind her, “and he just had to come over and tell us in person instead of, you know, picking up the phone.”
    She stepped outside. She could see the lights from Mark’s car coming up the curving drive. Mark wasn’t heading for the main ranch house. He was coming to the little guest house—to her. Her family had filed out behind her.
    “Do you know what you’re doing with him?” Davis asked her softly. “Ava...there’s more to him than you know.”
    She turned to stare at him. They were on the narrow porch, and the front door light felt as though it was spearing down on her, bright, stark. “There’s more to me than he knows, too.”
More than you all know.
    She wasn’t going to hide from the past any longer. It was time to face the nightmares. “I want in on the hunt.”
    “Ava, you don’t need that pain,” Grant said instantly.
    “I’ve already got plenty of pain. Staying in the dark doesn’t stop it.”
    Davis shook his head.
    Brodie swore.
    “You’ve tried to shut me out for years.” Did they have any idea how much that had hurt? “You hunted for the killers, and you kept me in the dark.”
    “We were protecting you,” Brodie grated out.
    “I’m not a child anymore. I don’t need you to shield me from the world. I can help. I
will
help.”
    Mark parked his SUV. He jumped out, then slammed the door behind him.
    Ava could feel his stare on her as he approached. There was just something there—a connection that seemed to make her hypersensitive to him.
    “I was coming back to Austin,” Ava said, her voice low but firm, “even before this creep started messing with me. It’s not about me running from him. It’s about me...facing my life.” A life that was there, in Austin.
    “Thanks for letting me in,” Mark said as he closed in on them. “I came to see Ava.”
    “Right,” Brodie said, voice tight. “I heard all about how you
saw
her this morning and last night.”
    Jennifer slapped his shoulder. “Oh, Brodie, stop acting crazy. Ava’s an adult, Mark’s an adult and