In His Keeping

Caleb raked a hand through his hair. “Before we go any further, there’s something you need to know regarding Ari Rochester’s father, Gavin Rochester.”

Beau lifted an eyebrow and simply waited as he watched the myriad of emotions play out on his brother’s typically schooled and nonexpressive features.

“Gavin was unmarried at the time, but apparently he knew our parents.”

Beau nodded, wondering why Caleb was stating the obvious. Why else would Ari’s father instruct her to seek out Caleb or Beau when neither man had ever laid eyes on Gavin Rochester, much less made his acquaintance?

“He was also the last person to see our parents alive,” Caleb said in an icy tone. “After his marriage and Ari’s birth when Gavin made the move to Houston, effectively wiping all traces of his past from record.”

Beau’s eyes narrowed as he grappled with the possible ramifications. It was no secret between the three Devereaux brothers, although they’d always shielded Tori from the truth, that their parents, or at least their father, hadn’t been clean. They weren’t sure of all he was involved in, but he hadn’t made his fortune entirely by inheriting old “oil” money.

Their parents had lived large and in the fast lane, openly flaunting their wealth and influence. Their children were little more than nuisances and a hindrance to the kind of lifestyle their parents—their mother—wanted to live.

Though a nanny had been hired, for all practical purposes Caleb had been the one to foster and raise his siblings. As a child he’d been solemn and serious, bearing the weight of so much responsibility on his young shoulders. But he’d never complained. And he’d damn well ensured that his siblings were kept as far away from the people their parents regularly mingled with as possible. As a result, he’d been forced to grow up way before his time, his childhood taken away by selfish, thoughtless parents.

Though young, both Caleb and Beau had been old enough to take their parents’ indifference in stride, but Quinn and especially Tori, just a toddler, had been bewildered by the fact that they went largely unnoticed by their mother and father. It had infuriated Beau and he’d spent many a night consoling a crying Tori, or reading her bedtime stories because the nanny, while competent enough, wasn’t a nurturer and she’d quickly learned that she didn’t need to do much in order to satisfy her employer’s “demands.”

The only rules seemed to be to keep them out of the way and make sure they were never underfoot. The brothers had often remarked that they simply didn’t understand why their parents had bothered to have children at all unless it was to cement the image of a wholesome family not involved in whatever his father’s shady dealings had been. It was a well-known fact that being a family man was good for business.

Beau had never admitted it, even to Caleb, but it had been a relief when his parents had died. Or rather murdered. Their deaths had been ruled a murder/suicide, precipitated by his father, but Beau—and Caleb—knew better. Their parents enjoyed the trappings of their wealth and lifestyle far too much to ever willingly give it up. But the case had quickly been closed, never reopened and never questioned. Which added to Beau’s suspicion of a cover-up even more.

“Just what was Gavin Rochester’s relationship with our father?” Beau asked in a deadly quiet voice.

It ate at him that he’d been hired by an innocent-eyed temptress to find and rescue a man who could very well have had a hand in his father’s death. Even if there was no love lost between him and his parents. And then he mentally castigated himself for making such a huge leap. He was naturally cynical—growing up as he did, he’d had no other choice but inherent cynicism—but to automatically make an assumption based on one event was not an inherent quality he possessed.

“That’s the unknown factor at this point,” Caleb admitted. “But certainly something to delve into. Do you not agree?”

“I can answer at least some of the questions regarding Gavin’s relationship with your father,” Zack said, pointedly excluding their mother from the equation.

Both Caleb and Beau glanced Zack’s way in silent inquiry.

“They were business associates of sorts.”

“Of sorts?” Caleb interrupted before Zack could continue. “How is one an ‘associate of sorts’?”

A look of impatience simmered briefly in Zack’s eyes, evidence of his displeasure over being cut short.

“Of sorts meaning there is—or if there is I have yet to find it—a clear-cut association between the two. But Gavin’s name popped up frequently in regard to your father’s various business enterprises.”

The way Zack said “enterprises” immediately raised Beau’s hackles, because it sounded very much like Zack knew or at least suspected what Beau knew to be true. It was one thing for Beau to know—to acknowledge—the truth about what and who his father was. It was quite another for someone not in the Devereaux family to think. Or speculate about.

It was evident that Caleb reacted to the way Zack had worded his statement as well, because his eyes grew cold and Ramie slid her hand from Caleb’s, the overflow of his emotions likely unpleasant for her to bear. It was a testament to just how intently Caleb was focused on Zack’s report that he didn’t seem to notice the loss of Ramie’s touch.

“What kind of enterprises?” Beau asked, his stare piercing as he gazed at Zack, trying to ascertain just how much the other man now knew about Franklin Devereaux.