Headed for Trouble (The McKay Family #1) (16 page)

“I doubt you signed on to spend your time changing tires…” A glint of amusement danced in her eyes as she grinned at him. “Chief.”

Was it pathetic that he’d be willing to do just that if it meant he could be near her? Screw the anger he’d felt. It gave him a reason to move closer, hold out his hand for her keys, to stand close enough to smell her hair and catch the hint of honeysuckle on her skin—she’d always loved the smell of it.

Get a grip. Take care of the tire. Leave.
Bracing himself to do just that, he moved around to study the tire. The smile on his face faded as he knelt down and got a good look at it.

“Moira, you had any trouble around here lately?” he asked softly, although he knew the answer. Or at least he knew better.

“What? No. Why?” The confusion in her voice was clear.

He reached out and touched the ugly slash in the rubber. “Your tire was slashed.”

“My—
what
?”

He looked up at her, but his response was interrupted by a familiar voice, one that grated against Gideon’s nerves like metal dragging down a chalkboard. “Moira, pet, what are you doing on the ground?”

She rolled her eyes to the sky, an irritated sigh escaping her. “I’m playing in the dirt, Charles. I had a long day and I’m bored so I thought I’d relax a little before I headed home.”

Even though the cop in him was already working the puzzle, Gideon found himself smiling. “Want to go look for worms, Moira?”

She laughed softly.

Rising, he held out a hand. She accepted, and he couldn’t help but notice the way her shoulders stiffened as Charles approached. Gideon held her gaze a long moment. “It has been a while since we’ve gone fishing, you know.”

Something softened in her eyes. “Hasn’t it?” Slowly, she tugged her hand away and then turned to look at Charles. “Somebody slashed my tire.”

*   *   *

It was embarrassing, Moira couldn’t help but think, how Gideon Marshall managed to make her feel like this, even though it had been years since she had broken up with him, years since she’d done something that had ripped the heart out of her.

Giddy, soft, excited, the same way she’d felt when he’d kissed her for the first time. They’d been fourteen, on the Ferris wheel at the Riverboat Festival.

Those had been good days. Mom and Dad had still been alive. She had just been … a kid. Able to just …
be
. Life had been simple then. She hadn’t had to worry about … well, anything.

She had, though.

Far too much.

Just like she did now.

Sighing, she brushed back a stray lock of hair as Charles came up. As he always did, he stood too close, invading space that was no longer his to invade. They’d separated two years ago, but they’d been well into the plans for the museum by then and he was too damn good at his job. The divorce, so unbelievably civil, had been final for well over a year.

The divorce had been as void of passion as their marriage.

Passion—something that had been sadly lacking from her life for too long. Brushing the thought aside, she casually shifted away under the pretense of taking a better look at the tire.

Sure enough, now that she was looking, she could see it. The tire was slashed. “What the hell,” she muttered.

“The timing is … concerning.”

She sensed more than saw how Gideon’s attention shifted to Charles, and her ex-husband was aware of it, too, although his pale blue eyes never left her face. Of course, he wouldn’t pay any attention to Gideon.

Gideon was simply a public servant in Charles’s eyes, unworthy of notice most of the time.

“You going to elaborate on that?” she asked when her ex didn’t continue.

He pursed his lips as though he had to consider it.

But she knew Charles a little too well.

The man was brilliant, but he was a born manipulator, a fact she hadn’t realized until it was too late. She cared about him, and she knew he cared about her, but everything was a game of chess to him.

Including her.

Under the weight of her stare, Charles finally sighed, one manicured hand coming up to smooth his tie down. “Moira, love, surely you noticed how upset she was.”

“Who?” she said, confused.

His mouth flattened out and he looked away. “Neve.”

A low, harsh noise came from beside her. Automatically, she lifted a hand and rested it on Gideon’s arm. Her hand buzzed from that light contact and she had to resist the urge to jerk it back, resist the urge to rub her fingers together to get rid of that tingling sensation. Damn him for still being able to get to her like this. Damn him for never finding somebody. If he had, maybe she could have made a better go of it with Charles.

And that was the problem, really.

She’d never been able to give her heart to Charles because in her heart, she was still the girl she’d been all those years ago. The girl who’d been in love with the boy from the wrong side of the tracks—the troublemaker, the one who everybody had said would come to no good.

Yet here he was, the chief of police, and he was fighting the same anger she was—anger, because somebody had insulted her baby sister.

“Just what does Neve have to do with my tire, Charles?” she asked, lowering her hand to her side once she was relatively sure that Gideon wasn’t going to say anything—not yet, anyway. “Are you implying she slashed my tire?
Really
?”

“Of course not.” He moved toward her.

She hesitated, unwilling to let him draw closer, but reluctant to let him pin her up against the car or between him and Gideon. Now, if it was Gideon and, oh, say Tom Hiddleston, she might not mind. A Gideon and Tom sandwich was perfect fantasy material. But Gideon and Charles would be better if they were kept far apart, so Moira remained where she was, although she did lift a hand, holding him at bay. “Then exactly what
are
you saying?”

“I’m not
saying
anything,” he said, his clipped accent making the words harsher, more biting. There were times when that British accent had seemed so urbane, so sexy and seductive. But lately, it was just … cold. Charles reached up and, although he smiled at her, that was all she felt. Cold. It was hard to warm up to him, though, when every time she looked at him she remembered how she found him in bed with another woman.

“Moira, love…”

She tugged her chin out of his grasp when he tried to cup her face. “Just spill it, Charles, okay?”

“Very well.” He tucked a strand of her hair back from her face. “Surely you noticed. Neve’s in trouble. It seemed that she…” He paused and looked away. “I think she needs help. Of course, I never did get the chance to know her well since she hasn’t come home and we only had that one brief encounter in London years ago, but…” He looked away. “I suspect some of the trouble she always seemed to find has followed her home.”

Moira went to argue, but then she stopped. She couldn’t argue. Not really.

The look she’d seen in Neve’s eyes, how thin her little sister was … and the way she’d clutched at Moira, as though her world was falling apart. Something
was
wrong. Moira knew that in her gut. The thing was … she
knew
her sister.

Charles had only met her once, at a brief awkward dinner when they’d been in London on a trip a few months after their marriage. It had lasted a few short hours.

Neve hadn’t come home for the wedding.

She hadn’t called.

Moira shoved that hurt down. She had to. If she let herself think about it, it was going to break her heart, all over again. Distraction was always key when it came to avoiding personal miseries, so she pinned her ex with a narrow look. “Since when are you an expert on all things Neve?”

“I’m hardly an expert, pet.” He turned away, head bent. “But you know me. She just looked unhappy, and I don’t have to know her to understand she’s never been the easiest of souls.”

The easiest of souls
. Moira managed to keep that miserable laugh trapped in her throat.

And, yeah, she knew Charles. He seemed to see clear through to a person. It made him useful in his job—he was a curator, but he’d also proved to be very helpful when they’d been adding to their collection. When Moira tended to take people at their word, he’d always known when somebody just needed more coaxing, more time, more money … more charm. That sort of skill came from knowing people, understanding them. That he’d looked at Neve and seen the misery inside her shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“I can’t worry about this now,” she said, shaking her head. “Whoever did this, I’m sure it had nothing to do with Neve.”

She turned to look at Gideon.

If she hadn’t known him as well as she did, she would have missed it.

But she did know him.

Moira knew Gideon, far better than she knew the man she’d just turned her back on, and the glint in his eyes had her narrowing her own.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He pulled the radio from his collar and started talking into it. “We need to get a report done up.”

“Gideon. I know that look.”

He ignored her blithely as he circled the car. His shrewd eyes focused on the lazy, elegant spread of the museum behind her and then he just shook his head.

“Moira, you want to tell me just
why
you had to park in the
one
spot that’s practically blind?”

“Ah…” She blinked and then looked around. Her car was tucked in the corner, where the shade fell over it during the worst of the day’s heat. Of course, that meant the car was in an area where it was bordered by trees on two sides. “Well. It gets hot.”

“It gets hot,” he muttered. Gideon shook his head and scraped his nails over the light growth of stubble darkening his jaw. “And you see the tire that got slashed … right? It’s out of view of the camera.” He demonstrated, kneeling in the spot, tapping the area next to him.

With a groan, she hunkered down, close enough that the scent of him flooded her head and, although it had to be her imagination, she thought she could feel the heat of his thigh reaching out to warm hers as they knelt there. As he gestured over the top of the car, she peeked up obediently. “I get the point, Chief Marshall,” she said sourly. “I can’t see the cameras. If I can’t see them, they aren’t going to see me, either.”

Patient blue eyes stared back at her.

That patience of his just pissed her off sometimes.

“What?” she half shouted.

“Get cameras—
and
security lights—that cover the area out here better,” he said, shaking his head.

“We live in Treasure. It’s practically Mayberry,” she pointed out. “The most crime we have around here is shoplifting down at the gas station or the occasional game of mailbox baseball.” She paused and then grimaced. “Unless Barney and Bertram start going at it. Are they together again?”

Gideon ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. “Yeah. They are.”

Barney and Bertram were two of the stranger—and not always in the best way—characters in Treasure. A gay couple who had moved to town nearly fifteen years ago, they had a very on-and-off-again relationship. Bert was actually bisexual and, when he wasn’t with Barney, he tended to hook up with any number of females, a fact that drove Barney crazy. That was mostly why he did it, a fact he’d admitted to. Whenever they got back together, things got busy for local law enforcement.

Their idea of foreplay involved a lot of … physicality. The rougher, the better. Without fail, when the cops arrived, the two of them would be both fighting and laughing, or … very much distracted.

And their odd idea of affection was only between the two of them. With anybody else, they were as peaceful and placid as a couple of old dogs sunning themselves on the porch. Moira had heard they’d met up on a boxing circuit in Atlanta years before. She didn’t know if this really was their idea of foreplay, or what.

“Barney and Bert don’t have anything to do with the tire, though,” Gideon said, his aggravation bleeding through his calm words. “At least I don’t think … unless you’ve been flirting with Bert. Barney gets testy about that.”

“Oh, please. Bert’s not my style.” She rolled her eyes and rose, wincing at the pull in her thighs. “Even if the big protective teddy thing is kind of cute. But he can’t ever be faithful.”

Moira managed, barely, not to look at Charles. Her voice cooled slightly, though, as she finished. “That’s sort of key for me.”

As Charles’s eyes zoomed in on her, she locked her gaze on Gideon.

“Not a bad key, in my opinion,” Gideon mused. Then he stood up and pulled a notepad from his pocket. As Charles opened his mouth, he smoothly cut the other man off. “Now … let’s see about taking care of that report.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The sight of the shining silver Porsche pulling in front of Ferry made Neve want to throw herself back into the bed, pull the covers up over her head. She didn’t need to see the perfectly groomed dark head to know who it was.

That wasn’t a car Moira would drive, and it sure as hell wasn’t Brannon.

No, it had to be the one and only Charles Hurst.

How much
?

Her lip curled and she threw her legs over the window seat where she’d been nestled, watching for her older sister to come home.

She needed to talk to Moira. She needed to get this over with.

But as she stood there, Charles flicked a glance up. He couldn’t see her from here. Maybe it had been years since she’d been home, but Ferry was still
home
and she knew it like the back of her hand. This was her spot, had always been her spot. The slant of the sun and the angle of the windows made it impossible for anybody to see much beyond the sparkle of the light glinting off the glass.

But she felt like he was looking for her.

How much
?

Aggravated all over again, she spun on her heel. As she passed by the door to her suite of rooms, she grabbed the shoes she kicked off there and then hit the back stairs. She wasn’t going to hang around if he was going to be here.

Especially since she had a feeling he’d come to see her.