Headed for Trouble (The McKay Family #1) (35 page)

The three of them looked at her.

She met their gazes, Brannon’s, Gideon’s, finally Moira’s. “How do you know?” she asked again. “Y’all haven’t seen me in years. I could have picked up a lot of bad habits.”

Gideon snorted. “Neve, your worst habit is finding yourself in a mess.”

“Honey.” Moira reached down, going to pick up something from the desk, but Gideon stopped her.

“Evidence,” he said softly.

She rolled her eyes and then snatched a pencil from the cup on his desk, using it in much the same fashion Gideon had. “I’d believe you had sprouted horns and a tail before I’d believe you’d shoot up, Neve.” She nudged the hypodermic out of the mess and slid Neve a look. “You can’t even look at a needle without feeling like you’re going to pass out.”

“I can…” Her gaze dropped to the needle and blood started to roar in her ears. Black dots danced in front of her eyes and she turned away. “Well. Point made.”

Abruptly, she laughed. “Thanks for that.”

“For what?”

She looked back to watch as Moira settled her hips against Gideon’s desk, her back to him as she studied her younger sister. Moira couldn’t see the way Gideon’s gaze slid to her, then away, then back again as if he just couldn’t help a few lingering, longing glances.

He looked up then and saw Neve watching him. His lids drooped over his eyes and she averted her gaze, giving him the illusion of privacy, although both of them knew it was just that—an illusion. She understood how he felt, and she hurt for him.

Completely unaware, Moira lifted a perfectly plucked brow. “Thanks for remembering all the times we had to forcibly hold you down when you had to get shots? Remembering how you once gave me a bloody nose trying to get away from the needles?”

“I think I apologized for that,” Neve said, embarrassed. She looked back at the needle and felt that familiar churning in her gut. She
hated
needles. Hated them.

“So it looks like we’ve got another thing to thank your ex-boyfriend for,” Brannon said and the words were steely, cold. “Trying to set you up like this.”

Neve frowned.

Gideon caught sight of it and lifted a brow.

She gave him a vague smile, her mind already churning, pushing around the new pieces to this very odd puzzle. “I guess my letters are gone,” she said, a constriction settling deep inside her chest. “I … uh. Well. They’re gone.”

“What letters?” Moira asked.

Neve licked her lips and then glanced at Gideon. He rubbed his neck and gave her a short nod.

“I wrote you.” She moved to the window and stared outside. The awning over the pub beckoned her and she thought about going down there, sitting at the bar and just watching Ian. The very idea heated her skin in ways she couldn’t even begin to grasp. Just the thought of him settled her and
that
was unsettling. Instead of thinking about that, she pushed Ian out of her mind. “I wrote you both. Ella Sue, too … although I couldn’t remember her address, so I just sent them to her at Ferry.”

The strained silence behind her left her nerves humming and she felt like she could snap. As an ache settled behind her eyes, she turned to face her brother and sister.

“We…” Moira looked at Brannon and then back to her. “We never got any letters, Neve.”

“I know.” She shot Brannon a look, saw the dull red creeping up his cheeks. She was too tired to be irritated with him, though. “I also know you all wrote me … but I never got a single damn letter.”

While Moira sagged against the desk, dazed, Neve shrugged. “I don’t know what happened to the letters you sent me, although I imagine William had something to do with that. The ones I sent you? No idea. But once I got stateside, they started coming back to me.
Return to sender
was written across each one. They’d never even been opened.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Moira said, shaking her head. She shoved off the desk and started to pace.

Neve could see her reflection in the window, a blur of constant motion and dark red hair. “Tell me about it.”

But she might as well have not said anything.

“Gideon, why would somebody do that? Could it have been William?” She said his name like it tasted bad.

Gideon responded, but Neve didn’t even process his words, staring out the window as she tried to puzzle it out in her head.

She could think of any number of reasons why William would have—and
had
—interfered with her contacting her family. What she didn’t understand was how he’d managed to get in the way even after she left him, even after she left the country—and then Europe altogether.

While they talked behind her, she closed her eyes and fought the half-mad panic that kept trying to well up inside her.

He was close.

He’d been watching her.

Every other time this had happened, she’d taken off and disappeared. She knew it was still an option. She could run and she could, if she tried, find a way to
really
disappear. She had the money and she had the time.

But she was done running.

Fighting those urges wasn’t easy.

This was home.

Courage had nothing do with it, because if she’d been courageous, she would have left him the very first time he’d raised a hand to her. She would have left him once she saw through his machinations—and she had. Twisting everything up on her so that she once more doubted herself, that she continued to doubt her family.

“Neve?”

Tired, she turned back to the room. “What?”

Moira hesitated, whatever question she’d had in mind seeming to freeze in her throat as the two sisters stared at each other.

“Are you…” Moira stopped and huffed out a breath. “I want to ask if you’re okay, and that’s stupid. How can you be okay? I want to do something.”

“You already did.” Chilled despite the heat that warmed the window at her back, Neve rubbed her hands down her arms. “All of you did. You trusted me.”

Brannon made a disgusted noise under his breath. “It’s got nothing to do with trust.” He shook his head, his face dark with a scowl. “We know you.”

“Do you?” She angled her head to the side. “I’ve been gone a long time and I was just a kid when I left. A kid who got into a whole hell of a lot of trouble, who
caused
a whole hell of a lot of trouble.”

Brannon looked away.

“Neve.”

The guilt in Brannon’s eyes, echoes of regret and rage, tugged at her and added to the mess of emotions inside her. But they didn’t
know
her—

“Neve.” Gideon had crossed the room to stand in front of her and he reached out, caught her hand. “
I
know you.” A faint smile curled his lips and she saw the truth there, plainly written in his eyes. Gideon
did
know her. The handful of years that stretched between them made little difference to him. “I didn’t even have a second’s doubt when I saw the drug paraphernalia. Your brother and sister? They didn’t, either.”

He squeezed her hand and then let go. “Now … we need to start thinking. Those things don’t belong to you. We need to focus on other issues now.”

He didn’t elaborate, but she knew those things weren’t things at all. It was a person.

William.

*   *   *

A set of keys dangled in front of him.

Turning his head, Ian met Neve’s eyes.

Neve’s
guarded
eyes.

He’d seen what was in her bag well enough. He had eyes. But he also had a brain. He’d seen the stunned surprise on Neve’s face and more, he remembered.

She was terrified of needles.

Her bag had gone missing either the night she hit town or the next day. Plenty of time for somebody to plant things in there that weren’t hers. Plenty of time, although he couldn’t quite figure out the
why
.

Reaching up, he took the keys, pretending to study them with disappointment. “It’s not his Bugatti.”

“Please.” Some of the tension faded from her rigid form and she slid onto a stool in front of him. “As if he’d let
me
touch those keys—or that car.”

“I drove it once.” Ian braced his hands on the bar and leaned forward slightly, just enough that he could catch the scent of her over everything else. That scent had clung to his skin most of the night and he’d hated to wash it off.

Neve pursed her lips. “He let you drive the Bugatti?”

“Well, we had a wager. He lost. I won.” Ian winked at her. “That was the prize.”

“And if he’d won? What would he have gotten?”

“I don’t know.” Ian shrugged. It was mid-afternoon, past the lunch rush and well before the evening crowd and he wished he didn’t have to be working the bar at the pub.

Neve seemed to be busy examining the surface of the bar and when she started to trace the grain of the glossy wood, he reached out and caught her hand. “I don’t believe it.”

She tensed.

Staring at the crown of her head, he willed her to look up at him.

After a few more moments, she did and he reached out, cupping her cheek in his hand.

He was more than aware that several people were watching them and he didn’t care. What he cared about was bringing the smile back into her eyes. “I saw what was in the bag,” he said, keeping his voice low. “And I don’t believe it.”

When she didn’t respond, he traced his finger over the curve of her lower lip. “That shite, it wasn’t yours.”

“No.” A heavy breath escaped from her and she slumped, almost as if she’d deflated, but he understood. She’d come in here, half afraid of the reception she’d receive. If he’d had his way, he would have tossed her over his shoulder and taken her back to his flat. If it was just the two of them, he could erase the shadows in her eyes.

That wasn’t an option, though.

“How do you know?” she asked softly. “Was … did Brannon or Gideon call you?”

“No.” With a snort, he pushed away from the bar just as one of the servers came up, already giving him the order. He started on a Guinness and dug out a bottle of Bud Light, popping the cap before turning the bottle over to be delivered. He checked the Guinness and went back to Neve. “I knew it just by the look on your face. You’d told me you had a fear of needles and I believed you so the drugs didn’t make sense but I’ve gotten to know you and aside from that … all I had to do was see your face.”

Another order came in; he took care of that and finished off the Guinness before returning to her.

“So, there you go. I don’t believe it.” He shrugged when she glanced up at him. Once more, he braced his hands on the bar’s smooth surface. It was that or reach for her and he didn’t really want to go pulling her over the bar.

“I was…” She broke off and then gave him a jerky shrug. “I was thinking I’d hang around. Eat some dinner. You can drive me home when you’re done.”

He had other ideas in mind that sounded preferable, but the bruised look in her eyes had him keeping quiet on those plans. “I think we can make that work.”

He spun the keys and then leaned over, pressing a quick, hard kiss to her lips, ignoring her quick gasp. “Maybe you and I can talk about our plans, then.”

“What plans?” Neve’s brow furrowed as she stared at him.

“The plans I’m putting together for our next date.” He slid a finger down the back of her hand, studying her from under his lashes. “I’ve got an urge to seduce you, Neve McKay.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Ian studied her solemnly and then looked down. After another moment, he picked up a letter and added it to the board game in front of them.

Neve looked down and felt her face go red as she read the word
c-u-m
. “That doesn’t count as a word. Well, not unless you’re a thirteen-year-old boy.”

Ian winked at her. “A thirteen-year-old boy lives in the heart of every man, love.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re just trying to get cheap points now. I’m going to win and you know it.”

“Well, if we’d played strip Scrabble, it wouldn’t matter who won or lost. But we had to play it with our clothes … oi, that’s not a word, either!” He glared at the board where she’d used a
d
to make out the word
v-a-d-e-r
.

“Sure it is. As in
Darth Vader
.” She smugly tallied up the points. “If you can use dirty words, then I can use names.”

“Dirty words, eh?”

She realized she’d somehow unconsciously challenged him. A few minutes later, he had the word
c-u-n-t
and she wrinkled her nose at him. “I don’t like that word.”

“I don’t see why not.” He shrugged, unabashed. “It’s short for cunnilingus, you know, and you
do
enjoy that. So if I were to say, Neve, I want to lick your cunt—”

She threw one of the little letters at him and he didn’t dodge it in time. “Come now,” he said, rubbing at the red mark on his cheek. “What if you’d hit me in me mouth? I wouldn’t be able to put it to good use later.”

“Are we going to play or are you just using this to try and embarrass me?”

Ian reached out and stroked his finger down her hand. “Why would it embarrass you to know that I plan on putting my hands all over you later, Neve?”

Her breath hitched when he caught her hand and lifted it to his lips, catching one finger in his mouth and sucking on it. Heat fluttered inside, then spread when he pulled that finger out and moved to the other. “It wouldn’t embarrass me if you sat there and told me that you wanted to put your mouth on my cock. Or any other part of me.”

Before she could formulate any sort of reply, he let her hand go and then braced his elbows on the coffee table. The lights were dim, the remnants of a pizza on the table next to them. “Right, then. Your turn, Neve.”

Dazed, she looked down at her letters.

She had no idea what possessed her but she did it.

She reached out and took from the words already on the board, highly aware of Ian’s bemused expression. As she spelled out the word
c-o-c-k
, she didn’t dare look at him.

A moment later, the Scrabble board went flying and she was on her back on the couch, with Ian sprawled on top of her.

“I think you win that round,” he said, his voice gruff.