Headed for Trouble (The McKay Family #1) (4 page)

She couldn’t stand the idea of parting with it.

Curling up in it, she drew her knees to her chest and watched as Brannon threw himself down on the couch. “Who called you?” she asked.

“Who didn’t?” He jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “I’ve had”—he pulled out his phone, mouth twitching in a sardonic echo of a smile—“fourteen calls in since about nine forty-five. The first was from Shayla Hardee. The next one was twenty minutes later, from Cy Magnusson, and the list just goes on.”

He threw the phone down on the table in front of him with barely controlled violence.

“Not a damn call from Neve, though.”

Moira didn’t say anything.

She’d been listening to the phone here at the house. Listening to her cell, watching her e-mail—no call, no e-mail, no text. Not a damn thing. She’d even checked her damn spam folder to make sure her baby sister hadn’t shot her a message that might have gotten caught in the Internet version of the junk drawer.

“It’s like she’s forgotten we even exist,” Moira said, her throat tight.

“She hasn’t forgotten—”

“Oh, please.” Cutting Brannon off, Moira shot up from the chair. Unable to be still another moment, she started to pace. “What would you call it? She storms out of town after a tantrum ten years ago and other than a few cards here and there at the beginning, a couple of phone calls … that’s … it.” Her voice went husky. Stopping in front of the windows facing out over the landscaped backyard, she murmured, “That’s it. It’s like that one fight undoes everything. We mattered that much.”

A taut silence passed, and then Brannon said, “We could have reached out at any time ourselves, Moira.”

“We’ve
tried
.” Turning to face him, she lifted her hand, as though the answer to all the problems, all the mistakes she’d made, all the misery hung in the air and all she had to do was just
find
it. Then, slowly, she curled her hand into a fist and lowered it. “We tried. I called her, tried to get her to come to the wedding. You wrote her … went to New York to meet her after one of her shows.”

Brannon laughed derisively. “We can’t blame her for that. How the hell was I supposed to know she’d gotten that big?”

“If she’d answered her damn phone, then she would have known you were coming, and that wouldn’t have been an issue.”

Instead of answering right away, Brannon was quiet, staring at absolutely nothing.

It was a habit he had that drove her nuts. He’d take his time to think through just about everything, and by the time he responded to the simplest thing she was ready to shake him.

Finally, he looked up at her. “We’d told her that she couldn’t do it on her own, that she didn’t know how to survive away from us. We hit her where it hurt the most, right at her pride. And…” He blew out a breath and stood up. “Fuck, Moira. You laughed when she said she wanted to go to NYU instead of Ole Miss. You looked like you’d have a heart attack when she said she wanted to be a model. With everything she said she wanted, neither of us listened. Is it any wonder she was so upset when she left?”

*   *   *

“Well.”

At the sound of that voice, smooth as molasses but still somehow sharp with a rebuke, both of them looked up. Brannon was already on his feet, hands behind his back. “Miss Ella Sue,” he said.

“Don’t you Miss Ella Sue me,” she said, pursing her lips at him for a long moment. Her eyes, nearly black in the dark oval of her face, narrowed as she studied him and then shifted to look at Moira. Ella Sue Pendleton had been the with the family for nearly forty years, first as a cook and and then as the housekeeper. They both adored and feared her, even now. When their parents had died eighteen years ago, it had been Ella Sue who had stood between them and the wolves while they grieved, and when the state came knocking to determine if the
needs of the minor children were being met
, they’d had to deal with Ella Sue each time. She’d somehow managed to inspire the same measure of awe and fear in every single caseworker who ever came through the door.

Brannon and Moira had been dealing with her disappointment in them for ten years.

She’d never said it, but they’d both sensed it.

“She’s not here,” Brannon said, feeling like he’d brought home a
D
on his chemistry test again—and he wasn’t even in school anymore, damn it.

Ella Sue arched a smooth brow and made a soft
hmmmm
under her breath. “I’d imagine not. If one of my babies had decided to come home to visit and the other two didn’t call me, I’d be very put out. But you two know that.”

It wasn’t a question.

But both Brannon and Moira responded, “Yes, Ella Sue.”

She moved with the grace of a woman twenty years her junior, coming inside to sit in a wingback chair that angled away from the fireplace. “I do believe I’ve been waiting ten years to hear those words from you, Brannon.”

Blood rushed up to stain his cheeks red. “Ah …
yes, Ella Sue
?”

“Smart-ass boy.” She shook her head, but a smile tugged at her lips. “No. I meant about your baby sister, and you know it.” She looked away and her shoulders slumped. “We fucked her up right and proper, we did.”

Brannon rubbed at his ear. “Ah … we?”

“Yes, Brannon.” She looked at him. “
We
. As in you”—she jabbed a finger at him, then at Moira—“you … and me.”

She smoothed down the long black skirt she wore, staring at the plain material, but her eyes saw something else.

“
I
should have done better by her.”

“Ella Sue,” Moira said, her voice soft. “She was my respon—”

“Don’t you hand me lines about responsibility,” Ella Sue interrupted, her voice flat. “You know I loved y’all as if you were my own—and I
should
have done better by her. She’d lost her parents at such an early age. You were only eighteen, in your first year of college, Moira. Hardly more than a child yourself, dealing with school … you weren’t ready to become a parent to that girl overnight. Brannon certainly wasn’t. She
needed
a mother. She needed
me
to be that.” Her voice softened as she looked away again. “I thought if she just had me there to love her, it would be enough. But she needed so much more.”

Silence fell.

Taut moments ticked by.

Abruptly, Brannon stood, the motion rough, restrained violence in every move. “What she needed was to stop being a spoiled brat,” he said, his voice flat. “She thought she should have everything her way, never have to be told no. She thought she could get away with murder, do anything she wanted and never have to suffer the consequences. I’m sorry, Ella Sue. I know she had it harder than we did and, yeah, I regret how things were that last day, but I’m not getting on board with this
poor Neve
party train.”

He started to the door.

“When was the last time you were around to tell her no?”

Ella Sue’s question stopped him.

He turned to look at her, a response automatically rising to his lips, but the words wouldn’t come together. He stopped and glanced at Moira.

“I asked you, Brannon,” Ella Sue said, her voice firm. “You were gone to school those last few years. I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t have gone—you had yourself to see to and you were
not
responsible for parenting that girl. But when you did come home…” Her words trailed off and a heavy sigh escaped her. “You didn’t have time for her. She was too much trouble, too annoying, too loud. You brushed her aside more often than not.”

Brannon didn’t like the hollow, empty feeling that settled in the pit of his gut. Uncertain how to deal with it, he turned his back, staring around the house, at the familiar paintings on the wall, at the wide staircase with its hand-carved railings, and at the way the glass from the custom chandelier cast a gentle golden glow on everything.

“When you did have time for her, did you ever listen? When she asked for things, did you ever tell her
no
?”

When he didn’t answer, Ella Sue looked at Moira.

Moira’s dark green eyes glittered. “I did my best. I was juggling my duties with the board, trying to figure out how to fill Dad’s shoes, and I barely managed to finish school. I did my
best
.” She looked at Brannon and added, “We both did.”

But her voice didn’t sound so sure.

“I know you did,” Ella Sue said quietly. “And I told you to let me help. I was the one who was here when she got home from school, the one she asked if she could go with friends. I
rarely
told her no. Rarely gave her any limits. I made more than a few mistakes. I acknowledge that. If she got in trouble, well…” Ella Sue shrugged now. “She’d had a rough time of it. I could understand why she acted out. I’d talk and talk and talk … but I never could
see
. Our
best
should have included a little more parenting—spending more time with her, and not just … giving in.”

Now Moira’s eyes fell away.

Ella Sue rose, her quiet sigh echoing around the room.

“Children learn limits because the adults around them
set
the limits. We never gave her limits.” She moved to the doorway, pausing just once to look back. “You let me know if she comes by when I’m not working.”

*   *   *

“I told you I’d find you…”

A hand pressed over her mouth and Neve tried to scream. The knee digging into her stomach prevented that, though, and she swung, tried to hit him. She knew who it was. He’d found her.

Again.

She had to get him off her.

Had to get away, call for help, something, anything—

Swiping out a hand, she scrambled for the thin metal baton she’d taken to keeping in the bed with her. But it was—

“Looking for this…?”

Wait …

She sucked in a breath. Something was wrapped around her throat. Something silk and smooth and even though she hadn’t known what it was at the time, she could see it now. The green scarf. That lovely green scarf he’d given her—he’d use it to kill her now.

You’re dreaming
, a calm voice at the back of her mind said.

The rest of her mind dissolved into panic.

It didn’t matter that she’d had this dream a hundred times—more.

It didn’t matter that, in reality, she’d gotten free. That she’d managed to scream and grab the glass on the bedside table.

All that mattered was the air dwindling away in her lungs, and his ugly, vicious voice.

Scream, you little cunt
—

*   *   *

Neve jerked upright.

Sweat bloomed on her skin, sticky and cold.

And in her hand was the solid, five-inch-long piece of metal she’d started sleeping with more than a year ago.

After he’d gotten in.

He’d been gone by the time the police had arrived. The only sign that anything had happened at all were the broken shards from the glass she’d slammed against his head, and the water that had spilled over them both.

They hadn’t believed her, were convinced she was having nightmares and panicking, because of the news she’d gotten.

Who
wouldn’t
have nightmares over that?

But they’d only done a sketchy investigation—and they’d been wrong.

She’d seen him two days later at the teahouse in Dingle, and the side of his nearly bald scalp had a long laceration. She’d hit him there, with the glass.

And he’d stroked it as he smiled at her. Then, as she went to rush out, he’d lifted something from the table.

Her green silk scarf. The one she’d left behind when she fled from him.

Rising from the bed, she moved to the window and brushed back the curtains, staring out into the pale, pearly gray of the coming dawn.

Was he out there yet?

Had he followed her this far?

You’re mine, Neve. Wherever you go, wherever you run, I’ll find you. I’ll always find you.

*   *   *

“I’ll find you.”

He stood in front of a window, staring out over the twinkling lights of the city, fingering the green silk scarf with absentminded familiarity. He could remember when he’d given it to her. The green was almost the same shade as her eyes, and he’d made love to her wearing nothing but that scarf.

It had been their first time. She’d tried not to cry and he’d loved it, loved knowing no other man had touched her.

Every time she wore the scarf after that night, he remembered how her breaths had hitched, the soft sobs.

He remembered. All of it.

It was nearly midnight. There was still traffic on the road but the noise was muted. He took little notice of it.

She’d had friends here.

He’d hoped to find Neve here, but the investigator had called only hours ago, claiming he’d picked up her trail in Memphis. A report that she’d been seen in a women’s shelter.

His lip curled at the thought of it.

He wanted to believe it was false, but he’d found her at one himself in New York, months earlier.

Absently, he reached up and rubbed the scar behind his ear. Yet one more thing she’d pay for.

She had done the one thing he’d told her to never do—she’d run from him.

Again
.

She’d run from him. Worse, she’d
humiliated
him.

But he was getting closer.

Memphis. He could be there in hours. He’d get a night’s rest and then move on in the morning. Memories of the green silk twining around her neck, memories of her dark red hair fisted around his hands. Her skin, soft and pale. She never freckled. Whether it was because she slathered her skin with sunscreen or she just had good genes he didn’t know, but he had always loved that delicate skin, unmarred by a blemish, a freckle, even a scar. He’d loved the way he’d seen her eyes go wide when she realized he’d found her.

How she’d struggled to scream.

It had been almost as good as the way she’d moved against him … before.

Lids closed, he let the memory wash over him.

They’d have it again.

He’d find her. He’d take her back and make things as they should be.