In Plain Sight (Stolen Hearts) (7 page)

“Why don’t you start your own gallery?”

“No.”

“Why not? You have a solid background in art, and we practically lived in Mother’s gallery when we were growing up. You certainly know the business.”

Both he and Sophie had studied art in university. Sophie had made a good living as an art restorer until Gage had come along. Rafe still hadn’t forgiven himself for not realizing Sophie needed to paint her own paintings. Not only that, she was good at it, but she’d buried her talent for years because of their mother’s jealousy. It had taken Sophie almost being killed, and Gage’s faith in her, for her to start painting again. For that alone he owed the FBI agent.

While Sophie had worked at art restoration, he’d drifted from one thing to another. He wasn’t a good enough artist nor did he possess the driving interest to move forward in that field. But he had a good eye and had bought and sold paintings for a few years. Until he’d sold a forgery and his reputation had died. Seemed to be his M.O. Get a good thing going then fuck it up royally.

The money from his trust fund and what he’d invested while modeling was enough to cover most of his expenses, but that was beside the point. He loved a challenge. Too bad the only challenge he’d run into lately was Bridget. God, a man would have his hands full, trying to handle her.

Sophie nudged him with her foot. “You’re daydreaming.” She yawned. “I hope Vince comes soon.”

Rafe jerked his head up. “I thought you said you had to call him. I was going to get a taxi for you. To save him the drive,” he tacked on.

“Did I say that? I meant I already called him on the way here.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked it. “He hasn’t called to say he’ll be late, so he’s probably on his way.”

Rafe dropped her foot and stood.
No. No, and no
. The minute they made eye contact, Gage would know something was up. Hell, he’d probably know Irish had been here and left the stones somewhere in the apartment. Gage had this scary internal lie-detector. Rafe had never met anyone more suited to his job than his brother-in-law.

“Rafe, I actually came here to talk to you about something.”

He swung his attention back to his sister. Tears flooded her eyes, and her mouth tugged down at the corners. She hunched forward as if trying to curl in on herself. He’d never seen her look so unhappy. He sank to the couch beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m dying, Rafe.”

His heart stopped cold. When she caught his look of terror, she choked out a laugh.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I’m not dying, dying.”

Thank Christ
. He put a hand over his racing heart. It felt like it wanted to jump right out of his chest.

She plowed a hand through her hair, and he wished it was still spiky and would stand up all wonky like it used to.

“I hate living in the suburbs. I’m drowning out there, and you know how much Vince loves his house. It’s a great house. And yard, and the studio he built for me. He always tries so hard to make sure I’m happy. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I be like everyone else?”

Rafe kissed the top of her head. “Vince fell in love with you, not everyone else. You’ve got to tell him, Sophie. He can probably sense you’re not happy, and he deserves to know what you’re feeling.”

“I can’t. It’ll break his heart.”

“So what are you going to do?”

She stared at her hands and took a deep breath. “Would you—”

“No.” He pulled his arm away and stood up and started pacing. “First of all, this is between you two. You need to resolve your own problems. And secondly, remember that stunt I pulled when you two first met? I tried to get you to break up with him? He’ll think I’m pulling the same kind of shit, and then he’ll kill me.” Rafe tried to laugh. “You’ll be stuck in the suburbs without a brother.”

Sophie burst into tears. “I can’t tell him. He’s going to be so disappointed in me.”

The door to the apartment swung open, and Gage loomed in the doorway. He looked at Sophie, then Rafe, his face a stark blank. “I knocked, but no one answered. What’s going on?”

Sophie sobbed and shook her head. Rafe moved to console her, but Gage growled a feral sound that froze Rafe in his tracks. Hell, he’d thought he’d seen Gage look scary before, but nothing he’d ever seen came close to the murderous expression on Gage’s face right now.

He checked Sophie. Crying that hard couldn’t be good for the baby.

Man
.

“Sophie hates living in the suburbs. She wants to move back to the city.” He said it like one long word.

Rafe felt a kick of compassion. He’d never seen a man look so scared or so devastated as Vince did. Before he could say anything, Vince staggered out the door and disappeared.

Sophie started sobbing again.

Rafe hurried into the washroom to get her a wet facecloth and searched the medicine cabinet for a bottle of painkillers as well. Sophie was going to have a helluva headache once she stopped crying. He hesitated before he closed the door to the cabinet. Would Bridget have hidden the stones in there? She’d been in his bathroom just before she’d left. He’d have to check later. One emergency was all he could handle at a time.

“You gotta stop crying like that or you’re going to make yourself and Elmo sick.” He handed her the wet washcloth.

“Elmo?” She hiccupped back another sob.

“If it’s a boy.”

“Elmo’s going to be afraid of his father,” she wailed.

“No he’s not. You’ve seen Vince with his nephew. That kid worships him.”

“I’m so sorry, Rafe. I didn’t mean to pull you into the middle of all this.”

“He’s scared he’s going to lose you.” Again with the championing Vince’s cause. He made himself sick.

Sophie’s tears welled up. “Where are you going?”

“To find the bastard and talk to him if I can. I don’t know how to stop your crying jag except get him back here so you two can talk.”

Sophie plowed into him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I love you.”

“Me, too, you. This could take five minutes. Could take an hour. So, don’t worry.”

“Okay.” But she was back to sobbing by the time he closed the door behind him.

He knew Gage loved Sophie, and that he’d do anything for her. And, okay, he’d put heart and soul into his house. But it didn’t make sense that Vince would get so bent out shape about Sophie wanting to move back to the city. Unhappy, okay. Angry enough to turn his back on Sophie when she was obviously falling apart—and pregnant with his child.
Never
. Something big had to be wrong with his brother-in-law. Maybe for once he and Vince could actually talk instead of just grunting at each other in passing.

One good thing, he thought as he stepped out into the hot summer night, Bridget O’Neill wasn’t likely to be mentioned tonight.

He looked up and down the street. It was getting late and not many people were about now. He didn’t see Gage hulking in the shadows anywhere, so he looked in the only place he could think of, the parking lot behind his building. Rafe didn’t know if he was relieved or scared when he saw Gage leaning against the front bumper of his truck.

Rafe shuffled over to the truck and sat on the hood of the car parked in front of the truck.

“Is Sophie still crying?” Gage asked after a minute of ignoring him.

“What do you think? So, what’s the deal?” Rafe asked. “You must have seen this coming. Sophie’s no good at pretense. You must have known she was unhappy.”

Gage stared at his boots. “I thought it was me that was making her unhappy, you know? But there she is pregnant and we’ve only been married a year, so what is she going to do? She’s stuck with me.”

“Then,” Rafe started cautiously, “that’s good news that it’s just the suburbs. There’s an easy solution to the problem. Right?”

“Easy?” Gage exploded off his truck and paced the parking lot. “I can’t afford to buy a place in the city.”

“Sell the house.”

Gage turned back to him. “When Sophie agreed to move out there with me, I took out a second mortgage. I wanted her to have the best of everything and to build her studio, and...stuff. Yeah, I could sell the house, but all the money will go to the bank.”

Ouch
. How do you tell the woman of your dreams she’s stuck living in a place she doesn’t like because you can’t afford anything else? No wonder Gage had looked so desperate.

He hated the thought of Sophie’s unhappiness and how that could affect her marriage. They’d gone through a lot of shit together growing up, and he’d often wondered if he’d have survived without his sister believing in him. It was payback time.

“Let’s take a drive,” Rafe said as he opened the passenger door of Gage’s truck.

“Why?”

“I’ve got something to show you.”

“What about Sophie? I can’t just leave her up there alone.”

“I told her we might need some time. This won’t take long.” He climbed into the truck.

“Cool truck,” he said when Gage got in and cranked the motor.

Gage’s mouth twitched. “Sophie loves it. Where to?”

“You remember where my mother’s gallery was?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s where we’re going.”

Gage pointed the truck toward Rafe’s old neighborhood. “Why are we going there? There was nothing left after the fire.”

“’Cause I bought the lot and had it bulldozed.”

Gage glanced at him. “No kidding.”

“I’ve been planning to build there eventually. Why not now? It’s a good neighborhood,” he pushed on, not giving Gage a chance to tell him the idea sucked. It did, and it didn’t. Bottom line, Sophie would love living there again. “Got a park right across from it. There’s a school in the area. Lots of little shops and boutiques, but most everything closes up after five.”

He kept up the chatter until they arrived in the neighborhood. He hopped out as soon as Gage pulled into a parking spot across the street and killed the motor. “Come on. Let’s take a look.”

They walked over to the empty lot where his mother’s gallery used to be. He’d been looking for something to sink money into shortly after the fire and figured he couldn’t go wrong with real estate. Since then the lot had sat empty. But he could see clearly what he wanted to do with it. He only hoped Gage would see the same thing.

“I build the bottom floor, you and Sophie build the top two. You can make the house as big as you want, have as much room as you want. You can even leave space out back for a garden and stuff.”

Gage hunched down into his jacket, although the night was warm. “What? You want to live with us?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a happy plan. I meant I build a commercial space at ground level. I don’t know what I’m going to use it for, but I promise I won’t sell forgeries out the back door.”

Silence. Okay. “Joke, Gage. You got it, right? All I’m saying is, there’re alternatives you might not have thought about.”

Gage turned and looked at the park across the street. “Listen, I never…” He stopped, cleared his throat. “Thanks, Rafe. It’s an incredibly generous offer, and I appreciate it. You’re right, this is a nice neighborhood. Sophie would love living here. But I still can’t afford to build. I’m stuck where I am, and so is Sophie. If she stays with me.”

Rafe could feel the emotion pour off the man standing beside him. He was afraid if he looked at him, Gage would splinter to pieces.

“I probably have the money to build all three floors,” he said, carefully. Really? Where the hell did he think he could find half a million dollars? He didn’t even have a job.

He pushed on. “You and Sophie can rent to own. It would be the same as paying a mortgage, but you’d be paying me. Or the bank, through me. Or after you sell the house, you can get another mortgage for this place.” That’d work, wouldn’t it?

“Think about it. You and Sophie talk it over. Just promise me you’ll talk to Sophie about everything. She’s got an active imagination. You’ve got to nip it in the bud sometimes.”

“Why are you doing this? I’ve always been a prick to you.” Gage continued staring across the street.