Pass The Parcel (9 page)

Getting out before they woke was priority
number one.

Her skirt and top felt skimpier in the bright
light of day, but there was a small part of her that was impressed
with her walk of shame. The rest of her, the timid little girl
who’d never once gone after what she wanted like she had last night
was mortified to be wandering around a strange neighbourhood
without any way of getting home.

Kitty’s face burned with embarrassment, and
she knew anyone watching would know exactly what she’d been up to
the night before. Her body still hummed with satisfaction and a
need that hadn’t been satiated. She’d known one night wouldn’t be
enough, but she didn’t have the courage to go for more. Better to
do the walking than to be walked. And that’s what she was
doing.

Leaving before they could ask her to.

There must have been someone somewhere
looking out for her, because when she hit the end of the street she
saw the rush of cars on a major road only a block away. Picking up
her pace, Kitty looked straight ahead and pretended she wasn’t out
of place, pretended she was taking a normal Sunday-morning walk.
Not that there appeared to be anyone around to see her.

Hopefully, it stayed that way until she
managed to flag down a taxi.

Her luck held when she reached the busy road.
Fifty metres away to the left was a set of traffic lights, and
right in front was a taxi with its rooftop light illuminated.

Thank God.

Raising her arm, she stood on the curb and
flagged the cab. The headlights flashed and the indicator light
blinked out. For a split second, she thought the driver was fobbing
her off, but when the traffic lights changed, the taxi headed in
her direction and pulled to the curb beside her. With a sigh, Kitty
opened the back door and climbed in.

The driver didn’t blink or look down on her
or even look at her. “Where to?”

Her shoulders relaxed and the churning in her
stomach slowed. “Silver Street, Marrickville, please.”

Kitty was relieved when he didn’t strike up a
conversation as the cab pulled out into traffic. She was more
relieved when she realised she was only about thirty minutes from
home. Hopefully early morning traffic wasn’t heavy and she’d be
home, in the safety of her room, before Ethan or Finn noticed she
was gone.

Ethan rolled over and landed on a hard, warm
body.

“What the fuck?” Finn shoved him off.

“Shit.” He bolted upright, his head
swivelling on his shoulders, his eyes scanning the room. Ethan saw
the emptiness immediately. “Fuck!”

Kelly had run.

“What?” Finn sat up, his gaze following
Ethan’s. “Ah, shit.”

They scrambled out of bed and ran from the
room. Ethan headed one way while Finn went the other. When they met
up in the kitchen, it was obvious Kelly was no longer in the
house.

“Fuck.” Finn dragged a hand down his
face.

“It’ll be okay.” Ethan wouldn’t let himself
think anything else. “We’ll get dressed and go find her.”

Finn looked at him but Ethan couldn’t hold
his gaze. If he did, he’d lose it, and that wasn’t an option. Not
if he wanted to get Kelly back

He spun on his heel and headed towards his
room. “Five minutes to shower and dress or I leave without
you.”

Ethan didn’t wait for Finn to answer. He
tried not to think about the fact that Kelly had left them. Or that
neither of them had woken when she’d crawled out from between them.
That had never happened before. Then again, they’d never let a
woman sleep in bed between them before. Their usual MO was to fuck
them until they’d had enough and then ship them out.

Day or night.

In fact, Ethan couldn’t remember sleeping
with a woman since he was a naïve teenager and didn’t know any
better.

Kelly was different on so many levels and she
didn’t have a clue.

Because they hadn’t told her.

That changed today.

Today—once he got his hands on her—she’d know
everything in his heart and mind. Every little detail of the future
he could see for them.

Ethan grabbed his phone and dialled Kelly’s
number. No answer. He left a message to call him back and then
rushed through a quick shower, virtually ran under the spray and
out again, threw on a T-shirt and jeans—sans underwear—and shoved
his feet into flip-flops.

Finn met him at the garage door. “Your car or
mine?”

Ethan scoffed. “Mine.”

“Fine.”

They climbed in and Ethan had his Audi
reversing out of the driveway in under a minute. He poked at the
nav system until he pulled up the programed address book and
Kelly’s home address.

“Since when is Kitty’s address in your
sat-nav?” Finn asked.

“Since she’s our employee and I’ve picked her
up and dropped her off a few times.” He glanced at his friend
before returning his eyes to the road. “You know that, so what’s
really going on?”

Finn slapped the dashboard with his palm.
“Fuck.”

“Yeah, we’ve done that. Now we’ve got to
convince her we want everything else.”

“Sorry. It just burns my arse that she
slipped out and neither of us noticed.”

From the corner of his eye, Ethan saw Finn
fist his hand. “Don’t you dare punch my car.”

Tension radiated off Finn and did nothing to
ease the tight knot cramping Ethan’s gut. Angry and frustrated,
Ethan figured his best friend was feeling the same and cursed under
his breath. They needed to take it down a notch or they’d really
scare Kelly into running. He reached over and cranked up the
air-con. A slap of cold air might not be any relief, but it might
snap them out of the anxiety rolling around the car.

“Jesus. What are you trying to do? Freeze me
to death?” Finn growled while reaching to turn the system back to
normal.

“Nope. Just cooling your jets a little.”

Finn laughed. “Not going to happen.”

Ethan shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

They didn’t say anything else and Ethan
concentrated on getting them to Kelly’s house without getting a
speeding ticket.

Due to traffic, the thirty-minute trip took
forty-five and felt like an eternity. He pulled up at the curb and
shut off the engine. Neither of them got out. Ethan knew his
reluctance was due to fear of Kelly rejecting all he planned to
offer and he figured the same apprehension consumed Finn. But they
couldn’t stay here and wait for her to find them. If they wanted
this they had to go after it. They had to prove they were willing
to fight for her.

“We have to think the same way we did when we
started the business. It’s ours for the taking. We just have to
make it happen.” He turned to Finn. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Ethan opened his door and climbed out. All
the while he kept his eyes on the house, hoping Kelly would come
through the front door with a smile on her face. Shaking his head,
he skirted his car and met Finn on the footpath. “Let’s do
this.”

As a united front, they made their way to
Kelly’s door. Ethan rang the bell and they waited. He took a half
step back when a small older woman answered.

“Hello?” She smiled up at them. “Can I help
you?”

“Um, yes, we’re looking for Kelly,” Ethan
said.

“Kelly?” The woman’s brow furrowed and a
frown tipped the corners of her mouth. “You mean Kitty? No one
calls her Kelly.”

“Yes, Kitty. Is she home?” Finn asked.

“Oh, she doesn’t live here.”

Cold washed over Ethan from head to toe.
“Doesn’t live here?” When had she moved?

“No, Kitty and Jilly live in the other half
of the house.” She leaned out of the doorway and pointed to the
left. “Go round the side. You’ll find the door there.”

Ethan glanced that way. “Okay. Thanks.”

“But she’s not home.”

He turned back to the old woman. “Not
home?”

“No. I heard her come in earlier and leave
almost straight away. But Jilly is there. She might know where her
sister is.”

With that, the woman shut the door in the
faces.

“Well. That was…interesting,” Finn
murmured.

“C’mon.” Ethan led the way around the house,
but they didn’t even make it to the door before a woman who could
only be Kelly’s sister met them.

“She’s not here, and no, I don’t know where
she’s gone.” Her gaze raked them one at a time. She sighed. “And
for the life of me I have no idea why she went.”

“She’s not answering her phone,” Ethan
said.

The woman looked at him. “Well, she isn’t
going to if she doesn’t want to be found, now is she?” she said
with a tone that implied any idiot would know that. Instead of
taking offense, Ethan accepted her less than subtle insult.

“Can you at least tell us she’s okay?” Finn
asked.

Laughter bubbled up out of the woman’s glossy
lips. “If it were me you two were looking for I’d say yes, but
we’re talking about Kitty, and she hasn’t known what to do with the
opposite sex a day in her life.”

“Hey!” Ethan took a step forward.

“No, wait. She’s my sister. I love her but
she’s never done very well in the boy-girl game and you two are a
little more game than most.”

Heat filled Ethan’s face. Christ. He was
blushing? “Ah…”

“I don’t know details, but I get the gist of
what went down, and my only advice is to give her some time.”

“It’s not like we have a choice,” Finn
muttered.

Kelly’s sister smiled, and for the first time
Ethan thought she might prove to be an ally in their battle to win
Kelly’s heart. “Look…Jilly?”

“I prefer Jillian. Only my mother still calls
me Jilly.” Her eyes darted to the window a few feet behind them.
“We should take this conversation away from the house.”

She walked around them and out onto the
street, leaving them no choice but to follow. It seemed today would
be full of things he had no control over. Ethan was man enough to
admit he didn’t like it.

Not. One. Bit.

Finn could see the anger and frustration
rising in Ethan and knew if he didn’t defuse his friend in the next
few minutes, this poor woman would bear the brunt of the coming
explosion.

“Jillian. Is there any way you could give us
a hint of where we might find Kitty?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nope. She didn’t tell
me. Probably because she knew the second I saw you two I’d spill
the beans.”

“Is there somewhere she goes often? A
favourite café or restaurant? A park?” Ethan asked.

“No. She works or she’s at home. Last night
was the first time she’s gone out in months.” Jillian grinned. “I
was rather proud of her when she came trudging in just after seven
this morning.”

Shit. They’d slept at least another hour
after Kitty had snuck out. “If she contacts you or comes home can
you let her know we’re worried about her and just want to
talk?”

“Sure. Don’t know what good it’ll do though.
She might be the quiet mouse, but Kitty has always known her own
mind, and once it’s made up there ain’t no changing it.”

Not something Finn wanted to hear. He glanced
at Ethan. “Helpful or not, we’d appreciate it.”

“Yes. We would.” Ethan turned towards the
car, but Jillian spoke again before he took a step.

“For what it’s worth, I think she’s freaked
out over what she’s discovered about herself not you two.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Finn
asked.

Jillian smiled, and he was instantly reminded
of Kitty’s mouth and all the X-rated things she could do with it.
Shaking those lusty thoughts from his head, he took another look at
her sister. The two were very much alike. He figured Jillian was a
year or two older, tops.

“Whatever the hell the three of you did, she
liked it. A lot. That’s what sent her running.”

A horn blasted behind him and he glanced over
his shoulder to see a BMW pull up to the curb.

“Gotta go.” She strode away as though their
lives weren’t hanging in the air ready to crash to the ground and
shatter into a million pieces at any moment.

Finn watched the woman get in the waiting
car. He wasn’t sure what to make of her comment. Did she mean once
Kitty accepted her reaction to them she’d come back?

“Kelly.”

He spun around to find Ethan on his phone.
For a split second, his hopes had soared, only to be dashed when he
realised Ethan was leaving a message and not talking to her.

“Please call. We just want to know you’re
okay.” Ethan hung up and shoved the phone in his pocket. “Okay.
Let’s go home. There’s nothing we can do anyway.”

Finn hated the defeat in Ethan’s voice,
mainly because he was intimately acquainted with it himself. Their
hands were tied. Until Kitty rang or came looking for them, there
was absolutely nothing they could do.

He’d never felt so helpless in his life.

Ethan’s phone chirped and they both froze.
Finn’s hands clenched while he waited for his friend to fumble his
phone out of his pocket. Watching Ethan’s hands shake as he checked
the message gave Finn no relief or measure of ease to know they
were both strung tighter than a hangman’s noose.

“Well?” he asked.

Ethan met his gaze. “She said she’s
okay.”

“What?” Finn snatched the phone from Ethan’s
hand. “Shit.”

I’m okay.

Two words were all they got. Two words? After
last night he thought she’d at least give them more. He shoved the
phone back at Ethan. “Let’s go.”

They didn’t speak on the drive home. Barely
said a word for the next four hours. But when Kitty sent a second
text telling them she was taking a week off. That she needed time.
Well, they certainly had plenty to say then.

Unfortunately, not one word did them any good
because in the end Kitty was still not there and neither of them
had any idea what would happen when she came back.

Kitty stared at the rolling waves and
wondered what the hell she was doing. Nothing had changed in the
last three days. She’d made no decisions or come to any conclusions
about Ethan and Finn.