The Right Kind of Trouble (10 page)

*   *   *

The ceaseless ringing of the doorbell woke her up.

Mom, Dad, and Neve hadn't been home when she'd gotten in—she'd checked her little sister's room. Her mood had lightened considerably and she'd thought maybe she'd see if Nevie wanted to go swimming the next day. Or maybe fishing. The kid always loved fishing, especially with Gideon.

But none of them were home and Brannon had fallen asleep playing video games.
That
was typical. It was also typical that the doorbell didn't wake him up.

What was strange was that neither Mom nor Dad beat her to the front door.

Moira rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she moved across the entryway and went to open the door. Only at the last second did she remember to disarm the system. She probably should have left it alone. She'd bet
anything
Brannon was still asleep in front of the big-screen TV in the family room. The alarm system was the one thing that did wake him up.

But responsibility bit at her, not to mention a little bit of guilt for how she'd acted earlier. She'd hoped to hear her parents come in so she could apologize to Mom, but she hadn't been able to stay awake and Moira didn't want to wake them up like
that
.

So she disarmed the system and opened the door midyawn.

Her blood froze at the sight of the police car in front of her house.

The chief of police stood in front of her, twisting his hat around and around in his hands. Two others were on the porch—no, three. Three others. Dimly, she realized Ella Sue was walking toward her. And Gideon.

Gideon was there.

And he had …

“Nevie?”

Neve just shoved her face against Gideon's neck and as Moira stared at her baby sister, she realized the girl was shaking. Trembling, all over. Like a leaf, she thought, feeling dazed.

I want to go inside.

Looking back at the chief, she licked her lips. She couldn't remember his name. A knot welled up in her throat, lodged there.

She wanted to go back inside. That was all she could think.

The chief said her name, but she shook her head and moved toward Gideon, intent on getting her little sister. It didn't matter that Neve already reached the middle of Moira's chest. She wanted to pick up her baby sister and go inside, shut the door and lock it.

Lock away the world, everything, everybody and wait for Mom and Dad.

“Moira, baby,” Ella Sue said. She tried to catch Moira on the arm.

Moira dodged away and rushed to Gideon. “Give her to me,” she demanded, reaching for Neve.

Gideon stared at her, his eyes dark, unreadable. “Mac … we need to—”

“No!” She screamed it.

That was when she found out something else could wake her brother up. A scream from one of his sisters.

As she tried to pry Neve's trembling form from Gideon, Brannon appeared in the doorway. “What's going on?” he asked, his voice rough with sleep, deeper than it had been even just a few months ago. He was tall, too. He might even get to be taller than Dad.
Dad,
Moira thought helplessly.

“Give her to me,” she pleaded with Gideon.

“I want Brannon,” Neve whispered, speaking for the first time.

Brannon approached, quiet in that way he often had, realizing something was going on.

Neve went to him and clung tight. “It's okay, monkey,” Brannon said.

Neve shook her head.

Moira backed away, shaking hers.
No, no, no, no …

Gideon caught her arms. “Mac.”

The chief came toward her from one side, Ella Sue from the other—a silent, gentle wall.

“Moira, I'm terribly sorry…”

She stood there, staring at Gideon's chest as the words were said.

“Did you understand me?” the chief asked gently.

Slowly, she looked up at him and nodded.

Then she looked at Gideon. “I never got to tell her I was sorry,” she said brokenly. “I never got to…”

The sobs tore into her then.

“I never got to tell her.”

“She knew, Mac.”

Wordlessly she shook her head. She wanted to tell her. She should have said it, should have done something—

She screamed then, a wordless outcry of pain and grief and guilt.

Gideon's arms tightened around as she fought to free her arms from the embrace so she could cling to him. “Don't let go,” she begged, feeling like the pain was going to end her. “Don't let go.”

“You don't have to ask me twice.”

NOW

“You ain't gotta say that twice.” Neil blew out a breath as he glanced over at Gideon.

But Gideon wasn't paying him any attention.

Moira had slid out onto the wide, sweeping deck that flowed from the house and she was watching.

She wasn't watching the work being done by the security team.

She was staring at him.

There was something in that gaze that he hadn't seen. At least, not in a long time.

Clenching his jaw, he focused back on Neil. “How is this going to affect the family? They need to have full use of the grounds, not to mention the staff and people who come in to tend the grounds.”

“Not a problem. What we're going to do is have pictures of everybody who
belongs
here—the family and Miss Ella Sue.”

“She
is
family,” Gideon pointed out.

“True, true.” Neil just nodded amicably. “Then the rest of the staff. They are the people who the system will recognize as normal. We scan them in. Then there are acceptable types. People who come and go, but it might be odd if the system picks them up here at a strange time … say midnight. Also, it can recognize acts of aggression. It picks up on a hundred different cues.” He smiled then, a glint in his eyes. “That will send up an alert that one of us will have to check. Then there are questionable people—visitors and what not. If people show up at the front, ring the doorbell? The alert for that is different than say somebody coming up through the back, trying to skulk in.”

Gideon nodded slowly, thinking this through. “That's a pretty advanced system.”

“There are others that leave this in the dust.” Neil shrugged. “But this one is my design and it should work for what Moira needs. It's got a weight limit on it so critters—birds, squirrels, and such—don't set it off. Body heat, too. If it sees some five hundred pound mass that's got a temperature more on par with a reptile, it's going to scan and see a gator, not an intruder.”

“System like that will put you out of a job,” Gideon said.

Neil made a wheezing sort of laugh. “Well, I've already got people looking to buy it. I'm going to be looking to sell soon. Retire and take my ass on down to Hawaii and live out the rest of my life, being a bum.” He nodded up to the porch. “You ever going to get that woman to stop running from you?”

“No. I'm done trying. Mind your own, Neil.”

“Done, huh?” Neil gave him a shrewd look, then shook his head. “My ass, you're done. She's heading this way. I'll give her a quick rundown, then I need to check on my crew and get out of here.” He hesitated and then said, “Don't be a coward … not now. You waited all this time. What's a bit more?”

Then he glanced past Gideon, lifting his voice as he called out a greeting. “Evening, Moira. Has your brother finished planning out what he'll do once he gets his hands on the man who did that?”

Gideon bit back his instinctive response.
He'll have to beat me to it
—

He was leaving. Right?

Turning to look at Moira, he nodded at her without really meeting her eyes.

She spoke and the low, raspy whisper of her voice had him wincing in sympathy. “I plan on making him gator bait,” she said.

Vicious pride twisted in him, and he shoved it down.

Then the cop in him kicked on, and he shoved a hand through his hair.

“Moira, leave that part to the cops.”

“Since when did cops believe in gator bait?” She looked dead at him, something she didn't do too often. When their gazes locked, she didn't look away, either.

Drawn in by the soft, pale green of her eyes, he felt like a moth, caught by the lure of the flame. He'd danced in that warmth until it killed him. He'd been doing that for eighteen long years and it was destroying—

Neil's rusty laugh had Gideon stiffening.

Get your head out of your ass,
he told himself.

“Moira, tell you what. If you catch yourself some decent … bait, you let me know.”

“Damn it, Neil!” he snapped, pivoting and glaring down at the shorter, older man. Slapping his hands on his hips, he bent until they were nose to nose. “Can we maybe stop discussing murder in front of the chief of police? It would make my job easier.”

“Murder…” Neil's lips thinned out. “For the love of…”

Two hands shoved between them, followed by a slim body.

Moira was small, but she was a force to be reckoned with.

Her father had teased that they'd named her wrong.

We should have named you Hermia … though she be but little, she is fierce.

It would have fit.

She wedged her body between them, knocking Neil back a step and then focused her attention on Gideon. Sparks fired from her pale green eyes, and they might have shot straight into his blood. He was on fire now. On fire and burning … for her. Just like always.

She jabbed him in the chest. “Why don't you yank that stick out of your ass?” she rasped.

“Stop.” He caught her wrist. “I'm on duty and I'm not going to listen to your temper or your tantrums.”

“My…” Her brows shot up almost to her hairline. “You son of a…”

She jerked her hand away, or tried.

“Neil.” He shot him a look. “Get lost.”

“Listen here, Chief.” Neil coughed and shuffled his feet. “You realize Moira and I aren't really planning to cut up some miserable son of a bitch. He needs a lesson and all, but we wouldn't do that, would we, Moira?”

Moira bared her teeth up at Gideon.

“I hear you and understand, Neil.” He didn't look at the other man. “Now, go deal with your crew. I appreciate them getting out here so promptly.”

Moira jerked on her wrist again, and this time he let go.

She stumbled back half a pace and he reached up to steady her, but she smacked at his arms.

“What the hell is your problem?”

Her eyes, hot now, glittered up at him. “Don't touch me!”

Then she gasped and pressed a hand to her throat.

“Would you stop tearing your throat up so much?” Exasperated, he gestured to the house. “Go inside. Let Ella Sue make you a hot toddy or something. She sure as hell makes them strong enough.”

Maybe it will calm you down
. He thought it. He didn't say it.

But it must have shown on his face anyway.

“Maybe I don't
want
to go inside!” She shoved up onto her toes, pushing her face into his. “You don't get to tell me what to do, Gideon Marshall. Hell, you are
leaving,
remember?”

Then she spun around and flounced off.

Nobody could pull off a flounce quite like Moira McKay.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

There are few certainties in life.

The sun will rise.

The sun will set.

Everybody dies.

Money speaks.

Friends will abandon you.

Family will always stand beside you.

The McKays will destroy everything that matters.

He'd grown up hearing those very truths. Even as his father lie dying, the cancer eating him from the inside out, he'd heard that truth.

They stole it all, boy. I've done what I can, but nobody listens to a sick old man. I have no voice. Money is
the
voice and they have it. I don't.

He knew those truths and he kept them close.

Kept them and worked hard.

Years had passed since the day his father was lowered into the earth, raining drenching him from the outside in as he stood alone by the grave.

There wasn't anybody else. It had been just his father and him.

Now it was just him.

Him and the knowledge that the McKays had taken everything from his family. Not just once, but time and time again.

He'd been nudged out of the classes he wanted over a sodding McKay—Moira McKay, the elegant, icy queen had swept into the college where he'd been holding on with a wish and a prayer. Only a day after he'd been told he would most likely be able to get into the class he needed to finish out his major a year early, he'd been notified there wasn't any room left.

And who did he discover was a late enrollee?

Moira McKay.

A few years later, he'd been working in the French Quarter in New Orleans—learning,
always
learning what he needed to accomplish his end goals—and there she'd been, this time with her younger brother in tow. On a buying trip, she'd hardly said two words to him and later, he'd walked into the pub where his girlfriend worked and discovered said girlfriend all but wrapped around Brannon McKay.

She'd all but thrown her knickers in that boy's face. He hadn't been much more than a boy, either. Hardly old enough to drink, but had that bitch cared? No. He was rich and that was all that mattered.

From that moment on, he'd hated Brannon—the kid had apologized good-naturedly after Leanna had seen him, scrambling away and tugging her dress down. Brannon had acted like he hadn't known, but the laughter had been there in his eyes. When his sister had arrived, Brannon had tossed down several bills, told the bartender drinks were on him, and had offered another apology.

He'd wanted to make the boy eat that fucking money.

Instead, he'd just left and busied himself gathering up Leanna's belongings. She'd let a fucking McKay touch her.