The Right Kind of Trouble (32 page)

The obvious concern in her voice was almost enough to shatter the wall that Moira had built up during the night. “At some point, I think I'll get past the shock. Once I get past the shock, I'm gonna find my mad. I'm waiting on that.”

She disconnected then and left to busy herself with finding some clothes she could throw on until Ella Sue showed up.

*   *   *

Some years back, the McKay children had decided Ella Sue needed a porch built onto the back of her house. So they had one built for her. As the sun slowly rose up over the horizon, Ella Sue sat in her favorite rocker on that porch and stared out over her gardens. She wasn't out there for the view. It was winter and the colors were muted, but she still found peace there.

At least she did most days.

Now though, she simply rocked and thought about her children.

That was how she thought of the McKay kids.

Sandra and Devon might be the parents, but they'd died so long ago.

The night they'd died, they'd actually had plans to speak with her. The person who'd originally been the chosen guardian for the kids had died of a heart attack and they'd asked if maybe Ella Sue would take over the task. Ella Sue had needed to consider it, and she'd called them, asked if they could meet that night.

She would have told them yes.

It hadn't worked out.

But it didn't change the simple fact that she saw them as hers.

And somebody was threatening her beloved children. She loved them as much as loved her own girls, and the rage she had inside her over what was happening was gut wrenching.

Even before the fire, she'd been afraid and mad.

But now …

“You're finding your mad, aren't you, Moira?” she murmured as she placed the phone in her lap.

It would be a good thing if Moira did just that.

Ella Sue wasn't above of a bit of gossip; she liked to know what was going on with who and when. She didn't fancy mean talk and rather despised those who enjoyed carrying on with backstabbing and cruelty. That sort of spite, she liked to think, ended up showing in a person's life, whether it was on their face or in their general happiness … or lack of.

She found the best kind of gossip on Facebook. True enough, she also found the worst kind of trash. Just a week ago, she'd seen a man in town tell his wife he wanted a divorce—
on Facebook
. They'd been married for twenty years. Such a coward.

She'd been on Facebook last night when she read about the fire. The fear that had filled her had all but drained the strength out of her. She hadn't been able to move for a full thirty seconds. One of her granddaughters had sent her a message and it had been that little sound, like a bubble bursting, that had snapped her out of the shock.

When she'd finally been able to think, she'd started scrolling through the posts, reading about the fire, searching for news.

Then she'd seen pictures of the McKays, Moira first, then Neve and Brannon, along with pictures of the two who'd soon join the family, Hannah and Ian.

Gideon was there, as he always was. Where Moira was, Gideon would be somewhere close.

For the first time, she'd been conflicted. She'd wanted to rush to their side, but she hadn't been able to tear herself away. She had a schedule and her kids knew it. If they needed her, they'd try to call her at her house, not here.

And they
would
need her.

So she waited, sitting right there with a front-row seat of all the updates.

Including one that was recapped by a good twenty different people from Treasure, with commentary from double that. Pictures from so many people. Snide commentary from a few, including the good-for-nothing Joe Fletcher and Mrs. Mouton. Bless her heart, the sweet old lady just might have run into the museum if she hadn't been stopped. She was a gossip, true, but her heart was a good one.

The altercation between Moira and Gideon had been mostly one-sided and a lot of people had chimed in to talk about what a cow she was being, how she was acting like the spoiled rich bitch everybody knew she was.

Some of the people that Ella Sue thought to be levelheaded chimed in, and she read their comments over and over.

She gets attacked. She saw a man die in front of her. Her museum gets burned down. Not that long ago, her brother was stabbed and Hannah was nearly killed in that wreck before that. And don't forget what Moira and Neve went through. What's the matter with all of you?

That had come from Mrs. Mouton, and Ella Sue wanted to kiss her for it.

After skimming the comments, Ella Sue had a decent idea of what had happened.

The fire at the museum was the straw that broke the camel's back—
Moira's
back, in particular.

Now Gideon, well, Ella Sue knew him to be a levelheaded, patient man and she didn't think he'd take the things Moira had said to heart. But he'd taken some hard things from Moira for far too long.

She hoped this wouldn't be another one of those straws.

*   *   *

Gritty-eyed and tired, Gideon stood on the deck and stared out over the Mississippi. He could still smell the smoke on himself, despite the fact that he'd taken a shower that had used up every last bit of hot water he had in the tank.

He was tempted to climb back in there and try again. His muscles were aching and tired. Every last bit of him was aching and tired to be honest. He felt like he'd spent a month climbing uphill and had just been told he'd have to do it again.

Some five hours ago, after that shower, he'd collapsed in his bed and lost himself for a few hours—just over four, to be exact. He'd surfaced thirty minutes ago, and he needed to get his ass moving, but he just didn't have the energy.

If you were any good …

“Stop it,” he muttered.

He drained the rest of his coffee and shoved off the wall.

It was Saturday. Officially, he was supposed to be off duty.

But that was before some sick fuck had set the museum on fire. Curling his hand into a fist, he wondered what he was going to do when he found the son of a bitch. He would find him. No doubt. He would find him.

He needed to find him before anything else happened. If he had to see that misery in Moira's green eyes again, he thought he'd go insane.

If you were any good …

Those words had come from a place of anger and fear and frustration and he knew it, but fuck if they weren't digging a hole into him.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Moira found some clothes.

The good thing about yoga pants was that they stretched.

The even better thing was that they came in a variety of lengths.

In the laundry room, she found a clean pile of clothes and poked through them until she found a pair of Hannah's yoga pants—she assumed they were Hannah's, although the idea of Brannon in yoga pants was sort of amusing.

She took those and grabbed a T-shirt of Brannon's that he must have grabbed from the pub. There was a hoodie hanging in there too, so she grabbed it.

There wasn't any help for it, so she had to put on her underwear and bra from yesterday, but it was only for a little while and the smoke wasn't as bad once she put them through the steam cycle on the dryer.

“Technology is a beautiful thing,” she said softly.

Said technology also produced a quick, quiet cup of coffee.

The apartment was all but silent and she didn't want to wake anybody up, so she took her coffee and phone and slid out the backdoor and headed down the steps into the small garden.

The sight of it made her heart sigh. “Wow,” she murmured, settling into one of the Adirondack chairs by the little gurgling brook. It hadn't been there before. She knew Brannon wasn't planning on staying here much longer, but he certainly believed in making his place comfortable.

The air was still cool and she shivered, snuggling deeper into the hoodie.

“Good morning.”

At the familiar voice, she looked up. Out of habit, she smiled. “Hey.”

*   *   *

“Couldn't sleep?”

Neve shivered as Ian came up behind her and slid his lips down the arch of her neck. “Hmmm. No. I didn't wake you up, did I?”

“Well, yes. See, I'm used to having this Neve-shaped beauty next to me in my bed and when she wasn't there, my body realized something was amiss and it told me to wake up. So I did.”

“Neve-shaped beauty?” She giggled as he rubbed his beard against her neck. He pulled her onto his lap and settled his chin on her shoulder.

“There you go, stealing me things again.” He sighed as he tapped at the edge of the computer screen. “Look at this. First my heart, then half my shirts, now my computer.”

“I left mine at the station.”

Ian nodded. “Trying to bore yourself into sleep”

“Ha, ha.” She drove her elbow into his gut. “I think Gideon is on the right track. We just didn't have time to get much done yesterday before…” Her voice trailed off and she glanced toward the window. She couldn't see much of anything from here, but in her mind's eye, she saw the museum. The hungry flames hadn't quite gotten to finish their job before the firemen stanched the worst of it, but the damage had been done.

Ian stroked a hand down her side. “The three of you, you're strong. You're going to get through this.”

“Brannon and I didn't put our hearts and souls into that place, Ian. Moira did. Without Gideon, this just might break her.”

“But she's got him, yeah?”

Neve turned her face into his neck, thinking of the fight Gideon and Moira had had last night, although fight wasn't really accurate. What they had had was a one-sided argument where her sister had done all the arguing and Gideon had simply stood there, taking it.

Proving once again that he was a mind reader, Ian said, “Neve, she was hurt.” He hugged her back against him. “Marshall knows that. He's a smart man. She's had to handle too much lately and last night … Well, anybody with a brain had to understand what that was doing to her. Marshall has brains enough for two people. It's going to be okay. Now … why don't you and I…”

Neve gasped as he slid his hands up her torso and cupped her breasts through the old soccer shirt she'd stolen from him. He'd insisted he'd have to have it back, peeling it off of her and leaving her naked the morning she'd walked out of the bedroom wearing it. Then he'd made love to her on the kitchen table—again. Later, he'd said she could keep it. “Manchester United has never looked so good, sweet Neve.”

He unerringly found her nipples and worked them into taut points, and she squirmed, struggling to get closer. His cock pressed against her butt. “Why are you wearing clothes?” she demanded.

“Why are you?”

She snorted out a laugh, half-turning to face him, forgetting about the computer.

It hit the floor with a crash.

Ian laughed and eased her off his lap. “You need to take better care of my toys if you're going to use them.”

He picked up the laptop and eyed all the windows she had open. “Neve, sweetheart. You've got eleventy bajillion windows open.”

“I do not.” Flushing, she grabbed the computer.

He let her and settled back against the couch, stroking a path up and down her thigh.

She shivered and started closing the windows of all the hints she'd been looking at last night. “I'm just trying to get a handle on the Whitehall family line.”

“And you're doing that with eleventy bajillion windows?”

She rolled her eyes. “No.” She paused on one of the tabs.

Ian's fingers skimmed the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, and her breath hitched.

“Then … we can maybe let this wait?”

She closed two more tabs. “Yes, I just…”

He took the computer and leaned forward to put it on the table.

Neve couldn't even argue.

The muscles in his back flexed and arched as she bent over and pressed her lips to his smooth skin.

It dawned on her then that he'd gone tense.

“Neve.”

That tension wasn't just in his body.

As he sat back on the couch, still holding the laptop, she felt something cold settle in the pit of her stomach. “What?”

Instinctively, she looked at the laptop.

She couldn't see it. He'd angled the screen away.

“Take a deep breath, love. This…” He blew out a breath. “Look, it might not be anything, okay? Really.”

*   *   *

By now, it was no surprise to wake up feeling like a boulder had settled on her bladder, but that didn't mean Hannah enjoyed having to practically run to the bathroom.

After she'd washed her hands, she went ahead and stripped off her pajamas and climbed into the shower. Sleeping on the couch hadn't been the best of ideas. Moira was the smart one. After the movie ended, she had obviously decided to go into her bedroom. Now Hannah, fat and pregnant, had even more of a reason for her back to hurt.

Couches were murder on the spine.

The multiple sprays from the shower helped loosen the kinks, but she was still half-slumped against the wall when the door opened and Brannon came through the billows of steam. “I'm not up for water sports, gorgeous,” she said groggily.

“I'm just looking to conserve water.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Back?”

She nodded.

He nudged her around.

It didn't take anything else to convince her and a moment later, hands slicked from soap, Brannon went about working the knots from her back. He had her limp as putty before she even knew it.

When he cupped her swollen breasts in his hands, she braced her hands on the wall.

“Still not up for water sports?”

“Would you just shut up and fuck me already?”

Brannon laughed and nudged her upper torso forward before grasping her hips.