Vote Then Read: Volume I

by Carly Phillips

  “It won't be forever,” he lied. “but some distance—”

  “Distance?” Starr's mouth pursed into a hard line, and the betrayal in her eyes gutted him. “That's your answer?” She rose and pushed at his chest with her hands, a shot of warmth arrowing through his spine. This wasn't going to be good.

  He fought to keep his spine erect, his breathing steady. “Look, Starr, if you didn't know me—”

  “This again? You going to tell me I'd be better off?” A fire that could have melted the pavement darkened her blue eyes. “Yeah, I've heard that before, remember? Don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare.”

  Luna sidled up to him. “Max is driving us home and staying.” A vision of mountainous Max sprawled out on their couch normally made him laugh, but humor was so far away at this point.

  “Good. Nathan is going to join us, too.” She reached down to the floorboard and brought her purse to her lap. She fished around in it, pulled out her keys, and pressed them into his hand. “Let yourself in.” A sheen of moisture dampened the fire in her eyes, then without warning, she threw her whole body against his chest. “Promise me, you will. Promise.”

  His arms banded around her warmth and all her cinnamon scent. He needed this woman, needed her so much it made his bones ache. Her breath wet the front of his shirt, and her thin arms clutched at him. He could have stood out in the parking lot with her forever, despite her whole body shaking from rage, or fear, or whatever hell was whirling around inside her.

  “Not your fault, Nathan.” She dropped her head back, her eyes locking onto his. “And if you don't show up, I'm going to break out my inner Valkyrie. We whisk worthy men off to Valhalla, ya know.” She curled her hands into his t-shirt.

  How did she do that? Turn everything around in five seconds? His hope rose like a tide, and he palmed Starr's cheeks. “You win. Come on. I’ll drive the two of us to your place.”

  Her responding smile lit up his insides. He pressed his lips to her forehead, earning a delicate sigh. Yeah, he was powerless in her orbit. He was a selfish bastard, but a selfish bastard who was going to make this threat of Ruark MacKenna disappear one way or the other. He got her into the maw of the beast. He would get her out—tomorrow.

  37

  Nathan cracked open the passenger door and helped Starr out of the car. Her sisters had gone with Max. The man had driven like a bat out of hell and had lost him miles ago. Nathan had let them speed away. He’d wanted some alone time with Starr, which amounted to him holding her hand the whole way and not talking. Her eyes were lined with worry, and she kept chewing on a fingernail, which made him worry more. She wasn’t one to fret.

  The elevator to their second-floor apartment was out of commission, so they’d had to climb the steps. He carried her, and she let him.

  With each step up to the second floor, all the possible scenarios to reverse this situation sifted like a dealer shuffling cards. First step up, he imagined confronting MacKenna and trying to strike a deal. Second step up, his mind switched to the bloody image of Starr and her sisters with MacKenna standing over them, knife in hand. Third step, his mind’s eye showed him getting back in his car and not stopping until he reached Kansas City. By the time he got to the seventh step, Ruark continued to stalk Starr, and the MacKennas were following him everywhere he went anyway. His imagination was a dangerous place.

  He pushed the apartment door open and stepped into the scent of perfume and burnt toast. Max's legs were sprawled on the glass coffee table, and an old CSI television show illuminated his face. Max had put the volume on mute, but the light cast a dull blue and gray over his face. Nathan lifted his chin in acknowledgment and set Starr on her feet.

  “I’m going to take a shower, get into bed.” She glanced at Max and then back to him. “Come whenever you’re ready.”

  He could use a few minutes anyway.

  Nathan lowered himself to the chair just to the right of Max. “CSI?”

  “Getting things wrong as usual.”

  Nathan huffed and leaned back in the chair, wide-awake and jittery. They spent long minutes staring at the screen, his eyes stinging from the contrast of the dark room and the bright TV. He soon lost track of time.

  “He's not going to stop, ya know.” Max turned to face him.

  “I know.” There was no need to say a name aloud. Ruark may not be physically present, but he was always, some-fucking-how, still in the room.

  Max brought his legs down and set the remote on the coffee table. He stared at the carpeting, elbows on knees. “The cops aren't going to find anything on him.”

  “I know.”

  “You got a plan?”

  “Nope.”

  Max turned his head to him. “Want one?”

  “Like ...”

  “You've heard about me, right? Used to be a full-fledged member of the Flaming Tides.”

  One mention of the West-coast gang and Nathan's face heated. He didn't need more trouble, and why would Max want to revisit any of that anyway? If the man survived an exit from the Tides, he sure as hell wouldn't survive re-entry. Nathan swallowed hard. “I've heard.”

  “There are always things that can be done. People to handle things for you.”

  Hell, no. “No, man, I'm not getting involved in any of that.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I'm sure.”

  Max sucked on his front teeth for a second, eyed him up and down. “Good answer.”

  Well, score one for him. “Was this a test?”

  Max didn't reply, instead, leaned back, and put his feet back up on the table.

  Nathan rose, ready to end this strange interaction.

  Max’s voice stopped him. “Nathan? Stick with Starr. She's worth it.”

  She was worth everything, but the Universe might not play fair. It certainly hadn’t in the past.

  38

  A slash of hallway light cut over Starr's sleeping form to reveal her wet, red hair spilled out over the pillow and her pink, pale skin bearing no trace of the previous sparkles and glitter. She sucked in air and released a long, wet purr. So the woman snored sometimes. It was cute.

  He moved to the window overlooking the well-lit parking lot. His gaze swept the area, the shadows shifting as if alive, his gut on high alert. It turned out his gut was pretty good at identifying threats because in the long swath of trees at the far end stood a silhouette of a person against the branches. A pinprick of light from a lit cigarette floated in the air next to him. “Nathan.”

  He turned away. Starr's face, half shadow, half streetlight, glowed like the finest porcelain.

  He went to her, sat on the bed, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”

  She scooched closer on her side and folded her hands under the side of her cheek. “Are you and Max planning something?”

  His Starr always did get to the point quickly—and little got by her. He tucked some hair behind her ear and caressed the delicate outer shell with a fingertip. Everything about her was impossibly soft.

  She nestled her cheek further into her folded hands. “I get you may feel you need to take matters into your own hands.”

  “No, we have no plans.”

  “Good.” She let out a sigh. “You’re sure?”

  His girl was smart. “Don't worry, Starr. Nothing's going on, but I'm not going to lie to you. It’s damned hard not to retaliate.”

  “I know it's going to work out.” She pulled one of her hands free and laid her arm across his thigh. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”

  Oh, how he wished he could believe that.

  “I've been thinking.” She rubbed up and down his leg, which sent all his brainpower south. “I've known men like Ruark. They just want to win. What would it take for him to feel like he's won?”

  Nathan dropped his head back and stared hard at the ceiling. “My death.” He looked back down at her. There. He'd said it aloud even if it did cause a shudder in Starr.

  “That can’t be all of it. I
don't know, Nathan. I feel like something is missing here.”

  “It's pretty clear. Revenge is a powerful motivator. He wants to make my life, and that of everyone around me, hell.”

  “I've lived in hell. This ain’t it. If that's his end-game, he's being a pussy about it.”

  Nathan chuckled but instantly cooled. “I can’t stand the thought you were ever unhappy, ever in danger, ever afraid. It’s so goddamn unfair.” He eased down to the bed, sat against the headboard. “You didn't deserve it. You should have grown up like those campground ads. I can see you in a Sunshine Campground T-shirt, sitting around a fire and roasting marshmallows.” He grinned. “Or better, in a bikini—a blue bikini to match your eyes—jumping off a rope swing into a lake, with lots of kids splashing around you, and everyone smiling because it'd never occur to them not to.”

  “Oh, yeah, me rocking the khaki shorts. Not my best look.” She rolled to her back. “Phee had it worse being the super-sensitive one.”

  She had to be kidding. “Sensitive? Phee?”

  “You don't know her. Everyone thinks Luna is the emotional one but, no ... Phee hides a lot.” Her blue eyes glowed a little in the dim light. “If you tell her that, I'll kill you.”

  He laughed. “Your secret's safe with me. She terrifies me. I think Declan's the only one who isn't afraid of her ... next to you and your sister.”

  “That's because he loves her. And she needs it.”

  “What do you need? Want?”

  “Many things.”

  “Like what?” He would get them for her.

  She moved up to snuggle into the crook of his arm. “I want to be able to dance without men thinking I’m asking for sex. I want my own house where I can grow my own flowers and not wait for some guy to give them to me. And, turns out, like Luna, I want answers. I want to know how my father could do what he did. I want to know how to forget it. I want …” She let her words die.

  “Wow. I didn’t expect that answer.” He grasped her hand. “I'm sure it was complicated.”

  “How could it be? He beat one daughter nearly to death and then waved good-bye down a government hallway to the other two? I finally remembered the details—just tonight. After visiting Phee in the hospital, L. and I were taken to this office building. He was at the end of the hall and he just … waved.” Her voice was strung tight with tension.

  He drew her tighter into his chest. Her face fit perfectly into his neck.

  “Being ripped apart from someone you love is terrible.” Her muffled words blew heat against his skin. “Feeling like you aren't loved is worse. I don't understand people who give up kids.”

  His stomach turned over. “Yeah.” The timing wasn't right to tell her about his daughter, Madeline. Jesus, he had tried so hard not to even think her name, but there it was.

  She pushed back a little, raised her face. “Can I tell you another secret?”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  She rose up on one elbow, the sheet slipping down to reveal those creamy mounds of flesh. “Well, actually, it’s more of the same secret I told you in Annapolis, about going to see my father when I was seventeen. You have to promise not to tell anyone. My sisters, especially. I'm going to give them all the details someday, but it's just not the right time.”

  A chill ran through him at the mention of more secrets. Was there no end to them? He pulled the sheet up higher to her shoulders.

  “So, you know I went to see him. He was drunk in an airport hotel in Huntsville. I went to ask him why he'd left us. He just shrugged. Can you believe it? Shrugged.” She mirrored the movement.

  “I'm sorry, baby.”

  “That wasn't the worst.” She pushed herself up so her back was against the headboard. “He kept calling me by my mother’s name. Then he asked about Luna and Phee. Asked if they were still as pretty as me. If we were single.” She gave off a visible shudder. “Then ... it was the look in his eye. He … moved for me.”

  Her memories were worse than he’d anticipated. He grasped her hand, and she pulled it back. Her irritation had nothing to do with him, of that he was certain. It had everything to do with her past. “God, Starr, tell me, he didn't ...” Now he was going to have to deal with the man—soon.

  She shook her head. “That’s when I said I had three thousand dollars. He could have it if he promised one thing.”

  “Never look for you.”

  “Yes. Never find us. Leave us the hell alone.” The grit in her voice told him everything he needed to know. There was a good reason she and her sisters landed in foster care. It might have been God's way of preventing something unthinkable from happening.

  “And you know what?” She half-laughed. “He took it with no remorse. It was all the money I'd saved since I was fourteen, doing odd jobs and babysitting, and whatever else I could do, so I could at least start college. I left him sitting there, counting it.”

  She turned to him, eyes dry, face still as a stone, just like the long-timers in prison, the ones who’d been on the inside so long they'd forgotten what it was like on the outside.

  She grasped his hand, her eyes wide and shimmery in the dark. “I want you to know so you’ll understand why I’ll never forgive Robert O’Malley. Phee and Luna don’t need to know he took everything from me and might have taken more like …” She stopped, as if unable to say the words—words he didn’t even want to think like beaten or raped.

  Jesus, if that man had touched a hair on her head, he’d have ended the man’s life.

  “Nathan, I never want them to know what I’ve given up so we could be safe. They’d wallow in guilt and try to make it up to me, and I don’t want that. Promise me you won't tell them. They deserve peace.”

  He engulfed her hand with his. “I promise, and you deserve peace, too.”

  “Thank you, and I have it now. With you.”

  Safe with him? Jesus, he’d hoped so. Fuck, hope. She would be if he had to die for it.

  She eased herself down. “There, now you know the worst of me.”

  “You protected yourself and your sisters. That's not 'worst,' baby, and none of that is on you.”

  “I'm glad you think so. I honestly had put it out of my mind until ... recently.” She turned to face him. “Hey, you going to get out of those clothes? I mean, you're not leaving again, are you?”

  Never. “Not leaving. Can't leave my North star.”

  He eased himself up, shed his clothes, and climbed back in, his skin meeting her warmth, his muscles relaxing in a long sigh, the perpetual knot in his stomach uncoiling. In the dark, with touch taking precedence over all other senses, he tuned into her fresh, clean skin, scented with cinnamon.

  He nuzzled her hair. “I want you to know something. I do regret killing Daniel.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “No, I mean . . . I am really sorry about it, even if he was an asshole.” With his arms full of this good woman, he couldn’t conjure up any memory of hating anyone that much.

  “I know, Nathan.”

  “And, there are other things from my past. Things that might upset you.”

  “I'm a lot stronger than I look.”

  God, he hoped so. He wasn't sure how long he could keep his own secrets from her. “Hey, how about we get out of here tomorrow? Go back to Annapolis?”

  She lifted her chin to peer up at him. “I’d love that … but, hey, you ever been to Gravely Point?”

  Yeah, he had. “Yeah, I’ve been there. It’s fun. Whatever you want.”

  “Good. Then that’s where we’ll go.” She pulled herself back suddenly. “Where's Moonlight? Where is she?”

  It took a second for his brain to catch her sudden change, something she did a lot. “Home. Remember she has a food dispenser.”

  “But water—”

  “Relax. I got this water fountain thing that holds a gallon of water at a time. It's like a little waterfall ... thing.” Or whatever you called it.

  “Where did you get that?”


  “Amazon. Amazing place, I gotta tell you.”

  “Why, Nathan, you do like your cat.”

  “She's okay.”

  “You're good at taking care of things.”

  He caressed her hip. “Actually, I'm not, but how about I take care of you? Right now?”

  Sex wasn’t always the answer, but it seemed as good as any right now. She fell to her back, the simple movement the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. She widened her legs, an invitation he’d always accept from her. They weren’t going to get any sleep, but who cared.

  39

  Nathan had to get Starr out of the apartment. She’d had nightmares later in the night. In the morning, her leg bounced as she stared out the window, coffee cup in hand, as if pining for fresh air. Yeah, they had to go. Max grunted his disapproval at them leaving the apartment, but he agreed to stay with the other two sisters while they headed out.

  As soon as he pulled out of the parking lot, she brought up Gravely Point again, the spit of land at the end of the Reagan International Airport in Virginia. Further away than he intended, but he couldn’t deny her a thing.

  The first hour on the road, he kept watch for anyone tailing him—old habits die hard— but Starr soon distracted him by belting out every Beatles song she could recall. His left ear might never recover from her off-key singing, but it was worth seeing her bounce in her seat, dimples set deep in her cheeks.

  Two hours later, he turned into a crowded Gravely Point park and killed the engine. Blessed silence filled the car—or as silent as one could get at the end of an airport runway.

  Starr unbuckled her seat belt. “I can sing the rest of the songs on the way home.”