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Dedicated to my family. I love you!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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Thanks so much to the team at St. Martin’s!
CHAPTER ONE
Gideon Marshall had his hands full of dirty plates and his mind full of dirty words.
He moved into the kitchen of the big, sprawling home known as McKay’s Ferry, and Moira McKay, the woman he loved more than his own life, cut a wide circle around him so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
“Why don’t you go out there and celebrate with them?” he asked, keeping his voice devoid of emotion. “A double wedding, I’m sure they could use your organized self to talk details.”
Not even an hour ago, Neve McKay, the youngest of the family, had gotten engaged. Less than sixty seconds after she’d said yes, her brother Brannon had proposed to his girlfriend Hannah. He’d been planning his proposal—Neve’s fiancé hadn’t known when he had popped the question.
There was plenty to celebrate.
Moira just shrugged. “This is a happy time for them. I’m just as good in here as I am out there. Nobody wants to talk plans tonight.”
“You could—”
The plates in her hand smacked down sharply on the edge of the counter, hitting with enough force he was surprised none of them broke. Moira was still staring at the plates, her jaw tight. “I could go out there and be a fifth wheel. No thanks.”
Ella Sue, a genteel sort of tyrant, came bustling in and arched a brow at him before looking at Moira’s stiff back. “I’m in the mood for champagne,” she announced, taking up an empty space at the counter.
While she tore the foil, Gideon turned back to the sink and rinsed a few dishes off. “I used to wonder who did all of this,” Gideon said. He was talking just to talk and he knew it. He didn’t care for the sound of his own voice, but it was better than that terse silence. “You’ve got all the money in the world. You could hire people to do this stuff. Then you could hire people to hire people to do it for the people…”
Moira let out a soft, strained sigh.
He looked over at her.
Their gazes locked and held for a moment before she broke it, shifting her attention back to the pots she was putting up. “Mom and Dad wanted to make sure we understood the value of hard work. It’s one of the things that has kept this family honest and successful all these years—or so they say,” she said.
“I heard them tell you that, more than once.” He blew out a breath, mind turning back to the man who used to watch Gideon every time he would escort Moira out the door for a date. “Sometimes I still expect to hear him, you know. Your dad, that voice of his. Big and powerful, echoed all through the place.”
“I know.” She glanced over at him, smiled sadly.
A few moments later they were all done.
Ella Sue pushed a glass of champagne at each of them and then disappeared—again.
“She seems more interested in flitting in and out than anything,” he said. He was under no illusions as to why, either.
“I heard you were out with Maris the other night.”
Moira’s voice—bright and almost too cheerful—cut through his heart like a knife.
He took a slow, deliberate sip of the champagne, the bubbles oddly flat on his tongue. It had come from the McKay cellars and chances were that the stuff cost a good grand a bottle. But it was like water to him. He still took another easy sip before he looked over at her.
He wasn’t surprised Moira had heard he’d been out with Maris Cordell, one of the deputies with the county sheriff’s department. What he was surprised about was the fact that she seemed to give a damn.
She tossed her champagne back like it was moonshine and she was dying for the buzz.
“We had dinner.” He shrugged casually and thought to himself he wouldn’t have made a bad actor.
Moira, however, never would have made it. She gave him a sharp-edged look and said, “Isn’t that just lovely. I bet you two have a lot to talk about.”
Gideon ran his tongue over his teeth. Then he shrugged and tossed back the rest of the bubbly wine. He rinsed out the glass. “I’d better head out. I’ve got case files to last me into the next decade, so—”
“Maybe the deputy can give you hand.”
“For fuck’s sake!” He spun around and glared at her.
She gave him an innocent smile as she polished off her champagne and put the flute down.
Striding back to her, he caught her arms. “What do you want, Moira? It’s sure as hell not me. I spent almost twenty years begging for you to come back to me, but you…”
Tears gleamed in her eyes as she stared up at him.
An invisible fist grabbed him by the throat, by the heart. “You won’t,” he said bleakly. As the tears broke free and rolled down her cheeks, he brushed them away. “You won’t. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. Probably the only woman I’m ever going to love. But I’m tired of standing on the sidelines, of reaching out for you only to have you push me away. I’m tired, Moira. I’m tired of being alone and being lonely. You don’t want me. I get it. But somebody else does.”
“Then go to her,” Moira said woodenly. She twisted out of his arms and pulled back. “I kept telling you it wasn’t going to happen, that you needed to move on, Gideon.”
She continued to stare at him with bruised eyes.
“Then why are you looking at me like I’ve broken your heart?” he asked raggedly.
“You haven’t, Gideon.” She managed to smile. “I’m happy for you. You’re moving on. I did that ages ago.”
He wanted to call her on it, wanted to say bullshit.
But she came to him and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m glad for you, baby. Now go on. Get out of here … you’ve got work to do, right?”
“Right.” Dully, he nodded. Turning away, he took a couple of steps, his legs numb, his chest feeling strangely empty.
“Gideon?”
He turned, heart leaping.
But she was staring out the window into the backyard. Without even looking at him, she said quietly, “I hope this makes you happy. You really deserve to be happy.”
* * *
Moira waited until he was gone before she left the kitchen.
She waited until she was up the stairs before she breathed out a low, shaking sigh.
She waited until she was in her room before letting out the next shuddering breath, because it was almost a sob.
She waited until the door was locked before she sank down on the floor and began to cry.
They were low, soundless sobs, the cries of the brokenhearted.
Then why are you looking at me like I’ve broken your heart?
He hadn’t.
Not really.
She’d done that to herself, over and over, as she’d pushed him away.
And this time, she’d done it permanently
.
It was really over.
CHAPTER TWO
“If looks could kill, you’d be dead. I’d be dead. And Moira McKay would be arrested for the double homicide of two law enforcement officers.”
Gideon didn’t let himself look in the mirror hanging over the bar and he didn’t let himself turn his head. He’d known Moira had entered the bar because the man working behind the counter would soon be her brother-in-law and Ian Campbell had never known a stranger—he’d greeted her with a loud shout and a threat to feed her himself if she didn’t sit herself down and eat.
The words had been delivered in a laughing tone, still thick with the music of Scotland. Whether or not Moira had eaten much, Gideon had no idea.
Because he wouldn’t let himself look at her.
It had been six weeks.
They didn’t speak outside the ongoing investigation. Somebody had set out to kill her brother Brannon. The same somebody had been stalking Hannah, the woman Brannon would soon marry.
Their most likely culprit hadn’t been all that likely in the end and it wasn’t like as though they could question him because the man was dead. Gideon had to give Senator Henry Roberts credit. He’d found one of the more unusual methods of suicide that Gideon had ever experienced or even heard of.
Death by anaphylactic shock—he’d been allergic to seafood and he’d requested a fish sandwich while waiting inside Gideon’s jail. The officers hadn’t known.
Still, it knocked the senator off the list because the problems hadn’t ended with Roberts’ death—they’d only gotten worse.
The one moderately bright spot in this was that he really didn’t have much reason to talk to Moira. They were taking great pains to avoid each other and that had made it almost easy to pretend she wasn’t the biggest part of his world.
Except for the fact that she was. At night, he felt the ghost of her presence and the memory of her hovered everywhere.
Even between him and the woman at his side, the ever-efficient and extremely beautiful Maris Cordell. Sensing that Maris was waiting for a response, he looked over at her and shrugged. “Good thing for us both that looks can’t kill then, huh?”
Maris studied him for a minute and then leaned in closer, so close, he could breathe in the scent of orange blossom on her hair.
He found himself wishing it was lavender and vanilla, and he hated himself a moment later.
There were times when he could go without thinking about Moira every spare moment he had. Sometimes even most of a day would pass—most, but never all. Not yet. But even the other day, when he had lunch free, his instinct wasn’t to try to hunt Moira down just to talk for a while. It had been to call Maris and see if she wanted to grab a bite.
He liked to think it was progress.
Then he had a night like last night, when he woke up at two in the morning, twisted in his sheets, the taste of Moira heavy on his tongue and the sound of her moans echoing in his ear.
“I was thinking…” Maris leaned closer, her breasts pressing into his arm.
“Yeah?” He smiled at her. “Why do you want to do that? I thought we were here to shut down our brains and not think.”
“Ha, ha.” She pressed her mouth to his ear.
Gideon closed his eyes. Made himself think about what she was doing, where her hand had settled on his thigh. If he thought about it—if he focused, he knew she could get him worked up.
“What do you say we take off this weekend? Just us? We could go down to Biloxi or maybe even head to New Orleans. Stay up all night, sleep in all day…” She sighed, and the caress of her warm breath along his nape was pleasant. “What do you think?”
He thought that it had been a while since he’d taken any personal time.
He thought that maybe it wouldn’t completely suck if he took some time off.
He thought that maybe it wouldn’t even be a bad idea to take some time with Maris.
Turning his head, he went to ask her a question and she stopped him with a single, slow kiss.
Content to sit back and let her control the kiss, he was breathing heavier when she pulled back and smiled at him, her hazel eyes glowing. “Is that a yes?”
A few days away from McKay’s Treasure. Where he wouldn’t brace himself every time he was in town, every time the phone rang, every time he left his damn house. A few days where he could focus on Maris and maybe convince himself he could be happy with her.
“Yeah.” He hooked his fingers in the vee of her sweater and tugged her mouth back to his. “Maybe that’s not a bad idea at all.”
* * *
“Moira, that’s gotta be a punch in the face.”
At the sound of that low, ugly voice, Moira tensed. She did indeed fell like she’d been punched. Not in the face, but in the heart.
Slowly, she looked away from the man she was sitting with and looked over at the one who’d chosen just that moment to pause by the table where she was sitting in Treasure Island, a petty, vindictive smile on his face. “Hello, Joe,” she said calmly before looking back at Charles.
Charles, her ex-husband, nowhere else.
He was the safest place to look, because he was the only one who wasn’t surreptitiously studying her and trying to gauge her reaction to what was going on at the bar.
Okay, that wasn’t true. Joe Fletcher seemed more interested in her reaction. And the couple at the bar was more interested in each other.
The couple at the bar.
Gideon Marshall and Maris Cordell. Maris, a pretty, confident county sheriff’s deputy with her Gideon.
No, Moira told herself. Not mine. He’s not mine and hasn’t been for a long time. But in her heart, she knew she lied.
“Wonder if they’ll be tying the knot soon too. A lot of that going around.”
A disgusted snort came from a booth across from Moira’s and the man there looked up at Joe. “Hey, Fletcher, how about you taking our order instead of gossiping?”
Joe’s face went an ugly red, but his expression smoothed a moment later. “Why, absolutely, Judge Steele. I’m just trying to be friendly, that’s all. The boss is always is getting on me ’bout that, ya know.”
“You wouldn’t know friendly if it bit you on the arse,” Charles said, his voice chilly.
Whatever Joe’s retort might have been was interrupted as Morgan, one of the co-managers at the pub, appeared, all smiles. “Everything okay over here?”
Her smile was all friendly competence. Her eyes matched. But Moira knew the other woman well enough to see the warning in her eyes when she looked Joe.
“Everything is just fine,” Joe said as he turned to take the Steeles’ order.
A few moments later, once Joe had disappeared into the back of the kitchen and once Moira had torn her gaze from Gideon’s back, Charles reached over and brushed his fingers across her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
The soft, cultured tones of Charles Hurst, her former husband, grated on her ears, but Moira looked up, a blank expression her face. “What?”
He angled his head toward the bar at the couple sitting there, heads pressed together, talking quietly. “I’m sorry. I know you…” He shrugged and smoothed down his tie. “Well, clearly you still have feelings for him.”
She opened her mouth to lie, the words practiced and well-rehearsed. After all, it had been eighteen years. Six months. And three weeks, she thought after a quick mental calculation. Plenty long enough for her to have gotten over him.
Then she looked at Charles, the man she’d been married to. Funny. She’d actually shared a name and a bed with this guy, but she’d never hurt over him the way she hurt over Gideon.
At the time, she’d thought she could be content with him. They’d had a lot in common and he’d made her feel a little less … lonely. Not happy, exactly, but happy was something Moira had denied herself for a long time.
They’d been compatible, though. More, she’d hoped that maybe if he was with her, then the next time Gideon wondered
back through town, he’d see her and realize she hadn’t changed her mind. They were over. He’d just … let it go.
He would go.
And he had, for a while.
Then he’d come back.
He’d come back, and she’d divorced Charles, and still she’d had to hold herself away from him.
It had taken her no time to get over the man she’d married, but the boy she’d loved twenty years ago … she still wasn’t over him.
Aware that Charles was still watching her, she managed a quick smile. “It just wasn’t meant to be.” She shrugged, tried to pretend it didn’t matter, that it wasn’t a knife in her heart to see Gideon Marshall with another woman.
Then they moved.
Like the air currents shifted and something whispered to her and she couldn’t make herself not look—she had to look, and when she did, she saw that Gideon and Maris were leaving. Walking out of the pub, her hand in his, the two of them talking softly. Gideon’s eyes, ever watchful, skimmed the crowd and for a moment, just briefly, he saw her.
Moira stiffened as their eyes connected.
He smiled impersonally and nodded.
Her heart thumped, cried pitifully.
He’s mine …
Then they passed out of her line of sight.
“Just like we weren’t meant to be?”
Charles’ question brought her gaze back around, and she found herself staring into his soft, beautiful eyes.
“I…” She laughed and reached for her wine. “Charles, you and I made much better business partners than lovers. You know that.”
“I know that I miss you.” He covered her hand with his after she put the wine down.
Moira stilled, staring at the elegant, long-fingered hand covering hers. His touch was confident, his voice calm. He’d been a good lover. An uninventive one, but satisfying. Definitely better than being alone, she thought absently.
When he took her hand, she let him and brought her gaze up to study him.
“Moira—”
But whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the loud, jovial sounds of Judge “Rudy” Rutledge. “I hear we’re having a wedding … or two!”
The Right Kind of Trouble Page 1
