Fully Involved (Island Fire Book 3)

by Amy Knupp

  “For what?” She was unsuccessfully trying not to laugh at him.

  “Freaks. Crazies. Axe—”

  “What are crazies, Daddy?”

  “Big hairy bugs,” Andie said, glancing into the bathroom and bedroom. “And there are none here.” A cell phone blared in the quiet of the apartment, and Andie dug it out of her pocket. She checked the display and her entire demeanor changed. Tensed. “Hey, Jonas.” Her voice was tight.

  Who the hell was Jonas and why was she afraid of him? Clay held on to Payton and paced.

  She listened for a while to the Jonas guy. His voice carried but Clay couldn’t make out his words.

  “So you talked to him yourself?” Andie asked, her tone conveying how upset she was. “Yeah. Okay.” She ran her hand through her hair. “You’re right.”

  Clay looked down at Payton. She was also paying rapt attention to Andie’s end of the conversation.

  “You’re tired tonight, aren’t you?” he asked, trying to distract her. That didn’t prevent him from hearing what Andie said next.

  “Still over two weeks before I can leave. After that, I can go wherever I want. That'll help.” She glanced at Clay. “I need to go, Jonas. Thanks for the call.”

  “Good friend of yours?” Clay asked when she ended the call.

  She avoided eye contact and stuck the phone back in her pocket. “My cousin.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Just fine. Let’s get that bear so you can go to bed, sweetie.” She held her arms out to Payton.

  Clay let her down, clenching his teeth. He had questions, but not in front of his daughter.

  While the girls went into Andie’s bedroom, he paced to the balcony door and peered out into the darkness, his mind spinning. Andie’s business was certainly not his, but he couldn’t help wanting to get involved. He was the kind of guy who tended to jump in whenever someone was in trouble. Didn’t make any difference if it was his sexy renter or an old woman on the street. Payton giggled and he relaxed marginally. He went to the doorway of the bedroom and leaned against it, watching her hug the tie-dyed bear while Andie told her Lyle’s favorite foods.

  “You didn’t mention we’d have to feed the bear,” Clay said.

  Andie grinned and came around the bed toward him. “He likes his green beans cooked just right too.”

  “He’s in trouble then. I’ve been known to burn them.”

  “Is this real?” Payton asked, making both of them turn back to her.

  “Payton!” Andie leaped the few feet to her at the sight of the one hundred percent real gun she held in one hand. “Don’t move!”

  Clay froze, knowing in an instant she had never unloaded it as he’d insisted when she moved in. Flooded with adrenaline, it was all he could do not to tackle Andie and grab the gun.

  “Payton, point it toward that wall over there and slowly hand it to Andie.” His heart hammered out of control, and he didn’t breathe until Andie had it securely in her hand.

  “Come here, girly,” he said, sitting on the bed and stretching his arms out. Payton crawled over the mattress and flung herself at him, as if she sensed how terrifying that moment had truly been. He wrapped her in a tight hug, squeezed his eyes closed, and thought he might throw up.

  Andie unloaded the thirty-eight. Clay sat there quietly, watching her.

  “I’m sorry,” Andie finally said, turning her back to him and putting the gun in the drawer of the nightstand. “I screwed up.”

  He’d screwed up worse. He’d been stupid enough not to make damn sure she’d unloaded the gun.

  Who the hell was this woman who lived so dangerously close to his three-year-old daughter? What was she afraid of?

  His jaw locked, he narrowed his eyes, unable to speak and unwilling to have Payton hear what he might say to Andie anyway.

  He stood, not about to let go of Payton. “Time for bed,” he said softly into her ear. He walked out of her unit without a word.

  His next tenant would go through one hell of a background check. And he would never take someone at their word again.

  Bridget had said he’d changed, left his screwing-up tendencies behind him, but obviously she was wrong. And this time he’d put his daughter’s life in jeopardy. He had to do better before someone got hurt again because of him.

  oOo

  Two days later, the need to talk to Clay, to apologize again, ate away at Andie.

  She’d knocked on his door three different times since Payton had found her gun, but he hadn’t answered. Now he sat across from her at a picnic table, but they were surrounded by a crowd. Clay, Evan, and Payton, who’d set Lyle the Bear on the table next to her, were across from her and Macey. Hundreds had gathered for the recognition ceremony of San Amaro Island’s twenty-fifth birthday party.

  Andie vowed to corner him somehow so they could talk privately. So far he’d done a fine job of ignoring her.

  “That is not your dinner,” Andie said to Macey, trying to distract herself. “There’s a child present.”

  Macey laughed and licked her fingers, gripping the battered and fried candy bar on a stick tightly with her other hand. “Payton knows better than to follow my example, don’t you, hon?”

  “Daddy said if I eat my taco all gone, I can have my own one of those.”

  Tables were scattered throughout the courtyard of the fire station, and a small stage had been set up close to the main entrance. Most of the benches were filling with families who’d grabbed their dinners from the variety of fundraising booths along the street.

  “Ladies and gentlemen…” A man spoke into a microphone, setting off ear-piercing feedback. He introduced himself as the mayor and received polite applause. “Welcome to the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of San Amaro Island!”

  Andie half listened as she picked at her pork tamale. She wasn’t particularly interested in the goings-on. Except, of course, she wanted to see Selena recognized for her incredible murals. Besides, when she’d found out Clay would be here, she’d decided to see how far he’d go to avoid her.

  “When’s Selena’s thing?” she asked Evan.

  “Should be pretty soon, right after they get through all the volunteers,” Evan said. He’d turned backward on the picnic table bench so he had a direct view of his wife when she had her big moment. “Should’ve done the pregnant lady first.”

  “She does look about to pop, doesn’t she?” Macey said, still licking her fingers. “Don’t you dare tell her I said that. She’ll take it the wrong way.”

  Evan chuckled. “Lately she takes just about everything the wrong way. Except ice cream.”

  “How many more weeks?” Andie asked.

  “Three and a half. Then life as we know it...” He gestured with his hand across his neck.

  “And you’ll be insanely in love with your new baby,” Macey said.

  The whole table quieted as the person on the stage — some committee chairperson — praised Selena’s art and gushed about how wonderful she was to work with.

  When a large-bellied Selena finally approached the podium to accept a plaque and the final payment for her services, their table cheered and hollered to show their support. Andie grinned at Evan, clearly so proud of his wife he was about to explode. What a sap. A happy one, to be sure, but if someone had told her last year that the tall, charming player would fall so hard so soon, she would’ve laughed them off the island.

  “Thank you,” Selena said into the microphone. “This was a dream project for me — every artist wants to see her work bigger than life and…” She gestured to the mural that had been ceremoniously uncovered minutes ago. “This is definitely larger than life.” She looked pointedly at her abdomen. “I can kind of relate.” Laughter broke out through the courtyard.

  “On a more serious note, I’d like to thank the city of San Amaro Island for offering me the opportunity. And most importantly, thank you to Evan Drake, who has supported me from the beginning.” She scoped him out in the crowd and met his ga
ze. “He’s my husband now, so it looks like his evil plan worked.”

  The audience stood and clapped. Some of the firefighters on duty, including Derek, lined the wall of the station, and several of them hollered at Evan.

  “Thanks again.” Selena made her way down the three stairs and through the tables to her husband. He welcomed her with open arms and an R-rated kiss, which generated more reaction from his coworkers and an elbow from Clay.

  “Kids here,” he said. “No PDAs.”

  They all sat down and listened restlessly to the last part of the presentation. Finally the mayor let them get on with their evening. Most of the crowd headed to the beach, where there was an outdoor concert starting. “Now can I have my candy?” Payton asked Clay.

  “You ate that whole taco?” he asked her, patting her belly. “Are you sure you have room for a candy bar in there?”

  Payton grinned and nodded shyly as everyone at the table looked at her.

  “I promised you, didn’t I?” Clay said. “I’ll take you as soon as I finish my last dog.”

  “I’ll take her,” Macey said. “I need to wash my hands anyway.”

  “You want to go with Miss Macey?” Clay asked.

  Payton nodded again and skipped around the table, carrying the tie-dyed bear with her.

  “You have to be a fried-candy-bar expert to order them right,” Macey told Clay, standing.

  “I think we’re heading out,” Evan said. “Right?” he asked Selena.

  “So right. My ankles must be triple-sized. I need air conditioning. Now.”

  Everyone said their good-byes, Macey and Payton headed toward the concession stands, and Clay and Andie were finally alone. In the middle of the crowd.

  Andie stood and Clay didn’t so much as glance at her. She walked around the table and sat right back down again. Next to him.

  “So,” she said. “I’ve been trying to track you down.”

  “I’ve been busy,” he said, then stuffed the last third of his hot dog into his mouth.

  “Clay, I’m sorry about the gun.”

  He nodded once and grunted.

  “It’s unloaded now.” She swallowed hard, her chest tightening painfully at the memory of Payton waving the thirty-eight, one wrong move away from tragedy. “It’ll stay that way until I leave.”

  She didn’t like it, didn’t like the thought of not having that security under her pillow, but a repeat of Payton finding it was unthinkable.

  Clay watched her as he finished chewing. “Tell me, biker girl. What the hell are you so scared of?” That wasn’t what she wanted to talk about, particularly, but she sort of owed it to him to open up. He’d leveled with her the other night by the bay. If she shut him down now, she suspected there was no chance of his forgiveness.

  For some reason, that mattered to her.

  “Is it your dad? You said he’s a drinker,” Clay prodded. “Are you running from him?”

  “My dad is dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. He drank himself to death, which is exactly what he deserved. No,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “I take that back. He deserved to have someone beat the hell out of him. Regularly. He deserved to live in fear…” She forced herself to meet his eyes.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask prying questions, thank God. But she could see in those brown eyes he understood what she’d just admitted to indirectly. She fidgeted and rubbed her thumbs together in a nervous circular pattern. “My ex recently got out of prison back in Illinois,” she said.

  “You’re scared of him?” he asked, his head close to hers so no one could eavesdrop.

  “I … guess you could say that.”

  “Does he know where you are?”

  “No.” He was looking for her though. Asking around. He’d asked Jonas, who’d been friends with Trevor’s brother for years. As far as she knew, though, Trevor had no clue she was in Texas.

  oOo

  Clay believed what Andie was telling him, and maybe that was him being stupid. But he didn’t think so. What reason did she have to lie about any of it?

  “Tell me something else,” he said. “You said you have more than one hit on your police record. Besides the run-in with your scumbag ex-boyfriend, what are we talking here? Bank robberies? Mugging old ladies?”

  She looked as if she wasn’t going to tell him, which wouldn’t surprise him. But he needed to understand better what kind of woman he had living downstairs from him. From Payton.

  “Trespassing. And I got in a fight a couple of years ago,” Andie said quietly after several seconds. She studied the table in front of her. “I’m not proud of any of this, Clay. I want you to know that.”

  “I have some unproud moments in my past,” he said. “I get that.”

  “I left home when I was sixteen,” she said. “I had no friends at the time, nowhere to go, but anywhere was better than enduring another episode with my father.”

  Clay became so engrossed in what she was saying that he filtered out all the people around him, felt as if they were alone. “What did he do to you, Andie?”

  “Standard stuff. Beat me up.” She glanced at him nervously. “Nothing sexual if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “So you left,” he said, trying not to dwell on her piece-of-shit dad.

  “I left. Spent the next few years taking whatever job I could get, living wherever I could find a place, no matter how temporary. One winter I got really sick. Flu or something. It was horrible. Lost my job because I couldn’t show up for work, and got kicked out of the place I was living. I had nowhere to go. Didn’t care where I was as long as I could sleep. I snuck into an old house I thought was abandoned.”

  “I take it it wasn’t?”

  “It wasn’t. The owner found me and called the cops.” She ran her hands up and down her arms, even though it was hot and humid. “I didn’t even care. I just wanted to sleep. In jail, I could do that.”

  Clay couldn’t help comparing his teen years to hers. He’d been a troublemaker, a cliché rebel without a cause. He’d left home a couple of times himself, a week here, few days there. But looking back, it was one of the dumbest things he’d done. He’d had a good home, a family who loved him. Unlike Andie.

  “Was that the only time?” he asked, resisting the urge to touch her. Comfort her.

  She shook her head. “There were two others. Same kind of deal except I wasn’t sick. Just cold.”

  “These were after you turned eighteen?”

  She nodded. “I’m not the same person anymore, Clay. My life… I’ve changed my life. Even though I still move around, it’s by choice now. Not because I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “And the fight you mentioned?”

  “A guy in a bar wouldn’t leave me alone. I punched him.”

  “You fought a guy?”

  “Technically, no. Only one punch. He pressed charges. Ever since Trevor, I take defending myself seriously.”

  “I understand that.”

  “But the gun is unloaded.”

  He nodded slowly. “I’ve heard too many tragic stories about kids—”

  “You can check it every night if it will make you feel better.”

  A deep-seated need to protect her evoked images of him keeping her safe. In his arms. In his bed. “That won’t be necessary.”

  He hoped. Was he making a mistake to trust her again? On the same issue? Maybe he’d check once or twice after all…

  It was a big deal for her to reveal to him everything she had. That was unquestionable. His gut told him he could believe she would keep the weapon unloaded. Unfortunately, he didn’t often trust his gut.

  “Daddy!”

  Clay looked up to see Payton and Macey making their way back to the table. Payton walked slowly, carrying her sugar conglomeration as carefully as if it were a bowl of boiling water she didn’t want to spill. A self-satisfied grin split her face in two. Macey held Lyle the Bear between her elbow and torso and carrie
d another plate.

  “Are you really going to eat that thing, girly?” Clay asked, his stomach turning.

  Payton walked around the table to him and burrowed her way onto the bench between him and Andie.

  “If you get a tummy ache, just remember it’s Miss Macey’s fault,” Andie said.

  “I won’t get a tummy ache,” Payton said, sitting up straight and surveying her treat.

  “You got another one?” Clay asked Macey in awe.

  Macey laughed. “It’s a present for Derek.”

  “Didn’t realize he liked junk food so much.”

  “He doesn’t. It’s kind of an ongoing joke between us. I’m sure someone else at the station will end up eating it. Back soon.”

  Payton finally stuck the end of the bar in her mouth and took a dainty bite. “Yummy.”

  Clay shook his head, smiling. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Pay.”

  Andie stood and extricated herself from the picnic bench. She picked up her paper plate of half-eaten dinner to throw away and grabbed Clay’s as well.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know,” she said. “I usually wouldn’t.” She carried them to a nearby trash can and returned to the table.

  “We need to pick up that bike for you,” Clay said, holding the stick for Payton while she nibbled like an enthusiastic mouse.

  “Anytime. I have tomorrow off.”

  “I do too.”

  “Tomorrow is my birthday party!” Payton hollered, craning her neck to see Andie’s face.

  “No way! You’re turning four already?” Andie said, once again surprising him.

  Payton nodded, chewing, and then turned to Clay. “Can Miss Andie come to my party, Daddy? Please?”

  “Andie probably has other things to do,” he told his daughter, sputtering, searching his brain for a graceful way out of this.

  “Do you, Miss Andie? Can you come?”

  “I’d love to,” Andie said, looking amused at his obvious discomfort, “but only if your dad says it’s okay.”

  Those big brown eyes were one hell of a weapon. When Payton pegged him with them, he struggled. He could imagine how having Andie as a guest at their family dinner would go over, especially with his dad.