Right now, as she slumped over a cup of coffee, her choppy red hair disheveled, she did the same thing when she caught sight of him in the doorway.
She gave him what he wanted.
A smile.
It wasn’t the same smile, though. That hit him, right in the heart. He’d noticed it last night and had hoped it was just exhaustion, or maybe it had something to do with Joel, but no. The misery was still there, hiding just out of sight.
Neve was like the little sister he’d never had, and that wan, tired smile made him want to pull her against him, hug her tight. At the same time, it made him want to sit her down and demand she tell him what in the hell was going on.
The hug, he could do.
But demands weren’t the way to handle Neve.
He’d figure it out, though.
Moving into the kitchen, he reached down and caught a lock of her hair—deep red and soft—and pulled. “You’re sitting here drinking my coffee. I hope you made enough for me.”
She gestured at the pot. “I made enough for five of us. I needed the caffeine.”
“Excellent.” He poured himself a cup and leaned against the counter to study her. “How did you sleep?”
“With my eyes closed.” She gave him a sidelong smile. “This is excellent coffee, by the way. I was afraid you’d have nothing but instant or decaf on hand.”
“Please.” He took a sip and sighed with satisfaction. “I’m a cop, darlin’. You cut me and I’ll bleed equal parts coffee and blood. Decaf shit just won’t do the trick. As for instant”—he shrugged and looked away—“I spent too much time in my life over at Ferry growing up. I got hooked on the good stuff.”
McKay’s Ferry was the sprawling plantation that had been home to the McKay family for generations. Gideon never would have left that place if he’d had anything to say about it. There had been a time when he and Moira had been inseparable. And if he’d had anything to say about that, well, that wouldn’t have ever changed, either.
“Well. That answers that,” Neve said softly.
He looked back to see her watching him with knowing eyes.
When he said nothing, she smiled. “I always wondered if you ever did the smart thing and fell in love with somebody else, but I guess not. You’ll never love anybody but Moira, will you?”
He didn’t say anything. But as their gazes locked and held, Gideon knew he didn’t have to. She wouldn’t tell anybody. Neither would he.
Their secret.
After a moment, he turned away. He grabbed a banana from the basket. “I’m not much on breakfast or anything, but there’s bread for toast. Bananas.”
“I had one—a banana that is. I never eat a lot in the morning.”
“I noticed,” he said, shooting her a dark look over his shoulder. “You don’t look like you eat much period, Neve.”
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I eat enough. I just … don’t have much of an appetite. I make sure to eat what I need to, okay?”
Something in her eyes there, he mused. Because he saw it, and recognized her need for privacy, he let it go. If she said she was taking care of herself, he’d believe her. “You ready to go see them?”
“Nope.” She shrugged. “But I’ll do it anyway. Figure they’re at Ferry or already out doing … whatever?”
He peeled the banana. “Now what makes you think I know what’s going on with your family, Neve?”
She just lifted a brow at him.
He took a bite of the banana and chewed, swallowed it. Just on principle. Then he shrugged. “Brannon might be at the pub—he’s the one who bought it a few years ago, fixed it up. He gets bored easy. He’s been buying some of the older places, fixing them up. If the current tenant wants to stay on, he’ll offer to be a partner or even just fund the renovations for a cut of the profit. If he’s not at the pub—or out looking for you—try the empty space next to the pub. He bought that off Steve Fuller, you might have seen the new place.” He grimaced and rolled his eyes. “The plan for that? Get this—some froufrou winery.”
Neve widened her eyes. “A winery? Here?”
“Yep. Actually, that’s just going to be the storefront. The winery is the old Mulligan farm. He’s been working on this project for five, six years now.” He paused, the surprise on her face surprising him. “You … haven’t been talking to them at all, have you?”
She just looked away.
He did, too. He’d known the rift was there. Brannon had been brusque and tight-lipped about it, but he’d assumed they’d had some contact, even minimal.
But there was nothing.
“What about Moira?” she asked quietly.
Son of a bitch. Jaw locked, Gideon stared at his shoes. He didn’t want to say a damn thing now. Why the fuck didn’t either of you try to talk to her? he wondered, thinking of Brannon and Moira.
But then again, he supposed he could ask Neve the same thing.
Looking up at her, he said softly, “Why haven’t you called, Neve? Why haven’t you come home before now?”
The taut, heavy silence seemed brittle. If it had shattered and fallen down around them like broken glass, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
When she finally turned her head to look at him, the bruised, stark expression on her face hit him square in the chest. “I tried,” she said flatly. Then she got up. “I’ll track her down. Thanks for letting me crash here, Gideon.”
He caught her arm before she left the room. You tried?
He wanted to ask what in the hell that meant.
But this was between her and her siblings. If nothing else, he had to respect that—and be there for her. She was going to need a friend.
Tugging her up against him, he hugged her close.
She stood there, stiff as a board and unyielding for the longest time, then finally, she relaxed.
“There’s a museum going up,” he said softly.
* * *
You haven’t been talking to them at all …
She’d called home. Several times.
She’d written. Often.
The letters came back or just went unanswered. Once she’d come back to the United States, more often than not they were sent back with a snide little Return to Sender note scrawled across the envelope. She had to wonder how many times she’d written from Scotland, waiting for a response to a letter that hadn’t even been read.
She’d tried not to let it hurt. It wasn’t like she’d left under the best of circumstances, but the past few years, she’d needed her brother and her sister. She’d needed them so badly, it had hurt.
They weren’t there.
Now, when she had no place she could go—no. She cut that thought off. There were places she could go. If she absolutely had to, she could get money—there was plenty of that—and hide herself away, hire bodyguards, whatever she had to do.
But she didn’t want to do that.
She wanted to be here.
Wanted to be home.
Neve was a lot of things, but she’d never been a coward.
Gideon squeezed her gently and sighed. She braced herself for more questions, but instead he said quietly, “There’s a museum going up.”
A museum…?
“What kind of museum?” she asked, unaware that her voice was shaking.
Gideon sighed and leaned back, brushing her hair from her face.
The familiarity of that gesture made her heart squeeze. “It’s down near the dock. Your family … well, your sister is behind it. It’s going to have exhibits on riverboating, the history of the area, and that sort of thing, but the main focus is your family … about Patrick.”
“Patrick.” She smiled a little, and despite the raw, aching wound that had taken the place of her heart over the past couple of years, she discovered a curious warmth spreading through her. “Patrick … and Madeline, I’d imagine. Jonathon, the Steeles. All of McKay’s Treasure. This whole town is the story of them.”
“You said it in a nutshell.”
Gideon looked like he wanted to say more, and then he just shook his head. “Go. You should go. See it. It’s almost done.”
There were things unspoken in the way he studied her—and she heard every last one.
But she just nodded. “Yeah. I think I’ll do just that.”
Maybe seeing the museum might help ease the ache inside her. She had always been fascinated by the history of her ancestors: the riverboat captain and his lovely lady who had made this place their home and how they’d made the settlement that would become McKay’s Treasure. Later, as she learned more about the tragedy that would befall them, it had also broken her heart.
A museum—a memorial—to him, something that would tell the truth of it, the very idea made her smile. Leave it to Moira to come up with that kind of thing.
Moira … She paused in the door of the kitchen and looked back at him. “How did you manage it?”
He frowned.
“I know she divorced that schmuck she married, but how did you manage it? Staying here, being around her while she was married to somebody else, and you loving her the way you do?”
His pale blue eyes went blank and she wondered if he’d answer.
But after a moment, he just shrugged. “Whether I’m here or not, she would have been married. Whether I was home or somewhere else, I would have been miserable. I might as well be miserable at home rather than in a city I’d hate.”
There was more to it.
But he didn’t say anything else.
She nodded. Then, because it would have to be done, she blew out a breath. “Look, um … I’ve got problems. They’re kind of bad. I need to talk to you about them. Sometime soon.”
He shoved off the counter. As he came toward her, he reached into his pocket. Without a word, he held out a card.
She stared for a second and then took it.
“Call me,” he said softly.
She nodded, then turned toward the hall. Once they were outside, he bent his head and looked at her. “Neve?”
“Yeah?”
“I missed you.” He paused and then added, “So did they. Even if they are too stubborn at first to say so.”
CHAPTER THREE
Torn between hunting down her brother—who would probably be the easier one to face—and her sister, in the end, Neve decided to bite the bullet and take on Moira.
If she bearded the lion—or the lioness, as it were—in her den, dealing with Brannon might come off as child’s play.
Besides, she wasn’t quite ready to face Ian Campbell of the sexy kilt and even sexier accent and wicked kisses yet. Especially after the sharp one-eighty he’d dealt her last night.
It wasn’t hard to find the museum. McKay’s Treasure had grown from the tiny speck, not even on the map, that it had been back in the 1800s when it had been settled by her many-times-great-grandfather, but it was still just a small Southern town, perched on the edge of the Mississippi. The strip of road that ran along the docks gave a pretty decent view of the river.
Ten years ago, there had been a bait-and-tackle store and a diner. That had been it.
Now there was also a coffee shop and a bistro, and the bait-and-tackle store looked like it had been expanded and fixed up. The diner definitely had, it’s black and red fifties retro look was far more appealing than the crumbling facade it had boasted back when she’d been in high school. She remembered what Gideon had said about Brannon and his projects and she wondered if the diner was one of them.
The diner had the best burgers and the best chocolate shakes, but only the locals had known that.
Now it was crowded, with a little patio area for outside dining.
Her throat ached at some of the changes.
She studied the shops before heading on to the area that had to be the museum. It was the only place with any recent construction.
It was on the opposite side of the road, elevated to protect it for when—when, not if—the river flooded. The elevation was man-made, but cleverly so. Neve suspected that inside the building they’d find more ways to keep valuable exhibits protected. On higher floors or something.
Nothing about the place screamed museum, she had to say. If anything, it looked like … well, a home.
“Old Paddy would have liked that,” Neve said quietly as she rubbed the heel of her hand over the ache that had taken up residence in her chest. There had been a few times, back when she was really, really young, before Mom and Dad had died, when Dad would let her sit in his lap while he read her some of the passages from one of Paddy’s old journals. Paddy had written about home, his life in the Highlands and the home he’d left, then the one he wanted to build, and his Maddie.
For Patrick McKay, the man who had founded this town more than one-hundred-fifty years earlier, everything had been about home.
That was probably why she was here.
No. That was why she was here.
That was why she’d started moving back in this direction nearly ten months ago, although she hadn’t realized her destination at the time.
Instead of trying to stay a few steps ahead, she needed to draw her line in the sand.
But she needed to do it on her turf. On her terms.
And there was only one place in all the world where she’d do it.
Home.
No more running.
No more worrying that she’d be volunteering at a shelter and come outside to find him leaning against her car.
No more worrying that the knock on the door of her hotel might be him or that the delivery at the front desk wasn’t some clothes she’d ordered to replace the ones she’d had to leave behind.
If he wasn’t here yet, he would be soon.
He was too good at tracking her down, although she doubted there was much tracking going on now. Once she’d crossed the line into Mississippi, he’d have figured it out.
He’d last called two days ago, when she’d left Memphis. She hadn’t answered, but that hadn’t stopped him from sending her a text. No words, just a picture, and she’d been torn between rage and revulsion.
He still had those pictures. Or copies of them, stashed somewhere on a thumb drive or something, after all this time.
She’d hurled her phone on the ground, smashing it in a fit of misery, fear, and nausea.
She’d bought another phone, one of those cheap, pay-as-you-go phones, and she’d gone online in the truck stop, using her laptop to activate it. Now she had a phone with a number he didn’t know.
For a while.
And she was home.
He’d show up here, she had no doubt of that, but this was home. She had family here. Roots.
But first … she had to figure out how in the hell to fix everything she’d fucked up.
* * *
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but the … oh, my goodness.”
Neve smiled, feeling out of place, but she wouldn’t let it show.
That was the trick, you never let it show, no matter what.
The woman who came bustling around the nearly finished counter was the closest thing she’d had to a mother for the majority of her life, and Neve found herself already battling tears. She braced herself for the hug that would smell of orange blossoms and too much perfume.
It did.
Sniffling, she wrapped her arms around Ella Sue’s neck. “Hi, Mrs. Daltry.”
“It’s Mrs. Pendleton now. That no-account fool Billy ran off and I divorced him.” Ella Sue leaned back and smiled. She was sixty if she was a day, but her face was unlined, smooth and warm, the color of coffee laced with just a touch of cream. She winked and added, “I married his accountant and we took over the business Billy thought he’d have to shut down. We’ll be able to sell it in five years and move to Lake Tahoe, if we want.”
Neve arched a brow. “You’d never leave Treasure.”
“Of course not.” Ella Sue lifted a hand, cupped Neve’s face. “My baby looks worn out.”
Neve covered Ella Sue’s hand and pressed it to her che
ek. “I’ve been driving the past few days. That would wear anybody out.”
Ella Sue eyed her shrewdly and Neve suspected she wanted to say more, but chose not to. “I heard you were here last night … I hoped you’d show up at Ferry.” Then she smiled. “But you’re here now. You’ll come home. I’m making your favorite for dinner and I’ve already had my Aneila ready your room.”
Relief gripped Neve’s heart. “You’re still at the house.”
“Of course I am.” Ella Sue sniffed. “Like anybody else could handle the lot of you. I’ll call Aneila, though, make sure she has everything ready for you.”
“Oh, please—”
Ella Sue’s eyes went steely. “Hush, now. And don’t you dare give me any lip about not staying at the house.”
“Of course.” Neve wisely hushed. Now. Then she slid her hands into her pockets and wandered in a small circle around the wide, open space of the lobby as she waited for Ella Sue to finish.
Pausing by the black-and-white images—copies, she knew—of several generations of McKays, she smiled. Bits and pieces of family history to start the visitors off, leaving them with just enough questions to make them want to know more.
“Ella Sue—well, hello there. Can I help you?”
At the deep voice, brushed with the crisp tones of England, Neve turned.
Automatically, she pasted a smile on her face as she met a pair of velvety dark brown eyes. His eyes were seductive and rich, like melted chocolate, something a woman might want to gorge on. But Neve knew better. She’d never much liked Charles Hurst, not when he’d traveled with Moira a few years ago to meet her and not during their infrequent conversations since. The few times she had talked to Moira she’d also talked to this smug son of a bitch, and if she was being honest, she’d have to admit that she’d stopped trying to call as much once she knew she’d likely have to deal with him as well.
Charles inclined his head, studying her. Then he smiled. “Neve. It’s you. Don’t you look … lovely.” That faint pause was almost imperceptible but she picked up on it.
No. I look like hell. I would have thought better of you if you’d just left it alone or even called me on it. Instead of saying anything to that effect, she just lifted a brow and went back to studying the family images in front of her. “Hi, Charles.”
Headed for Trouble (The McKay Family #1) Page 4
