Carla wasn’t exactly a vestal virgin or anything, but that one kiss with Jackson had been enough to convince her that he was different from anyone else she’d ever kissed. Which naturally led her to wonder how much better … other things would be with Jackson. She sighed and shifted in her seat again. It was a good thing she led such a full and lively fantasy life. Though she couldn’t help imagining what might have happened if Jackson’s in-laws hadn’t decided to swoop in at precisely the wrong moment. At the thought of those two, she scowled and reached for another candy bar but stopped herself before she could unwrap it. Heck, another hour or two in this car and she’d weigh three hundred pounds.
Sitting up straight again, she rolled the windows down and let a cold cross-breeze drift through the car, carrying the scent of the ocean and just a hint of someone’s barbecue grill. Abbey pushed herself up on the passenger seat and stared at Carla, head cocked.
“What?” she asked. “Bored? Yeah, well, me, too.”
The dog looked back at her and Carla could have sworn there was disapproval in that steady brown stare.
“Hey, it’s not like I want to sneak around following Tony. But I promised Beth.”
Abbey turned her head and leaned out the passenger-side window, to better enjoy the food smell.
Okay, Carla thought with disgust. She was headed for the deep end, now. Making excuses to her dog. That was pitiful. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, shifted in her seat until her too-tight jeans eased up enough to let her breathe comfortably, and focused her gaze on the house down the street again. Minutes slipped past, and just when Carla began to think that maybe Tony wasn’t going to do something stupid tonight after all, their front door opened and he stepped out.
Her fingers curled around the leather-wrapped wheel, and as her palms began to sweat, her mouth dried up. Yeah, she’d been born for intrigue. Should have been a spy.
She watched as Beth came out onto the porch and folded her arms across her chest as if giving herself a comforting hug. Scowling now, Carla saw Tony climb into the squad car he routinely drove, leaving the family minivan parked in the driveway.
“Okay,” she muttered, “maybe this isn’t too bad after all. At least he doesn’t mind being seen in the patrol car. He can’t be doing anything illegal then, right?”
Abbey didn’t voice an opinion.
“Right,” Carla said as she fired up the engine, “not illegal. Just immoral. Idiot.” She pulled away from the curb, and keeping her headlights turned off, she followed along at a safe distance behind her oldest brother. Too close and he’d recognize her car. Too far away and she’d lose him.
Following people wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
He turned right at the end of the street, and once Carla had made a “Hollywood stop,” tapping the brakes and rolling on through, she followed him. Streetlights were haloed in the first wisps of fog stretching in from the ocean. An older woman sat hunched on a bus bench; a group of kids on skateboards hooted and laughed as they rolled along the sidewalks. A few cars dotted the parking area in front of the shops on Main Street, but Tony went right on past the open slots, so she knew wherever he was headed, at least it wasn’t downtown Chandler. Good. That was something, anyway.
All Beth needed was for Virginia, Abigail, and Rachel to get hold of the news that Tony was doing … whatever he was doing.
Carla kept him in sight but stayed far enough back that she congratulated herself on her very first attempt at stalking. When Tony’s car took the freeway on-ramp, Carla had to flip on her headlights to join him. She didn’t want to take the chance of being stopped by the Highway Patrol.
“Where’s he going?” she wondered aloud, but Abbey was too busy enjoying having half her body out the side window to worry about the reason for the trip.
Carla braced her elbow on the car door, kept one hand on the wheel, used the other to scrape her flying hair out of her face, and kept her gaze fixed on her brother’s distant car. Her stomach churned, but now it wasn’t the chocolate bothering her. It was the thought of what she might find when Tony finally stopped driving.
For all of her big talk, Carla really didn’t want to walk in on her brother and his sleazeball girlfriend.
He took the next exit and Carla stepped on the gas pedal, hurrying to keep up. As much as she regretted having to do this, she couldn’t stop now. Not without some answers, whether she liked them or not.
At the end of the off-ramp, though, she was alone. Leaning on the steering wheel, she looked first left, then right, and didn’t see a damn thing. Not a tail-light. Not a headlight. The long dark road stretched out in both directions, the only sign of life an old gas station with flickering fluorescent lights. There were no cars at the pumps, though, and if she hadn’t known better, Carla might have thought she was alone in the world.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Jesus Christ!” Carla jumped straight up, nearly strangling herself on the shoulder strap of her seatbelt. One hand clapped to the base of her throat, she swiveled her head to the left and saw Tony, glowering at her through the driver’s-side window. “Damn it! Are you trying to kill me?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
* * *
When her grandparents left, Reese let out a long, deep breath and snuggled down under her blanket. She didn’t like all the yelling, and her grandpa’s mean face scared her sometimes. But as long as her daddy was close, she knew everything would be all right. He wouldn’t make her go away.
She didn’t want to go to that doctor place. Her fingers plucked at the smooth top of the blanket and she bit at her bottom lip as she thought about leaving here. She didn’t want to go. She liked the puppies. And Nana Angela. But best of all, she liked Carla. She smelled good, and when she smiled, her eyes did, too.
Reese turned over onto her side and closed her eyes. Her Cinderella light glowed just beside her, softening the dark, keeping all the scary shadow places far away from her bed. And her door was open a little bit, too, so the hall light spilled into her room. Her daddy always left the light on and he never said she was a baby like Mommy used to.
Mommy.
She squeezed her eyes tighter shut and tried not to think about Mommy. ’Cause when she did, she remembered that last day. And she remembered why the car crashed. And why Mommy died. And why she could never tell anybody what happened.
’Cause if she did, then her daddy wouldn’t want her anymore and Grandma and Grandpa would send her away to that doctor place.
* * *
“God, you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.” Heartbeat racing, head spinning, Carla tried to catch her breath, then gave up on it and just went with the wheezing and gasping. She shot Abbey a quick look and muttered, “Some watchdog you are.”
“You should talk about sneaking around,” Tony griped. “You were following me, Carla.”
“Well, duh.”
“Why?”
She flicked him a furious glance, then looked up into the rearview mirror as a blast of reflected headlights shone in her eyes. “I have to move. I’m blocking the exit, here.”
“Fine,” he snapped, stepping back from the car. “Pull over to the left and park by me.”
“Park by you where?” Carla looked to where he pointed and still didn’t see the squad car.
“Just around the incline, there.”
Her gaze finally picked up the slope of green grass that, in the darkness, had pretty much disappeared until Tony had pointed it out. Damn it. She threw the car into gear, whipped a quick left turn, then pulled around behind the small ridge of land to park alongside Tony’s patrol car.
Yeah, she should give up raising search dogs and become a detective. This was obviously where her true calling lay. Her first stakeout and she’d not only been caught red-handed but had also been damn near scared to death by the guy who wasn’t supposed to see her in the first place. Grumbling to herself, Carla shoved the gearshift into PARK, turned off the e
ngine, and set the brake. Looking at Abbey, she muttered, “You were no help at all. The next time I try to be stealthy, I’m leaving you at home and bringing Stevie instead.”
Abbey woofed, then wiggled a greeting at Tony as he stepped up to the car and yanked open the driver’s-side door.
“So,” he demanded, wearing the sternest “cop face” she’d ever seen on his features. “You want to tell me why my sister is tailing me?”
She unsnapped her seatbelt and turned to face him. “It’s your own fault.”
“Oh,” he said, folding his arms across his chest, “this should be good. How is this my fault?”
“Because you made Beth cry,” she snapped. Planting both hands on his chest, she gave him a shove that backed him up far enough that she could climb out of the car and fight standing on her own two feet.
A cold wind slapped at her, tugging at her hair, whipping it across her eyes. She tipped her face into the wind, pushed her hair aside, and glared at her brother. It was dark but for the slanting beams of the headlights she’d left on. As they stared at each other in silence, his squad car’s police radio hissed and crackled like an angry crowd.
Now that the adrenaline in her body was easing down to levels low enough to allow her heart to slide back from her throat to her chest, Carla was ready to face down her older brother. And the longer she stared up into his angry face, the more furious she became. Where did he get off being mad? He was the one screwing up. “What the hell are you up to, Tony? What’s going on?”
“You mean besides being stalked by my little sister?” He glared at her. “This has nothing to do with you, Carla.”
“We’re family.”
“Which is the only reason I’m not arresting you.”
“For what? Driving?” She snorted at his cheap attempt to scare her again.
“For following me.”
“That’s not illegal.”
“Hey, I’m the sheriff. It is if I say it is.”
“Damn it, Tony, what are you up to?”
“It’s none of your business, Carla. Butt out. And go home.” He turned around and walked toward his car.
Carla wasn’t about to let him get away with that, though. She wasn’t going to be put off. She wasn’t going to go back to Chandler and tell Beth they still didn’t know what was going on. “No way, big brother. I’m staying right here until I get an answer.”
“Hope you brought a sleeping bag.” He glanced at her as he opened his car door.
“You can’t just walk away from this.”
“Watch me.”
With no other choice left, she pulled out her big gun and fired. “I’ll tell Mama.”
He slammed the door and turned around to face her. “That’s a low shot, Carla.”
“So talk to me.”
“Can’t you just trust me?”
“Not after listening to Beth.” Carla walked closer, laid one hand briefly on her big brother’s arm, and looked up into his eyes. “Tony, you’re scaring her. And trust me, no woman—not even a sister—is going to be on a guy’s side in a situation like this.”
“A situation like what?” His brow furrowed, he threw his hands high as if surrendering to the inevitability of his sister’s interrogation.
“Like you boinking some airhead when you should be home with Beth and Tina, and I swear to God, Tony—”
“What?” His roar drowned out the police radio and seemed to rattle the leaves of the trees surrounding them. Carla blinked and shook her head to get rid of the ringing in her ears.
“You heard me.” She didn’t back up, not even from the grizzly bear look on his face. Now that it was out in the open, it was better for everyone if they just said what they had to say now.
“Yeah, I heard you, but I don’t believe you said that.”
“Join the club. I couldn’t believe you would do something so tacky. So low. So…”
“Finished already?” he prodded quietly. Now this was the Tony she knew. When he got mad, he went quiet, like their father always had. Oh, he shouted occasionally. He was Italian, after all. But when he was pushed beyond his limits, the shouting stopped and the silence began.
His lips thinned until his mouth was a grim slash across his face. His gaze narrowed on her and Carla almost told him just how much he looked like Papa the night Paul confessed to blowing a hole through the back of the garage with his chemistry kit.
But that was off the subject.
“Give me a minute,” she told him. “I’ll think of a few other things to call you. Like a son of a bitch. A bastard. A low-down, lying, weaselly, good-for-nothing, cheating—”
“I didn’t cheat.”
“Huh?” He said it so quietly, so evenly, she had no choice but to believe him. If he’d tried to stall her or evade the subject or even ranted a little, it would have been different. But his simple denial came from the heart and carried the ring of truth. And while that made her feel a hell of a lot better about her brother, it still left too many unanswered questions.
Muttering under his breath, he turned away from her, reached up, and shoved both hands through his hair with a viciousness that should have snatched him bald. When he whirled around to face her again, his features in the headlights reflected a wild mixture of astonishment and fury.
“I can’t believe you think I’d—”
“Well, what else were we supposed to think?”
“We?”
Well, he picked right up on that one, didn’t he? she thought. “Beth and I.”
“Beth?” He snorted a choked-off laugh that sounded as if it were strangling him.
“Great. So Beth asked you to follow me around like some third-rate PI.”
“She didn’t have to ask. I volunteered. And excuse me?” Carla demanded, just noticing that veiled insult. “Third-rate?”
“I caught you, didn’t I?”
“It was my first time.”
“Last time.”
“Yeah. Not to change the subject or anything, but just how did you catch me?” Carla planted both hands on her hips and tipped her chin up. “I thought I did a pretty good job, considering.”
A derisive laugh shot from his throat. “You did a lousy job. I noticed a car driving without headlights. Then I noticed it stayed behind me—always the same distance.”
“Oh.”
“Then I noticed the make of the car.”
“Ahh…” Well, she’d known that was a possibility. “I should have rented a different car.”
“Then I saw my ‘shadow’ follow me off the freeway. Figured it had to be you.”
“So you decided to scare me to death to pay me back.”
“I wasn’t trying to pay you back, I was trying to get rid of you.”
“So you could go meet the cheerleader.”
“What cheerleader?” he demanded.
“Whatever babe it is you’re meeting.”
“You really think I’d do that to Beth?”
“Beth thinks so.”
“Well, that’s perfect. Great. My wife thinks I’m cheating on her.”
“What’s she supposed to think, Tony?” Carla demanded, stomping over to stand directly in front of him. “You leave three nights a week. You won’t tell her where you’re going, what you’re doing.”
“And that adds up to ‘boinking a bimbo’?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s nice. Nice to know how much my family thinks of me.”
“Isn’t it kind of nice to know that your family cares enough about you to hunt you down like a dog?”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“Yes. At least it shows we care.”
“I’m all warm and fuzzy here.” He leaned one hip against the front fender and folded his arms across his chest. In the headlights, he didn’t look angry anymore. Just tired.
And her heart reacted. This was Tony, after all. The big brother who’d defended her against Nick’s and Paul’s teasing. The one who used
to buy her popcorn at the movies. The one who taught her to ride a bike. Years of love, of admiration, rolled through her, but before she could give in to the need to try to make him feel better, she remembered why she was there in the first place.
“So,” Carla asked after a long moment of quiet that dragged at her last nerve, “are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“No.”
“Tony…” Frustration rippled through her.
He looked up at her. “But I will tell Beth.”
“Deal.” Carla smiled at her big brother and tried to get a grip on her own curiosity. After all, Beth would tell her, eventually. As long as he wasn’t cheating—and she believed him on that score—then he and Beth could work everything out. They’d been together too long to settle for anything less.
One corner of his mouth turned up in a begrudging smile as he reached for her, drawing her close enough for a brief, hard hug. “Now will you go home? Or do I have to arrest you for harassing a police officer?”
* * *
She went.
It was late, she was tired but too full of chocolate and irritation to sleep, so instead, she parked her car and took Abbey for a walk. The night was quiet but for the murmur of the low-tide ocean. She listened to the whisper of water on sand, felt the cool fingers of wind tug through her hair, and headed for the beach by the closest route.
Which took her across Jackson’s front yard. Not that she was doing that on purpose or anything. That would be way too elementary-school. But could she help it if his house lay between hers and the shoreline?
Abbey, free of the confines of the car, darted ahead of Carla but always trotted back as if making sure that she was coming. Her tennis shoes slid on the damp grass, and she tucked her hands into her pockets for warmth. Tossing a glance at the house as she passed, Carla noticed that the evil in-laws’ rental car was gone and was glad for Jackson.
At least his night had improved.
“Hi.”
“Jesus!” Carla shouted, and grabbed at the base of her throat. Whirling around, she spotted Jackson, standing in the shadowy corner of the house, where he could look out on the ocean. Once again, her heart was in her throat and her breath pounded in and out of her lungs. Shaking her head, she asked of no one in particular, “Is there a contract out on me? Does somebody want me dead?”
Finding You Page 15
