by Stacy Gail
“What I’d like to do is ask Payton Pruitt for forgiveness for not trying harder to stand up to my sister,” she muttered, dragging a distracted hand through her hair before continuing her search for clothes. “The one time I did, Katherine scared the crap out of me by promising to make that girl’s life look like a slice of heaven compared to what she and her buddies would do to me. Ugh, I can’t believe what a spineless coward I was back then.”
“Whoa.” Taking the sheet with him, Coe rolled out of bed to close his hands over her shoulders when she would have made another stressed circuit around the room. “You’re a lot of things, Miranda. You’re stubborn and unyielding, and you can hold a grudge better than a pop diva can hold a finishing note. But the one thing you’re not is a spineless coward.”
Her face froze, and for a moment his princess appeared to be on the verge of ordering his immediate beheading. “I see. That’s good to know.”
“You’re also kind and patient, and so sweet and compassionate you’re almost in tears over not protecting a stranger from your bitch of a sister over a decade ago,” he went on, holding her still when there was no doubt in his mind she would have stomped away. “That alone is enough to make my system overheat. But whenever you give up those fancy manners and do something wild like drop the f-bomb or grab my crotch, I can’t even function.”
“When have I grabbed your crotch?”
“Babe, I live in hope. The point is,” he went on while the last of her pissed-off expression melted away with her laugh, “you’re a good woman. I know you are. That’s why I trust you to take care of me. Just as you trust me, I hope, to take care of you.”
“Oh, Coe.” She laid a hand against his heart with a gentleness that unraveled him in ways he couldn’t begin to list. “I do trust you to take care of me, even when I do my best to make it impossible for you to try. I’d love to tell you that you’re a not-so-charming prince among men, who understands the true meaning of nobility by living nobly every day, but I think you’d be aghast at the thought.”
How well she knew him. “I’m aghast you don’t think I’m charming.”
“Oh, I do. You have a definite charm about you that I find irresistible.”
“Yeah?” With the beginnings of a smile, he guided her hand down his chest and abdomen to curl around his dick under the sheet that now was his toga. “Does this have anything to do with it?”
She burst out laughing. “Now that’s a man response if there ever was one.”
“Hey, I can’t deny what I am.”
“Sadly, I’m going have to deny this—” she gave him a friendly squeeze that had him sucking in a sharp, whistling breath, “—because my sister can’t be trusted to be left alone with Payton Pruitt. I need to hop in the shower and get over there before something nasty happens.”
He sighed. Even to his ears, it was a sad, sad sound. “Have it your way. But since you’re obviously in a rush, I should point out that it’d probably be faster if we showered together.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“Oh, but I do. Since I’m all about being noble, I’m not about to stand around playing pocket pool while you face off with the Wicked Witch of the West.”
The look she gave him was so severe it bordered on schoolmarmish. “Just showering, Coe. In and out, and that’s it.”
“Not a problem, babe.” But he figured he couldn’t be blamed for grinning at her unfortunate choice of words.
* * *
When Miranda walked into the clinic with Coe an hour later, her body was still a tingling, happy mess. Was it any wonder she’d fallen for him all over again? It might not be the smartest thing she’d ever done, but no one could tell her the man wasn’t worth the risk. Skills like his weren’t seen every day, after all.
“Good morning.” She approached a counter off to one side of a large waiting room. Behind it, a tall dark-haired woman in a white lab coat busily danced her fingers along the surface of a tablet while a blond man she recognized as her old crush, Wiley Sharpe, tried unsuccessfully to coax her into a chair. The length of the lab coat didn’t hide the woman’s baby bump, so Wiley’s anxious hovering made loads of sense. A second chair at a computer terminal was occupied by a twenty-something curvaceous brunette with studious horn-rimmed glasses, a tailored blazer over a graphic T-shirt, chunky kitty earrings and a rhinestone headband that had aspirations of being a tiara. “I received a text message that Katherine Brookhaven was here?”
The seated woman graced her with a look one might receive after dropping a swear word in church. “Ohhhhh, yes. Yes-yes-yes. She’s the one and only reason we are all here.”
“Anya.” The amount of warning the doctor packed into that one word was impressive, and it brought Miranda’s attention to her. Her sable brown hair was short, her eyes dark and lively with intelligence and, unless she was very wrong, a storm waiting to unleash.
Clearly, she and Coe had taken too much time in the shower.
“I’ll get her out of here as soon as possible,” she found herself promising before she thought it through. “I’m her sister Miranda, and I know she’s...” She searched for the most appropriate description that could also be aired in public, and came up blank. “I suppose it’s safe to say we can all be thankful that Katherine is one of a kind.”
“Your sister isn’t suffering any visible signs or otherwise well-documented symptoms of CO poisoning, so there’s no cause for alarm on that front.” Payton Pruitt-Sharpe’s voice was carefully neutral, and she nodded to a set of double doors across the room. “She’s through there if you’d like to see her. And please remind your sister that as she’s been medically cleared to leave the premises, this clinic doesn’t cater to malingerers. She can either leave on her own, or I have the legal right to have her escorted off this property.”
“I’ll be the one doing the legal escorting.” Wiley put his hand up, and his smile was chilling. “If she wants to sue me for it, I’m more than ready to handle it.”
“It won’t come to that.” The only reason Katherine was pulling this was to force Miranda into meeting her, she was absolutely sure of it. She glanced at Coe. “I’ll try and make this quick.”
“I’m going in with you.”
“Sorry, but it’s clinic policy to allow only family members back there,” Payton said before Miranda could figure out how to tell him the last thing she wanted was for him to be reminded of how awful a Brookhaven could be by allowing him to get a good look at Katherine. “Have a seat out here while she visits with her sister.”
Visits, Miranda silently echoed as she made a beeline for the double doors. How quaint. It sounded so nice and civil. Too bad it was about as far from the truth as the sun was from Pluto.
Behind her, the door swung closed on silent hinges, affording her a moment to take in her sister, lying like a wilted flower on a gurney. Apart from when Katherine had come to her modest apartment to tell her of the terms of her father’s will, Miranda hadn’t been in the same room with her older sister since she’d left home. She’d tried to contact Katherine only a couple of times during her freshman year, but Katherine had never returned her calls. Despite the silence that came her way, the message had come through loud and clear, and with a regret that had scarred her heart, she mentally shut the door that belonged to her entire family.
Seven years had come and gone, yet Katherine still seemed the same. Which, Miranda supposed, said a lot for the powers of plastic surgery. Blond hair a few shades lighter than her own fell in a careful cascade around her oval face, her cheekbones perfectly accented by blusher that had been applied by a well-paid expert hand. Her lips were fuller than when they’d been living under their father’s roof, to the point where Miranda thought they looked like they were suffering a strange allergic reaction to something.
She almost snorted when she spotted Katherine still had her red-
soled heels on, despite lying supine on a gurney. No matter how deeply she flung herself into her dying-swan routine, no one was going to separate her from her designer footwear.
“You can stop faking now, Katherine.” Miranda waited until her sister’s head snapped up from its lifeless, and offered a hard smile when their eyes met. “There’s no audience for you to play to.”
Katherine’s pitiful aura vanished in a blink. “Did you see who’s in charge of this berg’s clinic? It’s Queen Geek herself.”
“Name-calling. How lovely that you’re still childish enough to think that’s appropriate. Maybe it’ll keep you young...ish.”
“I’m only twenty-five!”
“I’m twenty-five, Katherine. You’re five years older than me. Unless you’ve suddenly decided we’re twins?”
“That’s the trouble with having younger siblings.” Katherine regarded her with such detachment, Miranda was positive Katherine was actually talking to herself. No doubt she believed herself to be a more interesting conversationalist. “They always stay younger, no matter what happens.”
“I see it as a much more basic problem than that. Siblings, that is. Because we’re siblings, you and I are forced to interact, no matter how distasteful the prospect is.”
“For both of us.” The words were quiet, not with regret, but with disinterest. Then she rolled to a sitting position to dangle her feet off the gurney, staring out the window with blank eyes. “I can’t believe I’m back in this godforsaken hole. Has it been awful, after living in Dallas for so long?”
“No.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Surprise, surprise. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Of course I do. I can see what I’m missing right outside this window. Two-lane country roads instead of twelve-lane freeways. An embarrassing dirt patch of a town square instead of civilized concrete and high-rises. A Discount Barn and Cleone’s Closet instead of an appointment-only boutique that’s so exclusive it would be gauche to advertise. The only thing this hokey backwater ever did right was deliver groceries whenever you wanted. I wonder if Abel’s Market still does that?”
“I wouldn’t know. I do all my own grocery shopping.”
“Oh God, of course you do. Intrepid, independent little Miranda. Named for a beloved princess, while I was named after a shrew.” At last Katherine’s attention returned to her while she indulged in a long-suffering sigh. “You’re the one who should have been named Katherine. You’re the one who makes everyone miserable, not me.”
Nice. “Maybe you’re on to something. You’re the one with the princess complex.”
“Call it what you will, but understand this—your attitude says more about you than it does about me when you hold me in contempt for demanding the best from myself, for myself.”
“That’s true, and it’s a point well made. Except for one thing—you’ve never demanded anything of yourself in your life. You can’t even put on your own makeup.”
“I have exacting standards, and I’m unafraid to believe that I deserve the best of what the world has to offer. That’s not a crime, Miranda, and I wish that more people would aspire to do the same, rather than tread water and not go anywhere. I also don’t feign humility the way you do, nor do I pretend to be something I’m not—again, the way you do. I come from a superior bloodline. We both do. But unlike you, I’m extremely aware that it’s up to me to continue to try and raise the bar, rather than slide down into mediocrity and tread water with everyone else.”
And that was the foundation of her argument—the unshakable belief that she was somehow the most superior being in the universe. “By ‘everyone else’, are you perhaps referring to Coe Rodas?”
Katherine grimace-flinched, as if she suddenly smelled something bad. “I’ve come to loathe even the sound of his name. I wasn’t specifically referring to anyone, but he does fit into that category, at least for the moment. But of course, his status is about to be changed forever, so I really don’t know where to place him now.”
“That makes sense, considering you judge people by the amount of money they have, rather than their character.”
“The two go hand in hand more often than not, and you haven’t granted him ownership of the patent yet. Which is why I’ve been trying to talk to you, to the point where I had no choice but to come here and force this meeting.”
“What is there to talk about? Nothing’s changed.”
“Precisely. As conservator, it’s up to you to decide whether or not he gets that patent and the money tied to it. You know he’s the one who invented it—”
“Ah, so at last you admit Dad stole it from Coe? Well done.”
“I admit only that it was in better hands with Dad than it was with a grease monkey who didn’t even know its worth.”
“Wrong. It was the only thing of value that Coe had.”
Katherine waved this away. “Whatever. The point is, you haven’t handed the patent over to him yet, and I want to know why you’re not pulling the trigger on it. Are you finally realizing that it would be a mistake to let something that important go into the hands of someone who wouldn’t know what to do with it?”
Good grief, her sister was something else again. “You know as well as I do that I can’t just give it away to Coe, however much I’d like to. The will is very specific. In order to give Coe the rights to the valve patent, I have to offer up proof to a probate judge that Coe was the one who invented it.”
“So it wasn’t solid evidence, then?”
Miranda stared at her, baffled. “What are you talking about? What wasn’t solid evidence?”
“The materials that his old high-school teacher handed over.”
The floor moved under Miranda’s feet. “What...” Her lungs burned. Somewhere along the way she had stopped breathing. Very carefully she took a second to consciously fill her lungs before forcing her lips to work. “What high-school teacher?”
“Don’t you remember? You texted me about him, along with a rather smart-mouthed comment about a séance. Oswald, I think.”
“Osweiler.”
“I don’t know, it was the name I gave the private investigator I hired right after I got the information from you. I’ll admit, I had this crazy idea of buying up anything I could find and destroying it before it ever saw the light of day, but I was too late. Your grease monkey had already dropped in for a visit with his former shop teacher and took some kind of old homework assignment the old geezer framed and had hanging in his house.”
Miranda simply stared at her. She couldn’t be hearing this right. There had to be a misunderstanding. Coe wouldn’t have kept this from her. He would never...
Katherine lifted a brow. “Oh, you didn’t know Oswald made it into art? Isn’t it ridiculous? Most people hang priceless works of art on their walls, but not some broken-down, retired teacher from Bitterthorn High. Oh, no. This guy is apparently so homespun he framed a former student’s homework.” She snorted in a polite sort of way. “Honestly, I’m almost embarrassed for the old boy. Obviously he doesn’t know the difference between a student’s homework, and a masterpiece.”
“Osweiler understood the truest definition of a masterpiece. The pride he must have felt...” Miranda put a hand out and steadied herself on the nearest wall. The floor wouldn’t stop moving, which made sense. Her world was coming apart at the seams and she didn’t know how to make it stop. Coe had known how vital it was to her that he found that proof. For seven years all she’d lived for was to get that valve back to him. Why had he kept her in the dark, when giving that information to her would have benefited him? Why?
Katherine tilted her head. “Are you all right? You look like you’re about to faint.”
“He didn’t tell me about Osweiler.” When she heard the words hit the air, she snapped back to full att
ention. Damn. When dealing with her sister, she had to be more on guard than that. “But now that I know about it, I’ll make sure to examine it carefully. I have no doubt that it’ll be enough to convince any probate judge that it meets the requirements Dad set up in his will.”
“Wait.” Katherine hopped off the gurney, a wild light flaring in her eyes. “He didn’t tell you about it? Maybe it wasn’t good enough evidence, after all.”
“His teacher framed the work, he was so impressed with it. Of course it’ll be good enough.” Which made her all the angrier, now that she thought about it.
But Katherine shook her head, sending the carefully arranged curls bouncing. “You can’t know that for sure. Maybe he’s tampered with it.”
“I doubt that.”
“Or maybe he’s angling for an even greater piece of the Brookhaven pie.” She snapped her fingers. “You didn’t tell him that you’d marry him if he couldn’t find proof he’d invented the valve, did you?”
She didn’t see any point in lying. “Of course I did.”
“Oh, my God, you’re such an idiot. That’s what he’s angling for, that greedy bastard.”
“He doesn’t think like that. You do, but he doesn’t.”
“Don’t be stupid, everyone thinks like that. Why else wouldn’t he tell you?”
“I don’t know.” Grim-faced, she unstuck her feet from the white tiles of the triage room and headed for the double doors. “But I’m going to find out.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Miranda discovered that privacy couldn’t be had at the clinic with her sister dogging her every step. But when Katherine made noises of refusing to leave Miranda alone with Coe—even yelling that she would follow them to the ends of the earth if she had to—Payton surprisingly stepped in. She seemed all too pleased to be the fly in Katherine’s ointment by insisting Katherine now needed more observation while her office worker, Anya, finished preparing the bill. Clearly, if Katherine wanted something, Payton seemed determined to go the extra mile and give her the exact opposite.
