by Lucy Score
“Well, I am hungry.” Those plush lips painted a deep pink curved in an invitation I wasn’t going to ignore.
I was hungry for something other than food. “Good. Let’s go. How long’s your break?”
“I get an hour.”
Thank fucking God.
A minute later, we were walking out of the library and into the September sun. I steered her toward my pickup with a hand on her lower back.
“So what fine dining establishment will we be patronizing today?” she asked when I slid behind the wheel.
I reached into the back seat and dropped a paper bag in her lap. She opened it and peered inside.
“It’s peanut butter and jelly,” I explained.
“You made me a sandwich.”
“There’s chips in there too,” I said defensively. “And that tea you like.”
“Okay. I’m trying not to be charmed by the fact that you packed me a picnic lunch.”
“It’s not a picnic,” I said, turning the key.
“Where are we going to eat our not picnic lunch?”
“Third Base, if you’re up for it.”
She squeezed her knees together and squirmed a little in her seat. Her lower lip snagged between her teeth. “What about the horn?” she asked.
“I brought a blanket.”
“A blanket and a packed lunch. Definitely not a picnic,” she teased.
She wouldn’t be so smug when I had my hand down those tight little pants she was wearing. “We could just go back and eat in the break room at the library,” I threatened.
She reached over and gripped my thigh. “Knox?”
The seriousness in her tone had my guard going up.
“What?”
“This doesn’t feel like we’re pretending.”
I thumped my head against the back of the seat. I’d known this conversation would be coming and I still didn’t want to have it.
As far as I was concerned, we’d both stopped pretending almost as soon as we started. When I touched her, it was because I wanted to. Not because I wanted someone to see me doing it.
“Do we have to do this, Daisy, when you’ve got a meter running on your lunch break?”
She looked down at her lap. “No. Of course not.”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes, we do. If it’s something you want to talk about, then talk about it. Stop worrying about pissing me off because we both know it’s bound to happen.”
Her gaze lifted to mine. “I was just wondering…what we’re doing.”
“I don’t know what we’re doing. What I’m doing is enjoying spending time with you without worrying about what comes next or what happens in a month or a year. What are you doing?”
“Besides enjoying spending time with you?”
“Yeah.”
Those pretty hazel eyes returned to her lap. “I’m worrying about what comes next,” she confessed.
I nudged her chin up so she’d look at me. “Why does there have to be something that comes next? Why can’t we both just enjoy this the way it is without worrying ourselves to death over something that hasn’t happened yet?”
“That’s just usually the way I operate,” she said.
“How about we try this my way for the next while? My way gets you a non-picnic lunch and at least one orgasm before one p.m.”
Her cheeks went pink, and while her smile wasn’t as big as the one I’d gotten earlier for surprising her, it was good enough. “Let’s go,” she said.
I went instantly hard. All the thoughts I’d had of spreading her out on a blanket, naked and whimpering my name, rushed back. I wanted to taste her outside in the sun, the warm breeze. Wanted to feel her move under me while the rest of the world stood still.
I threw the truck in reverse and hit the gas.
We made it a block before Naomi’s phone rang from the depths of her purse. She dug it out and frowned at the screen. “It’s Nash.”
I snatched the phone from her and answered the call.
“Knox!” she complained.
“What?” I snapped into the phone.
“Need to talk to Naomi,” Nash said. He sounded grim.
“She’s busy. Talk to me.”
“I tried, asshole. I called you first, and you didn’t pick up. Got some news about Tina.”
There went my fucking picnic.
As I admired the view of Naomi’s shapely ass in front of me, I wondered how my brother was dealing with the long flight of stairs with his injuries. Nash’s place was on the second floor above Whiskey Clipper. And when I’d brought him home the previous weekend, he only made it to the top after I threatened to pick him up and carry him.
He opened the door just as I raised my fist to knock.
He looked pale, tired. And the asshole had his shirt off, revealing his wound dressing. He was holding fresh gauze and a roll of tape.
“You poor thing,” Naomi crooned, grabbing the supplies out of his hands. “Let me help you.”
Nash shot me a smirk when Florence Nightingale pushed her way inside. If he kept up the wounded hero routine with Naomi, I was going to raise his damn rent and push him down the stairs.
“This better be good,” I warned him, following her inside.
The apartment had high ceilings, exposed brick, and tall, arched windows overlooking Main Street. There were two bedrooms, a bathroom I’d personally gutted, and an open concept living space with a small but kick-ass kitchen.
His dining room table was covered in paperwork and what looked like case files. He clearly had trouble following doctor’s orders. Morgan men didn’t care to be told what to do.
“Sit,” Naomi said, pulling out a stool from the kitchen island. He eased himself down on it, his jaw tight as if just that movement hurt.
“You taking your pain meds?” I asked. I’d strong-armed him into filling the prescription. But the bottle was still sitting next to the sink where I’d left it.
My brother met my gaze. “Nope.”
I knew why. Because one generation had the potential to poison the next. It was something we both lived with.
“It’s not pretty, Naomi,” Nash warned as she headed to the sink to wash her hands.
“Wounds never are. That’s what first aid is for.”
She dried her hands and gave me a sunny smile as she returned to his side.
“You’re not going to faint, are you?” I asked her.
She stuck her tongue out at me. “I’ll have you know, I have extensive first aid training.”
Nash met my gaze as Naomi gently peeled the tape from his shoulder.
“A few years ago, I came across the scene of a car accident. It was late at night, raining. A deer had run out in front of the driver, and he swerved to miss it. He hit a tree head-on. There was blood everywhere. He was in so much pain, and all I could do was dial 911 and hold his hand. I’d never felt more helpless in my entire life,” she explained.
She’d hate that, I realized. The woman who lived her entire life to make others safe and happy would have hated feeling helpless when someone was in pain.
“So you took a class?” Nash guessed as she eased the gauze away from the wound.
I saw the clench in his jaw, caught the tightness in his tone.
She hissed out a breath, and I looked up.
Nash’s shoulder was bare. It wasn’t a nice, neat hole. It was a chasm of angry tissue, black stitches, and the rust of dried blood.
“I took three classes,” Naomi said.
A memory surfaced. Nash on his back on the playground, fresh blood flowing from his nose as Chris Turkowski sat on his chest and pummeled fists into my brother’s face.
Chris had fared worse than Nash that day. I’d gotten suspended for two days. A consequence both my dad and I felt was worth it. “Family takes care of family,” he’d said. At the time, he’d meant it.
I couldn’t stop staring at my brother’s wounds as blood pounded inside my head.
“Knox?” Naomi’s voice was clo
ser now.
I felt hands on my shoulders and realized Naomi was standing in front of me. “You wanna sit down for a minute, Viking? I don’t think I can handle two patients at once.”
Realizing she thought I was going to faint, I opened my mouth to clear up the misconception and explain that it was manly rage, not wobbly knees. But I changed my mind and went with it when I realized her concern for me had trumped Nash’s bullet holes.
I let her push me down into one of the leather armchairs in the living room.
“You okay?” she asked, leaning down to look me in the eye.
“Better now,” I said.
Over her shoulder, my brother flipped me the bird.
She brushed a kiss to my forehead. “Stay here. I’ll get you a glass of water in a minute, okay?”
Nash coughed something that sounded suspiciously like “faker,” but the cough ended in a groan of pain.
Served him right. I returned the one-fingered salute when Naomi rushed back to his side.
“Never saw you go weak in the knees at the sight of blood before,” Nash observed.
“You wanna get to your point, or is this how you wrangle social calls since no one wants to be around your ass?”
Naomi shot me a “behave yourself” look as she opened a fresh strip of gauze. I saw my brother’s jaw go tight when she pressed it to his wound. I looked away until Nash cleared his throat.
“Got some news on Tina,” he said.
Naomi froze, holding a strip of tape. “Is she okay?”
Her twin sister had stolen from her, abandoned her child, and Naomi’s first question was whether or not Tina was okay.
The woman needed to learn that some ties needed cutting.
“We don’t know her whereabouts, but it seems like there’s something in town that she didn’t want to leave behind. We found her prints at the storage unit break-in.”
I tensed, remembering the conversation in his hospital room.
“What storage unit break-in?” Naomi asked as she moved on to the wound lower on his torso.
“The trailer park landlord reported two separate break-ins. One at his office and one at his storage unit, where he keeps anything of value that tenants leave behind. The storage unit was a smash and grab. The lock was jimmied. Shit was broken. A bunch of stuff was missing. We found Tina’s prints all over the place.”
I forgot about my fake fainting spell and got out of the chair. “It’s a small fucking town,” I pointed out, crossing to the kitchen. “How the hell is she sneaking around without anyone spotting her?”
“Got a theory on that. We got some footage from a security camera at the entrance,” Nash said, using his good arm to pull a file folder closer to him. He tipped it open, and a grainy photo showed a woman with long, dark hair dressed in a long dress.
Naomi leaned across my brother to peer at the photo. I wasn’t certain, but I thought Nash looked like he was sniffing her hair.
I dragged her into my side, away from my brother, and handed her the photo.
“What the fuck?” I mouthed at Nash.
He shrugged, then winced.
“Stubborn fucking idiot,” I muttered. I guided Naomi to a stool out of Nash’s reach, then stomped over to the sink. He still kept his over-the-counter shit and his excessive collection of supplements in the cabinet. I grabbed a bottle of Tylenol and poured a glass of tap water, then slid both across the counter to my dumbass brother.
I spotted a baking dish on the counter with some kind of dessert in it. Lifting the plastic wrap, I sniffed. Peach cobbler. Nice.
Since I was missing out on my own lunch and Nash was to blame, I grabbed a fork.
“That’s my dress,” Naomi said, handing the photo back to Nash. She’d gone pale. I snatched it out of his hand and stared at the image.
Fuck. It was her dress.
“Figured she was dressing like you in case she ran into anyone in town,” Nash explained. “She must have grabbed it when she broke into your motel room.”
Naomi was biting her lip again.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded.
She shook her head. “Nothing.
My bullshit detector was activated.
“Daisy.”
“It’s just Tina used to do that when we were kids. I was home sick once our sophomore year of high school. She went to school dressed like me and told my history teacher—who I had a crush on—to go fuck himself. I got detention. All because my parents gave me the car the weekend before because she was grounded.”
Christ.
“You better not have kept your mouth shut and sat through detention,” I snapped, throwing the fork in the baking dish in disgust.
“Did she get whatever it was she wanted?” Naomi asked Nash.
“We don’t know. I heard that Tina got herself hooked up with some new guy a few weeks back. Lucian did a little digging. Said the new guy was some badass out of D.C. and Tina bragged to a couple of friends that they had a big score coming up.”
“Is that my mom’s peach cobbler?” she asked, nodding at the dish I held.
“She stopped by this morning to drop it off. She also stole my laundry and watered my plants.”
Naomi gave him a wobbly smile. “Welcome to the family. Prepare to be smothered.”
Something was wrong, and she was trying to hide it. I put down the cobbler and picked up the picture again.
“Fuck.”
“What?” Nash asked.
“I saw you in this dress. Outside the shop,” I said, remembering her standing in the window of Whiskey Clipper with Liza and Waylay. She’d looked like a summer vision in the dress.
Her cheeks weren’t pale now. They were flushed.
“Which means Tina didn’t take this from the motel. She broke into the cottage.”
Naomi busied herself by organizing the first aid supplies.
Nash swore and rubbed his good hand over his face. “I need to call Grave.”
He got up and snatched his phone off the dining table. “Yeah, Grave,” he said. “We’ve got a new problem.”
I waited until he headed into his bedroom before turning my attention back to Naomi. “She broke into your place, and you weren’t gonna say a word.”
She looked up as I rounded the island. She held up her hands, but I kept coming until her palms were pressed against my chest. “You do not keep shit like that from me, Naomi. You owe her nothing. You can’t live your whole life protecting people who don’t fucking deserve it. Not when it puts your safety at risk.”
She winced, and I realized I was yelling.
“What are you thinking? You have Way. If Tina and some low-life criminal fuck buddy are breaking into your fucking house, you don’t cover that shit up. You don’t protect the bad guy—you protect the kid.”
She shoved me, but I didn’t budge.
“You saw my motel room. You heard what Nash said—the storage unit was trashed. That’s what my sister does. She destroys,” Naomi snapped. “If Tina broke into the cottage, she would have wrecked the place. She never could stand the idea of me having anything nicer than what she did. So yeah. Maybe I noticed a few things out of place once or twice, and I chalked it up to Waylay or you or Liza. But Tina didn’t break in.”
“What are you sayin’?”
She wet her lips. “What if someone let her in?”
“Someone meaning Waylay?”
Naomi shot a nervous glance in Nash’s direction. “What if Tina got word to her that she needed access, and Waylay left a door unlocked? You were the one who yelled at me for leaving the back door unlocked. Or what if Tina told her what she needed, and Waylay got it for her?”
“You think that kid would give Tina the time of day after she’s had a few weeks with you? With your parents? Hell, even fucking Stef and Liza. You made one big happy family for her. Why would she risk fucking that up?”
“Tina is her mother,” Naomi insisted. “Family doesn’t stop being family just because one of you does shitty
things.”
“That’s exactly what happens to families, and you need to quit this loyalty to your fucking sister. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“It’s not loyalty to Tina, you idiot,” Naomi shouted back. She shoved against my chest again, but I was immovable.
“Educate me,” I insisted.
“If Waylay had anything to do with letting Tina in, how is that going to look in the guardianship hearing? How am I fit to take custody when I can’t even keep criminals out of my house? They’ll take her away from me. I’ll have let her down. I’ll have let my parents down. Waylay will end up with strangers—” Her voice hitched.
I grabbed her and pulled her into me. “Baby. Stop.”
“I tried,” she said, fingers curling into my t-shirt.
“Tried what?”
“I tried not to hate Tina. My whole life, I tried so hard not to hate her.”
I cupped the back of her head and buried her face in my neck.
“Don’t fucking cry, Daze. Not over her. You’ve given her enough.”
She sucked in a breath and blew it out.
“You can use me as a pillow if you wanna scream it out,” I offered.
“Don’t be sweet and funny right now.”
“Baby, those are two things no one has ever accused me of being.”
She pulled back and took another steadying breath. “This is not what I was expecting when you said you were taking me to lunch.”
“I expected the yelling, just thought we’d be doing it naked. We good?”
Her fingers were tracing little circles against my chest. “We’re good. For now. I’m going to go collect myself in the bathroom.”
“I’m gonna eat some more of your mom’s cobbler.”
She gave me another one of those wobbly smiles that made me feel things I didn’t want to feel. I reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “It’s gonna be fine. No one’s takin’ Way. Nash and I’ll take care of it.”
She nuzzled her cheek against my hand. “You can’t solve my problems for me.”
“Oh, but you can solve everyone else’s?” I pointed out. “You gotta stop worrying about making everything okay for everyone else and start thinkin’ about making it okay for you.”
She didn’t say anything, but I felt like my words had landed.
