He moved to the window overlooking the well-lit parking lot. His gaze swept the area, the shadows shifting as if alive, his gut on high alert. It turned out his gut was pretty good at identifying threats because in the long swath of trees at the far end stood a silhouette of a person against the branches. A pinprick of light from a lit cigarette floated in the air next to him. “Nathan.”
He turned. Starr's face, half shadow, half streetlight, glowed like the finest porcelain.
He went to her, sat on the bed, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”
She scooched closer on her side and folded her hands under the side of her cheek. “Are you and Max planning something?”
His Starr always did get to the point quickly—and little got by her. He tucked some hair behind her ear and caressed the delicate outer shell with a fingertip. Everything about her was impossibly soft.
She nestled her cheek further into her folded hands. “I get you may feel you need to take matters into your own hands.”
“No, we have no plans.”
“Good.” She let out a sigh. “You’re sure?”
God, his girl was smart. “Don't worry, Starr. Nothing's going on, but I'm not going to lie to you. It’s damned hard not to retaliate.”
“I know it's going to work out.” She pulled one of her hands free and laid her arm across his thigh. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
Oh, how he wished he could believe that.
“I've been thinking.” She rubbed up and down his leg, which sent all his brainpower south. “I've known men like Ruark. They just want to win. What would it take for him to feel like he's won?”
Nathan dropped his head back and stared hard at the ceiling. “My death.” He looked back down at her. There. He'd said it aloud even if it did cause a shudder in Starr.
“That can’t be all of it. I don't know, Nathan. I feel like something is missing here.”
“It's pretty clear. Revenge is a powerful motivator. He wants to make my life, and that of everyone around me, hell.”
“I've lived in hell. This ain’t it. If that's his end-game, he's being a pussy about it.”
Nathan chuckled but instantly cooled. “I can’t stand the thought you were ever unhappy, ever in danger, ever afraid. It’s so goddamn unfair.” He eased down to the bed, sat against the headboard. “You didn't deserve it. You should have grown up like those campground ads. I can see you in a Sunshine Campground T-shirt, sitting around a fire and roasting marshmallows.” He grinned. “Or better, in a bikini—a blue bikini to match your eyes—jumping off a rope swing into a lake, with lots of kids splashing around you, and everyone smiling because it'd never occur to them not to.”
“Oh, yeah, me rocking the khaki shorts. Not my best look.” She rolled to her back. “Phee had it worse being the super-sensitive one.”
She had to be kidding. “Sensitive? Phee?”
“You don't know her. Everyone thinks Luna is the emotional one, but, no ... Phee hides a lot.” Her blue eyes glowed a little in the dim light. “If you tell her that, I'll kill you.”
He laughed. “Your secret's safe with me. She terrifies me. I think Declan's the only one who isn't afraid of her ... next to you and your sister.”
“That's because he loves her. And she needs it.”
“What do you need? Want?”
“Many things.”
“Like what?” He would get them for her.
She moved up to snuggle into the crook of his arm. “I want to be able to dance without men thinking I’m asking for sex. I want my own house where I can grow my own flowers and not wait for some guy to give them to me. And, turns out, like Luna, I want answers. I want to know how my father could do what he did. I want to know how to forget it. I want …” She let her words die.
“Wow. I didn’t expect that answer.” He grasped her hand. “I'm sure it was complicated.”
“How could it be? He beat one daughter nearly to death and then waved good-bye down a government hallway to the other two? I finally remembered the details—just tonight. After visiting Phee in the hospital, L. and I were taken to this office building. He was at the end of the hall and he just … waved.” Her voice was strung tight with tension.
He drew her tighter into his chest. Her face fit perfectly into his neck.
“Being ripped apart from someone you love is terrible.” Her muffled words blew heat against his skin. “Feeling like you aren't loved is worse. I don't understand people who give up kids.”
His stomach turned over. “Yeah.” The timing wasn't right to tell her about his daughter, Madeline. Jesus, he had tried so hard not to even think her name, but there it was.
She pushed back a little, raised her face. “Can I tell you another secret?”
“You can tell me anything.”
She rose up on one elbow, the sheet slipping down to reveal those creamy mounds of flesh. “Well, actually, it’s more of the same secret I told you in Annapolis, about going to see my father when I was seventeen. You have to promise not to tell anyone. My sisters, especially. I'm going to give them all the details someday, but it's just not the right time.”
A chill ran through him at the mention of more secrets. Was there no end to them? He pulled the sheet up higher to her shoulders.
“So, you know I went to see him. He was drunk in an airport hotel in Huntsville. I went to ask him why he'd left us. He just shrugged. Can you believe it? Shrugged.” She mirrored the movement.
“I'm sorry, baby.”
“That wasn't the worst.” She pushed herself up so her back was against the headboard. “He kept calling me by my mother’s name. Then he asked about Luna and Phee. Asked if they were still as pretty as me. If we were single.” She gave off a visible shudder. “Then ... it was the look in his eye. He … moved for me.”
Her memories were worse than he’d anticipated. He grasped her hand, and she pulled it back. Her irritation had nothing to do with him, of that he was certain. It had everything to do with her past. “God, Starr, tell me, he didn't ...” Now he was going to have to deal with the man—soon.
She shook her head. “That’s when I said I had three thousand dollars. He could have it if he promised one thing.”
“Never look for you.”
“Yes. Never find us. Leave us the hell alone.” The grit in her voice told him everything he needed to know. There was a good reason she and her sisters landed in foster care. It might have been God's way of preventing something unthinkable from happening.
“And you know what?” She half-laughed. “He took it with no remorse. It was all the money I'd saved since I was fourteen, doing odd jobs and babysitting, and whatever else I could do, so I could at least start college. I left him sitting there, counting it.”
She turned to him, eyes dry, face still as a stone, just like the long-timers in prison, the ones who’d been on the inside so long they'd forgotten what it was like on the outside.
She grasped his hand, her eyes wide and shimmery in the dark. “I want you to know so you’ll understand why I’ll never forgive Robert O’Malley. Phee and Luna don’t need to know he took everything from me and might have taken more like …” She stopped, as if unable to say the words—words he didn’t even want to think like beaten or raped.
Jesus, if that man had touched a hair on her head, he’d have ended the man’s life.
“Nathan, I never want them to know what I’ve given up so we could be safe. They’d wallow in guilt and try to make it up to me, and I don’t want that. Promise me you won't tell them. They deserve peace.”
He engulfed her hand with his. “I promise, and you deserve peace, too.”
“Thank you, and I have it now. With you.”
Safe with him? Jesus, he’d hoped so. Fuck, hope. She would be if he had to die for it.
She eased herself down. “There, now you know the worst of me.”
“You protected yourself and your sisters. That's not 'worst,' baby, and none of that is on you
.”
“I'm glad you think so. I honestly had put it out of my mind until ... recently.” She turned to face him. “Hey, you going to get out of those clothes? I mean, you're not leaving again, are you?”
Never. “Not leaving. Can't leave my North star.”
He eased himself up, shed his clothes, and climbed back in, his skin meeting her warmth, his muscles relaxing in a long sigh, the perpetual knot in his stomach uncoiling. In the dark, with touch taking precedence over all other senses, he tuned into her fresh, clean skin, scented with cinnamon.
He nuzzled her hair. “I want you to know something. I do regret killing Daniel.”
“Of course you do.”
“No, I mean . . . I am really sorry about it, even if he was an asshole.” With his arms full of this good woman, he couldn’t conjure up any memory of hating anyone that much.
“I know, Nathan.”
“And, there are other things from my past. Things that might upset you.”
“I'm a lot stronger than I look.”
God, he hoped so. He wasn't sure how long he could keep his own secrets from her. “Hey, how about we get out of here tomorrow? Go back to Annapolis?”
She lifted her chin to peer up at him. “I’d love that … but, hey, you ever been to Gravely Point?”
Yeah, he had. “Yeah, I’ve been there. It’s fun. Whatever you want.”
“Good. Then that’s where we’ll go.” She pulled herself back suddenly. “Where's Moonlight? Where is she?”
It took a second for his brain to catch her sudden change, something she did a lot. “Home. Remember she has a food dispenser.”
“But, water—”
“Relax. I got this water fountain thing that holds a gallon of water at a time. It's like a little waterfall ... thing.” Or whatever you called it.
“Where did you get that?”
“Amazon. Amazing place, I gotta tell you.”
“Why, Nathan, you do like your cat.”
“She's okay.”
“You're good at taking care of things.”
He caressed her hip. “Actually, I'm not, but how about I take care of you? Right now?”
Sex wasn’t always the answer, but it seemed as good as any right now. She fell to her back, the simple movement the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. She widened her legs, an invitation he’d always accept from her. They weren’t going to get any sleep, but who cared.
39
Nathan had to get Starr out of the apartment. She’d had nightmares later in the night. In the morning, her leg bounced as she stared out the window, coffee cup in hand, as if pining for fresh air. Yeah, they had to go. Max grunted his disapproval at them leaving the apartment, but he agreed to stay with the other two sisters while they headed out.
As soon as he pulled out of the parking lot, she brought up Gravely Point again, the spit of land at the end of the Reagan International Airport in Virginia. Further away than he intended, but he couldn’t deny her a thing.
The first hour on the road, he kept watch for anyone tailing him—old habits die hard— but Starr soon distracted him by belting out every Beatles song she could recall. His left ear might never recover from her off-key singing, but it was worth seeing her bounce in her seat, dimples set deep in her cheeks.
Two hours later, he turned into a crowded Gravely Point park and killed the engine. Blessed silence filled the car—or as silent as one could get at the end of an airport runway.
Starr unbuckled her seat belt. “I can sing the rest of the songs on the way home.”
“Oh, good.” Nathan opened the door and set a foot onto the pavement, blood reallocating itself in his legs. A flat stretch of grass along the Potomac River, the place looked exactly the same as it had the one time he’d visited years ago. He retrieved a blanket from the trunk. Thanks to the summer air, sweat prickled on the back of his neck.
Starr wasted no time commandeering a spot, snapping the blanket over the crisp, yellowed grass.
The air rumbled. He pointed to the barely-visible end of the runway. “Watch.”
Three seconds later, waves of air, thick as ocean water, rolled over him. All sounds were swallowed by the whine of a jet engine as a silver 727 glided over their heads.
“Whoa.” Starr hugged herself and crouched a little. He laughed and pulled her closer, his body mass dwarfing the woman. “Closest you'll get to a runway in the country.”
Her head fell back, and her glasses slipped to the top of her head as her face traced the path of the jet overhead. “They're so big!”
She dropped her sunglasses back to her nose and grinned toward the sky as the belly of a second plane, a big mother, soared overhead, far slower than Nathan anticipated. A delayed, new wall of hot air, tinged with scents of jet fuel and fetid river brine, swamped them.
They spent a good thirty minutes lying on their backs, watching planes, some larger, some smaller, careen overhead. Some, shockingly close, settled to land on the tarmac about 500 feet away.
She turned her head, her hair catching on the blanket fabric. “I wonder where they're coming from.” Her eyes held that wistful, dreamy cast he'd seen in Annapolis.
“Chicago, probably from some endless, boring business trip.” God, Nathan sounded cynical even to himself.
“Or back from vacation. In the Caribbean.”
“Maybe.” She deserved tropical cruises, swanky resorts where they put those umbrellas in giant coconuts. She deserved all that and more. He didn't have money to travel, let alone the permission. Fuck. Permission.
He sprang up to sitting.
“What's wrong?” Starr laid her hand on his thigh.
He was in Virginia. He'd left Maryland. Leaving the state without telling Erin was a parole violation. He should have thought of that before promising her a day out. He’d like one day, one frickin' day, where he didn't have to worry about anything—not who he was, what had gone down, and how close he could be at any moment to going back to hell.
His heartbeat clanged inside his chest. The air out here was too hot. The thick, fuel-tinged air could drown a man's lungs.
Yet, how would Erin know? It's not like he wore an ankle bracelet. Maybe he'd tell her when he got back. Wise? Probably not.
Nathan rubbed his sternum. Declan knew they were going out because Max, like an effing babysitter, had insisted he call in before leaving. It was enough his boss knew he was on the loose. He was with a co-worker, albeit one he was in love with. He wasn't running.
His clammy shirt pulled across his shoulders.
“Nathan? You okay?” She sat up on her elbows. Great, she was worried about him when it should be the other way around. And, you know what? He was tired of it. God, he was tired of not knowing when the train might come off the tracks. Tired of panic attacks and worrying about what he couldn’t control. It made the MacKenna's win a little. Fuck that. This was going to be okay. Hightailing it back would only create more angst, and he'd be damned if he'd erase that light from Starr's face.
He pulled the fabric clinging to his chest and wafted a little air over his skin. “Fine.”
The roar of an approaching plane threatened to drown out any further conversation. Starr's hair fluttered in the breeze, the sunlight lighting up all her red hair.
He stood. “Got to make a quick phone call.”
She shielded her eyes from the sun. “Okay.”
“Perfect. Be right back.” He jogged back to his car, got in, and started it up so at least he had some A/C.
Declan picked up on the first ring. Before the man could get two words out, Nathan confessed his location. Declan didn’t miss a beat.
“I’ll check in and tell her I asked you to go down there for me,” the man said.
He’d lie for him? “You sure?” Not like Declan, but he’d take it.
“I'll handle it.” He hung up but called back a minute later. “Nathan, text Erin where you are and say when you’ll be back.”
“But—”
“Don’t
argue with me about this little instruction. Just do it.”
“Not so little.”
Declan’s chuckle didn’t ease shit inside him.
“Okay, doing it.”
The line went dead.
Nathan stared at the phone in his hand for a few seconds, but finally, ever the good ex-con, he did what Declan said to do, and waited for the other shoe to drop and break his foot. When her return text came back with a simple “don’t do it again”, he had to read it three times to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Was it possible Erin was letting him off the hook? He scrubbed the top of his head with his hand. What did Declan say to her?
Her second text followed shortly after. “Strike two.”
Okay, he wasn’t exactly off the hook, but she didn’t tell him to hightail it home, either.
The passenger door cracked open. Starr dropped herself into the passenger seat and threw the blanket in the back. “Too hot. Hey, you hungry? There’s food at the marina down the way.”
Her hand snaked across his shoulder, and he shuddered. The contradiction of the softness of Starr and the harshness of his life collided so hard, a laugh burst from his throat. “I’m starving.” He yanked the car into drive and pulled out.
He didn’t trust life could be this easy. Yet, here he was with Starr's hand trailing down to his thigh and his phone sitting in the console with a good message for once. Maybe he was finally getting a break.
The parking lot of the Washington Sailing Marina was full of cars, though he managed to get a spot. A few people strolled along the pier as if shopping for a boat or something. Must be nice to just leave the pier open and trust people would be content with looking at your boat and not trying to steal it. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever been that trusting.
“Hey, boats first.” Starr tugged his hand. “Then food?” She jogged lightly to the gate that led to the docks.
“My woman has spoken.” He ambled after her, easily catching up and steering her toward a historic schooner at the far end. Starr had a different idea, however, and yanked him toward the more expensive yachts. His girl certainly had an eye for the finer things in life.
Tough Luck (The Shakedown Series Book 1) Page 17
