“Who the hell are you and how’d you get in here?” the woman demanded. The strength of her voice was in total contrast to the fear in her eyes and the unsteadiness in which she held the heavy gun in her outstretched hands.
What the fuck had he just walked in on? Some transient who broke in, looking for a place to sleep? Well, if she was a transient, she was a darn cute one. Damn, he really was tired if he thought an intruder with a gun was cute. He held his arms out, palms open, to show her he wasn’t armed—well, he was, he just wasn’t prepared to let this crazed woman know it, yet. KC kept his voice low and calm. “I could be asking you the same thing.”
“I asked you first.” Her weapon remained pointed at him as she inched her way to the left, putting several pieces of furniture between them.
He kept his demeanor and hands steady. “This is my uncle’s place, and I stay here when I’m in town. Now, why don’t you lower that gun before someone gets hurt?”
The woman narrowed her shockingly, blue eyes. Even at the distance separating them, he could see they were the color of the shallow waters of the Caribbean Sea. Nevertheless, she showed no signs of relinquishing her perceived vantage point. “That someone is going to be you if you move a muscle. I rented this cottage from Dan Malone, and he didn’t mention anything about a nephew.”
“That’s impossible.” KC shook his head slowly in disbelief. “Uncle Dan would never rent this place.”
Her chin tilted up in defiance despite the slight tremor in it. “Well, apparently, he would, and he did. Three days ago. To me. Now leave.”
KC noticed the weight of the gun was starting to take its toll on the woman’s extended arms, as they began to shake and sway. He let out a loud weary sigh. “What can I say or do to convince you to set the gun down, or better yet, put it away?”
“You can leave, that’s what you can do.”
“Sorry, honey, that’s not going to happen.” He noticed her eyes flared in silent fury at the personal endearment. “What else?”
“If you’re Dan Malone’s nephew, prove it.” Her tone told him no matter what he said, it wasn’t going to make a difference to her.
KC scanned the room and realized if his uncle did lease the cottage to this insane woman, he’d kept it fully furnished. Nothing had changed, and all his uncle’s things still decorated the comfortable room. There was no evidence of personal items which might belong to the woman who stood before him. Even though he thought it was strange, he ignored the simple fact for the moment and pointed to the mantle over the red brick fireplace. “The picture on the left is of my uncle, brothers, and me on a fishing trip last year. My hair’s a little longer now, but that’s me on the far right. I’m in most of the photos around the room, but that’s the most recent.”
He stayed perfectly still as the woman made her way over to the fireplace to look at the picture, keeping enough distance between her and KC to ensure he wouldn’t attack her. He knew he could easily overtake her, but she was obviously scared, and there was no point in anyone being hurt unnecessarily. She glanced quickly at the photo and then back at him, but didn’t say a word. Evidently, she was still wary.
“And the football trophy next to it is from my senior year of high school when we won the state championship. It has my name on it. If you let me take my wallet out, I can show you my license.”
The woman thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “OK, but slowly.”
KC eased his leather wallet out of his back pocket and tossed it on the floor at her feet. Keeping the gun trained on him, she cautiously lowered herself to the ground to pick it up. Opening the smooth leather case, she studied his license, and then tossed the brown wallet back to him. He caught it in his right hand and slowly returned it to his rear pocket, keeping his left hand where she could see it.
The tension in her face and shoulders eased a little, but she still kept the weapon pointed at him. “Okay, I’m convinced you are related to Mr. Malone, but it doesn’t explain what you’re doing sneaking in here in the middle of the night, scaring the hell out of me. You have to leave. Now!”
KC let out another frustrated sigh. The situation was getting old and annoying real fast. “Look. I already proved I’m Dan’s nephew. Can you put away the damn gun before you accidentally shoot me?”
Her hand shook. “How do you know it would be an accident and not on purpose?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. He lowered his arms and bent to retrieve his duffel bag, only a smidgen faster than a snail’s pace so not to alarm her. “Look, lady, I wasn’t sneaking in here. I still don’t know who you are, and right now I’m too fucking exhausted to give a damn. Shoot me or let me go to bed. It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I haven’t had more than a two-hour nap in over fifty-four hours.”
Her jaw dropped as he began to walk toward the hallway which led to the two downstairs bedrooms. “But . . . but you can’t stay here.”
He stopped and glared at her over his shoulder. “Why the hell not? It’s the middle of the night, and I’m about to drop dead of exhaustion. I’m not getting back into my car to find another place to sleep when there’s a comfortable bed just down the hall. I’m also not going to hurt you. Trust me, you’re safer with me than almost anyone else. We’ll work this out in the morning. Right now, I’m going to go to sleep.”
The woman continued to stare at him in shock, mouth agape, gun in hand, as he strode down the hall. He entered the smaller of the two bedrooms, shut the door behind him with a faint resounding click, and turned the lock. He honestly didn’t think she would shoot him, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
What the fuck was Uncle Dan up to now? She had to be someone the older man decided to help—he was always coming to the aid of people down on their luck. And from the look of her, she fit the Dan Malone profile of a person who could use a helping hand. While he wouldn’t deny she had been sexy as sin in her T-shirt, pretending to be a female Rambo, she was a little too skinny. And the dark circles under her eyes appeared to be from more than having her beauty sleep interrupted. It was too late to wake his uncle up, although KC was tempted, so he quickly stripped down to his boxer-briefs and literally fell into bed. The last image in his mind as sleep overtook him was a pair of long legs and a white T-shirt.
C
HAPTER 3
W hat the hell? Moriah lowered herself to the couch and continued to stare at the door the stranger had closed moments before. She still wasn’t sure what had just happened or why the man, KC he’d called himself, was still here and what she was going to do about it. There was no way she was going to be able to go back to sleep with a strange man across the hallway from her room. She couldn’t force him to leave on her own, he’d proven that. She also didn’t want to call Mr. Malone in the middle of the night to come get his nephew out of there. And she definitely didn’t want to call the police to remove him—that would result in too many questions she couldn’t answer. Moriah reluctantly realized her only option was to make a pot of coffee, stay up, and wait until KC woke up. Then she would convince him he had to leave. If he wouldn’t, she’d have to hit the road and disappear again.
Four miserable hours later, Moriah was still sitting on the couch, the gun on the cushion next to her within easy reach, as she sipped her third cup of coffee. She didn’t know why she bothered drinking the potent brew because it was making her more nervous than she already was. Glancing around, she surveyed the family photos scattered about the room. Many of them were of Dan Malone, KC, and his brothers, who were all quite handsome. Some photos were obviously of the boys in their youth with their uncle, and others were with a couple who she assumed were their parents. In one picture, the three pre-pubescent boys were dressed as cowboys. In another photo, they were wearing pint-sized military uniforms.
There were also pictures of a much younger Dan and a beautiful blonde woman, and from how they looked at each other, it was apparent they were very much in love. Moriah wondered who the woman was and where she was toda
y. Scanning the multiple frames around the room and in the hallway, she couldn’t find any pictures of the woman in recent years, nor updated photos of the boys’ parents.
The Malone’s appeared to be a close-knit family and Moriah sighed, wishing hers had been the same while she was growing up in Chicago. Her so-called father finally left her mother for good when Moriah was a teenager, after several long absences over the years. By that time, the dream of an ideal childhood had long since faded away. She knew her mother wanted, and tried, to be there for her and her sister, but she worked long hours at two jobs to make sure there was a roof over their heads and food on the table. Her work and sleep occupied most, if not all, of her time.
Fourteen-year-old Moriah taught herself to cook and helped around the house with laundry and cleaning. She tried to give her younger sister a sense of consistency and lead her in the right direction, but Susan, then eleven, was more interested in boys, and eventually drugs, than listening to her sibling. While Moriah was in their apartment doing her chores and homework, Susan was running with the wrong crowd and finding endless trouble to get caught up in. There were times she barely avoided being sent to juvenile detention. Now, Moriah wondered if her sister had ended up there, would she have turned her life around and still be alive today or would the results have been the same?
Susan’s wild and promiscuous lifestyle caught up to her when she became pregnant at seventeen. The child’s father denied the baby was his and left town before he was born. But little Nicholas turned out to be a stabilizing rod for Susan as she tried to mature and become a good mother to her child. She agreed to drug counseling and found an evening job as a waitress at a local restaurant. With the extra income, their mother was able to quit her second job and help care for the baby.
The little boy became the light of Moriah’s life. She loved to come home from her part-time job or classes at the local community college to play with him. The sisters and their mother doted on him as much as possible, and Nicholas was a happy child, if not a little spoiled. Moriah loved going to the local dollar store, since that was all she could afford, and finding a new toy for him, or borrowing children’s books from the library. Whenever she could, she’d read to him aloud, and it quickly became their favorite time together. As soon as Moriah finished one book, he was handing her another one. She lost count of how many times she’d read Winnie the Pooh to him.
Things went very smoothly for the family for a few years. Nicholas had grown into a bubbly five-year-old and peppered everyone with “why” questions from morning until night. His grandmother appeared younger and more relaxed than she had in years. Susan was staying clean, and Moriah was one semester away from her teaching degree. It seemed as if things were finally going well for all of them.
But about seven months ago Moriah started to notice the tell-tale signs that Susan was using drugs again. Her sister would suddenly be short of money and had to borrow from Moriah and her mother. She’d begun asking them to babysit Nicholas more and more. She would also come home much later from the end of her shift at the local Chili’s, and Moriah was left wondering if her sister still had the job. The most noticeable change was Susan’s appearance, which began to go downhill as she cared less and less about her clothes and hygiene. Her weight dropped drastically. Moriah knew all the signs pointed to a crack cocaine user—hell, their seedy neighborhood was full of them.
Through the neighborhood grapevine, she discovered her sister was dating a small-time drug dealer named Leo Simmons. Moriah knew the asshole by reputation only. He’d started pushing drugs on his high school classmates before he was arrested and expelled for possession. At the time, he was a still a minor, so the courts gave him a slap on the wrist and a short stint in juvenile detention. After his release, he returned to the drug business and, if the rumors she’d heard were true, he was being protected by a few crooked cops.
Moriah had given her sister an ultimatum, break up with the dirtbag or move out—without Nicholas. Moriah refused to allow her nephew to be exposed to his mother’s dangerous lifestyle. Susan begged forgiveness and swore she would stop seeing Leo. She cleaned herself up again and for a few short weeks, appeared to be back on the right track. Moriah would never stop blaming herself for taking Susan’s word that everything was going to be okay.
Shifting on the couch for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past hour, she stared out the row of windows facing the beach. The sun was beginning its slow crawl up the clear horizon, bathing the sky in hues of ripe pineapples, cherries, and tangerines. It was so beautiful and peaceful at the shore, and Moriah wished she could live here forever. The sounds of the pounding surf had comforted her over the past few days. She’d loved the feel of the silky sand between her toes on the few times she’d dared to venture out onto the beach.
Charming was how she would describe Whisper, North Carolina. She’d seen the center of the little town twice. Once, when Dan Malone had driven her through it on the way to the cottage and, then again, when she’d taken a cab to the grocery store to stock up on a week’s worth of food. It was the type of town where people could easily walk around the mile length of stores and municipal buildings, instead of driving. She wondered if they held picnics and parades in the main square on the 4th of July or any other day. She’d read about many small towns which celebrated that way in the romance books she’d cherished since she was a teenager. A voracious reader, she couldn’t get enough of books. Since arriving in Whisper five days ago, she had already gone through two local history books she’d found on a shelf in the cottage and was currently on chapter five of a well-read copy of Jaws.
Growing up in Chicago, Moriah could never imagine living in a place that didn’t bustle twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She was, however, beginning to think she could learn to enjoy the slow pace and quiet atmosphere of a small community. It was too bad she wouldn’t be around long enough to find out.
As the sun continued its climb in the east, the rest of the morning sky turned into a colorful mural, and Moriah contemplated her unexpected visitor. KC was incredibly good-looking, and she was annoyed at herself for noticing. Well, any woman with a pulse would have noticed, she told herself.
With broad shoulders and a chiseled chest and back, he stood about six five, which was taller than most of the men she knew. Thick medium-brown hair hung a few inches past the nape of his neck, and his wicked, hazel eyes were captivating. A scar over his right temple almost ruined what could be a movie star face. He hadn’t used a razor in several days, and it just added to his bad boy attractiveness. In a snug black T-shirt and tan cargo pants, it had been blatantly obvious he was in excellent physical shape, and she wondered how he managed to stay that way.
Shaking her head, Moriah tried to rid her mind of the images of the man. In a few hours, she would convince him to leave, then try to figure out what she was going to do next. Dan Malone hadn’t run a credit check on her when she rented the cottage from him, nor did he ask her to sign a lease. She didn’t tell him she wouldn’t be staying long and let him assume she would be around for a while. No one in Whisper had any idea who she really was. And no one knew the horror which had taken over her world four short months ago and left her running for her life.
Shit, she missed her family. Don’t think about them. Don’t think about Momma, Susan, and Nicholas. There’s nothing you can do for them now. You’re safe for a few days. Just think about what you’re going to do next and where you’re going to go from here.
Moriah glanced at the closed bedroom door and prayed she was safe for now.
* * *
Dan Malone straightened up his small kitchen as he waited for the pot of coffee to brew. His rescued Labrador-mix, Jinx, lay across the threshold between the kitchen and living area, waiting patiently. A combination of at least three breeds, the gentle, but protective mutt was the perfect companion for a single, older man. Approximately six years old, he was completely charcoal black except for the very tip of his tail and the
area around his muzzle, which were stark white. As a result of his coloring, the big dog appeared to have a permanent grin. As a puppy, before he’d found his forever home, his tail had somehow been broken, and it hung at a crooked angle. He was very affectionate, and Dan adored his canine sidekick. The dog never argued with, or heckled, him, like his three nephews enjoyed doing. Jinx was definitely his best friend in life and neither of them would have it any other way.
After the last of his nephews had ventured off into the military, Dan had found the beach house too quiet and moved into the one bedroom apartment above the hardware store he owned. He preferred to keep both places exceptionally tidy. There was never any clutter, and everything was kept in its proper place—a throw-back to his army days, he supposed.
Filling a large thermos with his daily dose of caffeine, which he would take downstairs to the shop, he wondered if KC had arrived at the cottage and met Maura yet. He chuckled to himself, wishing he could be a fly on the wall for that encounter. Well, he was sure he’d hear about it soon enough.
He was a true romantic at heart and thought it was about time his three nephews, KC, Brian, and Sean became ones, too—with a little help on his part, of course. Dan had lost his one and only, true love at twenty-nine after barely two years of marriage. Falling hopelessly in love on a blind date, Annie and he had eloped after knowing each other three weeks. When she was diagnosed with leukemia almost a year later, at the tender age of twenty-four, she’d begged him to leave her.
“This isn’t what you expected or deserved when you married me,” she’d told him.
But Dan had refused to abandon her. They’d spent as much time together as possible and, between his job and her treatments and doctor visits, they’d lived and loved life to the fullest. They’d gone for long walks on the beach and picnics in the park. He would take her to interesting places he’d heard of or drive them around aimlessly, just to see different landscapes. She’d never been on a plane and, one day, he’d arranged for an army pilot buddy of his to take them up in his private four-passenger aircraft. She’d been able to experience the thrill of flying above the earth and loved every minute of it. And he’d loved the smile that had remained on her face for hours after they’d returned home.
Take the Money and Run: #1 Malone Brothers Page 2