Except Melissa wasn’t alone. Behind her was Gage. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he bit out.
Gage raised a brow in a way to say there was a lot to the story, but there was no time to ask what that more was because Melissa turned to stare at Gage and then back at him. She opened her mouth to say something, but then she stopped before any sound slipped out. He could see the exact moment recognition hit. She squinted and then fell back a step.
“Melissa,” he started, but she was retreating farther.
“No.” She shook her head before she pushed past Gage and left the house.
Liv started to run after her, but Slade held out a hand. “I got this.” He started after his sister.
She was halfway down the driveway, and luckily her run had slowed to a walk, but she kept on shaking her head.
“You’re not here,” she said as he approached. “You can’t be here.”
“What did you think was going to happen when they came after Josh?”
“Don’t give me bullshit about caring about Josh!” She whipped around to face him, her dark hair falling over her face. A few wisps covered her eyes. It was strange to see his baby sister so grown up. She looked like some strange parallel universe version of their mother. Prettier. Healthier. Stronger than their mother had ever been. He felt a strange pride in seeing how well she’d turned out, considering their fucked-up beginnings, and shame for ever leaving.
“Everything I’ve ever done has been for Josh.”
“I swear, I’ll punch you in the face,” said Melissa. The threat was an old one she’d make when they were younger. She’d been stick-thin and had nothing on him even when he was a teenager, but she’d always been eager to prove she could throw down with the bad boys. A skill necessary in their fight-or-flight household. It made him strangely happy to see that she hadn’t changed over the years.
“If you need to hit me, you need to hit me. But I’m back now.”
“Why? What’s changed? After all this time without so much as a phone call, why did you show up now to mess everything up?”
“Is that what I’m doing? You find out I’m alive and I’m messing everything up?” He wasn’t naive enough to think him showing up would be a good thing, but he didn’t think it should be that life-shattering. Hell, wasn’t there any part of her that was relieved to know for sure that he was alive?
“I think that you’re an asshole to stay away for so long. I think we’ve been doing just fine without you. I think that we’ll still do fine without you.”
“So I leave and Josh never even sees my face. Is that what you want?”
She let out a bitter laugh and ran her fingers through her hair. “Really? Now you decide to ask me what I want? You’ve already more than proved exactly how little you care about what I want, Peter.”
“I left to protect you.”
“Thanks for asking my opinion,” she said, dripping with bitterness. She shook her head again and rubbed her hand at the back of her neck. “Who is your friend? The one you sent to spy on me?”
Slade’s eyes darted to where Gage still stood awkwardly at the front porch. Liv was next to him, and each watched him and Melissa curiously, but he didn’t think they were in earshot. “Gage is a friend who came to help me out with Josh. I didn’t send him to spy on you. Why? What happened with Gage?” Fuck, he wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what Gage’s reputation with women was. The fact that he’d brought his sister home.... “If he tried to touch you or—”
Melissa let out a grunt of disgust. “One, you have no right to judge anyone who touches me. You gave that up a long time ago. Two, no, nothing like that happened. We met and the second he found out my last name, he made sure to keep a two-foot radius at all times. Now I know why.”
Good. At least he didn’t have to worry about Gage’s loyalty at the moment. He rolled his neck and let out a sigh. He’d more than fucked things up for one night, but he’d made progress. He found Melissa and she knew he was in town. Maybe when he came back tomorrow, he could make some progress with Josh. Maybe get Melissa to agree to let him take Josh out of town for a while until things blew over. It was a long shot, but it was Josh’s safety they were talking about. That was worth everything, and he had a feeling that his sister would understand that.
“I should go.” Melissa’s eyes shot to him and he knew she’d misunderstood. “For tonight. I should leave you alone for the night.”
She tightened her lips and he couldn’t tell whether he'd made her feel better or worse, but it was all he had at the moment. “That’s probably for the best,” she finally said.
“I think I freaked out your roommate. I’m sorry.”
“She’s not just a roommate,” said Melissa with a bite of defensiveness. “You be nice to Liv. I don’t know what I would do without her. You better not scare her off, or the next time you die, I swear it won’t be fake.”
Slade nodded. He couldn’t promise anything, but he could promise to try. “I’ll be nice to her.” And if he had any luck at all, Liv wouldn’t tell Melissa all the circumstances of their first meeting.
He struggled to find the right way to say good-bye to his sister after this tumultuous meeting, but Melissa saved him the trouble as she started to stride away from him. “Go away, Peter. If you know what’s good for you, and your son, you’ll stay away.”
He let out a sigh. “You know that’s not going to happen!” he called after her as she pushed past Gage and pulled Liv into the safety of the house. He walked up the drive and was close enough to hear the audible click of the deadbolt snapping into place.
That little lock would never be enough to keep him out, but he didn’t need to prove that tonight.
Gage was uncharacteristically silent from the porch, and Slade clenched his jaw. “I thought you wanted to stay out of my family reunion,” he finally said, letting his annoyance ring clear in his voice.
“Fun fact,” said Gage with an insincere smile. “I’m a fucking moron.”
Liv looked outside the window and waited to see whether Slade had suddenly materialized outside the house in the five seconds since she’d looked last. After confirming that they still had some peace for the time being, she took a sip of the coffee she’d just brewed and sighed in delight. It was half coffee and half creamer. Scratch that. It was probably more creamer than coffee at this point, but she needed caffeine and she’d never really learned to stomach the taste of her favorite addiction for some reason.
Besides, considering how last night went, she owed herself some of the little pleasures in life this morning. There would be way too much real life to deal with later in the day.
She heard the bathroom door shut and knew Melissa was awake finally. Well, it was six thirty in the morning, but considering that she hadn’t slept, the night had seemed to last forever. Funny that she’d been so tired before all this had happened. But the second she saw Slade invade her bedroom, she’d been wired and wide awake from that moment on.
Even as she drank her coffee, she didn’t feel tired. This was more preventative because she knew the lack of sleep was bound to catch up to her sooner rather than later.
Melissa emerged from the bathroom and padded into the kitchen. Liv hadn’t been in a cooking mood but had set some bagels, butter, and cream cheese on the table. Not exactly a gourmet breakfast spread, but better than nothing. Without a word, Melissa started to make herself a bagel and Liv knew that if she wanted answers, she was going to have to ask instead of waiting for Melissa to supply any.
“So,” she started with carefully. “Your brother.”
Melissa grunted as she spread a generous portion of cream cheese on the cinnamon raisin bagel.
Melissa wasn’t in a sharing mood, so Liv went out and just asked the question that had been on her mind all night. “Did you know he was alive?”
Melissa kept spreading and Liv wasn’t optimistic that she was going to get any answers. Finally, she said, “I had my suspicions.”
“An
d you never told me that he might be alive? That’s kind of important information!”
“I....” Melissa blinked a few times and Liv took a seat across from her friend. Obviously this wasn’t easy on either of them, and shouting at her wouldn’t help anything. “I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t admit that Peter might have abandoned Josh. Abandoned me. The man I knew, the man I trusted, never would’ve done that. But I also never told you the full truth. I was left the house, but it came with a massive mortgage because my parents’ answer to everything was to refinance. But every month, like clockwork, I started to get deposits into my checking account. Small amounts at first. Enough to maybe cover groceries for the week. And then, just after you moved in, all the sudden there was about two hundred grand. It was a godsend, but I didn’t touch it for almost a year. I was too scared of where it came from. I tried to investigate it, but I didn’t want the bank to take it away, so I couldn’t really ask too much about it. So I did the math in my head. I never saw Peter’s body, and some benefactor was making sure I was taken care of in some way.”
“But he never contacted you?”
“No.” Melissa shook her head and put her uneaten bagel down. “I don’t know what I would’ve said to him. Honestly, I don’t even remember what I said last night. I was just so... I don’t know. Angry? Happy? Hurt? Everything. I was everything last night. How can he just show up here after all those years and expect things to be the same?”
Liv frowned. That wasn’t the impression she’d gotten at all. “I don’t think he does want things to be the same. I’m not even sure he wants to be here.”
“What does that mean?” Melissa shook her head. “I’m so selfish. I’ve been thinking about me and haven’t asked how you’re dealing with all of this. How did you meet him? Did he just knock on the door and introduce himself?”
“Something like that,” she lied, without even thinking about it. Partly because she was so embarrassed about the exact conditions of her first meeting with Slade and partly because there were already so many barriers between the brother and sister. If Melissa knew Slade came in uninvited and invaded Liv’s bedroom, Liv had a feeling the brawl would not end as peacefully as their interaction last night.
Besides, all the stories she’d heard about Melissa and Slade from their childhood made them sound so close. Like true allies. If they never got over his actions, that was fine, but Liv didn’t want to set them up for failure. “He said he was looking for Josh and when I let it slip he was close by, he actually started to go door to door, looking for him.” Melissa’s eyes widened, so Liv finished the story quickly. “I convinced him to wait to talk to you and get Josh alone.”
“Well, duh. What the hell was he thinking? He couldn’t think dragging Josh out in front of all of his friends would ever be a good idea.”
“He heard about the kidnapping thing somewhere. I guess it freaked him out.”
“It freaked me out too, but you don’t see me losing my damn mind. We need to get rid of him and his scary friend too. They’re already drawing too much attention.”
Scary friend? Liv thought back to the other man from last night. He’d seemed exceptionally handsome, but scary wasn’t exactly the vibe she’d gotten from him. “Who was the other guy? Why did you come home with him?” And then she remembered where Melissa was supposed to be last night. “And what happened to Hurley?” Melissa paled and Liv knew she hit a nerve. “I told you not to go out with him.”
“Please don’t start with the I-told-you-sos. You were right. I never should’ve gone out with him, okay?”
Liv stayed quiet and tightened her lips.
“Everything started out okay,” blurted Melissa. “He picked me up and took me to Totorro. He ordered drinks and an appetizer and then ordered me a steak. He thought he was showing off because it was the most expensive thing on the menu, but I told him I didn’t want him ordering for me.”
“Since when did that bother you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Since he did it in such a cocky way. I don’t want him telling me what I can and can’t eat. So when I called him out on it, he started in on this spiel how he was an alpha male and was looking for a woman to, I shit you not, take care of. It was weird. So after the apps got there, I told him I had made a mistake and left.”
Liv snorted. “You didn’t even wait until after dinner?”
“I’m almost thirty, Liv. I don’t have time to suffer through a shitty dinner like that. Besides, maybe if I left early enough, they wouldn’t charge him for my steak, right? I thought I was doing him a favor.”
“You’re kind of full of it sometimes, you know.”
“Fine. So I was being a bitch. But he was being a dick and I don’t feel bad.”
Liv held up her hands. “Yeah, Hurley was a dick. I know he’s a dick. I told you he’s a dick. I just don’t understand why you didn’t think he was.”
“I knew it. I just... I was thinking that maybe he wouldn’t be so bad to me, you know? It’s stupid, but with everything that has happened with Josh, I thought having someone like him around would help.”
“Someone like him?” It clicked and Liv nodded. “Someone with attachments to Thurrond.”
“It wouldn’t be the worst idea to have some protection. Not when the cops seem to have no idea what the hell they’re doing and we can’t watch Josh twenty-four seven.”
“Well, now we seem to have protection coming out of our asses,” Liv muttered. “And the cops are doing their best. There’s just so little to work with.”
“I believe that. I also believe that if Thurrond were helping us, we’d already have the names, addresses, and Social Security numbers of everyone involved and you know it.”
Liv was newer to Laurie Falls, but she knew Thurrond didn’t do anything without expecting a hell of a lot in return. That was the kind of company she didn’t want to get mixed up with, and the fact that Melissa was considering it sent a chill up her spine. Not even just considering it. She’d accepted a date from one of Thurrond’s goons!
Now it all made so much more sense. Liv let out a breath. She was supposed to be at work later this afternoon, and if she was lucky, she’d still have energy left after all of this emotional whiplash. “Slade said he was coming over this morning. He seems excited to see Josh.”
Melissa groaned. “Can’t he take a hint?”
“I’m guessing no. What do you want to do about it?”
“I... I want to talk to Josh first. I can ease him into it.”
“Do you want me to be there?”
“Yes. Of course I want you to be there. Josh loves you. Anything you say, he’ll believe. But you can’t be there.”
Unfortunately, thanks to Melissa’s blood relationship to Josh, she was sometimes relegated to the role of stern mother while Liv was more of a fun aunt. Liv tried not to encourage that kind of thinking, but Melissa liked to work the “good cop/bad cop” routine on the kid sometimes. As much as she loved Josh, the little ray of sunshine could be a damn troublemaker sometimes. And she had a feeling he wasn’t going to handle the return of his father all that well. “So if you don’t want me to be there, what do you want me to do?”
Melissa looked up and met Liv’s eyes. “I’m going to need you to distract my brother long enough for me to get the first word with Josh.”
Slade wasn’t really expecting Melissa to let him in when he knocked on the door, but to his surprise, almost as soon as he rang the bell, the door swung open. Except it wasn’t his sister there.
Liv smiled up at him and that did nothing to help his confusion. She was dressed today in a pretty white and pink floral sundress that flared out from her tiny waist and stopped right above her knee. The capped sleeves and scoop neck showed no cleavage, but the dress was tight enough to show the outline of her body. Considering he happened to have just felt those curves pressed against him last night, the totally innocent dress took on a whole new life inside his mind as he mentally peeled it from her until she
was only in whatever bra and panties she wore beneath. In his mind, they were the same bright pink as the dress....
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully as she stepped back, silently inviting him inside.
Also unexpected. He stepped over the threshold and glanced around, waiting for the other shoe to drop any second. Why was Liv suddenly being so nice to him?
“Melissa is off with Josh. She took him out for breakfast and is telling him about the new... developments. Why don’t you let me show you around the town? I can point out everything that has changed since you’ve been gone.”
Alarms started to go off in his head as he looked around for whatever catch there was around the corner. “Where is Melissa really?”
Liv raised a brow. “Umm.... At breakfast with Josh.... I’m sorry, did I imagine just having this conversation with you?”
“I thought last night you were hell-bent on getting rid of me.”
“Yeah, well, last night you wandered in here like a bull in a china shop with no cares for what you broke in your path. Now, we can act like reasonable adults.”
Reasonable adults.... He wasn’t used to being a reasonable adult. Scary adult. Dangerous adult. Deadly adult. Reasonable definitely wasn’t on that list. And as Liv walked closer and put the full force of those baby-blue eyes on him, he got a whiff of whatever soap she used and he felt anything but reasonable.
He had a feeling that when she flashed those big eyes at people, she tended to get whatever she wanted, but in this case she wasn’t wrong. The situation was so delicate; a bit of tact would be good, assuming Josh wasn’t in immediate danger. But if the guys after Josh ever knew he was sniffing around, that danger would be a hell of a lot more immediate. “Melissa isn’t going to come back until you tell her that I’m not around, is she?”
“She’s waiting on my text message as we speak,” said Liv with a little smirk that really shouldn’t be so damn sexy. “All right. Let’s go.”
She slipped on some bright-blue flats that made her look extra innocent somehow, and Slade had to take a moment to reconsider what he was even doing here. This was the life he’d given Josh. It hadn’t been an abandonment; it was a gift. It was a life a hundred times better than anything he could’ve given his own son. Even though he had no way of knowing Josh would’ve ended up with such a stable life, at the time he’d chosen to leave, he knew anything would be better than life with him.
The Vengeful Thief (Stolen Hearts Book 5) Page 5