Behind him, Morgan’s snicker choked off.
He might throttle her—after he kissed her.
“Shayla, I think it’s best you leave,” he suggested.
“—vile bitch!” she shouted.
“And that’s it!” Ian caught her as she tried to lunge past him.
She swiped out, trying to claw at his eyes.
He caught her elbow and used his body to hustle her out of the pub. She shoved against him the whole way, kicking at his shins, shoving at him, and, once, slapping him. “Settle yourself down,” he warned. “I’ll call the police if I have to.”
“Kiss my ass, you piece of shit. Let me go or I’ll sue this joint and take Brannon McKay for all he’s worth!” Shayla screeched.
“Yeah and I’d like to see that happen.” He let her go.
She made another go for his eyes and he barely caught her.
That would have hurt—she had nails nearly an inch long. The glitter on them served as a warning.
“I’m not going to tell you again—if you don’t leave—”
“Problem?”
At the sound of Gideon’s voice, Ian heaved out a sigh of relief. “A bit, yeah. Mind helping me out here, Marshall? Mrs. Hardee is somewhat unhappy with us tonight.”
“Unhappy … is that what you call it?”
After a few more minutes, Ian stood out on the sidewalk, hands braced on his hips while he watched Shayla turn her fury on Gideon. She was nose to nose with him and Ian thought the man might be a candidate for sainthood, considering the patience he displayed.
“I’ve a damn right to have a drink!” she shouted, jabbing a finger at him after Gideon had explained, yet again, that Ian couldn’t be arrested for refusing her service—and, no, he hadn’t manhandled her when he’d walked her outside.
Ian coughed loudly, ignoring the left side of his face where it still stung from her vicious, openhanded slap. She turned to snarl at him.
Ian pointed to the neat little custom brass sign affixed to the wall just outside the door.
To be honest, there was rarely a need to point the sign out. Most of the pub’s patrons were looking for a fine meal, a fine drink, and fine service. Ian was proud to offer those very things.
But the sign was there for a reason.
LOUD OR DISORDERLY PATRONS WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE. IF THEY DO NOT LEAVE, THEY WILL BE ESCORTED OUT.
“You were very loud,” Ian said soberly.
She swiped out a hand and grabbed a glass from one of the tables placed on the wide sidewalk on the nicer evenings. Ian prepared to duck but Gideon caught her hand.
“Alright, Shayla. I gave you a chance to calm down.”
She was spitting at him by the time he had her in the back of the car.
“Don’t suppose you could try to make my job a little easier,” Gideon said as Ian handed him a wet towel he’d had Morgan bring out. Gideon swiped it down his face and went to hand it back.
“Keep it. My compliments.”
Gideon tossed it in the open window of his car and looked up as a patrol car came to a stop in front of the pub. A uniform climbed out and Gideon turned away without another word.
Fifteen minutes later, Gideon came inside and wedged himself into an empty seat few inches at the packed bar.
“You’re busy.”
Ian looked at the chief of police and then skimmed his eyes over the buzzing crowd that was packed into his pub. He gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “Chief, your powers of observation stagger me. Truly, they do.”
“Smart-ass.” Gideon jerked his head.
Ian sighed and made his way down to the end of the bar. “As you said, I’m busy. We don’t often see a crowd like this in the middle of the week.”
“That’s how a small town works. Something out of the ordinary happens, people come out of the woodwork to talk.” Gideon shrugged. Then he braced his elbows on the bar. “Do me a favor—and be a friend. Go out to Ferry. Stay on Brannon’s ass for a few hours, make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Ian narrowed his eyes. The busy bar fell to the back of his mind. Both of his assistant managers were here and so was Chap. Chap could handle the bar. Ian could leave—they’d hate him, but he could do it.
The question was … why?
“Define stupid.”
“Anything that would make me have to lock his ass up,” Gideon said grimly. “I think he’ll cool down—probably already has—but just in case.”
Ian had a thousand questions, but he just nodded. “I need some time to settle things here. Have I got it?”
“Probably.” Then he paused. “They’re having dinner out there—Ella Sue was making something nice for Neve coming home. I’ll call her and smooth things over. Charm your way inside if you have to. Just keep an eye on him for a while.”
Gideon turned and got lost in the crowd, leaving Ian behind to wonder just what it was he was supposed to keep Brannon from doing.
* * *
“Rich fuck.”
Gideon tuned it out as he finished talking to Beau Crawford back at the police station—poor Beau was now getting the sharp side of Shayla’s tongue. Gideon could hear her through the phone. “Just call her husband,” Gideon told Beau. “If he wants to act like she’s tied a few on, I don’t care. If she calms down, she can leave. If not, she’s spending the rest of the night in her cell.”
After Gideon hung up, he stood there, torn about whether or not he should be heading out to McKay’s Ferry himself—he still had questions, he was still pissed, and Moira …
He cut the thought off. Don’t go there, son, he warned himself. That ship had already sailed and there was nothing to be done about it.
“I’m telling you, the prick practically took my front end off and then he flipped me off.” There was a pause, followed by, “Probably somebody Brannon knows, driving that Porsche or Jaguar or whatever foreign piece of shit it was. Only car worth driving is American. Everybody knows that.”
Now Gideon looked up, immediately seeking out the speaker.
Clive Owings. He talked loud, he talked long, and he talked a lot of bullshit. He also didn’t like anybody who had it better than he did, and, since he didn’t much like investing effort in anything, plenty of people had it better.
“Who did you piss off this time, Clive?” he asked.
Clive spat out a nasty stream of tobacco into the street and then bared stained teeth at Gideon in a smile. “I didn’t do nothing, Marshall. Was just going through the stop sign and some dickhead almost crashed into me, then flipped me off.” He paused, then added, “Not from here. Had Indiana plates. Fancy car. Probably somebody heading out to the McKay’s. Ain’t none of them able to drive worth shit.”
“Neither can you.” That came from one of the men sitting in the seats lined up in front of the hardware store, and everybody—save for Clive—started to laugh.
“Kiss my ass,” Clive said. But he just shrugged it off. “What’s it to you, Marshall?”
“Oh, nothing.” Gideon smiled and nodded at them before turning around. He had half a mind to head back into the pub, have a drink, but then discarded it.
He sure as hell wanted a drink, he wanted something strong, preferably two or three of them, but first, he had a date with the heavy bag in his garage. The bag and some hard, crashing music while he pounded out the frustrations of a miserable day.
He was halfway home, already feeling the satisfaction of slamming his fists into something, when his phone started to ring, and damn it all if it wasn’t a McKay.
Sometimes, he’d swear they ran his life. Today of all days, he couldn’t ignore the call. Not even if it had been Brannon and his fool hot head. But it wasn’t Brannon, or even Neve, the woman he loved like a sister and who owned a piece of his heart.
No. It was Moira—the woman who owned the rest of that useless, miserable piece of flesh.
* * *
“Son of a bitch.”
Moira McKay—formerly Moira Hurst—was the pictur
e of elegance and poise, even in a tank top and a pair of knee-length capris that bore signs of a long day of hard work. And when she was angry, she managed to swear in a way that made Gideon smile, even as it made him want to cover that cupid’s bow mouth and kiss her senseless.
He hadn’t had that pleasure in a good long while, and for too many years, he’d had to watch her at the side of another man. A useless waste of a man, too. Charles Hurst wasn’t good for much of anything, in Gideon’s opinion, and he certainly hadn’t been good enough for the likes of Moira. A mutual appreciation for history and curating just wasn’t grounds for a relationship, if you asked him.
You needed heat.
You needed love.
He’d thought they’d had both, but Moira had left him anyway.
Of course, after less than three years of marriage, she’d separated from Charles. Not that the man was giving up.
“Why now?”
Her soft, tired sigh came to him across the parking lot and he gave up on what he’d hoped would be a few personal moments to soothe his battered heart.
Taking care to make noise as he moved away from the shaded spot where he’d parked his car, he softly said, “Moira.”
She’d already disconnected when he answered even though it had been on the second ring, but that hadn’t kept him from heading over here. Of course it hadn’t. He might as well have a hook in his mouth.
Her head came up. A faint smile curled her lips, but it was gone just as fast, almost as if she hadn’t realized she was smiling.
She cocked a brow at him. “Well, it’s nice to know the law enforcement in this part of the country is still around when you need them.”
He followed the line of her gaze. A mix of frustration and borderline anger moved through him, although he hid both. Voice neutral, he said, “You called me because your tire is flat?”
“I didn’t call you.”
He took out his phone and pulled up the call log.
She groaned and then rubbed her temple. “Sorry. I must have hit the autodial when I was packing up my things for the day.” Then she gave him a cheery smile. “But the timing is lovely. Can you give me a hand?”
The anger, the irritation—all of it misplaced—drained away and he managed a smile. It wasn’t her fault she hadn’t loved him enough. It wasn’t her fault he wasn’t able to cut the ties that bound him to her and just leave. “Of course. Serve and protect—that’s the job, right, Moira?”
“I doubt you signed on to spend your time changing tires…” A glint of amusement danced in her eyes as she grinned at him. “Chief.”
Was it pathetic that he’d be willing to do just that if it meant he could be near her? Screw the anger he’d felt. It gave him a reason to move closer, hold out his hand for her keys, to stand close enough to smell her hair and catch the hint of honeysuckle on her skin—she’d always loved the smell of it.
Get a grip. Take care of the tire. Leave. Bracing himself to do just that, he moved around to study the tire. The smile on his face faded as he knelt down and got a good look at it.
“Moira, you had any trouble around here lately?” he asked softly, although he knew the answer. Or at least he knew better.
“What? No. Why?” The confusion in her voice was clear.
He reached out and touched the ugly slash in the rubber. “Your tire was slashed.”
“My—what?”
He looked up at her, but his response was interrupted by a familiar voice, one that grated against Gideon’s nerves like metal dragging down a chalkboard. “Moira, pet, what are you doing on the ground?”
She rolled her eyes to the sky, an irritated sigh escaping her. “I’m playing in the dirt, Charles. I had a long day and I’m bored so I thought I’d relax a little before I headed home.”
Even though the cop in him was already working the puzzle, Gideon found himself smiling. “Want to go look for worms, Moira?”
She laughed softly.
Rising, he held out a hand. She accepted, and he couldn’t help but notice the way her shoulders stiffened as Charles approached. Gideon held her gaze a long moment. “It has been a while since we’ve gone fishing, you know.”
Something softened in her eyes. “Hasn’t it?” Slowly, she tugged her hand away and then turned to look at Charles. “Somebody slashed my tire.”
* * *
It was embarrassing, Moira couldn’t help but think, how Gideon Marshall managed to make her feel like this, even though it had been years since she had broken up with him, years since she’d done something that had ripped the heart out of her.
Giddy, soft, excited, the same way she’d felt when he’d kissed her for the first time. They’d been fourteen, on the Ferris wheel at the Riverboat Festival.
Those had been good days. Mom and Dad had still been alive. She had just been … a kid. Able to just … be. Life had been simple then. She hadn’t had to worry about … well, anything.
She had, though.
Far too much.
Just like she did now.
Sighing, she brushed back a stray lock of hair as Charles came up. As he always did, he stood too close, invading space that was no longer his to invade. They’d separated two years ago, but they’d been well into the plans for the museum by then and he was too damn good at his job. The divorce, so unbelievably civil, had been final for well over a year.
The divorce had been as void of passion as their marriage.
Passion—something that had been sadly lacking from her life for too long. Brushing the thought aside, she casually shifted away under the pretense of taking a better look at the tire.
Sure enough, now that she was looking, she could see it. The tire was slashed. “What the hell,” she muttered.
“The timing is … concerning.”
She sensed more than saw how Gideon’s attention shifted to Charles, and her ex-husband was aware of it, too, although his pale blue eyes never left her face. Of course, he wouldn’t pay any attention to Gideon.
Gideon was simply a public servant in Charles’s eyes, unworthy of notice most of the time.
“You going to elaborate on that?” she asked when her ex didn’t continue.
He pursed his lips as though he had to consider it.
But she knew Charles a little too well.
The man was brilliant, but he was a born manipulator, a fact she hadn’t realized until it was too late. She cared about him, and she knew he cared about her, but everything was a game of chess to him.
Including her.
Under the weight of her stare, Charles finally sighed, one manicured hand coming up to smooth his tie down. “Moira, love, surely you noticed how upset she was.”
“Who?” she said, confused.
His mouth flattened out and he looked away. “Neve.”
A low, harsh noise came from beside her. Automatically, she lifted a hand and rested it on Gideon’s arm. Her hand buzzed from that light contact and she had to resist the urge to jerk it back, resist the urge to rub her fingers together to get rid of that tingling sensation. Damn him for still being able to get to her like this. Damn him for never finding somebody. If he had, maybe she could have made a better go of it with Charles.
And that was the problem, really.
She’d never been able to give her heart to Charles because in her heart, she was still the girl she’d been all those years ago. The girl who’d been in love with the boy from the wrong side of the tracks—the troublemaker, the one who everybody had said would come to no good.
Yet here he was, the chief of police, and he was fighting the same anger she was—anger, because somebody had insulted her baby sister.
“Just what does Neve have to do with my tire, Charles?” she asked, lowering her hand to her side once she was relatively sure that Gideon wasn’t going to say anything—not yet, anyway. “Are you implying she slashed my tire? Really?”
“Of course not.” He moved toward her.
She hesitated, unwilling to let him draw
closer, but reluctant to let him pin her up against the car or between him and Gideon. Now, if it was Gideon and, oh, say Tom Hiddleston, she might not mind. A Gideon and Tom sandwich was perfect fantasy material. But Gideon and Charles would be better if they were kept far apart, so Moira remained where she was, although she did lift a hand, holding him at bay. “Then exactly what are you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything,” he said, his clipped accent making the words harsher, more biting. There were times when that British accent had seemed so urbane, so sexy and seductive. But lately, it was just … cold. Charles reached up and, although he smiled at her, that was all she felt. Cold. It was hard to warm up to him, though, when every time she looked at him she remembered how she found him in bed with another woman.
“Moira, love…”
She tugged her chin out of his grasp when he tried to cup her face. “Just spill it, Charles, okay?”
“Very well.” He tucked a strand of her hair back from her face. “Surely you noticed. Neve’s in trouble. It seemed that she…” He paused and looked away. “I think she needs help. Of course, I never did get the chance to know her well since she hasn’t come home and we only had that one brief encounter in London years ago, but…” He looked away. “I suspect some of the trouble she always seemed to find has followed her home.”
Moira went to argue, but then she stopped. She couldn’t argue. Not really.
The look she’d seen in Neve’s eyes, how thin her little sister was … and the way she’d clutched at Moira, as though her world was falling apart. Something was wrong. Moira knew that in her gut. The thing was … she knew her sister.
Charles had only met her once, at a brief awkward dinner when they’d been in London on a trip a few months after their marriage. It had lasted a few short hours.
Neve hadn’t come home for the wedding.
She hadn’t called.
Moira shoved that hurt down. She had to. If she let herself think about it, it was going to break her heart, all over again. Distraction was always key when it came to avoiding personal miseries, so she pinned her ex with a narrow look. “Since when are you an expert on all things Neve?”
“I’m hardly an expert, pet.” He turned away, head bent. “But you know me. She just looked unhappy, and I don’t have to know her to understand she’s never been the easiest of souls.”
Headed for Trouble (The McKay Family #1) Page 12