Nobody spoke.
He thought he might have stopped breathing there for a spell—that might explain why his chest felt tight.
“And that’s it. He’s in the United States. I know he is. For all I know, he’s the one who slashed Moira’s tire, although the thought of William Clyde getting on his knees to do something so … mundane … just doesn’t fit.” She shrugged.
Ian jerked his head up. “What did you say his name was?”
“William.” Neve glanced at him, a soft flush on her cheeks, as though she’d half forgotten he was there. Now her gaze bounced away.
“His last name.” Shoving away from the wall, he moved closer. “His last name. Clyde?”
“Yeah.” Now she eyed him nervously. “Why?”
“And he was a barrister? From London?” Something hot and vicious and raw twisted in his gut as he stared at her. Let me be wrong … can I be wrong on this?
“Yeah.” She swallowed and backed up a pace.
Ian realized he was crowding her and he made himself stop. “William—is that his first name or his middle, do you know?”
“Ian, back off,” Brannon said, his voice low.
“It…” Neve licked her lips. “It was his middle name. How did you know that? His first name was Samuel.”
“Samuel.”
They said it at the same time.
Ian turned just as Brannon went to grab his arm.
“You know him,” Neve said softly.
“Aye. Yeah,” he muttered, shaking his head. Then he looked up at Brannon. “And you do, too. Sam Clyde, Bran. That piece of shite who tried to get me thrown out of university. Remember him now?”
Brannon stared at him for a long moment and then, as though it was just too hard to hold in place, his hand slid slackly away from Ian’s shoulder. “Sam,” he said, his voice thick.
“What are you two talking about?” Neve asked, her voice tight.
Ian thought he might be sick. There he’d been, wanting to take her away from this pain, to hurt the man who’d caused it … and now …
Was it because of us?
Ian looked at Brannon, but Brannon had turned away, his hands over his face, shoulders slumped.
“It’s been years,” he finally said when it was clear Brannon was in no hurry to talk. “Brannon and me, we’d gone out to this pub. We didn’t normally go there, but we’d heard there would be music, thought we’d try it. Turned out the music was bad and most of the people in there were more interested in looking important. So we left. We heard a scream.”
He stopped then, looking away.
Brannon finally turned back. Ian thought he looked like he’d aged ten years in those few brief moments. “We’d cut through the back,” Brannon said. “We didn’t see anybody, almost just left, but then we … well, we didn’t. There was a car on the far side of the lot. This sick fuck had one of the servers from the pub—I grabbed him, beat the shit out of him. Ian calls the cops, gets the girl out of the car. We give our reports … then nothing. The girl doesn’t want to testify. She doesn’t want to talk to us. That’s fine, we get that. But I’d recognized him. I knew him. He went to school with us—we both had a couple of classes with him.”
“Evil piece of shit,” Ian said. He’d moved away from Neve, staring out the window over the landscaped yards. He wasn’t seeing the flowers or the topiary or the lush green lawns, though. He saw pale flesh, bruised by vicious hands. “Turns out he had a name for himself—not that many people talked. Money made plenty of people forget. His father, uptight prick, came to my door, knocking. Said he could set me up in grand style if I’d just forget the misunderstanding I’d seen. I told him to fuck himself. The next time I saw Sam, I called him out—he was talking to this pretty thing—I don’t even remember her name. She was in a class with us, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Brannon said. “I want a fucking drink. And her name was Alice. She left school a few months later.”
“I humiliated her, calling him out like that. Told everybody in the pub he was a rapist, a piece of shite—nothing but scum. People looked at her…” He stopped, shook his head. “Nothing to do for it now, is there? He came at me and I put him on the floor. A few days later, I’m asked to step out of a class. So is Brannon.”
“His dad tried to get us thrown out of school.” Brannon snorted as he poured himself a glass of whiskey from a decanter on a table next to the couch. “It took him a while to figure out that I wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was Ian. We made that son of a bitch’s life hell.”
There was a soft noise.
“Brannon,” Ian said quietly.
But Neve was already out the door.
“Neve!” Brannon was on his feet like a shot.
“Leave her alone.”
* * *
Moira shoved in front of him, torn between rage and misery and guilt.
Because he was there—and useful—when Brannon tried to go around her, she shifted and put herself back in his path and shoved him, putting her temper and strength into it.
It wasn’t a lot, but it caught his attention.
“Moira, damn it!”
“Do you think she wants to talk to you now?”
“I have to—”
“You can’t fix this,” she said softly. “Nobody can. I never had to deal with anybody who laid hands on me, but now…” She had to stop because the rage inside her threatened to take control and she never let anything control her. “It seems like maybe the son of a bitch did it because she’s your baby sister. That just makes it worse. And we can’t fix that.”
“I have to…” Brannon stopped abruptly and just stood there, a look on his face that tore at her. He looked lost and frustrated and furious—the same way she felt.
Moving in, she hugged him. He caught her up against him, squeezing tight enough that her ribs ached, but she didn’t care.
Ella Sue moved in. “Moira.”
Looking at the woman who’d been like a mother to her for twenty years, she saw an echo of everything she felt written across Ella Sue’s lovely, timeless face.
“Go up to her,” Ella Sue said softly. “This isn’t a time for her to be alone.”
“But…”
“She needs somebody. Look … she came home for a reason. She needs to heal and she needs her family. Right now, she needs somebody more than ever.” Ella Sue caught her hand and squeezed. “Who better than her sister?”
A sister who’d been there when she really needed her would probably be a better fit, Moira thought bitterly.
But she nodded. After all, she was the only sister Neve had.
Silence echoed behind her, seemed to follow her as she made her way through the house.
Nobody responded when she knocked on Neve’s door, but she knew her sister was in there. She almost turned away.
She needs somebody.
She opened the door.
If she hadn’t done her best to learn how to control her temper for the past two decades, the sight in front of her would have had her screaming in outrage.
Neve glanced at her and then away, carrying the load of clothes in her arms to the bed.
“Leaving already?” Moira asked.
“No.” Neve shrugged. Her arms were slender—almost too thin—but Moira couldn’t overlook the muscle there.
Her sister had somehow become terribly strong in the past few years.
“Most of these clothes either don’t fit or don’t suit me anymore. I’m going to donate them. I need to buy some new stuff, but for now, I just want these out of here.” She paused as she put her load down, stroked a hand across a red silk tank.
“That was one of your favorites,” Moira said. She’d kept the damn clothes because she’d been convinced her sister would come back.
Neve shrugged. “It’s just a shirt.”
“Neve…”
Now she looked up, her pale green eyes vivid, the tears she’d been fighting welling up. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
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“It’s not…” Moira stopped, floundering.
“It’s not what?” Neve stalked back over to the closet and disappeared inside. A moment later, she appeared with more clothes. “Not my fault?”
“No. It’s not.”
Neve stopped in the middle of the floor, all but quivering as she stood there. Tremors wracked her body and, abruptly, she flung down her armful of clothes. “You think I don’t know that?” she shouted. “I know! I did the counseling and I read the pamphlets and I wrote my damn feelings down and I get up in the morning and remind myself of that all the time. And I still wonder why I stayed … but I never wondered why I fell for him.”
She turned and went to move but the clothes tangled around her feet. Sighing, she knelt down, gathering them up.
Moira crossed the floor, kneeling down. She picked up a skinny-strapped black dress, something so short she never would have let Neve out of the house in it. She tossed it over her arm and added another black dress, then another.
“I never wondered … looking back, I knew it was a mistake, and I knew it was wrong, but it made sense,” Neve said, her voice soft. “He made me feel … like I mattered. He was older and experienced, and he seemed like he’d seen and done everything. He just … took me over. And I let him. I didn’t want to fight it. Not until it was too late. And now…”
“He used you.” Moira stood, her arms full of clothes. She hugged them instead of her sister.
Neve stood up and met her eyes. “Yeah. It shouldn’t matter, should it? He still hit me. He still hurt me. He’d still be doing it if I hadn’t left … and now I feel like I’m back there all over again. It wasn’t ever even about me.”
Neve turned around, dumping the clothes on the bed. “Think Ella Sue can dig up a couple of boxes before she leaves?”
“Fuck the boxes.” Moira caught her sister’s arm, turning her around. “You were the one he hurt and it’s your life he’s still trying to mess up. I’d say it’s very much about you.”
Neve opened her mouth, then closed it. She went to pull away, but as she averted her face, Moira saw the tears she was still fighting.
She needs her sister.
Although the gulf of years separating them still felt as wide as ever, she moved in and caught Neve around the waist, hugging her.
Neve didn’t move—not for the longest time, and then, she started to sob.
* * *
“He never even loved me.”
The words came into the quiet a long time later. Moira didn’t know how much time had passed. They were curled up on the floor, Neve with her head pillowed on Moira’s lap. Moira stroked Neve’s hair back.
“That shouldn’t even be a question. He used his fists on you. That’s not love.”
“That’s not always true,” Neve said, sighing. “Abusers can very well love … it’s a twisted, dangerous kind of love, Moira. And the abuse is that much more subtle for it. It’s the kind of stuff that leads to obsession. But he didn’t love me. That was why I stayed for as long as I did—I thought he loved me. But it wasn’t ever about that.”
Moira didn’t know what to say to that—she couldn’t comprehend being with a man who’d hurt her. Staying with a man who’d hurt her. She wouldn’t have thought Neve would, either. But she knew her sister—she’d once been incredibly strong-willed. Somehow, William Clyde, Sam Clyde, whoever he was, had damaged her enough to make her do just that. Walk a mile in her shoes, she thought. “In the end, it doesn’t matter what it was about, I don’t think,” she finally said. “Right now, it’s a kick in the gut. But what matters is that he’s still the man who hurt you. One who might try to hurt you again.”
“Yeah.” Neve sighed, the sound shuddering out of her. “I just…”
The words trailed off.
“What, baby?”
Neve sat up, drawing long, denim-clad legs to her chest. “I was so happy with him. At first. I had this great guy … and yeah, it was all a lie. But there he was. I thought I’d finally have somebody who wanted me. Who needed me.”
The words—the sheer loneliness in them—hit Moira hard.
“Nevie…”
Neve shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
When Neve tried to stand up, Moira reached out. “Do you honestly think we didn’t need you? Didn’t want you?”
A sad smile curved her lips. “I was a pain in the ass, Moira. There were times when I didn’t want me.” Then she shrugged. “But it doesn’t matter anyway.”
She got to her feet, stretching her arms over her head.
Moira did the same, although her spine ached and every muscle in her body protested. “It matters,” she said. “We should have done better—I should have done better. You needed me and I was too caught up in everything else to even realize how much I was messing up. You and Brannon were the two who needed me the most and I let you both down.”
Neve looked away. “We all messed up. I’m … tired,” she said after a moment. “I’m tired of looking back and wondering and questioning and wishing. I just want to forget half of my life and start over, if I can.”
Then she looked back at her sister. “Brannon and I weren’t the only ones who needed you, though. Gideon did, too.”
The simply spoken words hit her like a fist and Moira opened her mouth only to realize she had absolutely nothing to say.
“I don’t think the two of you ever got over it, either.” Neve turned toward her bed. “I guess I’ll just fold these for now. Thanks for … well, you know.”
Moira opened her mouth to respond, but then she just stood and moved to the bed. When she started to fold the clothes, Neve looked at her.
“It’s been years,” Moira said, forcing her voice to be level. “I figure we’ve got time to make up for. Even if we’re doing it over a pile of clothes that are…”—she held up something insanely fuchsia and insanely floral—“sadly outdated.”
“That was yours,” Neve said. “I just … borrowed it.”
* * *
Brannon and Ian had a method of communication that seemed to involve odd looks, low grunts or mutters, and lots of whiskey.
Gideon didn’t bother asking for translations.
The two were close—they might as well have been born in the same nursery. The fact that an ocean had separated them for the first eighteen years of their lives didn’t matter much. They were as close as two friends could get.
While they continued their indeterminate conversation, Gideon moved through the house, feeling at loose ends.
Ella Sue had made coffee and then gone home.
He drank half the pot and then made himself walk away. He would probably be up half the night anyway, but at least now he’d know it was his own fault and not the coffee.
As the clock crept up on ten, he found himself at the foot of the steps.
It had been silent ever since Moira had followed Neve, and now, like a string was tugging on him, Gideon was drawn up the elegant staircase off to the west wing, where the family’s bedrooms were.
Neve’s had never been moved.
They’d never changed a single thing, a fact that surprised him not at all.
They’d just been waiting for her.
What infuriated him was that they’d just waited—that he had just waited. He should have known Neve wouldn’t just … disappear like that. Hot as that temper was, she’d loved her family and she would have come home. Because nobody had pushed, look at what had happened.
The door was closed and he turned the handle gently, watching as a wedge of light from the hallway spilled inside.
The first thing he saw was the miniature tower city constructed of a tower of clothes neatly stacked on the floor in front of Neve’s bed.
The second thing … the two women curled up on the bed.
Although Neve was the taller of the two, she lay curled up on her side, Moira at her back with a protective arm resting over her.
And her eyes were open.
As Neve slept, her sister kept watch.
She met his gaze and, after a moment, her lashes swept down. He went to back away, but she eased off the massive bed, padding across the floor toward the open door.
He really should have just left.
She closed the door behind her and turned toward him.
Her face was flushed from sleep. She’d taken off her shoes and, at some point, she’d also lost the closely fitted, dressy little jacket she’d been wearing when he found her at the museum.
She looked mussed and sleepy and so completely beautiful.
She still turned his brain to mush and the love he had for her felt like it would explode out of him.
But he’d lived with this for years and he was able to give her a polite nod. “How is she?”
Moira sighed and slumped back against the wall. “I don’t even know how to answer that. She’s upset. She’s angry.” She lapsed into silence and then she added, “I’m angry. I want to kill him, Gideon.”
“He won’t hurt her again, Moira.”
“He never should have hurt her to begin with.” She curled her hands into fists, her gray-green eyes staring off down the hall. Her voice was muted and quiet as she added, “She wanted somebody to need her, Gideon. How badly did I mess up if I chased my baby sister into the arms of someone who’d hurt her just because she wanted to feel needed?”
Gideon had rules he tried to live by—as a cop, as a man.
And there were rules he had to live by to stay sane around Moira.
Number one—don’t touch.
But he couldn’t not touch her now.
He kept it light, casual, just a brush of his fingers down her arm. The contact brought her eyes to his. “You didn’t drive her to him. You aren’t responsible—neither is Neve. The only one responsible for this is the man who hurt her.”
It didn’t do anything to lessen the shadows in her eyes, but he hadn’t expected it to.
After a moment, he just nodded. “You get some sleep, Moira.”
She reached out and caught his arm.
The contact went through him like electricity, setting his system to blaze, and he couldn’t stop the way his muscles bunched, the way his heart rate rocketed up.
Headed for Trouble (The McKay Family #1) Page 16