by Kadi Dillon
Since arguing was futile, she closed her eyes and let his tongue wonder over her shoulder. She shivered when his teeth sunk into her sensitive skin. Potent, she had called him before. And as he took her again in the sunlight, she knew potent didn’t even come close.
Gideon stood beside Rebecca and watched Lilah Channing glide through the corridor at the airport in her five inch heels. He could only ogle behind tinted lenses as Rebecca’s complete opposite approached them. She had a man behind her wheeling two over-size suitcases that matched the carry-on bag she gripped with fingers tipped in bold red.
Her blond hair was chopped to the chin in an elegant swing. She wore white—white pants, a cream colored, low-cut top under a white jacket. Her heels matched her nails.
Lilah glanced in their direction, away, then sharply back to them. She curled a finger to the man behind her who obediently switched directions and followed. “Rebecca. What are you doing here?”
Rebecca pecked her mother’s cheek. “How was your cruise?”
“Refreshing. Stephan, take my bags and get the car. I’ll wait.” Lilah flicked a piece of lint from her jacket while Stephan hurried to oblige.
“You took the cabana boy on a cruise?”
“Did you come here to pry into my personal business?” Lilah’s voice was smooth and cold. Gideon felt the chill from behind Rebecca.
“Of course not. Mother, this is Gideon Avery.”
“Ma’am.”
Lilah turned chilling blue eyes on him. Her painted lips parted and curved slowly into a feline smile. “Pleasure.”
“We need to talk to you privately.”
“You can walk me to the car,” she suggested. She licked her lips and strolled away without waiting for an answer when Gideon failed to respond to her outlandish attempts at flirtation. Rebecca shrugged and followed her. “What is this about?”
“It’s about Dad.”
That brought Lilah’s head around. She stopped abruptly and turned slowly to them. The airport seemed eerily quiet without the clicking of heels echoing throughout the room.
“What about Austin?”
“He came to the house a couple months ago—”
“And you’re just now mentioning it?” Lilah’s voice dropped several degrees. Her eyes turned dark with anger as she all but vibrated.
Rebecca went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “He left a painting with me asking me to keep it for him. He scammed someone else, Mother and now they’re watching the house. You can’t go back there until he comes back and fixes this.”
It was obvious that Austin Channing was more than likely never coming back, but Gideon remained silent watching Lilah’s face turn three shades of red. “I’ll get you a hotel room until this is finished. You should have plenty of clothes in your suitcases.”
“Where are you staying?” Lilah asked with dripping sarcasm. She flicked another glance at Gideon. “Or do I need to ask?”
He saw Rebecca’s shoulders tense and decided to step in. “She’s staying with me. Like she said, we’ll be happy to set you up in a hotel. You’re choice where. We’ll let you know as soon as it’s safe for you to return home.”
Lilah smirked and nudged her daughter. “I’m surprised by you, Rebecca. You’re normally quite dull. What have you been up to while I was gone?”
“I’m still quite dull,” Rebecca murmured. If there was pain from her mother’s verbal blows, it was well hidden and she knew it. She was numb to the core and used every ounce of will she possessed to be calm and cool. “And will always be. Do you need us to come with you to the hotel or can you find your own way?”
“Oh, I’ll find my way,” she seethed pointing a coral tipped nail at her. “And the next time my husband comes to town, you’d better call me immediately.”
“He was here for five minutes, Mother. Long enough to dump his problem on me and leave. He’s always left, he’ll always leave. Nothing you do will change it.”
“You bitch,” she spat. “If it wasn’t for you, he would stay. Can’t you see you’re the one who drives him away with your whining and needing? You ruined my marriage.”
“That’s quite enough,” Gideon warned quietly.
“Oh, sure. She’ll drive you away as soon as you get bored with her. Won’t be long.” She shrugged jerkily. “She hasn’t had a relationship last and she won’t start with you.”
“Thanks for the warning, Mrs. Channing, but we need to be going.” He took Rebecca’s rigid arm and led her out of the airport, leaving Lilah smirking behind them. Rebecca didn’t say a word as they walked to the truck he’d rented. He opened the door for her and closed it when she climbed in.
He slid in beneath the steering wheel and took her hand. “You know every word she said was a load of bullshit, right?” He managed to squash the fury—barely—and kept his voice calm. Her cheeks were colorless and her lower lip was bruised from her biting it.
“I know.”
He knew she needed time and a diversion. “Hungry?”
“A little.”
Gideon pulled out of the airport parking lot and guided the truck through the traffic. He fiddled with the radio and settled on a mixed genre station he knew she liked. She still didn’t stir, only stared out the window at the passing cars.
He didn’t know what to do for her. It was the one frustrating thought repeating in his mind. She looked so small and helpless just sitting there. His mother would know how to handle her, he thought, switching lanes and pulling into a burger joint. If she’d cried or broke down, he could hold her and comfort her. He didn’t know what to do with silent misery.
He was sure if he reached over to take her hand, she would pull away. If he offered her words of comfort, she wouldn’t hear them. So instead he parked the truck and walked with her inside a fast food joint to get a burger.
He’d seen cleaner dining rooms than this one but he’d also seen nastier. The smell of grease and starch assaulted him. At least she was eating, he thought while he finished off his meal. Some of her color had returned and her eyes looked sad instead of devastated. Feeling as though he could reach her now, Gideon laid a hand over hers and waited until her gaze lifted to his.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. There isn’t really anything to talk about. It’s pretty self explanatory.” She wadded the wrapper to her burger up and sat it on the tray. “Thank you for lunch.”
“Anything else you need while we’re in town?” He took her hand as they walked out the door and was relieved when she curled her fingers around his.
“No. Gideon, thank you for not asking questions.”
He opened her door and waited until she climbed inside. He pulled her seatbelt around her and leaned in until they were eye to eye. “I want the answers, Rebecca. But I want you to tell me without me having to ask.”
And that was the thing, he thought, buckling his own seatbelt. He wanted her to open up to him. He wanted to know why her mother was bitter and why her father was a criminal. He wanted to know how she felt about that. He wanted her to turn to him.
“The answers aren’t very important.”
“They are to me.” And she would just have to get used to that. He stared at her, waiting for her to tell him. When she only stared back without a word, he sighed and maneuvered the truck onto the highway. He drove two miles before he heard her voice. It was quiet and sad and he fought the urge to pull over and hold her.
“My parents got married when my mother found out she was pregnant with me. They might have been in love. My mother certainly claims to have been. He was a traveling sales man. You know what they say about those guys. It was true in this case.”
“How often was he gone?”
“Days at a time to start with. My first clear memory was of him being gone for a month straight. I was about five. Lilah was a mess. He was great when he was home. He spent time with me, catered to Lilah. He was a father and a husband. But something happened when I turned eight. It was my birthday party
and he didn’t come home. He promised me.”
She looked at him then as he braked at a red light. In her eyes was a desolation he’d never seen before. Because the urge was too strong, Gideon reached over and linked her cold fingers in his. “Go on.”
“He promised me,” she said again looking down at their joined hands. “He broke that promise and every one after. The ones after didn’t mean much because I didn’t believe them.”
Wrong, he thought as he pulled into the rental agency. They meant very much to her. He remembered the devastation in her eyes after she’d spoken with her father and the sad acceptance in them when her mother had shouted at her.
He couldn’t begin to imagine a life where his parents didn’t give a shit about their kid. His parents were great. He’d never had to wonder if they loved him or his siblings. He never had to fake a smile when one of them had made a promise to him. He knew they would keep it. On the other hand, he knew how lucky they were to have Charles and Rose as parents.
Critter had left his own country because his family had left him in the middle of the night. He’d been seventeen then. Eight of the ten years he’d lived in America was spent working with the Avery’s. Critter, Colin, and he had worked for a marina in Virginia for three years together. Critter had become a part of the family then.
When Colin bought the island, the family moved to Avery and Critter had followed them. He had a house on Pelee because he liked his privacy but Rose made sure he was present for every holiday and birthday. Family was so simple for the Avery’s. It was everything.
“He would call every so often and ask about me. I didn’t understand until I was older but since he asked about me all the time, my mother blamed his leaving on me. She told me when I was sixteen that if I hadn’t been born, Austin wouldn’t have left.”
“Damn inconsiderate of you to be born.”
She smiled a little as he’d intended for her to do. “She can’t help it, really. Lilah’s a very dependant person. Even though she hates me, she needs me. That’s why I’m still living with her. She rarely acts the way she did at the airport. I just caught her off guard.”
“If you make excuses for her, you’re only going to piss me off.”
“I’m not making excuses. I’m just telling you how she is. How she’s ever been. She won’t change and it doesn’t even matter. I don’t love her.” She slapped a hand over her mouth, her sapphire eyes going wide. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Why? Because it isn’t true or because you’ve never admitted it?”
“I don’t love her, Gideon. I don’t love either of them. What does that make me?” She seemed desperate to know.
“It makes you human.” He pulled her across the seat, wrapping his arms around her. Tears shimmered behind her eyes but didn’t drop. He kissed her forehead and could all but feel her head aching. “If you had feelings for people like that, Rebecca, you’d be stupid.”
“I can accept that.” She said it slowly as if afraid to belief it.
“Good. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Eleven
Her first week on Avery had been magic, her second week a miracle. Rebecca felt more at home on the isolated island than she ever had in Cleveland. Zoey bounded down the slope to the boat yard ahead of her while she and Jess carried giant picnic baskets full of egg salad sandwiches and pasta salad to the hardworking men.
The sun was warm as it beat down on them. Rebecca didn’t mind the chill they’d been getting but was glad to end the summer with sunshine. She wondered now as she’d wondered for the past few days if she’d be here on Avery to welcome the fall.
Jess opened the door to the boat yard and shut it behind them. Zoey’s barking bounced off the wood fence followed my deep laughter. Rebecca chuckled when she heard Gideon swear at the dog from under a giant wooden work-in-progress.
Charles came out from behind the boat and took the baskets from the women. “Are you ladies joining us?”
“We can. Mom packed plenty. She didn’t want you guys leaving for the mainland hungry.” Jess began to take containers out of one of the baskets. “Where’s Critter?”
“He’ll be along.”
Rebecca took the foam cups and lemonade out of the other and started setting them beside the foot on the table.
“Is your mother coming?”
“No, she wants to get a head start on the attic.” Jess’s smile was only a little wicked. “She said when you’re back from your meeting; you’re more than welcome to come help her.”
Charles’s opinion of that was short and rude. Rebecca laughed and handed him a cup of lemonade. “It really is horrible,” he assured her. “The woman spends half the time cooing over pictures of the kids, some of the rest of the time moving things around, then she decides everything was fine the way it was.”
“I’d like to see some of those old pictures.”
“Yeah, there’s a good one of Gideon in the bathtub. Couldn’t have been more than three or so. Had his favorite toy in there with him, a little grey mouse with one ear.”
“Dad, I love you, but you show her that, no one will ever find your body.”
Charles smirked and waved a hand. “Not the first time my own child has threatened me.”
“Probably won’t be the last,” Jess added.
Colin was already making his second sandwich. “Its name was Mr. Whiskers. Mom had to dry that little mouse after you took a bath with it and it didn’t fluff right. All the cotton was compacted in its ass. After that, we called it Mr. Asskers.”
“Shut up.”
Colin grinned, unabashed. “Where did that little mouse go?”
“I’m pretty sure I threw it out when my balls dropped.”
Jess was doubled over with laughter. Rebecca was too intrigued to laugh. The thought of hard ass Gideon Avery cuddling a little grey mouse was astonishing. His face was grim as if he were truly embarrassed by his siblings teasing him. He shot a stony look at her.
“What? Do you have something to add?”
“No.” Rebecca paid careful attention to her half-sandwich. “I had a stuffed bear when I was a kid. In fact, I still have it.”
“Yeah, but you’re a girl,” Colin tugged her hair. “Go on, ballerina. You can pick on him. I’ll protect you.”
Rebecca continued to struggle with a smile. “I think it’s sweet.”
“I don’t know about you assholes, but I have work to do.” Gideon grabbed Colin’s plate and—ignoring Colin’s cursing—sat down to eat.
“Come on Gid.” Charles stacked chips on top of his sandwich. “Fun’s fun.”
“Yeah, not when you’re the one getting ragged on.”
“Rebecca,” Colin chided, “Mr. Asskers took bigger bites than that.”
The statement had her carefully toned control cracking. She snorted out a laugh and didn’t even bother to choke it back when Gideon glared at her.
“Jesus, you all are assholes.” But he was smiling now as he chewed his food. “Just wait.”
Critter came in to fill a plate and coaxed a couple of smiles out of Jess. As he was being filled in on the conversation topic, Gideon moved over to sit beside Rebecca. He held a potato chip to her lips. She bit into it instinctively, then shook her head when he offered another.
“People shouldn’t be able to live off the measly amount of food you eat.”
Rebecca shrugged. “I’ll eat more after the show.”
She saw the concern in his eyes and knew what put it there. She was paler than usual and even her makeup couldn’t hide it. She managed a small smile, wanting to assure him she was all right. They’d talked so little about The Dance and the danger they were in. Every time she tried to bring it up, she was firmly told not to worry and that he would handle it.
But it wasn’t only about her anymore. She worried for his family more than she worried about herself. More than once she’d considered taking the painting and borrowing a boat to go find the goons who wanted it and get the entire
thing over with.
Then there was her relationship with Gideon. She was living with him now. He’d insisted she move her clothes into his room and with great reluctance, she’d complied. He couldn’t know how vulnerable she felt not having her own space. Avery wasn’t a big island but she’d managed to carve out a little personal time here and there.
She’d never lived with anyone except Lilah. And even that was a solitary experience. Where Lilah was a social butterfly, hopping from party to party, man to man; Rebecca was more reserved. She’d had two serious relationships but had managed to escape with her heart intact.
She couldn’t say why people tired of her so easily. She’d always felt unlovable without ever knowing why. If a person’s own parents couldn’t love them, there had to be something wrong with that person.
“Where you at?”
Gideon’s quiet voice interrupted her thoughts. She shrugged, took another bite of her sandwich. “Just thinking.”
“Want something else to think about?”
She glanced warily at him. His body was turned mostly toward her. She recognized that gleam in his dark eyes and checked the urge to wet the lips she knew he was about to kiss. She felt herself sway toward him, saw his eyes light with triumph before his mouth closed over hers.
For some reason, she’d expected a chaste kiss. His family was there, for heaven’s sakes. Heat curled in her belly and her heart did one slow flop in her chest.
Before she became too consumed in the kiss, she realized the room had gone quiet. When she tried to pull back, his hand uncurled from the fist he made at her back and flattened against her spine. She felt the slightest pressure as he pulled her toward him but she managed to slip her mouth from his.
His mouth was by her ear, his breath sending little tingles of pleasure throughout her already bumping system.
Someone cleared their throat.
“Well, anyway.” Colin didn’t even bother to hide his grin. “Some of us have to work.”
Rebecca must have blushed. She felt heat scorch her face.
Gideon looked smug—damn him—and Charles stood grinning, too. Jess, though, was carefully averting her gaze. Brows drawn together, Rebecca studied her. Her cheeks lacked the healthy color the good humor in the room had given them. She couldn’t see her eyes, but her lips were pulled in a thin line.