Chapter 8
As Tabitha crossed the street, Miles kept his lips clamped together to stop himself from calling her name. From asking her to come back.
She got in her car, started it, and pulled away.
He should’ve stayed in his house.
He didn’t like seeing her drive away any more than he’d liked seeing her turn her back on him and walk away from him in his living room last night.
Didn’t like her leaving him. At all.
He should have been glad he’d woken up alone. That she’d saved him the humiliation of reliving any aspect of his breakdown.
Should have been grateful he hadn’t had to tell her to leave.
Instead, he’d been furious that she’d walked away from him a second time without a word—and no, that goddamn note she’d left him ten years didn’t count. He’d chased after her like some fucking sap, only to find her in conversation with his sister.
Did he coerce you? Offer to get you out of trouble or reduce any charges against you in exchange for certain favors?
She obviously didn’t think much of him. Couldn’t, if she believed he’d ever use his position to abuse others.
Yes, he should be glad she was gone. Out of his life once again.
And he was. He was fucking ecstatic.
Even if it felt like there was more left unsaid and undone between them than ever before.
“No more one-night stands or casual hookups for you,” Verity said. “You can’t be trusted to make safe, rational decisions when meaningless sex is involved. Congratulations. You’ve just jumped to the top of my list.”
“Top of your list for what?” he asked warily, hoping it was her shit list.
Christ knew he spent enough time there.
“To find you your forever person. I thought Urban was the one who needed the whole wife and white picket fence thing, but you’ve proved me wrong. Not an easy thing to do, by the way. I mean, I hate to let Urban fumble his way to a happy ending with Willow on his own, but you obviously need me more than he does.”
And the last thing he needed was his baby sister butting into his personal life.
Urban didn’t need her help either, but their eldest brother had made it clear in front of Miles, Toby, and Verity a few nights ago that he had feelings for his best friend and business partner Willow Kincaid.
His mistake.
Knowledge was power and Verity was already the smartest of them all. She didn’t need any more ammunition to use against them.
Not that it was a secret that Urban and Willow were made for each other. They’d been hiding their feelings for each other half their lives. Miles wouldn’t be surprised if they circled each other for another sixteen or so.
That sort of habit was hard to break.
“I’m going to shower,” he grumbled, then turned and went back inside.
In his bathroom, he turned on the water, locked the door, then stripped. He didn’t need to bathe—he was still squeaky clean from last night.
He was hiding.
He needed to clear his head, wanted to empty it of any and all recollection of the past eight hours, but the moment he stepped under the shower, he was bombarded with the memory of Tabitha behind him. Of how she’d washed him, her hands in his hair.
How she’d taken care of him.
He washed himself with rough, brisk strokes, erasing her touch from his skin.
She’d used him. She’d come to the bar last night for the sole purpose of fucking with him.
And no, he couldn’t explain how he’d come to that conclusion.
Only that he was holding onto it no matter what.
She’d thought the worst of him.
You know how she grew up, his inner voice whispered.
Mouth a thin line, he ducked his head under the water. He knew she’d been taken from her mother’s care at the age of eight. But he didn’t know what her life was like before that. Didn’t know what she went through while in the system.
But he’d been a cop long enough, had seen enough, to be able to guess.
Had tried to help enough victims of neglect and abuse to understand why she might mistrust him enough to think he’d lure a young girl to his house.
He was the one who’d kept telling her how much he’d changed.
After drying off, he went into his room and got dressed. The best thing he could do now was accept last night for what it was. What he hadn’t even known he’d wanted or needed after all these years.
Closure.
He’d accept it. And then he’d forget it ever even happened.
He’d forget her.
Again.
He ran his fingers through his hair as he stepped into the hall.
And didn’t so much as glance at that fucking couch as he made his way through his living room.
The scent of freshly brewed coffee hit him as he entered the kitchen. Verity, sitting on a stool at the bar reading The Mount Laurel Gazette, looked up.
“About time,” she said as she stood. “I’m starving and I have to be at Kat and Ian’s in half an hour—which means you get to drive me there as it’s a ten-minute bike ride. You took so long, I thought maybe you’d tried to drown yourself over that humiliating scene. You know,” she continued, as she got plates from the cupboard, “the one where the woman you hooked up with last night ran out of your house like an escaped kidnap victim and then accused you of being the worst kind of creeper?”
He shut his eyes against the headache throbbing at his temples. Yeah. He knew which humiliating scene she meant. Jesus. “Why are you here?”
She hadn’t texted him to let him know she was coming over. And, as she’d just said, she had to be at Kat’s by seven. Verity watched Ian, their brother Silas’s son, while Katarina Caputo, his mother, worked at the Keystone Diner by the lake. Which meant for Verity to be here now, she must’ve gotten up before five-thirty.
“Is that any way to treat your favorite sibling? I got up early, rode my bike all the way to St. Honore’s—which as you well know, is two miles in the opposite direction of your house,” she continued, voice rising as she poured coffee into a mug. “And why would I do such a generous, selfless act at the ungodly hour of six a.m., you might ask?”
His right eye twitched.
Conversations with Verity had that effect. A nerve-wracking, patience-straining one.
“Oh, only because I wanted to have breakfast with my brother on his day off.” She held the cup out to him. “That’s all.”
He took the mug.
That’s all.
Uh huh.
“Thanks.” Sipping the coffee, he nodded at the open bakery box on the counter. “What’s all this?”
“I told you. Breakfast.” She put two sausage/egg/cheese croissant sandwiches—his favorite—on a plate and handed them to him. Then picked up a bagel with lox and cream cheese. “You’re welcome.”
He narrowed his eyes. Something was up. Verity didn’t get up early just to share breakfast with him. Not when they met for lunch every Friday. He peered into the box which still held two raspberry Danish and two large, thick chocolate chip cookies.
More of his favorites.
He sighed. Shit. This wasn’t going to be good.
“What do you want?”
Chewing, she held up her finger for him to wait, then swallowed. “Nothing. God. It’s not a bribe which I’m sure you’re just dying to point out to me is illegal and immoral and blah blah blah.”
He picked up one of the sandwiches. “I never blah blah blah about the law,” he said dryly, then took a bite. Unlike her, he spoke around his mouthful because with Verity, you had to get your words in while you could. “I might yada yada, but never blah blah blah.”
“This” —she made a dramatic sweeping gesture at the food— “is a gift. From me. To you. Enjoy.”
“A gift.” He took another bite. “For me. For absolutely no reason.”
If that was true, he’d eat his badge next.
“Fine,” Verity grumbled with a dramatic toss of her hands—except she was still holding her bagel and capers and a smoked salmon flew through the air. “I’m sorry!”
He got a napkin from the bakery box and scooped up the mess from the floor. “No problem.”
“I’m not talking about that. Though if you’d get a dog, you wouldn’t have to clean up dropped food. People who have dogs are happier, have reduced anxiety, decreased blood pressure and lower stress levels all of which you could use. Plus, a dog would make this house feel homier and less like a bachelor pad and if you had someone to come home to, you might be less inclined to picking up strange women to ease your loneliness.”
Tabitha’s words describing him last night floated through his brain.
He was… lost. Lost and terrified of being alone.
He squeezed the napkin in his fist.
Maybe she and Verity were right. Maybe that’s why he’d asked Tabitha to come home with him. Because he’d grown increasingly tired of one-night stands. Because he felt stuck in his life.
Because he was so fucking tired of being alone.
“If I get a dog,” he said, “will you swear to never, ever again bring up what happened earlier?”
“Uh… no. My point is that I’m not sorry about the food on your floor, I’m sorry about last weekend.”
Last weekend she’d been grounded and was supposed to go home after working at Binge.
Instead, she’d gone to a party.
Had tried to go to a party, he amended. She hadn’t made it. Had swerved to miss a deer and gotten stuck on a dark, deserted road.
“I’m sorry I tried to go to Jeremy’s party,” she went on. “And I’m sorry I didn’t call you or Urban right away when I got stuck, but mostly I’m sorry for scaring you. I hope you can forgive me.”
Scaring him? He’d been terrified. Someone had contacted the police station, sending them a picture of an abandoned car on Songbird Lane. When Miles realized it was Verity’s car—and she hadn’t responded to his calls—he’d panicked.
By the time he got there, Reed Walsh, a local kid Verity’s age, had helped her get her car unstuck.
And when Miles arrived and saw the kid standing too close to his baby sister on that dark, empty street, it’d rattled him even more.
“Always.” He’d always and forever forgive her and nothing she could ever do would change that. “For anything. You know that, right?”
He needed her to know that. To believe it. While he may not forgive easily or often, she would always be the exception.
“Thank you.” She cleared her throat. Took a sip of coffee. “Speaking of last week,” she said, her way-too-casual tone alerting him that what she was about to say was going to be anything but casual. “You weren’t exactly super friendly with Reed. Maybe I’m not the only one who needs to apologize.”
In the act of throwing the napkin into the garbage, Miles froze, the back of his neck prickling with unease. He looked over his shoulder at her. “You want me to apologize to Reed Walsh?”
Her shrug was all nonchalance. Not a care in the world, his sister, with her apology breakfast sandwich and cookies. Her subtle schooling on his lack of friendliness.
Her sudden interest in Reed Walsh.
“Well, you were rather rude.”
Leaning back against the counter, he crossed his feet at the ankles. “Was I?”
She nodded. Set her bagel down and wiped her fingers on a napkin. “You told him what was going on was none of his business—”
“It wasn’t.”
“—and you accused him of being the reason I broke the rules in the first place—”
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
“—and even after I told you how he helped me get unstuck, you didn’t thank him.”
“How do you know I didn’t thank him after you left?”
“Did you?”
Hell no.
And yeah, maybe he should have, but at the time, even knowing she was safe, he’d still been too worried about her to be polite.
Eyes downcast, she broke a piece off one of the cookies. “What did you say to him after I left?”
Pushing away from the counter, Miles straightened. “I’m not discussing any conversation Walsh and I may or may not have had that night or any other night.”
“He said you arrested him,” she blurted.
“When?”“When he was eight.”
“No,” he said slowly, suspicion starting to dawn that perhaps last weekend wasn’t the only time she’d chatted it up with Reed Walsh. “When did he tell you that?”
She shrugged again. Broke the piece of cookie she held in two. “I texted him Sunday night—”
Miles groaned.
“—to thank him for helping me and I brought up how you two seemed to be fairly well-acquainted, and he mentioned that you arrested him—”
“I didn’t arrest him when he was eight. Jesus.” Walsh had been caught stealing candy bars at a local mini mart. “I let him go with a warning.”
Unfortunately, they’d repeated that process for several more years while the trouble Walsh got into grew bigger and bigger. Until Miles realized he wasn’t getting through to the kid. And letting him go without consequences wasn’t helping him.
He couldn’t save Walsh from his own mistakes.
Not if the kid didn’t want to save himself.
“—and he asked me if I’d texted him to,” Verity continued, as if Miles hadn’t spoken, “as he so charmingly put it, yank your chain.”
That wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Her testing boundaries before heading off to college in a few months. Asserting her independence.
“Did you?”
“Oh, absolutely,” she said with faux innocence. “I mean, what other possible reason could I have other than to irritate, annoy or otherwise induce panic in one or more of my brothers?” She laid her hand against her chest, just a damsel in no distress whatsoever fucking with her brother. “It’s what I live for.”
“I know,” he muttered. “That’s the problem.”
One of many that kept him up at night.
“Hilarious. Believe it or not, there are a few times in my life where I make a decision that has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else but me and what I want—”
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars right here, right now if you swear you’ll never, ever, want Reed Walsh.”
“—and as someone who’s seen Reed, I know darn well you realize that a girl doesn’t have to be trying to rile up her brothers to become infatuated.”
“You’re infatuated,” he repeated dully. “With Reed Walsh?”
“I didn’t say that.”
But she was blushing. Hard. And avoiding Miles’s eyes.
He knew she was almost an adult. That she’d had a few boyfriends in high school and would, undoubtedly, have more in college and beyond. He wasn’t trying to keep her a little girl. And he wasn’t some overbearing asshole trying to guard her virginity. It was her body and her choice what she did with it. Who she shared it with.
This was about protecting her from getting hung up on some asshole who wasn’t nearly good enough for her. Someone who’d only hold her back. Who’d break her heart.
Opening a drawer behind him, he reached in and pulled out the first thing he touched. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her without looking at it. “Just kill me now.”
He shut his eyes and tipped his head back, hoping she at least made his decapitation quick and painless.
Unlike this conversation.
“That’s a whisk,” she pointed out. “And it’s plastic.”
He opened his eyes. Frowned at the small, red whisk in his hand.
“I could hit you over the head with it a few times,” she added, sounding a bit too eager to do just that. “It probably won’t kill you, but it’ll at least give you a headache.”
“Already got one.” He set the whisk down then scrubbed a hand through his hair a few times. “Look, you’re at a delicate stage of your life. You’re growing up. Your body is changing—”
“Are you serious right now? You do realize I’m all the way through puberty, right? Came out stronger and better on the other side, with hips, boobs, and a regular menstrual cycle.”
“All I’m saying is that it’s normal to have certain urges” —he winced, not because he didn’t want her to have those urges, he just didn’t want to talk about them— “when it comes to boys. Or girls, or both, depending on your sexual preferences. But that doesn’t mean you have to act on them.”
“Oh, I see. Like you didn’t act on your urges last night with the blonde bombshell? I’m sure you two spent a lovely PG-13 evening together discussing politics and sharing childhood memories.” Shaking her head, she tsked. “If only we all had your strong moral fiber and ironclad willpower.”
Blonde bombshell. That had to be the most accurate description of Tabitha he’d ever heard.
She’d sure as hell blown his life to bits all those years ago.
“This isn’t about me,” he insisted. “This is about you and your future. I thought you wanted to go to school unencumbered by any romantic entanglements.”
Her words exactly.
“I don’t want a boyfriend. And even if I did, Reed sure wouldn’t be at the top of the list of potential candidates. I’m just… curious.”
Curious.
For someone like Verity, someone with a big heart and keen mind, curiosity was even worse than infatuation.
“Reed Walsh is not for you,” he told her, knowing that saying it could be exactly what pushed her into becoming even more curious about Walsh, but not able to stop himself.
“I don’t want to marry him. But I don’t see why we can’t be friends. God knows he could use one.”
And for some reason, that made him think of Tabitha. Again. Yes, his initial reaction to her had been attraction but he hadn’t asked her out all those years ago just because she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.
It was because even when she’d been smiling at him, flirting with him, there’d been a sadness in her eyes. She’d seemed so fragile. So alone.
He’d thought he could save her from both.
He’d thought she needed him.
But he hadn’t been enough.
“Walsh isn’t a puppy,” he said, not wanting Verity to make the same mistakes he had. “Or a shy kid sitting alone in the cafeteria. He’s a loner because he wants to be one. So before you volunteer for the position, ask yourself why you want to be his new BFF.”
She looked at him as if out of all the idiotic things her brothers had said to her over the years, that statement took top spot. “You do realize the only motivation behind friendship is the friendship itself. Companionship. Fellowship. Time spent enjoying another’s company.”
“Not always.”
Sometimes, people were motivated to stay friends because they were too scared to go after what they really wanted.
Like Urban and Willow.
Sometimes, friendship was an excuse to get closer to someone in the hopes of it turning into something more.
And sometimes it wasn’t about the other person at all. It was selfish. Because being around that person made you feel better. Made it easier to pretend you were okay.
Once again, Tabitha’s words from last night whispered through his head.
I was pretty and malleable and convenient.
Fuck. Him. Raw.
“Care to expand on that?” Verity asked.
He would love nothing more than to list all the reasons why she shouldn’t be friends with Reed Walsh. But maybe, this one time, he could step back.
At least until he got his own shit together.
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t think I will.”
“That’s a first.”
“This morning has been full of firsts. And Urban’s always bitching about how I need to let you make your own mistakes so you learn from them.” With a shrug, he got to his feet. “Thought we’d try that out.”
“That’s it?” she asked, following him into the mudroom off the kitchen. “You’re not going to tell me not to befriend Reed or forbid me from seeing or talking to him?”
“Is that why you told me?” he asked as he put on his sneaker. “So I’d forbid you from doing it?”
“Hardly.”
“Good.” He put on his other sneaker. Straightened. “I’ll put your bike in the back of the car.”
Then he grabbed his keys from the hook on the wall and walked out, hoping like hell letting Verity figure this out on her own wasn’t a mistake.
Another one.