Chapter 13
He would not jump to conclusions, Miles promised himself as headed up the walk toward Kat’s place, dark aviators protecting his eyes from the brilliant mid-morning sun. He passed Reed Walsh’s truck—he’d pulled the kid Walsh over enough times to recognize it.
He’d gather evidence. Ask questions. Then he’d figure out what was going on.
Like why Walsh was here.
Or why Verity had sent him a picture of Tabitha standing in Kat’s front yard, a moving truck behind her, along with an SOS text.
Or why that moving truck was still in the driveway, the rear door open, the metal ramp extended, the back filled with boxes and miscellaneous pieces of furniture.
Forget gathering evidence. He didn’t need to be a goddamn detective to know what was going on.
Tabitha was moving into the apartment above Kat and Ian.
And her being here was going to fuck with his life but good.
He’d known she was lying that night three weeks ago when she’d said she was just passing through town. He’d known, but he’d let it go. He hadn’t pushed for the truth, hadn’t tried to dig to the bottom of her sudden appearance in town or her unexpected return to his life.
He hadn’t wanted the truth.
He’d just wanted her.
A few feet from the house, he spied a shirtless Ian reading a book as he reclined against a huge brown and white dog.
He stopped at the bottom of the steps. “Ian.”
The dog lifted his head.
His nephew did not.
Miles pinched the bridge of his nose to try and ward off his brewing headache, but forgot he was wearing sunglasses, and ended up knocking them off. He picked them up and slapped them back on, almost poking his eye out with the end of the earpiece.
He tried again—both with the glasses and his nephew. “Ian,” he said, louder this time as he carefully slid his sunglasses on his face.
The dog gave him a friendly bark and wagged his tail so hard, Ian jiggled. “Hi, Uncle Miles.”
“Whose dog is that?”
“The guy’s.”
His headache intensified, like a vise tightening on his temples. “What guy?”
“Aunt Vee’s friend.”
The eye he’d almost poked out began to twitch. He never should have listened to Urban. Never should have let Verity make her own decisions.
It was his job to protect her.
Even if that meant saving her from herself.
Especially if that meant saving her from the likes of Reed Walsh.
“Where is she?” he asked Ian.
“Who?”
The twitching intensified. “Aunt Vee.”
Ian glanced around as if just noticing Verity was nowhere to be seen. He shrugged.
“What about the other lady?” Miles asked. “The one with the moving truck?”
Another shrug.
And then Ian went back to his book.
Miles loved this kid more than life itself, but Jesus Christ his nephew was using up every last drop of Miles’s patience.
Miles climbed the porch steps, taking the stairs two at a time, then stalked over to the door and yanked it open. “Verity?” He waited twenty seconds. No response. “Verity!”
Nothing.
Then he heard a muffled thump to his left. He stepped into the living room. Heard it again. But it wasn’t coming from Kat’s apartment.
Shutting the door, he turned and bumped into Ian—who’d gotten to his feet and was standing in the middle of the porch—knocking him back a step into the dog.
Miles set his hand on his nephew’s shoulder, steadying him. “Sorry, bud.”
“That’s okay.” Tipping his head back, he looked up at Miles. “Can I take Titus inside and show him my room?”
“I take it this is Titus?” Miles asked as the dog bounced over to press against Miles’s leg. Ian nodded and Miles gave the dog a pat on his broad head. Why did this dog smell like maple syrup? “Did Aunt Verity say you could take him inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Or you didn’t ask her?”
“I don’t know.”
Which meant he hadn’t asked her.
While he’d take a bullet for his sister, he had no qualms tossing her under the bus on this one.
“Let’s find her and see what she thinks,” Miles said.
“Okay.”
They went down the stairs. At the bottom, Ian slipped his hand into Miles’s.
His warm, sweaty, sticky hand.
And that faint scent of maple syrup made sense. “Did Aunt Vee make waffles for breakfast?”
Ian shook his head. “Pancakes. They were good.” He gave a furtive look around as if not wanting his missing aunt to overhear. “But not as good as Uncle Toby’s. She even burneded some.”
“Burned,” Miles corrected. “Guess she had other things on her mind.”
Things like befriending Reed Walsh.
And whatever it was she’d done with Tabitha after sending that picture to him.
The dog raced over to sniff at the base of the crab apple tree in front of Kat’s bedroom window. He lifted his leg, letting loose an impressive stream of piss, then ran back over to them. Butted Miles’s hand with his snout as if seeking some sort of acknowledgement of the excellent, and excessive, way he’d marked his territory.
His cool, damp, sticky snout.
“Did you share your pancakes with Titus?” he asked.
“Only one,” Ian said quickly.
“Only one bite? Or only one pancake?”
Ian let his head hang. The kid hated getting in trouble, rarely did anything they ever had to scold him for, let alone punish him for.
“Remember why we said you can’t feed dogs human food?”
“’Cuz it might make them sick,” Ian said quietly, head still hanging. He lifted his head, eyes wide. “But he was really, really hungry.”
“Then you could have given him some of Bella’s dog food.”
He knew Urban made sure Kat had plenty of supplies on hand for when Verity brought Bella along when she watched Ian.
Ian’s head lowered again, this time along with a good slump of his skinny shoulders.
Miles gently squeezed his nephew’s hand. “Dogs can’t decide what food is good or bad for them, so the people taking care of them have to make those decisions. Okay?”
Ian sighed the sigh of the long-suffering and dejected.
He was spending way too much time with Verity.
“Okay.”
On they trooped, a cop in uniform, a shirtless boy, and a dog racing excited circles around them as they searched for his missing sister, the delinquent she was curious about, and the woman who’d ripped Miles’s heart from his chest and ground it to dust under her heel.
Just another Sunday morning in Mount Laurel.
Rick Morris drove past, giving them a beep of his car horn and a friendly wave. Miles lifted his hand in return, then stepped into the overgrown yard. Mr. Roberts usually kept it neater, but he’d been struggling to keep up with the maintenance of his rentals since his wife was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks back. Then she’d fallen two days and broken her hip, which meant he wouldn’t have any free time for weeks, if not months.
After giving Ian’s hand another squeeze, Miles let go and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Unlocked the screen and immediately saw the picture Verity had sent him of Tabitha standing in the sun, her hair pulled back, her face clean of makeup, looking so pretty.
So much like the girl he’d once known.
Exactly like the girl he’d once loved.
When he’d first opened the text, he hadn’t been able to stop looking at the picture. Had caught himself opening his phone time and time again just to sneak another peek at it. At her.
He couldn’t stop himself.
And that would not fucking do.
He’d told her he wasn’t the same boy she’d known. He needed to stop acting like he was.
His finger hovered over the trash icon at the bottom of the picture.
He wanted to push it. Needed to, for his peace of mind, the protection of his ego, and the preservation of his goddamn pride.
But he couldn’t.
And he sure as hell wasn’t going to question why not.
Instead, he brought up his text thread with Urban and Toby, sent a message asking them if they could pitch in with him to help Mr. Roberts with the yard work at his rentals for the next few weeks.
Putting his phone back in his pocket, he and his two sidekicks rounded the rear corner of the house. The back door leading to the upstairs apartment was open and the dog raced inside. Miles was a few feet away when he heard the same thump he’d heard minutes ago followed by Verity’s voice.
“All I’m saying is that if there ever was a perfect time for me to yell pivot… pivot! this is it.”
He stepped forward only to stop when a familiar laugh rang out, the sound light and joyful.
It had been a long time since he’d heard Tabitha laugh.
And he realized he was standing there, absently rubbing his hand over the ache in his chest, hoping to hear it again.
Looked like his peace, his pride and his ego were fucked.
“Less talking,” Walsh ground out, and Miles dropped his hand and started walking again. “More lifting.”
“Uh, I’m actually not speaking to you,” Verity said. “And, as per the stipulations of our recent agreement, you are not to speak to me. Seeing as how you usually only grunt out a word or two when forced to—or are insulting me—I’d think you’d be able to manage to just. Be. Silent.”
“Up,” Walsh growled as Miles stepped through the open doorway.
Verity and Tabitha, on one end of a large, dark blue sofa halfway up the steep, narrow staircase, and Walsh, at the bottom, all moved up one step.
His sister—who’d sent him a picture of Tabitha along with the following text…
pissed off emoji>Satan’s here!devil emoji>puke emoji>red head with her arms crossed in an X emoji> Get over to Kat’s ASAP! troll emoji> snake emoji> shit emoji>
…was helping Tabitha move her couch.
What the fuck?
“What is going on?” he asked.
But despite his quiet tone, despite him thinking he’d asked that question rather calmly given the circumstances, Verity jumped and lifted her hands in the air like she’d been stealing the couch and was surrendering.
Leaving Tabitha to bobble her hold and Walsh to mutter, “Fuck,” while struggling to maintain his end.
“You said the baddest of bad words again,” Ian said, sauntering in as Verity hurriedly picked up the couch again.
“That’s because your aunt keeps giving me reason to say it.”
“Oh, no. Don’t blame me for your limited vocabulary,” Verity said. “There are, like, half a million words in the English language. Use a new one once in a while.”
Walsh sent her a narrow look. “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk to each other.”
“You aren’t supposed to talk to me,” she told Walsh before turning to Ian. “And you need to learn how to read a room.”
Titus bounded over to Ian’s side, and he looped his arm around the dog’s neck. “What does that mean?”
“In this case it means there are times when grownups might have reasons to say a bad word only grownups can say. And that you don’t always need to point out someone’s behavior just because you don’t agree with it.”
“Might want to take your own advice,” Walsh muttered.
And Verity glared at him with enough heat to light Walsh’s hair on fire.
No. Really. What in the fuckity fuck was going on here? Had Walsh been around Ian before? And was his sister bantering with Walsh? Miles thought she was done with him after he’d left her standing alone on the dance floor at the wedding.
“You do realize,” Miles said, still mild, still calm—he deserved a goddamn academy award for this act, “that what’s happening here” —he gestured between Verity and Walsh— “is my worst nightmare?”
Verity rolled her eyes. “And to think, I’m considered the dramatic one in the family. What are you even doing here?”
He gaped at her. What was he doing there?
What was he doing there?
Jesus. Christ.
“You texted me,” he reminded her.
She frowned. Blinked.
Then she sent Tabitha a quick, and if Miles wasn’t mistaken, apologetic glance and mouthed the word sorry.
“Right, right,” Verity said, cheeks pink, either from embarrassment or exertion from carrying the couch. “About that… I may have slightly… overreacted.”
Readjusting his hold on the couch, Walsh snorted. “No maybe about it, princess.”
Miles stiffened and narrowed his eyes at Walsh. “Don’t call my sister princess.”
Walsh smirked. “If you didn’t want her to be called a princess, you shouldn’t have taught her to act like one.”
Verity’s sigh filled the entire stairway. “Just so you know, one of my nightmares is watching one of my brothers—any of them—participate in a Who Has a Bigger Dick? contest.”
Ian looked up at her. “What’s a—”
“Ask your mother,” she and Miles said at the same time.
Ian looked at the dog. “They always say that.”
“Look,” Verity continued to Miles, “everything’s fine, so you can go on your way. If only so we can finish getting this up the stairs. It’s heavy.”
She wanted him to leave? She was the reason he was there in the first place.
That was his fucking story and he was sticking to it.
Jaw tight, Miles moved next to Walsh. “I’ll take this end. You take theirs.”
Walsh didn’t move. Just looked up the staircase—the couch took up the entire width of the stairway, the back of it toward the steps. “You want me to fly up there?”
What he wanted was for him and Verity to stop being pains in his ass. “We’ll hold it up. You can go under it.”
“You’re being bossy again,” Verity scolded, as if him trying to help them made him an asshole. “Use your polite words.”
“No.” He tried to nudge Walsh aside, but the kid held on firm.
Then Tabitha spoke for the first time since he’d stepped into that tiny foyer. “Miles.”
Lips pressed hard together, shoulders tight, he finally, reluctantly looked at her.
Another mistake.
In the picture Verity had sent, Tabitha had been frowning slightly, the sun casting her in a warm golden glow, her ponytail smooth and sleek.
Now she had several loose tendrils of hair curling by her temples and ears. More escaping at the nape of her neck. She was flushed from heat and exertion, the pretty pink coloring her cheeks and chest.
And she was smiling.
She was prettier than a picture could ever convey.
More beautiful now than in the memories he had of her.
“We’ve got this,” she continued quietly. “You don’t need to save us.”
Ignoring Tabitha’s smile, rejecting her words, he turned to Walsh again. “Go. Up. There.”
“You go up,” Walsh said, a challenging glint in his eyes.
Like he knew damn well Miles didn’t want to get any closer to Tabitha.
Fuck.
He ducked beneath Walsh’s arms, then belly crawled up the stairs as quickly as he could.
By the time he reached the end of the couch, he was breathing hard, sweating, and having looping doom scenarios of being crushed to death under a sofa, and the resulting, lifelong trauma Verity would incur because of it.
Not that he really believed it would kill him if they did drop the couch, but his anxiety was stronger than any of his rational thoughts.
He wiggled his way between Verity and Tabitha, his shoulders brushing their calves before he turned on his side and slithered up two more steps like a snake, then got to his feet. “Set it down.”
Walsh waited until the girls had set down their end before setting down his. Just like he’d made sure they went up the stairs first, ensuring he bore most of the weight.
“Switch with me,” he told Verity.
“Gladly,” she groaned, shaking her hands out as she pressed against the wall and stepped up while Miles stepped down onto the step next to Tabitha.
“I’ve got this,” he said gruffly, speaking to Tabitha but looking at the couch.
“Miles…”
“Not here,” he said quietly. “Not now.”
Not in front of people. Not when she’d essentially snuck up on him again. He needed time to figure out how he was going to handle her living in his town.
He needed to figure out what the hell he was going to do when he still wanted her this much.
“Will you listen?” she asked, copying his quiet tone. “Later?”Jaw clenched, gaze still on the couch, he didn’t move. No affirmation. No denial. He wasn’t ready to give her anything, not even the smallest piece of himself.
She edged closer, bringing with her the enticing scent of flowers and spice. “Miles, I need you to promise you’ll listen to me later.”He stiffened. Slowly, slowly faced her, regretting it immediately as they were so close, her breath washed against his cheek. So close he could make out the thin scar on her chin.
Too close.
And somehow, still not close enough.
“You don’t get to ask for a guarantee of my time and attention. You don’t get to ask for my promise after breaking every one of yours.”
“You and I both know that’s not true,” she said, soft and scolding, like he was a toddler who’d colored on the wall, and while she wasn’t mad, she was disappointed. “I never broke my promises. Because I made sure never to make any.”
His entire body went hot, then cold as that truth rolled through him.
Once more, he turned away from her.
“Ready?” he called down to Walsh.
The kid nodded. Miles felt Tabitha watching him as he and Walsh lifted the couch. Then she finally turned and walked up the steps.
But she was right. She’d never promised him anything. She’d never told him she loved him, though he’d told her often. When he talked about the future, their future, she remained silent.
He was the idiot who’d seen something that wasn’t there. Had believed what he’d so desperately wanted to believe.
But she’d let him do it.
He may be an idiot, but she wasn’t to be trusted.