“You live anywhere else growing up?”
She shakes her head.
“Any favorite places your family liked to vacation? Texas? Corpus Christi?”
“When we were younger, we’d go camping at Lake Eufaula.”
“Arrowhead or Fountainhead Park?”
She bites her lip and gives me a funny look. “Arrowhead. You’ve been to Eufaula?”
I shake my head, and she arches an eyebrow at me. It’s my job to know my surroundings and I’ve spent way too much fucking time in Oklahoma. “Where else?”
“Nowhere special. Summer camps. Mostly science camps run by Oklahoma State University. My sister is a bit of a chemistry nerd. Always mucking about with different mixtures, causing chemical reactions and such. She loves to explode things and figure out how to make things work. Or used to, anyway, before Pop died.”
Yeah, that sounds like Kylie. The reason Hayden had taken her in was because of her experience with chemicals. Traceable and otherwise. My stomach isn’t soon to forget the trick she played on us her first day at Hell Camp with a laxative and the bottled water.
“And you?” I hear myself ask. Goddamn it.
She smiles, and I do everything within my power not to take my frustration out by smashing my fist into the unused pillow on the bed. “I’m a marine biologist. I’m interested in the wonderfully complex natural system of things. Biology is grounded and rooted within every living thing. And in understanding it, we have the ability to cure things. By comparison, chemistry shakes things up. You burp? There’s a reaction behind it. Still, they go hand in hand. Chemistry can’t exist without biology.” She pauses, and a sweet blush fans out across the swell of her chest. “You’re staring.”
I blink. I guess I am.
“I can go on and on. I forget that not everyone geeks out over science like I tend to do.”
I place my knife on the mattress, lean in, and slide my hand across her stomach. Her skin warms as her abs flex every so slightly beneath my touch. She gasps and falls silent, and I immediately realize my mistake. Business. This is business.
“Where else?”
“Nowhere.” She exhales sharply. “My father died. My sister couldn’t deal with it. She started wandering off, days on end . . .”
Admirable how goddamned loyal she is. Shame her sister isn’t cut from the same cloth. I withdraw my hand, instead focusing my attention onto the bottle in the other hand, which I bring to my lips to take another long swig.
I feel tired. Fucked up from the bender I’ve been on since her phone call. The liquor finally catching up to me. “Anything else?” I order, wanting to get this over with. Watching her face carefully, I do my best to take mental notes on her expressions, hoping I’ll remember when the alcohol fog lifts. The way she bites her lip, how her eyes hold a blank, vacant look as she tells me the truth. Logging the subtle gestures into my memory banks for when her truths change to lies. Though nothing she’s told me so far has been a lie. Or hasn’t been something I don’t already know.
“Yes.”
I nod. “What?”
“Why are you asking me these questions about where she might be? Are you looking for her too? What exactly is your relationship with my sister?”
Jesus. If I set out to win her trust, I fucking blew it.
I bend forward, place the bottle on the floor, and return my hand back on her stomach. Deliberately, this time. Watching her expression change from curious to sweetly flustered.
Life’s riddled with choices. Some good. Some bad. Most best kept secret. In this case, I’ve got no choice. And nothing is going to interfere with me seeing it through.
“I’m waiting on the one question you haven’t asked me,” I murmur.
I lightly move my thumb, back and forth, back and forth. Curbing my itch to take things farther. Ignoring my misplaced lust for her along with professional common sense. Struggling not to react as I spot the heat in her eyes.
“I don’t have a lot of experience with—”
Damn it. Goddamn it.
“—I’ll help you find your sister.”
Her eyes flash wide. “You will,” she replies, breathless. I watch a smile spread across her face, clearly pleased with my offer. “I’m grateful you answered my call. I needed someone like you to help me.”
“Like me?”
“Someone who other men, like DiCapitano, might fear. Someone who helped me out of a bad situation. A situation I’m hoping you’ll trust me enough to explain. After I tell you what’s happened to me since you left me in San Diego, you’ll understand why I’m not equipped to find her alone. But for the moment, I’m thankful.”
She gives me such a hopeful look, like she believes in me. I feel like throwing the bottle against the wall.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Fuck guilt. I quickly break contact and stand, wavering on my feet as I turn and look down at her.
I’m not going to fuck Madelyn. Or kill her.
Though after it becomes crystal freaking clear why I answered her call, she’ll wish I had.
9
Madelyn
There’s a difference between karma and fate. Karma is the direct result of your own actions. What you dish out is what you get in return, whether good or bad. Fate is different. Fate is predestined. Written into your life before you were even born. Your destiny.
Karma might be a bitch but fate is a thief. It robs you of choices. It’s inevitable. And as I’ve learned time and time again, it can upend your entire life in a single blow.
I’d given up hope of ever seeing my stranger, yet fate decided otherwise.
He’s sitting in the seat beside me, driving his pickup truck as we head off to find my sister. He’s contemplative, tight-lipped, and unapproachable.
I sigh and stare out the window, watching the northern Texas landscape pass me by. If I expect answers to my questions anytime soon, it seems I’ve got to dig deep, be patient, and wait him out. Whatever is going to happen will do so in due course.
Like finding Kylie.
My sister’s beautiful face flashes across my mind. We’d grown apart while our mother was sick. Kylie spending less and less time at home. Disappearing days at a time. Bringing home money—from doing what, I don’t know. I was absorbed in my own world, in my schoolwork and lab work and in applying to college, and I never stopped long enough to truly question her like I used to do when we were kids. Besides, Kylie hates when I nose into her business. Younger-sister syndrome, she liked to tease me whenever I insisted. Now I wish I had done so.
After Mama’s passing, we relocated to a trailer park she’d insisted on. “A temporary residence,” she’d informed me, “until you transfer colleges.” As for her plans, we never saw each other long enough for her to confide in me. Heck, the last time I saw her, she’d rushed me out of our trailer and told me to meet her later at the Pitt. Then she’d pulled a no show. At the time, I thought a man was involved.
Now I’m not sure about anything.
What has she gotten herself involved in? Us involved in?
And where is she now?
The pickup hits a bump, jolting me back into real time.