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She toyed with one of her bracelets. “I hope you’ve figured out by now that kicking me out isn’t a good idea, not if you want to live here in any kind of comfort this summer. I’ll be out of your life permanently in three or four weeks.”
“That’s what you said in November when you showed up at the Chargers game.”
“It won’t happen again.”
He stabbed the shovel into the dirt, then worked it free. She’d been on top of everything today. It was hard to reconcile her efficiency with the drugged-out woman who’d regularly misplaced her kid. “Why should I believe you this time?”
“Because I’m sick of living with guilt. You’re never going to forgive me, and I’m not asking again. Once the house is done, I’m gone.”
“Why are you doing this? Why the fucking charade?”
She shrugged, looking bored—the last woman in the bar after the fun had ended. “I thought it would be a kick, that’s all.”
“Hey, Susan!” Mr. Horny Electrician poked his head around the corner. “Can you come here for a minute?”
Dean dug up another rock as she walked away. Now that he saw how many tasks she was juggling, he knew he’d be hurting himself more than her if he made her leave. He could always head back to Chicago, but the idea of letting her drive him away stuck in his craw. He didn’t run from anybody, especially not from his mother. But he also couldn’t stand the idea of being alone with her, even on a hundred acres of property, and that was why keeping Blue around had become a necessity, not just an impulse. She’d be his buffer.
He envisioned Blue’s head and guillotined a thistle with one clean blow. Her lie about April stepped over more boundaries than he could count. Although he’d met a lot of manipulative women, he’d never met one with more gall, but before he confronted her, he intended to let her swing in the breeze.
By the time the carpenters left for the day, he’d cleared the worst of the weeds from the foundation without doing too much damage to what he finally figured out were the peony bushes. His shoulder ached like a son of a bitch, but he’d been cooped up too long, and he didn’t care. It felt good using his body again.
As he emerged from the toolshed, the smell of something savory drifted his way from the open kitchen window. Blue had decided to cook, but he had no intention of sitting through a cozy dinner that included his mother, and he didn’t doubt for a moment that Blue would invite her.
On his way into the house, his thoughts abruptly returned to Marli Moffatt’s death and the eleven-year-old daughter she’d left behind. His half sister. The idea was unreal. He knew what it felt like to be an orphan, and one thing was for damn sure. That poor kid had better be able to look after herself because Jack Patriot wouldn’t do it for her.
Chapter Seven
Riley Patriot lived in Nashville, Tennessee, in a white brick house with six white columns, white marble floors, and a gleaming white Mercedes-Benz in the garage. In the living room, a white grand piano sat near a pair of matching white sofas on an all-white carpet. Riley hadn’t been allowed in the living room since she’d squirted a box of grape Juicy Juice there when she was six.
Even though Riley was eleven now, her mother had never forgiven or forgotten—not just the grape Juicy Juice, but a lot of things—and now it was too late. Ten days ago, a whole bunch of people had seen her mom, Marli Moffatt, fall through a broken railing into the Cumberland River from the top deck of the paddle wheeler Old Glory. She’d banged her head on something when she hit the wat
er, it was night, and they didn’t find her until it was too late. Ava, Riley’s ten millionth au pair, woke Riley up to break the news.
Now, a week and a half later, Riley was on the run to find her brother.
Although she’d only walked a block from her home, her T-shirt was already sticking to her skin, so she unzipped her puffy pink jacket. Her lavender corduroys were a size twelve chubbo, but they were still too tight. Her cousin Trinity was a size eight slim, but just Riley’s bones without any skin were bigger than a size eight slim. She switched her heavy backpack to her other arm. Her load would have been a lot lighter if she’d left the scrapbook behind, but she couldn’t do it.
The houses on Riley’s street sat well back from the road, some behind gates, so there weren’t any sidewalks, but there were streetlights, and Riley dodged them as best she could. Not that anybody was going to come looking for her. Her legs started to itch, and she tried to scratch through the corduroy, but that only made the itching worse. By the time she saw Sal’s beat-up red car at the end of the next block, they were on fire.
He’d parked under a streetlight, like a moron, and he was smoking a cigarette in quick, jerky puffs. When he spotted her, he started looking around, like he thought the police might show up at any minute. “Gimme the money,” he said when she got to the car.
Riley didn’t like standing under the light where anybody driving by could see them, but arguing would take longer than giving him the money. Riley hated Sal. He worked on his dad’s landscape crew when he wasn’t in school, which was how Riley knew him, but that wasn’t why she hated him. She hated him because he rubbed himself when he didn’t think anybody was looking, and he spit, and he said nasty stuff. But he was sixteen, and ever since he got his license four months ago, Riley had been paying him to take her places. He was a crappy driver, but until Riley turned sixteen herself, she didn’t have a lot of choices.
She pulled the money out of the front pocket of her green backpack. “A hundred dollars now. I’ll give you the rest after we get to the farm.” She’d watched a lot of old movies, so she knew all about how you were supposed to divide up the money.
He looked like he wanted to grab her backpack, but it wouldn’t have done him any good, because she’d hidden the rest of the money in her sock. He counted the bills, which she thought was rude because she was standing right in front of him, and it was like calling her a big cheater. Finally, he stuffed the money in his jeans pocket. “If my old man finds out about this, he’s going to beat the shit out of me.”
“He’s not going to find out from me. You’re the only blabbermouth.”
“What did you do about Ava?”
“Peter’s staying over. She won’t notice.” Riley’s au pair had come from Hamburg, Germany, two months ago. Peter was Ava’s boyfriend, and all they did was make out. When Riley’s mom was alive, Ava hadn’t been allowed to have Peter in the house, but with her mom dead, he’d been sleeping over about every night. It would be breakfast before Ava figured out Riley was gone, and maybe not even then, because they didn’t have school tomorrow for end-of-the-year teachers’ conferences. Riley had stuck a Post-it note on her door saying she had an upset stomach and not to wake her up Sal still didn’t get in the car. “I want two-fifty. I forgot about gas.”
She tugged on the car door, but he had it locked. She scratched her legs. “I’ll give you twenty dollars extra.”
“You’re rich. You don’t have to be so cheap.”
“Twenty-five, and that’s all. I mean it, Sal. I don’t want to go that bad.”
