Kept (4 page)

“People change.”

“Not without reason. He’ll ask for money, then he’ll vanish again. You won’t hear from him until—”

“Stop it!” Miska’s feet hit the floor, her hands in fists. “Stop trying to ruin this!”

“I’m trying to protect you. He’s a lousy, despicable man who couldn’t keep his pants on—”

“And now he wants to make up for it. What’s wrong with that? Just because he hasn’t called you yet—”

“He did call me! I told him when his first wife got over her pill addictions, we could talk.”

Miska swallowed.

“I told him if he ever came near me, I’d beat him within an inch of his life, then castrate him while he was down. Do the women of the world a favor.”

There was the Adrienne she knew and loved anyway. “I didn’t realize you felt that strongly.”

“Well, I do. He doesn’t deserve another chance. Not with a single one of us.”

What if she wanted to give him one?

“My mom used to watch you and Wade and Zane and your mom. We’d take the long way everywhere, right past your house just in case his car was there.”

“Adrienne, he left when I was two.”

“I’m not saying it made sense. But she was always watching for him, always hoping. And when she didn’t see him, she’d pop pills.” She scowled at the stool between them. “It’s a sorry way to grow up.”

“You think I don’t know that? You think my mom didn’t have her own issues? I get that what he did is despicable. I do. But if you could have heard him on the phone—”

“I did hear him. He’s a joke of a human being now just like he’s always been. I’m not giving him a minute of my time. Don’t you either.”

“Maybe I want to spend time with him.”

Adrienne glared down her nose. “Then I don’t want to spend time with you.”

What?

Long, brown hair whipping against her neck, her sister marched to the couch, stilettos attacking the floor, and snatched her lime green messenger bag.

“Adrienne, wait.”

Adrienne stared at the bag, her look morphing into one of pure revulsion. “What?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. I hate him, and I won’t spend time with anyone who patronizes him.”

“But we’ve been friends a long time—”

“More than that—family. Yet you seem ready to throw us away for a man who threw
you
away when you were in diapers. Why is that?”

“He’s our father, Adrienne.”

Her jaw ticked. “No, he’s a paternal ancestor who put as much into my life as my ten-times great-grandfather. I owe him nothing. Neither do you.”

“You’re being extreme.”

“You think so?” Adrienne took a step closer, a good two inches taller in her heels. “You can look back over your mom’s life and not hold him responsible?” She shook her head. “What would Claire say if she knew?”

Miska held still beneath Adrienne’s hardened gaze. “She’d at least talk to him. Face to face.”

“Fine. Talk to him. Tell him what a pathetic man he is, then leave him. It’d serve him right.” She hefted the bag’s strap onto her shoulder. “But don’t give him a second more. Or we’re through.”

The squeak of the condo door broke Dillan’s concentration. He stuck a finger in his commentary, sat up on the couch, and looked down the hallway to the entrance.

Garrett closed the door and yanked off his yellow, paisley tie.

“Hey, Gare.”

“Dillanator. Whatcha reading?”

“Something for youth group.”

“Still working?” Garrett headed to the master bedroom off the side of the living room. “Dude, it’s after six.”

Dillan glanced at the microwave clock as his brother closed his door. Huh. So it was.

It had been a long, slow day, full of unpacking and reading and note taking. He set the book aside and turned on the TV. On SportsCenter, three former athletes dissected the NBA playoffs, then showed highlights from the afternoon’s Cubs game.

Garrett’s voice came from the kitchen. “How long till football starts?”

“Too long.” Dillan stretched across the couch, feet hanging over the ratty armrest, hands tucked behind his head. “Is this where I ask how your day went?”

“If you like living beneath a bridge.”

Dillan chuckled.

“So what’d you make me for dinner?”

“Dinner?”

“You’re here all day.”

“Uh, working.”

“You’ve got no commute. Dude, that’s got to be worth a meal.”

Dillan pointed down the hallway. “I commute. Bedroom two to bedroom three. Then I double my commute going to the kitchen for lunch.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Garrett’s eyes landed on Dillan’s knees. “Too late. What happened?”

“Nothing.” He fingered a scab. “Went running.”

Garrett snickered as he opened the dishwasher.

“Aren’t you Mr. Clean, working in the kitchen.”

“Someone’s got to clean your mess.” Garrett turned the faucet on. Water splashed, and he wiped his chin on the shoulder of the Chicago Bears jersey he’d changed into. “Would it kill you to put stuff in the dishwasher?”

“Since when do you care how the place looks? Or are you trying to keep Tracy in the dark until after the wedding?”

“I happen to like a clean house.”

He remembered Garrett’s room in high school, the last time they’d lived under the same roof. Dillan shot him a look.

“People change, Dill.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before he regretted them.

Garrett focused on the skillet and spatula in the sink, jaw tight. He scrubbed the pan and stashed it in the dishwasher.

Nice one, Dillan.
He hadn’t meant anything by it, but there was too much history for him to blame his brother for taking it the wrong way.

Garrett wiped off the stovetop.

Dillan stood. Glanced back at the TV, then out the windows at the glittering lake. What could he say—

“You eaten?” Garrett asked.

“No. You got something in mind?”

“Tracy said dinner’s on her tonight. In honor of us being moved in.”

“She’s cooking?”

“Buying. Chinese.”

“Nice.”

“Yep. She should be here soon.” Garrett closed the dishwasher and dried his hands. His eyes focused somewhere south of Dillan’s waist. “What happened to your hands?”

Dillan fisted them. “I told you. Nothing.”

Garrett laughed, and all was right between them again. “Dude. You wiped out good. Wish I’d seen that.”

“Just replay any other wipeout, and you’re there.”

Garrett chuckled, then cocked his head toward the front door.

A faint female voice sounded.

“Yes. Food.”

So it began, third-wheel time with his brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law. He stuck his hands in his pockets.

Garrett flung the door open and looked the wrong way, toward Miska’s door beside theirs. He straightened, smiled, and stepped into the hallway.

Umm… Who was out there? Miska?

A new, deeper female voice reached him before the door fell shut. Great.

He followed Garrett out of the condo.

Miska and another woman stood beside her door, Miska listening while the other woman, eyes hard and jaw tense, smiled at Garrett.

He was deep into some story already, hands in the air, chin up, mouth curved in a grin that—

Garrett was flirting?

Dillan looked back at the new woman. She’d locked eyes onto him. “Who’s this?” she asked.

Garrett back-handed his arm. “My big brother, Dillan. Literally.”

He held his hand out, not wanting to but not knowing what else to do. “Hi.”

She took it, shook hard. “I’m Adrienne.”

“Miska’s older sister,” Garrett added as if they went way back.

Adrienne sent him that tight smile. She was on edge over something. Miska too. He could see it in the way she stood, her eyes empty of the life they’d had that morning. The awkward moment he and Garrett had just experienced was nothing compared to whatever had happened between these two.

“They’re clearly related, aren’t they?” Garrett asked as if they weren’t standing right there.

“Weird how that works.” Miska’s beauty was all soft and natural while Adrienne’s paler looks had a jagged edge to them. While they resembled each other, there was a definite difference. “You must each look like a different parent.”

Miska spoke. “We have the same—”

“Different moms.” Adrienne tossed her head.

Garrett wrapped his arms across his chest. “Did you grow up together?”

“Same town.” Miska glanced at Dillan. “How are your hands and knees?”

Garrett shifted, his upper body leaning back and his head tilting as if to say
oh, really?

“Fine.” He opened his palms, dropped his hands to his side. He didn’t need to see the damage again. “I’ll be good in a day or two.”

Garrett winked at Adrienne. “Until the next wipeout.”

She laughed.

He asked her what she did, and while she told him about the publisher she acquired for, Dillan leaned against the doorjamb. There had to be some way to get Garrett back inside before he flirted himself out of a fiancée.

Miska shifted too. “You were home today, weren’t you?”

“I’m working here until I move out. What about you?”

Her warm brown eyes met his. “I work from home.”

“What do you do?”

“I freelance for a few publishers.”

“Freelance?”

“Edit. Adult fiction.”

“Same one as your sister?”

“Her house is one of them.”

Miska looked back at Garrett who was telling Adrienne about the law firm he worked at while running his thumb up and down the edge of his bicep.

Hopefully that wasn’t intentional.

Miska shifted again, yanking Dillan’s gaze back to her. She was so beautiful, so female.
So immoral
, he reminded himself.

“What’s chasing you away in a few months?” she asked.

“Garrett’s wedding. I’m living here until then.”

“Some brotherly bonding?”

“Something like that.”

She nodded. Looked back at Garrett and Adrienne who were even deeper in conversation.

Oh, the dreaded awkward silence. Dillan cleared his throat. “So how do you keep from talking to the walls?”

“Getting lonely in there?”

He hadn’t meant it that way. “I’m used to working around people. In there all I hear are sirens and horns.”

“You’ll get used to it, but you have to find ways to get out. You know, go to a club, find something going on in town, get outside and walk through the crowds.”

Go clubbing? No, thanks. He wasn’t looking for anyone remotely like her.

Adrienne and Garrett interrupted them with a laugh. Adrienne leaned in to Garrett, her fingers slipping across his wrist.

Dillan frowned.
Come on, man.

Out of sight in the floor’s lobby, an elevator dinged.

Garrett turned toward the sound, the move taking him out of Adrienne’s reach. “Maybe that’s dinner.”

Dillan hoped.

Tracy rounded the corner, two bulging, brown paper bags in her arms, oversized, pink purse dangling from her elbow.

Garrett’s face brightened as he walked to her. “Hey, my little fortune cookie.”

Dillan held back the urge to shake his head. Seriously?

Garrett bent down to kiss her, and Dillan looked away, right at Adrienne—who watched with some sort of odd interest—and then at Miska. She studied Tracy, mouth tight, shoulders stiff.

What was this— Oh, right. Maybe he and Garrett weren’t the only ones who’d noticed Tracy’s resemblance to Mark Scheider’s wife.

Tracy smiled up at Garrett, talking softly. He shrugged as he took the bags of food, then led her back to where he’d been standing so closely to Adrienne. “This is my fiancée, Tracy.” He nodded at Miska. “And our neighbor, Miska.”

“So nice to meet you.” Tracy held out a hand, and Miska took it. “Just a few more months, and we’ll officially be neighbors.”

Miska flashed her a smile, the tension gone.

“And this is Adrienne, babe. They’re sisters.”

Tracy turned to Adrienne, and the smile on Miska’s face faded. She ran a finger along her temple, then glanced at Dillan.

He forced his attention back on Tracy. Stink. Caught looking. Hopefully she didn’t think he’d been checking her out.

’Cause he hadn’t been.

“You should join us for dinner,” Tracy was saying.

Dillan blinked and straightened.

Fake friendliness registered on Adrienne’s face. “We couldn’t.”

“I bought a ton. Really. There’s plenty for everyone. The more the merrier, right?”

Did Tracy, Garrett, anyone but him see the condescension behind that woman’s smile?

Adrienne sent her sister the slightest eye roll. “Miska and I already have plans for the—”

“Actually, I don’t.” Miska crossed her arms and smiled at Tracy. “I’ve got some work to catch up on. Dinner sounds great. What can I bring?”

Tracy grinned. “Just yourself. I’ve got it all here.”

“Okay then.” Miska gave Tracy a forceful nod. “Thanks.”

Adrienne almost glared at her sister.

“Well.” Miska patted her shoulder. “I don’t want to keep you. Have fun without me.”

“Always do.” The fake smile crossed the woman’s face again. “Very nice meeting you all.”

Yeah, right. Dillan opened the door, escaped inside.

Except it wasn’t an escape, not with Miska joining them.

With a sigh he opened a kitchen cabinet and grabbed four plates. At least he wouldn’t be a third wheel.

For being Darcie Scheider’s twin, Tracy whatever-her-name was all right.

Even better, as dinner went on, Tracy looked less and less like Darcie and more like her own person. Tracy’s hair was long with big, loose curls, a lot like Darcie’s had been until she chopped it last month.

For whatever reason, this girl was just nice.

Miska passed the Triple Delight to Dillan, who dished seconds onto his fried rice. No wonder the guy ran every day. He and Garrett could both pack it away. But when one was six foot thirteen, one probably needed a lot of food.

Dillan glanced at her and did a double take. “Need anything?”

Not a thing. “A fortune cookie, maybe?”

He handed her one from the pile beside him.