The Right Kind of Trouble (2 page)

“Ha, ha.” She pressed her mouth to his ear.

Gideon closed his eyes. Made himself think about what she was doing, where her hand had settled on his thigh. If he thought about it—if he focused, he knew she could get him worked up.

“What do you say we take off this weekend? Just us? We could go down to Biloxi or maybe even head to New Orleans. Stay up all night, sleep in all day…” She sighed, and the caress of her warm breath along his nape was pleasant. “What do you think?”

He thought that it had been a while since he'd taken any personal time.

He thought that maybe it wouldn't completely suck if he took some time off.

He thought that maybe it wouldn't even be a bad idea to take some time with Maris.

Turning his head, he went to ask her a question and she stopped him with a single, slow kiss.

Content to sit back and let her control the kiss, he was breathing heavier when she pulled back and smiled at him, her hazel eyes glowing. “Is that a yes?”

A few days away from McKay's Treasure. Where he wouldn't brace himself every time he was in town, every time the phone rang, every time he left his damn house. A few days where he could focus on Maris and maybe convince himself he could be happy with her.

“Yeah.” He hooked his fingers in the vee of her sweater and tugged her mouth back to his. “Maybe that's not a bad idea at all.”

*   *   *

“Moira, that's gotta be a punch in the face.”

At the sound of that low, ugly voice, Moira tensed. She did indeed fell like she'd been punched. Not in the face, but in the heart.

Slowly, she looked away from the man she was sitting with and looked over at the one who'd chosen just that moment to pause by the table where she was sitting in Treasure Island, a petty, vindictive smile on his face. “Hello, Joe,” she said calmly before looking back at Charles.

Charles, her ex-husband, nowhere else.

He was the safest place
to
look, because he was the only one who wasn't surreptitiously studying her and trying to gauge her reaction to what was going on at the bar.

Okay, that wasn't true. Joe Fletcher seemed more interested in
her
reaction. And the couple at the bar was more interested in each other.

The couple at the bar.

Gideon Marshall and Maris Cordell. Maris, a pretty, confident county sheriff's deputy with
her
Gideon.

No,
Moira told herself.
Not
mine.
He's not mine and hasn't been for a long time
. But in her heart, she knew she lied.

“Wonder if they'll be tying the knot soon too. A lot of that going around.”

A disgusted snort came from a booth across from Moira's and the man there looked up at Joe. “Hey, Fletcher, how about you taking our order instead of gossiping?”

Joe's face went an ugly red, but his expression smoothed a moment later. “Why, absolutely, Judge Steele. I'm just trying to be friendly, that's all. The boss is always is getting on me 'bout that, ya know.”

“You wouldn't know
friendly
if it bit you on the arse,” Charles said, his voice chilly.

Whatever Joe's retort might have been was interrupted as Morgan, one of the co-managers at the pub, appeared, all smiles. “Everything okay over here?”

Her smile was all friendly competence. Her eyes matched. But Moira knew the other woman well enough to see the warning in her eyes when she looked Joe.

“Everything is just fine,” Joe said as he turned to take the Steeles' order.

A few moments later, once Joe had disappeared into the back of the kitchen and once Moira had torn her gaze from Gideon's back, Charles reached over and brushed his fingers across her hand.

“I'm sorry.”

The soft, cultured tones of Charles Hurst, her former husband, grated on her ears, but Moira looked up, a blank expression her face. “What?”

He angled his head toward the bar at the couple sitting there, heads pressed together, talking quietly. “I'm sorry. I know you…” He shrugged and smoothed down his tie. “Well, clearly you still have feelings for him.”

She opened her mouth to lie, the words practiced and well-rehearsed. After all, it had been eighteen years. Six months. And three weeks, she thought after a quick mental calculation. Plenty long enough for her to have gotten over him.

Then she looked at Charles, the man she'd been married to. Funny. She'd actually shared a name and a bed with this guy, but she'd never hurt over him the way she hurt over Gideon.

At the time, she'd
thought
she could be content with him. They'd had a lot in common and he'd made her feel a little less … lonely. Not happy, exactly, but
happy
was something Moira had denied herself for a long time.

They'd been compatible, though. More, she'd hoped that maybe if he was with her, then the next time Gideon wondered back through town, he'd see her and realize she hadn't changed her mind. They were over. He'd just … let it go.

He
would go.

And he had, for a while.

Then he'd come back.

He'd come back, and she'd divorced Charles, and still she'd had to hold herself away from him.

It had taken her no time to get over the man she'd married, but the boy she'd loved twenty years ago … she still wasn't over
him
.

Aware that Charles was still watching her, she managed a quick smile. “It just wasn't meant to be.” She shrugged, tried to pretend it didn't matter, that it wasn't a knife in her heart to see Gideon Marshall with another woman.

Then they moved.

Like the air currents shifted and something whispered to her and she couldn't make herself
not
look—she had to look, and when she did, she saw that Gideon and Maris were leaving. Walking out of the pub, her hand in his, the two of them talking softly. Gideon's eyes, ever watchful, skimmed the crowd and for a moment, just briefly, he saw her.

Moira stiffened as their eyes connected.

He smiled impersonally and nodded.

Her heart thumped, cried pitifully.

He's mine …

Then they passed out of her line of sight.

“Just like
we
weren't meant to be?”

Charles' question brought her gaze back around, and she found herself staring into his soft, beautiful eyes.

“I…” She laughed and reached for her wine. “Charles, you and I made much better business partners than lovers. You know that.”

“I know that I miss you.” He covered her hand with his after she put the wine down.

Moira stilled, staring at the elegant, long-fingered hand covering hers. His touch was confident, his voice calm. He'd been a good lover. An uninventive one, but satisfying.
Definitely better than being alone
, she thought absently.

When he took her hand, she let him and brought her gaze up to study him.

“Moira—”

But whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the loud, jovial sounds of Judge “Rudy” Rutledge. “I hear we're having a wedding … or two!”

He dropped down into the seat next to Moira, his round face redder than normal. It got that way in the summer and when he was drinking. As it was coming up on December, Moira suspected the clear liquid in his glass wasn't water.

He leaned closer. “I always knew Trouble would turn out okay.” He said it a conspiratorial tone, but it was ruined by his overly loud voice. His ability to vocalize had served him well in court up until his retirement a few years back, but he either didn't realize how loud he was or he was just way drunker than he thought. “Neve had to come in front of me a time or two, you know, Moira.”

“Yes, Rudy.” She sighed and looked around for his wife. “I was her guardian, if you recall.”

He blinked and then smiled. “Well, I'll be. That's right.” He glanced around and then lifted a hand, waggled it. “I see Brannon got it—your mama's rock. Still doing that … passing it down. How long has that rock been in the family?”

“That rock? You mean Hannah's ring?” She smiled coolly. “Oh, that old thing? Just a few generations, give or take.”

Rudy chuckled. “A few generations. That old thing. Then there is Neve's ring.” He swayed and leaned closer. “I hear there's a fortune in stuff the old captain left, and that's not even considering the treasure. How much is there … really?”

Moira rolled her eyes. “Rudy, can I offer some advice?”

“Sure, sure.” He nodded and smiled affably.

“Find a cup of coffee, your wife, and the door.”

She slid out the other end of the booth and gave Charles a tight smile. “I'm tired. I'll see you in the morning? We'll finalize plans for the barbecue we're doing this spring.”

Rudy stared after her. “Hey … but what about the…” He went to get up, wobbled, then went down with a crash.

The pub went quiet.

Charles, sighing, climbed out and helped him get up. “You, old man, are stinking drunk.”

*   *   *

Rudy Rutledge was still grumbling about Moira—who was now a mean old cow—and the treasure when one of the officers came to escort him to his brother's house. As it turned out, the reason he was hitting the bottle harder than normal was because his wife had asked him for
some space
. Reasons hadn't been given.

So Rudy was sleeping in his brother's spare bedroom and drowning his sorrows at the pub—and hassling people. As a lifetime resident of McKay's Treasure, he knew all the town's secrets, so he had a lot of material to use for hassling.

“What treasure is that stupid git nattering on about?” Ian asked Charles as the deputy's car pulled away.

Charles lifted his shoulders.

“You two haven't heard?” Griffin Parker, a member of the city's small police force, chuckled. “There were rumors that sometime before he disappeared on the mission that got him killed, ol' Patrick McKay had a great treasure. He split it up—left half of it with his wife Madeleine, then buried the other half.”

“It's rubbish.” Charles shrugged it off. “I've heard of it, some, but why would anybody have a treasure and bury it?”

“Well, a half-crazy Scot might.” Ian grinned as he said it.

Griffin chuckled at Ian's comment. “Well, that's as good a reason as any. But it's just a story. McKay was already stinking rich, you know. He didn't need to bury his money anywhere. His wife had money and he had money and everything he touched turned to gold.” He shrugged. “There were stories … Hannah's mom used to tell them, back…”

His voice trailed off, an unspoken
before
there. Before Lily Parker lost her husband, before she married an abusive bastard, before she forgot how to laugh. Before. She'd been Griffin's aunt and he still missed those times
before
.

“Anyway.” Griffin shrugged. “She used to tell them. It's just part of the town's folklore. But Patrick McKay's legend was … well, big. Crazy big. He'd talk about his treasure and people would ask him about it and he'd laugh. I heard he killed a few men who came after him looking to find whatever he supposedly had.”

“If he was a man willing to kill over it, who knows? Maybe there's some truth to it.” Charles looked more speculative now.

“Or he was a man who would fight back when attacked.” Ian didn't look convinced.

“Either way.” Griffin tugged off his ball cap and rubbed his head. He'd been off duty when Rutledge had decided to liven up the night, and now he looked ready to get back to his free time. “Half the urban legends in this state can probably be tied to McKay or his friend Jonathan Steele or that bastard Whitehall.”

“Who's Whitehall?” Ian frowned.

“He's the one who turned Patrick McKay in.” Griffin gestured to the building where the police station now stood. “Went up to what served as a magistrate's office—it was there. Claimed he had proof that Patrick had gone from his mission of privateering to being a river pirate … and then he brought in the men he'd bribed into acting as witnesses against McKay. Within three weeks, Patrick was brought in and tried and within another week, he was dead.”

Griffin shrugged and turned back to go to the pub. “Stories about some mythical treasure have gone on around here for ages. Talk to Neve or Brannon … I hear Neve used to go digging for it.”

*   *   *

“Did you really dig for treasure?”

Neve looked up from the documents spread out in front of her.

Under the intense gaze of her fiancé, she could feel her face heating. And he wasn't the only one watching her, either. Shooting a look down the bar, she saw a couple of others eying her, although as soon as they saw her looking, they busied themselves doing something else … like studying the bottom of an empty pilsner.

“You been listening to gossip, Ian?” She studied him with an arched brow, putting her pencil down and bracing her elbows on the family tree she'd been trying to construct. Most of their history was pretty well documented, but she wanted something concrete and she wanted it printed out and she wanted information from
before
the time Patrick McKay started his own little dynasty.

“Gossip?” Ian bobbed his head back and forth like he was pondering the word. “That sounds so tawdry, love.”

He bent down and placed his elbows on the bar, grinning at her. “But, aye. If it's got to do with you, then I'll listen. I'm seeing you as a darlin' little lass, running around Ferry with a bucket in one hand and a shovel in the other, digging for gold. So … did you dig for treasure?”

She sniffed. “For the record, Paddy McKay didn't bury
gold
anywhere.”

“Okay.” Ian propped his chin on his fist and waited. “So what did ya dig for?”