Cherry Creek (3 page)

I want to point out to her that he doesn’t have to live here to be a reporter, but I’m trying to be polite. Just because I am suspicious of him, doesn’t mean I need to make this outing more awkward than it needs to be. It’s just breakfast. We’ll eat, and then we’ll go home, and hopefully he’ll go do whatever it is he usually does in his free time.

“I assure you, Livvy, I am not a reporter,” Khristos tells me firmly. “I just want to get to know my niece. If the topic of Brad is off limits, we can discuss something else.”

“I’d rather not talk about him,” I say simply.

He nods. “That’s fine.” He settles back in his chair, looking relaxed. “I meant to visit you both a long time ago, but things got quite busy on my end. Life is just beginning to settle down, so I think this is the perfect time to get to know you,” he tells me.

It doesn’t escape my notice that my mom was not a part of that sentence. He seems oddly more focused on me rather than her. I’m getting the impression that he finds her a minor irritation. “Are you sticking around for a while?”

“Actually, that’s what I want to discuss with you. I need to leave in a week or so, and I was hoping that perhaps you’d come with me,” he says lightly as he watches me intently.

I stare at him. “Come with you? To Minnesota?”

He nods.

“Both of us?”

“Just you,” he corrects. His eyes slide to my mom. “Caroline and I have discussed it, and we think it’d be good for you to get away from here after what happened.”

My eyes jerk to my mom. “He’s kidding, right?”

“I have things to take care of here, but I’ll relocate this fall when you start school,” she explains.

“Start school?” I look between the both of them, and they look serious. “You think I’m going to pack up and move to Minnesota with some guy I don’t even know? Mom, that’s ridiculous.”

Khristos leans forward to peer at me. “The whole reason for you coming to live with me is so that we can get to know each other.”

I ignore him and focus on my mom. “You just met him yesterday! How do you know you can trust him? If you’ve never met him before, how do you even know he’s your half-brother?” I demand. Forget politeness. I think my mom has lost her mind!

Instead of agreeing with me, she looks at me patiently as if she’s dealing with a child rather than a seventeen-year-old. “He’s legitimate, Livvy. And really, are you that excited to start school in the fall after what happened with Brad? Do you really want to stick around here and deal with all the stares and accusations?”

“Weren’t you the one who told me last night that I didn’t do anything wrong?”

“And you didn’t,” she tells me simply as she reaches for her water. “But the fact of it is, he’s in a coma, and you’re walking around perfectly healthy. Your own friends won’t even answer the phone when you call. Why stick around here when you could start a new life there?”

I can’t believe this. This conversation is absolutely ludicrous. I turn on Khristos. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I don’t even know you.”

He nods. “Understandable. That’s why I’ll spend a week here so you can get to know me, and then you’ll feel more comfortable leaving with me when the time comes.”

“No. I’m not going anywhere,” I say stubbornly as I settle back in my chair, my jaw set.

Caroline sighs as she sets her glass down. “Think about it, sweetheart. Khristos is offering you something you’ll never have here. He’s wealthy, and he has connections. You’ll want for nothing, and you’ll be safe. Think of your future and what moving could do for you.”

I glare at her. “I’m not going to ride someone’s coat tails to get what I want.”

“You’ll have more options than you would have here,” Khristos intervenes.

“You’re talking like I’m going with you. I’m not,” I retort. Before anything more can be said, our waitress comes up with our food on a tray. We’re all silent as she sets out our plates and asks if we need anything else. Once she walks away, I reach for my fork and ignore my mom and Khristos as I begin to eat. The topic of me leaving Missouri is over. They can’t make me go anywhere.

“Livvy,” my mom begins. “I want more for you, and I can’t give it to you here. Khristos is offering you a secure home while we live paycheck to paycheck. I want you to go with him.”

I set my fork down calmly and look at her. “I’m fine where I’m at.”

She shakes her head, and her lips pinch together slightly. “No, you’re not. Your ex-boyfriend almost killed you four days ago, we’ve got reporters hounding us left and right, and we both know school is going to be bad for you here. You need to go with him.”

I scan her face, searching for some kind of explanation for this sudden need of hers to send me off with this man that neither of us know. I’m not understanding any of this. My mom should be begging to come with, so she can live in the lap of luxury with this man. So why is she intent on staying in our seedy little apartment? “What about you?” I ask, needing to know why she wants to stick around.

“I’ll be fine. There’s…someone I’ve met, and I want to see how things go. I’ll relocate this fall,” she promises.

I mull over her explanation. If she’s staying here for a man, that would make sense. My mom’s always dating someone new, and when she falls for someone, she quickly becomes infatuated with them. A new thought enters my mind, and I shake my head and look at them both. “I need to stick around anyway. This thing with Brad is still going on, and I highly doubt the police will allow me to leave the state so soon,” I point out. There. That’s a good excuse to put an end to this conversation.

“I’ll take care of it,” Khristos says simply as he takes a sip of his orange juice, his eyes lingering on me over the rim of his glass.

I’m betting he would, too. Going by his demeanor, and the fact that he’s got money, I’m betting this man has some serious connections. And I’m in trouble here, because they both seem to have their minds set. I turn on my mom again. “Mom, you can’t be serious. How do you even know you can trust this guy?”

“He can be trusted, Livvy.”

“What part of ‘I don’t want to go’ do you not understand?”

“When you’re a mother, you’ll understand what it’s like to want to put your child’s welfare above your own. I think moving will be good for you. And I’ll be there in the fall. It’s just three months without me, Livvy. I think you can handle it.”

“But—”

“No one will know you there. You’ll start a new school without a reputation making things difficult. We both know school is going to be out of the question here. I was considering moving once this thing with Brad is done, so Khristos isn’t really suggesting anything that I haven’t thought of already,” my mom points out.

“I think we should put this conversation on hold for a bit,” Khristos speaks up. “Let’s let Livvy get to know me for the next few days, and then we’ll go from there.”

“That’s a good idea,” my mom says immediately.

“Do I get a say in any of this?” I ask with irritation.

“Of course,” they both say in unison.

Chapter Two

I stare out the jet's window as I gaze at the clouds we're flying through. My mind is a complete mess as I try to sort out my thoughts. It's been two weeks since Brad tried to kill me, and everything has changed. Literally
everything
.

I’ve always had expectations as to what my life would be like. Yeah, life has been difficult in the past, and I knew there’d be times when it wouldn’t be easy. But I just figured I’d live with my mom until I turned eighteen, and then I’d make a new life for myself. Something better than how I grew up. I expected my future to still include my mom, even after I found my place in the world.

Instead, the proverbial rug has been pulled out from beneath me. My future, the one I’d assumed I’d have, has disintegrated. The expectations I’d had, they’re just gone. Now I’m left floundering as I try to get my feet beneath me once again. But in order to steady myself and move on, I need to know what I’m dealing with.

And that’s the problem.

I don’t know where my life will lead.

I’m on a jet flying to some town I've never heard of before. If that’s not bothersome enough, I’m on my way to live with an uncle I never knew I had. They’d told me I’d have a choice in this, but in the end, the decision had been made for me. It hadn’t mattered that I’d fought against it. The fact of it is, I’m a minor until September. If my mom wants to send me to live with a relative, she can legally do so. How could my mom have gone along with it? How could she have just signed over guardianship to Khristos Deveroux? That’s what I don’t get. Actually, he’s not my legal guardian yet, since it’ll take another week or so for the request to become legal. But even so, here I am.

I guess I can understand how my mom would think moving away would help me deal with the aftermath of Brad’s attack. Getting out of Missouri is actually a bit of a relief. But wouldn’t it have made more sense for us to leave town together, to move to some other city or town and start over? I mean, that’s what we’re best at. I think the longest we’ve ever stayed in one place is two years. So why send me off with an uncle I’ve never met until a week ago, when we could leave together?

And speaking of said uncle, where the hell did he come from? I mean figuratively, not literally. I know he came from Cherry Creek, Minnesota, because that’s where I’m heading, but mom has never, ever, said anything about a brother. She’s always insisted she’s an only child. It’s always been mom and me against the world. Her parents had her late in life and had died in a car accident years ago.

As for Khristos Deveroux, she's never mentioned him before, and I don’t understand why she’d kept it from me in the first place. My mom wouldn’t keep a rich relative a secret, because she’s the needy type.

It just doesn’t add up.

Plus, his name doesn’t even sound very American. My mom’s parents were Vauss’s. Mom claims they share the same father, and that’s how he came about to be a Deveroux instead of a Vauss. He took on his own mother’s last name rather than the Vauss name. I suppose that’s possible.

But seriously, the man came out of the blue. Literally. Four days after the attack, he showed up at the apartment. One second we’re dealing with the aftermath of Brad’s attack, and then the next, it’s completely forgotten, and suddenly my mom is practically shooing me out the door. I guess it’s easy for her to brush aside the attack, it didn’t happen to her. For me, it’s all I think about when I’m alone. I put Brad in a coma. There’s a chance he might still wake up, and if he does, they’ll assess his mental state and go from there. I know charges will be brought against him for trying to kill me. It’s an open and shut case. I still have faint bruises on my neck from where he’d choked me, and his hands had been bloody from the self-defense wounds I’d inflicted upon him.

The police wouldn’t be bringing any charges against me, and they were allowing me to leave the state once they’d been given my new contact information. If Brad wakes up, he’ll go to trial, and at that point they might need me to come back for it. Until then, I’m free to move to Minnesota.

The jet trembles with turbulence, and my mind once again shifts back to Khristos Deveroux. He seems kind of young to be so successful. I don’t even know what he does, because I never thought to ask. He had indeed spent some time at the apartment, but I’d been closed off to him. My mind has been a jumbled mass of thoughts since the attack, and I’d balked at doing anything with him, because the man puts me on edge.

I swear he’s not my uncle.

Yet…I can’t deny the resemblance. We do look alike. His blond hair is darker than mine and my mom's, and he has dark, navy blue eyes like mine versus the light blue my mom has. Only my eyes have a hint of darker violet to them. They've always had just a faint trace of purple, but it has become more distinct in the past year. I don’t know how that’s possible, but my eyes have begun to change.

The lady next to me shifts in her seat before going back to reading her Kindle. I glance at her briefly, and then turn back to the window. I’d been grateful Khristos had to leave two days earlier than he’d intended, due to some type of business emergency. I’d thought I could talk some sense into my mom while he was gone, but it hadn’t worked. Now, I’m flying to Minnesota on my own, and I’m glad to have some alone time to pull myself together. What awaits me in Cherry Creek? Who is Khristos really? He’s up to something, because I can
feel
it.

***

A couple hours later, I enter the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after walking through the arrival gate. I’m feeling uncertain and nervous, because someone is supposed to meet me here at the gate. I look around, clutching my backpack. The fact that my ‘uncle’ couldn’t meet me himself has me disliking him even more.

There’s something odd about the way he looks at me. Like he’s curious, but yet he’s so…reserved. Kind of untouchable. Some people are naturally friendly, and he’s definitely not one of them. I guess I don’t care if he’s unfriendly. It’s what he wants from me that’s the problem. Rich uncles do not suddenly pop out of the woodwork and offer to take their niece back home with them. I don’t think he did it out of the kindness of his heart. There’s an ulterior motive. But what?

The only thing that’s keeping me from panicking is the fact that I turn eighteen in September. I have three months to deal with this guy, and then I can bolt if he turns out to be some sort of freak. It’s the next three months that will be a bit tricky.

Dang it, mom.
I want to go to the nearest phone and rail at her again. I’d asked her over and over again why I had to leave before I'd gotten on my flight. I never did get a solid answer that made sense. All she kept saying was that getting out of Missouri would be good for me. That she’ll be fine on her own. She supported us for sixteen years before I was old enough to get a job, she’d make things work.

I love my mom and would never think bad of her, but that’s just not like her. I’m going to go live with a rich relative, and my mom should have been begging to tag along. She would have insisted on it and would have bugged Khristos until he'd caved just to get her to leave him alone. Instead, she couldn’t get me out the door fast enough.