Stepbrother Thief (37 page)

“Not officially, no, but you'll recognize the place from the dead corn stalks wilting in the front yard. We had
legumes
this year, too. You know, beans. Oh, God, and the pumpkins? I still have some homemade pumpkin bread. I'd love to give you some.” A pause. “Are you in trouble, Regi?” she asks finally.

I bite my lower lip and try to decide how best to answer that question.

“It's … complicated.”

“Gill complicated or … just complicated, complicated?”

My turn to pause.

“Both.”

Leilani sighs again, and I can just imagine her shaking her head, glancing over at her boyfriend/soul mate, Ellard, the only person I know who loves online roleplaying games as much as she does. In fact, they actually
met
playing an online video game. Go figure.

“Well, if you need to, you can always come and stay here—Solène and Cliff, too. You're all welcome always.” I notice she doesn't mention Gill's name in there. Of course she doesn't. This is her subtle way of voicing her disapproval over whatever she thinks might be happening here between me and my stepbrother. Too bad that whatever she's thinking can't possibly be worse than the real thing.

“I know, and thank you.” I pause and fiddle with the blanket in my lap, pulling at the fibers with my nail. “Have you talked to Anika lately?” My breath catches in my chest as I wait for a response.

“Yes, I have. And as soon as Gill called me, I called her because I was afraid you wouldn't. She was worried sick, too, Regi.”

“I know.” I glance over at Aveline who's stopped typing on her computer and is now staring right at me, green eyes sharp and lips twisted to the side in bemusement. The woman doesn't even try to
pretend
that she doesn't eavesdrop. Since Gill's not around, I guess I'll be asking her if it's safe to call my sister. “I'll see if I can get ahold of her after I'm done talking to you. If not …”

“I'll call her tomorrow just in case,” she says, without needing an explanation. Sometimes that's all you really need in a best friend, somebody that doesn't judge, that doesn't ask; I appreciate that about our friendship. Leilani didn't even balk when I told her I was in love with the stepbrother I barely knew, and she cried a river the day I said we were moving to France.

“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. I hope she can tell.

“Now go call your sister,” she demands and then pauses as a voice sounds in the background. “Ellard says hi, too, and he can't wait for you to come over, so he can cook you something out of our garden and we binge on another
Supernatural
rerun.”

I grin.

“I'm already looking forward to it. Oh, and call me tomorrow, too, if you don't hear from me sooner.”

“Will do! Stay safe. Night, Regi.”

I end the call before my tongue starts wagging, and I beg her to stay, just so she can hear me moan about Gilleon. But I won't—especially not with Aveline raising her eyebrows at me.

“What?” I ask, setting the phone down in my lap and turning to look at her. Aveline just shrugs and gets back to whatever it is she was working on. “Would Gill really call my friend and give her this number?” I think I'm being paranoid here, but I figure it doesn't hurt to ask.

“I think he thinks you need council or something,” Aveline says with yet another shrug. “Although the man must be overconfident as shit if he thinks your girlfriend's going to convince you to stay with him. Never known a person not to want the impossible best for her friends.”

“Impossible best?” I ask, pushing aside the blanket and standing up. I need to take this outside if I'm going to call Anika; I'll want the privacy in case we get into an argument. Since our conversations often end up that way, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

“So good it doesn't exist,” Aveline responds, attention completely focused on the glowing screen in front of her. “But then, maybe they just want for us what we're afraid to want?” A chill travels down my spine even though I know I'm taking Aveline's words the wrong way.
Afraid to want.
I'm afraid to want Gilleon. Hell, maybe I am taking it the right way. Leilani wants me to be happy, to never have my heart broken again, to move on and let the pain go. But what she can't possibly know, what only I know, is that the pain is only there when he's not. His presence is like a soothing balm, wiping away the past. And I hate that. I do. I wish I could stay mad at him, give him what he deserves by telling him to fuck off, but I can't do that because I'd only be hurting myself.

“Ugh.” I run my fingers over my hair and down my ponytail. “I'll be out back,” I say and Aveline nods.

The weather outside is dreadful, rainy and gray and blustery as hell, but at least it gives me a chance to wear the Burberry Brit cashmere cape that's been sitting in my closet since the day I went shopping with Aveline. I slip into it and slide out the back door, fully aware that there are people in and around the edges of the yard. I have no idea how many, but I just about had a heart attack the other day when I spotted a woman in the hedges.

Gill's buffed up security, and I have no idea what to think about that.

I decide a distracting conversation with Anika is better than worrying about this Karl Rousseau guy and his missing diamonds.

I stare down at the phone, knowing that Gill wouldn't have had Leilani call me if he didn't think it was safe. I realize then that at least some of my hesitation in calling Anika was selfish, was more than just my fearing she'd get dragged into all of this. My sister's … well, she's judgmental. And harsh. And she asks way too many questions. Kind of like the opposite of Leilani.

I dial her up and wait.

She picks up on the third ring.

“Anika Corbair.”

“It's Regi,” I say before I let the solemn seriousness in her voice put me off. Anika's always been … stern. And stubborn, too stubborn for her own good. It was that stubbornness that drove her away from me and mom, from Cliff and Gill before she'd even met them. Honestly, if I hadn't forced a connection between us back then, there's little doubt in my mind that we'd be complete strangers now.

I can practically hear her purse her lips at me.

“Where have you been, Regina? Leilani was considering getting on a plane to Paris.”
Leilani was. Leilani, and not you.
My older sister's seeming lack of care doesn't bother me though; it used to, but not anymore. Anika cares in her own way, but family doesn't mean the same thing to her as it does to me.

“If I could explain, I would,” I tell her and imagine an eye roll in response. Unlike Leilani, Anika isn't privy to many of my secrets. I mean, she knew about Gill and me, but she never knew I was pregnant, doesn't even know she has a niece. Back then, telling my other girlfriends before Gill didn't seem like a big deal, like I was letting them in on a surprise party planned for him. But Anika? All she knows is that Gill and I broke up, not that he left, not that he's a thief. Nothing. “I'm sorry for disappearing, but things are complicated over here.” I take a deep breath and try to make myself smile. Maybe she'll be able to hear it through the phone? “The good news is … I'm in the States now. Seattle, actually.”

My sister doesn't seem to give two shits that I'm in our old hometown.

“Gram's not doing well, Regina. I'm busy moving her into my place.” Anika pauses, and I can actually hear her tapping her manicured nails on something. “Plan a visit here soon; this could be her last Christmas.”

I cringe at my sister's bluntness and wonder if I should ask to speak to my grandma? But no. My mom's mom hasn't spoken to me since we moved to France, considering that a betrayal of the worst kind. Two weeks before she died, I listened to my mom call and cry on the phone to Anika, but Gram never called her back. I try not to, but I think I'm still carrying around a lot of anger towards her.

I put a hand up to my forehead. I can't let any of that old pain get to me, not now. I'm already dealing with dredged up hurt, dug up secrets. I force myself to take a deep breath.

“I'll see what I can do,” I tell her, glad that at least we're not arguing, that she's not bringing up the day she ran away to California, moved right onto the Yurok Reservation with my grandma. It's one of her favorite subjects after all—trying to convince me that
I
made a mistake in not coming with her, that our mother was the bad guy for falling in love again. I feel sorry for her that she never got a chance to really know Cliff or Gill.

Gill.

I swallow hard, my most current and pressing problem making me sweat despite the cool weather.

“I'll call you back when I have a spare moment,” she says and then hangs up on me before I get a chance to say goodbye. I take a deep breath and let it out slow, closing my eyes against the wind.

“Anika, right?” Warm fingers graze my wrist and I jump, spinning to find Gill standing on the deck next to me, once again appearing seemingly out of thin air. “You only ever get that look when you're talking to your sister.”

Gill lets his hand drop and takes a step back, a real sight for sore eyes in his black wool coat, eyes blue and bright and on fire. I can't help but notice that that's new, that flame there. I put it there. Me.
Oh God.
I take a small step back and smile, blowing air out and up to push some stray strands of hair away from my forehead.

“When you said
home soon,
you really meant it, huh?” I ask, shoving my phone into my pocket to give my shaking hands something to do. My pulse is pounding and my throat is dry, sweat beading on my lower back as I try to figure out what to say, how to act. It's been three days since I've seen the guy, not three weeks; it feels like three years.

Gill smiles at me, like he can sense what I'm feeling, like maybe he's feeling a lot of the very same things. I watch the wind pick up strands of his dark hair, drag it across his forehead. I want to reach up and brush it back. Without even realizing it, I take a step forward.

Gill's smile turns into a grin.

“Are you just popping in or are you back for a little while?” I ask, feigning disinterest. I couldn't be anymore interested if I tried; he knows that.

“I'm back to stay,” he tells me, the double meaning in his words not lost on either of us. “The only way I'm missing our dinner date tonight is if you'd rather spend it in your bedroom again.”

“Gill.”

“Or my bedroom,” he adds, moving forward and wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling my close. I don't resist—why bother? I think we both know we're beyond that now. No more running or hiding or being angry, none of that. Everything we both think and feel, it's got to be out in the open now.

Because of me. Elena, she's dead because of
me.

I swallow hard and push the thought back. Tonight, I'll hear what Gill has to say. For now …

“You called Leilani?” I ask as Gill reaches up and touches his warm palm to my cheek. My fingers tingle with the desperate desire to reach out and touch him, too, while other parts of me … well, let's just be polite and say they tingle, too.

“I thought you could use a friend,” Gill says and then pauses, blue eyes sliding to the side like he's just been caught doing something wrong. “And since she's in the area … I thought it might help you think of this place as home.” I purse my lips, pretend to be irritated with him. Only I'm not. Not at all.

“You didn't think she'd try to talk me out of getting back together with you?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. Gill glances back to me and lifts both of his.

“Already? I thought she'd at least wait a week or so.” He pauses and narrows his eyes slightly. “Why do you think I refrained from calling Anika?” I give him a look.

“Come on now, as much as Anika dislikes you, there's nobody in the world that hates you as much as Leilani.” Gill laughs, leaning his head back for a moment and breathing in the cool crisp air of winter. Autumn is well on its way out, frost already nipping at its heels. The new year's right around the corner, a perfect time to make a fresh start …

“God, I missed you,” Gill says, looking back into my eyes, caressing the side of my face. I don't say it aloud, but I missed him, too.
Terribly.
And he was only gone for three days. Could I really ever say goodbye again? Watch him walk out and know we could've given this a second chance?

I lean up on my tiptoes and press my lips to Gilleon's, sliding my tongue into his mouth and taking control of the kiss. My arms come up and wrap around his neck as his hands find my hips, fitting there like they were made for it, like we were made to be together like this.

“I thought you'd be back late,” I tell him honestly, wondering how we're going to kill the few hours between now and our date. I could think of a few ways … “But I'm glad you're here now.”

“I wanted to be here for the delivery,” he says and I glance up at Gill's face, at his still smooth cheeks and his half-smile. “Are you sure you still want everything delivered here? I could have it taken to a storage unit?” Gill's voice is calm, but his hands clench tight, fingers digging into my hips, as he waits for an answer. By all rights, I
should
ask for the majority of our stuff to go into storage until Cliff, Solène, and I decide if we're staying for sure, but …

“It's fine.” I force a smile and try not to let myself think too long or too deeply about this decision. I haven't officially decided to take Gill back … but I'm strongly considering it. “I miss my clothes.” Gill grins and leans forward like he's considering kissing me again, but he stops short, letting go of me and taking a small step back. We're in a weird place, me and him.

“I'm sorry about your furniture,” he says and I shrug. All those old pieces that belonged to my mom, I sold those to friends. There was always the very real possibility that I'd never get
anything
from my apartment back, and I wasn't willing to take the chance; Katriane and Jacqueline will take good care of it all. Hell, I could probably call them and—once they got over screaming at me for disappearing, and for moving—I could probably buy it all back from them and get them to ship it for me. Expensive, sure, but I should be able to afford it now. If it weren't for the whole 'trying to kill me and Gill' thing, I'd almost be glad that Karl was after us and not the authorities. Not having to go quiet and stay quiet with my friends and family … kind of priceless.