girl.”
That was true. She’d asked him to leave her alone several times. He wouldn’t, which was why they’d stepped in. But talking about Natasha always brought up something Rod didn’t like. He sometimes got the impression that Mack cared a little too much about their stepsister’s love life. Or, rather, he cared in the wrong way. Natasha was nothing like her insufferable mother. Rod was willing to look out for her as a big brother should, or he wouldn’t have stood up for her last night. But Mack was the family pet. Surely there was someone else out there, someone better, as much as Rod hated to use that term, for his kid brother. Natasha was basically a decent person, but anyone who’d been raised by Anya would have issues, and to say she could be prickly was an understatement.
Fortunately, Natasha was heading off to Utah to attend college in the fall, so they only had to get through the summer. With any luck, Mack would meet another new girlfriend—he went through quite a few—while she was away, and Rod’s concerns and suspicions wouldn’t amount to anything. Then, if their father ever divorced the freeloading drug addict he’d married, they’d all be done with Anya.
“I need to go out and find my phone,” he said.
“I could help with that, if you want,” Mack volunteered.
Rod gave him a wry smile. “Nice try, but I think you’ll be more useful at the shop. We’re always busy on Saturdays. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
Mack scowled. “Why bother? You can’t do anything with a broken hand.”
“It’s not broken,” Rod argued and hoped to God that was true.
The creak of footsteps told them someone was coming down the hall. Rod expected it to be Grady. Unless there was some reason not to, they usually drove to the shop together.
But it wasn’t their brother. It was Natasha, still sporting the X on the back of her hand that told the bartenders she was underage and couldn’t be served last night. Her bleached blond hair was spiked and she wore a nose ring, but no one could deny she was attractive in spite of everything she did to hide her natural beauty. Rod could see how Mack might like her. A lot of guys did. Despite her wild hair and her piercings and tattoos, she had a certain...raw sex appeal. But that didn’t change the many reasons it’d be stupid to get romantically involved with her.
“Thought I heard you.” Her gaze settled on Mack first. It had a tendency to do that—and to return to him again and again. When she finally shifted her attention to Rod, she gasped. “What the fuck happened to your face?”
He walked over to put his bowl in the sink. “Watch your language. We’ve talked about that before. You’re a girl, not a truck driver.”
“Oh, stop with the misogynistic bullshit. I’m of age. I’m not just a girl anymore, and I’ll say exactly what I want,” she told him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. So what happened?”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re hopeless.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to tell me?”
“Grady’ll have to explain. I gotta run.”
“Why can’t Mack?” she asked.
Rod took Mack’s bowl and dumped it into the sink.
“Hey!” Mack cried. “I wasn’t finished!”
“You can eat later,” Rod said, messing up Mack’s hair just to piss him off. “Let’s go.”
Mack knocked his hand away, then halfheartedly tried to comb his hair back into place with his fingers. “Go where?”
“You told me you’d help me find my phone, remember?”
Rod thought Mack might give away the fact that they’d already decided he should go to the shop and not help find the phone, but he didn’t. He didn’t speak until he’d passed Rod’s smashed bike, which Donald and Sam had set to one side of the driveway, and climbed into Rod’s truck. “First you don’t want me to go. Now you do. What’s up?” he asked once Rod had started the engine.
Should he try to explain? Probably not. If he brought it up, his brother would only deny feeling any attraction to their stepsister. To Mack’s credit, he did his best to avoid her. Rod had noticed the effort he put into that. But...as hard as his brother was fighting whatever he felt, there was still a kind of tangible energy whenever he and Natasha were in the same room. “You’ve never touched Natasha, have you?” he asked.
Mack’s eyebrows slammed together. “What the hell are you talking about? Touched her in what way?”
“You know what way.”
“Unless you’re looking for a better fight than you got last night, don’t ever ask me that again,” he snapped, instantly furious. “That’s too screwed up for words.”
“I know she’s attractive, but...she’s off-limits.” They weren’t related by blood, and they hadn’t grown up together, so Rod could see where the confusion might come in. Two people from different families meeting after adolescence because their parents had married through some prison website could cloud the “related” issue. But Rod couldn’t stand the thought of his brother being tied to someone who’d make Anya a permanent part of their lives. There were too many other women out there who didn’t have an addict for a mother, didn’t bear the stigma of ever having been called their sister—and didn’t have the emotional problems Natasha did.
“You think I’d ever be able to forget that?” Mack said.
Rod felt like shit for even asking. He should’ve gone with his first instinct and kept his mouth shut. “No, of course not,” he replied and peeled out of the drive.
* * *
When India heard the sound of an engine, she peered through her plantation shutters. She knew it had to be one or more of the Amos brothers. Other than a handful of houses half a mile down the road, they were her only neighbors. She liked the countryside, with its wide-open spaces. That was why she’d chosen this location.
Sure enough, someone was leaving in a big blue truck.
She recognized Rod immediately. He was in the driver’s seat, which was closest to her as the vehicle rolled by. She was fairly certain he had Mack or Grady with him, but it was difficult to see. The passenger didn’t matter, anyway. Knowing that Rod wouldn’t be around for a while eased her anxiety. She hadn’t begun to get over her embarrassment about what she’d done last night. The fact that they could bump into each other if she so much as went out to weed the front flower bed made her reluctant to leave the house.
God, what had she been thinking?
Rod had to be scratching his head, too, wondering what kind of woman had moved in next door. The further she got from that moment, the more horrified she became. It bothered her so much that, when she couldn’t sleep last night, she’d gotten up and baked him some cookies. She had a special snickerdoodle recipe that had been her mother’s. Besides a few pieces of jewelry, some photo albums and a handmade sweater, that recipe was about all her mother had left behind. Charlie would often take platefuls of her snickerdoodles to the other doctors and nurses at the hospital, so she thought Rod might like them, too.
In any case, they were her peace offering. She’d just relocated, planned on starting over. She didn’t want the first person she’d met in Whiskey Creek to hold a terrible opinion of her. She and Rod could be neighborly even if they weren’t exactly friends, couldn’t they?
As she watched his taillights disappear around the bend, she breathed a sigh of relief. Now she had the chance to make her delivery when he wasn’t home, which was the opportunity she’d been looking for—if only she could figure out what to say on the accompanying note and get it over there before he got back. She didn’t want to write anything that might make him think this was another invitation. That was why she’d driven to the Gas-N-Go early this morning, before the closest supermarket was open, to buy a package of paper plates—so she wouldn’t