Headed for Trouble (The McKay Family #1) by Shiloh Walker Read Free Book Online

On higher floors or something.
    Nothing about the place screamed museum, she had to say. If anything, it looked like … well, a home.
    “Old Paddy would have liked that,” Neve said quietly as she rubbed the heel of her hand over the ache that had taken up residence in her chest. There had been a few times, back when she was really, really young, before Mom and Dad had died, when Dad would let her sit in his lap while he read her some of the passages from one of Paddy’s old journals. Paddy had written about home, his life in the Highlands and the home he’d left, then the one he wanted to build, and his Maddie.
    For Patrick McKay, the man who had founded this town more than one-hundred-fifty years earlier, everything had been about home.
    That was probably why she was here.
    No. That was why she was here.
    That was why she’d started moving back in this direction nearly ten months ago, although she hadn’t realized her destination at the time.
    Instead of trying to stay a few steps ahead, she needed to draw her line in the sand.
    But she needed to do it on her turf. On her terms .
    And there was only one place in all the world where she’d do it.
    Home.
    No more running.
    No more worrying that she’d be volunteering at a shelter and come outside to find him leaning against her car.
    No more worrying that the knock on the door of her hotel might be him or that the delivery at the front desk wasn’t some clothes she’d ordered to replace the ones she’d had to leave behind.
    If he wasn’t here yet, he would be soon.
    He was too good at tracking her down, although she doubted there was much tracking going on now. Once she’d crossed the line into Mississippi, he’d have figured it out.
    He’d last called two days ago, when she’d left Memphis. She hadn’t answered, but that hadn’t stopped him from sending her a text. No words, just a picture, and she’d been torn between rage and revulsion.
    He still had those pictures. Or copies of them, stashed somewhere on a thumb drive or something, after all this time.
    She’d hurled her phone on the ground, smashing it in a fit of misery, fear, and nausea.
    She’d bought another phone, one of those cheap, pay-as-you-go phones, and she’d gone online in the truck stop, using her laptop to activate it. Now she had a phone with a number he didn’t know.
    For a while.
    And she was home.
    He’d show up here, she had no doubt of that, but this was home . She had family here. Roots.
    But first … she had to figure out how in the hell to fix everything she’d fucked up.
    *   *   *
    “I’m sorry, ma’am, but the … oh, my goodness.”
    Neve smiled, feeling out of place, but she wouldn’t let it show.
    That was the trick, you never let it show, no matter what.
    The woman who came bustling around the nearly finished counter was the closest thing she’d had to a mother for the majority of her life, and Neve found herself already battling tears. She braced herself for the hug that would smell of orange blossoms and too much perfume.
    It did.
    Sniffling, she wrapped her arms around Ella Sue’s neck. “Hi, Mrs. Daltry.”
    “It’s Mrs. Pendleton now. That no-account fool Billy ran off and I divorced him.” Ella Sue leaned back and smiled. She was sixty if she was a day, but her face was unlined, smooth and warm, the color of coffee laced with just a touch of cream. She winked and added, “I married his accountant and we took over the business Billy thought he’d have to shut down. We’ll be able to sell it in five years and move to Lake Tahoe, if we want.”
    Neve arched a brow. “You’d never leave Treasure.”
    “Of course not.” Ella Sue lifted a hand, cupped Neve’s face. “My baby looks worn out.”
    Neve covered Ella Sue’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. “I’ve been driving the past few days. That would wear anybody out.”
    Ella Sue eyed her shrewdly and Neve suspected she wanted to say more, but chose not to. “I heard you were here