Maya cursed softly. Tiffany’s frown deepened and she started chewing on her thumbnail. “I’m sorry. Should I have pushed him for more information? I didn’t want to give him your cell number, you know, just in case he was a crazy or something.”
That made her laugh. Caleb, crazy? Oh, yeah, definitely. Maya took a deep breath and shoved both hands through her heavy curls. This was ridiculous. She was overreacting. Christmas was in two weeks. He was probably just calling to wish her a happy holiday, or to see if she’d heard any news of their father.
Everyone was okay.
They had to be.
Because while she might have cut her family so far out of her life that she denied their very existence, didn’t use their name and hadn’t seen any of them in six years, they were still the most important thing in her entire world.
And, she vowed, if everybody was okay, she was going to kick Caleb’s ass for giving her such a scare.
2
MAYA SHOT STRAIGHT UP OFF her pillow, her vision obscured by a tangle of hair as she tried to figure out what had woke her.
The chirping phone answered her question.
“Hello?” she asked in a sleep-roughened tone. She’d gone to bed in the wee hours after midnight, then tossed and turned while worrying until almost five. She squinted through the dim light, noting that it was now eight. Yuck.
“Morning, Maya. How was the party?”
Her smile spread so big she was sure her ears were creasing. He sounded good. Calm, happy even. Not the tone of a man about to share bad news.
“Caleb, you brat. How’d you find me?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Maya rolled her eyes. “The house isn’t in my name. Shouldn’t that slow your kind down a little?”
“That’s child’s play for my kind.”
“So what’s the deal? You lost my cell number and needed to prove you’re not a child?”
“What? A big brother can’t call his little sister on Christmas?”
“Christmas isn’t for two weeks, you called last night and I had my yearly call from you back in July. Seriously, what’s going on?”
Not that Maya cared. She adored her big brother, so any reason to hear from him, barring injury or bad news, was good by her.
Almost giddy with delight, she plumped one of her half-dozen pillows behind her and pulled the silk sheet high over her Garfield T-shirt. These days Caleb was her only connection with her family. And he made that connection very rarely. So this was a treat to be savored.
Their middle brother, Gabriel, was like a ghost. He flitted in and out at will to remind them that he existed, but was rarely heard from and even more rarely seen. Unlike Caleb, who flitted because he was undercover DEA, nobody knew what Gabriel did. But his disdain for law enforcement was so deeply entrenched, Maya knew he wasn’t undercover anything.
Unless it was under some woman’s covers,
she thought with a grin.
Their father, on the other hand, was easy to find. Ensconced in Black Oak, California, he ruled the little town at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains like a benevolent despot. He had no place in the town government, he ran a custom motorcycle shop instead of a bank or big business and he had a hazy history other than being a descendant of the town’s founder. But he was still the man in charge, and everyone in Black Oak knew it.
Dynamic, charming and ruthless, Tobias Black was a force to be reckoned with.
Her smile faded, a little tug of pain aching in her chest.
As she settled back in preparation for the big news, Dottie, the cat who’d adopted her eight months before, jumped up on the bed. She curled around a couple times, making the down comforter puff before she settled on Maya’s stomach with a purring sort of sigh.
“What’s the big deal that inspired a holiday phone call?” Maya prodded as she rubbed the cat’s chin. The adorable black-and-white face lifted for better scratching access.
“I’m back in Black Oak,” Caleb told her.
Maya’s smile dropped away and her fingers stilled. Her stomach jumped before taking a slow, swirling dive down to her bare toes. The room tilted and her brain scrambled. Was this some kind of code? Was Caleb being held prisoner by a drug-crazed lunatic and this was his goodbye call? Was there a hint in his words that she was supposed to use to save him?
“Quit hyperventilating,” he chided, as if he were reading her mind. “I’m here by choice. Well, now I am. I came back as a favor to a friend and sort of got hooked.”
She wanted to ask if he’d seen their father. But she knew he had. Nobody came through town without Tobias knowing, and he wouldn’t let Caleb come and go without a confrontation.
She wanted to ask how Dad was. How he looked and if he’d aged. Was he still pining after that horrible bitch, Greta? Or had he finally accepted the idiocy of falling for a woman so fake she’d have smiled and batted her false lashes while she shivved him in his sleep?
Did he miss his daughter? Even a little?
Her stomach churning, Maya twisted her sheet between her fingers, the slick fabric bunching in puffs as she thought of seeing her dad again. How did Caleb feel about it?
Before she could ask, hell, before she could even figure out exactly what question to ask, Caleb continued.
“I’m engaged. To, you know, get married.”
Shock slammed through Maya. She made a squeaking sound. Dottie rolled onto her back, batting at Maya like she was looking for the rubber mouse that’d made that noise. Before Maya could come up with a response, before she could think to ask who’d be crazy enough, or amazing enough, to capture her big brother’s heart, he continued.
“And I’m moving back permanently.”
Her next squeak was a pitch higher. Moving? Back? No way. Usually lightning-fast, her brain struggled to accept what he was saying. Dottie—apparently deciding that if it wasn’t a toy making the noise, she wasn’t interested—padded to the foot of the bed where she curled around herself in a ball of black and white fur.
“I can’t believe…”
“There’s more.”
More? What more? Her big, bad brother, the man who avoided real life to the point that he spent most of his pretending to be other people, was tying himself to another person—and their hometown—for the rest of his life?
Her head spinning like she was on an amusement park ride, Maya made a noise for him to continue.
“I’ve taken on the temporary post of Sheriff.”
Maya couldn’t even squeak this time because her jaw had dropped in shock. She pressed her hand to her churning stomach, wondering if this particular ride was going to make her throw up.
“Maya?”
Staring blindly at her rich purple bedroom wall, she gave a humming sort of response.
“Maya? C’mon. Say something.”
She opened her mouth to respond, then had to swallow. She cleared her throat, pulled the phone away to check the caller ID, which claimed Unknown, and shook her head again.
“My little sister—the chatterbox of North America—with nothing to say?”
“Fine,” she snapped, hating that nickname. She’d worked hard all her life to control her chattering impulses and Caleb knew it. “Who are you and what have you done with my real brother?”
His laugh was rich and warm, coming through the phone and wrapping around her like a brotherly hug.
“It’s a good thing. It’s all good.” He sounded… Maya squinted in the morning light, trying to figure it out. He sounded content. Why the hell would he want to be content?
“I wanted to tell you and…” He trailed off, sounding a little unsure for the first time since she’d spied on him while he asked the head cheerleader on a date. If Maya recalled correctly, Caleb had been fourteen to the cheerleader’s seventeen. And he’d tied Maya to a kitchen chair the night he’d gone on the date to keep her from following.
She wondered if he ever found out that Gabriel had freed her so they could both spy on him, then had covered her eyes and hauled her back home when it appeared that big brother was going to score.
Was it any wonder she couldn’t settle for a guy? None could ever live up to the men in her family.
“And, what?” she prodded, not sure she was ready to hear it but figuring he needed to share. Probably something sappy and sentimental about their father. Begging her to come home, to reconcile. “You’ve already sent me into a state of absolute shock. Believe me, big brother, there isn’t much left you can say to top you’re back home, engaged to a real woman and leaving the DEA to be a small-town sheriff news.”
But her heart pounded anyway. Maya shoved a hand through her hair, wincing when she hit sleep-roughened snarls.
Overcome, she threw the covers back, not realizing until she heard an angry meow that she’d buried the cat in down and silk. She flipped the covers off Dottie and stormed out of her room toward the kitchen. She needed a drink.
“Well, here’s the thing. I’m hoping you’ll come home. Just to visit. I know you have no reason to want to see Dad, or anyone in Black Oak. But I hope you’ll consider it. Pandora’s mom is throwing a party. Some big to-do to celebrate our engagement. I don’t want it. Pandora doesn’t want it, but Cassiopeia is insisting and Dad’s backing her.”
Conflicted over the idea of going home—of seeing her family for the first time in years—Maya paused in the act of squeezing the chocolate syrup into a tall glass of full-fat milk to frown. “Cassiopeia? The psychic?”
Caleb’s sigh was so loud she was surprised it didn’t ruffle her hair through the phone.
“Is your fiancée woo-woo, too?” Maya teased. Then, realizing her glass was now half chocolate to half milk, she quickly uprighted the squeeze bottle and closed the lid. She considered the glass of sugar-overload, then considered this phone call and grabbed a spoon to stir.
“Pandora’s more a student of human nature with woo-woo overtones,” he said. Her glass halfway to her lips, Maya lowered it and sighed as a wave of happiness enveloped her. He sounded so in love. Not gooey, but just really happy and filled with a joy she’d never thought her big, tough brother could feel.
“So, you know, I get it if you don’t want to come back for the party. I don’t blame you and honestly don’t know if I’d come back if the situation was reversed. But I wanted to tell you about it.”
Blinking fast to keep the tears at bay, Maya set her glass back on the counter, untouched. No point ruining fabulously chocolate milk with salt.
“You’d have come back,” she said quietly. “A chance to play big brother, flex those muscles and boss me around a little? You’d have done it in a heartbeat.”
He laughed, but didn’t deny her words. Because for all that Caleb had spent a whole bunch of years lying for a living, he was a painfully honest man.
And he was her big brother. Getting married. Maya grabbed the glass and took a big gulp, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Is Gabriel coming?” she hedged.
“Can’t reach him. You know how it is, he’s probably in the middle of some big scam and flying under the radar.”
Unlike Caleb, who’d taken the complete opposite route as their con-artist father and gone into law enforcement, and Maya, who tried to pretend her father and his criminal habits didn’t exist, Gabriel embraced his heritage. She was pretty sure he was determined to outdo their father’s rep before he was thirty.
“Look, you’re still pissed at Dad,” Caleb said quietly.
Maya winced, wishing like crazy he’d be a typical guy and avoid the tough discussion.
“Actually, I am, too. But if you can’t get past it, I’ll understand. Pandora and I will take a weekend and come up to San Francisco so you can meet. No pressure, you do what you feel’s right.”
With that and a murmured goodbye, he was gone.
And her world was effectively turned upside down.
“SO WHAT D’YA SAY we skip the big parties and spend New Year’s together at my place?” Dave was saying in a continuation of his campaign to take their relationship to the next level. “The two of us, a bottle of wine, a little fun.”
Maya’s smile was stiff enough to hurt her face. She was having major second thoughts about Dave. Sure, he was a nice guy. A perfect fit for her average life. Sure, he didn’t make her heart race or her body melt. But racing and melting probably weren’t average. But was it fair to lead him on if she really wasn’t interested?