The Beautiful Daughters (30 page)

They scuffled for what felt like hours, Harper trying to land punches that would maim, but she knew she was small compared to him. Just a girl.

When Sawyer's free fist found her jaw, Harper's head nearly spun off her neck. She fell back, but not before clutching at a handful of his shirt. He came with her, plummeting, the sound of a seam being ripped.

And then, a shot. The gun went off, echoed across the throbbing night, sent a scattering of leaves twining down from the bent trees.

From somewhere in the darkness, an exhalation. So soft it hardly existed at all.

“What have you done?” Harper was shrieking, hysterical, kicking and writhing beneath the bulk of Sawyer, who was still deadweight above her. “Get off me! Get off!”

He did, rolling to the side and then bursting up like a sprinter. Harper heard him wrench open the car door and ignite the engine. When he thrust the Lexus into reverse, he kicked up
a cloud of gravel, pelting Harper with rocks that forced her to cover her head with her arms.

It was a couple of seconds before the air stilled and Harper could get a hold of herself, but it felt like an eternity. Somewhere between her and the Galloway mansion, Will had crumpled to the earth, shot. And it was all her fault.

“Please,” Harper moaned, scrambling on hands and knees, half running, stumbling, falling to the spot where she had last seen Will. “Please, God . . .”

He was there, on his back, eyes open and blinking at the veiled moon. Harper didn't dare to touch him, but crouched over his dark form, hands hovering, trembling over his body as if she could discern where the wound was by divining it through her fingertips.

Will didn't say anything. His mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. Eyes fluttered at the spilled-ink sky. It frightened Harper how he couldn't focus on anything, didn't seem to really see what was above him or register that Harper was there at all. She had seen a thousand movies, a thousand scenes where the hero fell. Weren't there last words? Passionate kisses? Moments of such cognizance and clarity that the world was set right with just a couple of perfect phrases?

Harper finally reached out, took Will's face in her hands gently, feeling the fine hairs along his temples, his clammy brow. “Will,” she said, clearing her throat, making herself sound as present and calm as she could muster. “Will, look at me.”

He did, for just an instant, his gaze skipping away as soon as he made eye contact with Harper. If he recognized her, if he knew where he was and what had happened, she couldn't tell.

“Help!” Harper screamed it at the top of her lungs, shouted so loud her throat burned. “Help! Somebody help me!”

Will didn't flinch.

“Help!” Harper was on her feet, running down the road toward the mansion.

PART IV

THE BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTERS

26

ADRIENNE

A
fter Harper, Will, and Jackson disappeared into the dark recesses of Piperhall, Adri settled into the role she knew best: she picked up the pieces. Glasses were scattered around the grand living room, pillows abandoned on the floor. She straightened corners, turned off the fireplace, gathered the empty tumblers. And Caleb fell into step beside her.

They cleaned in amiable silence until Will made one last haphazard appearance. He looked confused and disheveled, and barely glanced at Adri when he announced that he was going for a walk.

“It's the middle of the night.” Adri looked up from the sink of water where she was up to her elbows in suds. “It's pitch dark.”

Will seemed not to hear her.

“Be careful!” she called after him, and Caleb gave a low laugh.

“He's a big boy,” Caleb said.

“Yeah, well, he's in love with Harper Penny. He'd better be careful.”

“I like her.” Caleb took a shot glass out of Adri's soapy, dripping hand, and toweled it off with deliberate gentleness. The expensive glassware looked like a toy in his large hands, and Adri found herself smiling in spite of her better judgment. He was getting under her skin. She wanted to lean against his shoulder,
to press her face into the smooth line of his neck. But maybe that was the alcohol dulling her senses. Harper had made her drink and Piperhall had forced her to remember. But everything seemed soft and blurred with Caleb doing dishes beside her.

Caleb was a mystery. Even his aftershave was so subtle that she kept mistaking the fragrance. Sandalwood? Musk? Maybe it was all just Caleb. She wished she didn't love his scent, but she did.

“You like Harper?” The question was so belated that it was almost comical, and Adri felt herself blush all the way to her ears. If Caleb noticed, he didn't embarrass her by saying so.

“Yes, Harper.” There was a smile in his voice. “She's a firecracker.”

“That's a nice way to put it.”

“You don't sound amused.”

Adri ran her hands through the water in the sink and pulled the plug in the drain. It hadn't seemed worth it to run the dishwasher for five shot glasses and a few tumblers, and Caleb had insisted on drying. Even though she tried to send him to bed. Not because she didn't want him around. Because she was starting not to trust herself around him.

“I'm not amused,” Adri sighed. She reached for the towel and Caleb held it for her while she dried her hands. “I love Harper, but she's hiding something from me.”

Caleb laughed, his eyes sparkling as he studied Adri. “Now that's the pot calling the kettle black.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You're the queen of secrets and hiding, Adrienne Vogt. I've never met another woman with as tight a lid on herself as you. Do you know how hard I've had to work to get to know you? One-word answers can only carry a man so far.”

“Why are you interested in me?” Adri asked suddenly. She surprised herself with the question and quickly busied her hands with the tumblers and shot glasses that Caleb had lined up neatly in a row on the counter.

But Caleb grabbed her wrists before she could turn away, and Adri was forced to let go of the dishes. They were only inches apart, but Caleb lessened the distance even more by lowering his head to meet hers. He brushed the tip of her nose with his lips.

“You're fascinating, Adri.”

“Medical advances in developing nations are fascinating,”

Caleb didn't laugh.

“That was a joke,” Adri protested weakly. Her heart was beating wildly and she could hardly breathe.

“You're gorgeous,” Caleb continued.

“Harper's gorgeous.”

Caleb ignored her and instead kissed each of her eyes in turn. It was so tender, so intimate, Adri couldn't stop the little moan that escaped.

“I love your heart.” Then Caleb did the last thing Adri expected and pulled her into a hug. Her chin tucked against his broad shoulder, and when his arms circled her waist and pulled her feet off the ground, she found she fit perfectly in his embrace. “I want to know everything about you. Why you hate Blackhawk so much. How you ended up in Africa. What you're hiding from.”

Although Adri had melted into him only moments before, she stiffened and pushed herself away. “I'm not sure that's any of your business. And I don't hate Blackhawk.”

Caleb set her down and took a step back so that he could look at her properly. His eyes revealed hurt, but he didn't turn and leave. Even though Adri wouldn't have blamed him if he did. “I'd like to make it my business,” Caleb said levelly.

Adri felt tears prick her eyes. She grabbed Caleb by the shirt, bunching the fabric in her fists so that she could push him away or pull him close, she couldn't tell. “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, and was surprised at the tremor in her voice. “I've been doing fine. I'm trying to honor Victoria and forget the past and move on.”

“You're not moving on,” Caleb said.

“Maybe I don't deserve to.”

“Come on, Adri. Everyone deserves a second chance. And a third and a fourth.” The corner of Caleb's mouth tweaked as he bit back a grin. “I think I'm on my seventy-seventh.”

Adri felt a giggle at the back of her throat. It was absurd and unexpected, and she wondered at the way that Caleb could bring her outside of herself. Make her forget all the serious things that weighed her down. “I think that's it for you,” she said.

Caleb shrugged. “Maybe.” Then he cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. Slowly, slowly he kissed her, giving her the time and space to shove him away. To say no. But Adri didn't want to. Nothing was fixed, but it felt like Caleb was knee-deep in the thick of it with her. For the moment, it was enough. Enough to savor the press of his lips, the way his body fit against hers. One hand cupped her jaw and the other found the back of her head, his fingers deep in the tangle of her dark hair. Adri was swept away. She wanted to be.

“Adri!”

The shout came from the front of the house. The entryway.

A bolt of adrenaline shot through Adri at the sound of her name. Maybe it was the fear of being caught all wrapped up in Caleb. Maybe she knew deep in her soul that something was not right. Either way, Adri was out of Caleb's arms and jogging fast toward the sound, as if they had never kissed at all. A part of her resented whoever had torn them apart, but she also realized it was for the best. Caleb was too good to be true. She didn't deserve him anyway. But he was on her heels when she found Jackson standing with his hand on the front door.

“Something's wrong,” Jackson said.

She didn't even ask what.

Adri flipped on the porch light and threw herself into the night. There was movement and sound from below, but the gravel drive was all smoke and shadows in the darkness.

“Harper?” Adri called, addressing the form that took shape at the foot of the stairs. What was she doing outside? Why wasn't she in her room? But none of that mattered now.

“Will,” Harper managed, gasping. “Please, help. It's Will.”

There was no mistaking the raw panic in her voice. Adri and Caleb were down the steps and racing past her before Harper could say anything more. Vaguely, Adri was aware of Jackson rushing to Harper, but she was behind them and in the end, Adri didn't much care. He was out there somewhere. Her brother. Her Will.

They raced down the road, kicking up dust as they sprinted in the dark. Adri wasn't a runner, she never had been, but she pulled ahead of Caleb anyway. In the middle of the lane, less than halfway between the blacktop and the place where the drive curved into the roundabout, they found him.

Will was on his back in the gravel. One leg was cocked awkwardly, a caricature of a man mid-jump. His hands were fanned at his sides, palms up, fingers curled into his palms like an infant's. It was wrong. All wrong. Adri knew it the second she saw him.

She hit the ground too early and had to scramble on her hands and knees the last few feet to her brother. “Will?” Adri took his face in her hands, her heart so high in her throat she could hardly form the word. She swallowed. “Will? Look at me. It's Adri.”

He didn't respond.

“Will!”

“He's bleeding.” Caleb said it almost calmly.

Adri hadn't realized Caleb was there. But he was, and as he peeled off his shirt to stanch the flow of blood that was coursing unchecked from Will's wounded arm, Adri was filled with a gratitude close to elation.

“What happened?” The question was ragged, ripped from her throat.

“I don't know,” Caleb said. “But this looks like a gunshot wound.”

“Gunshot?”

“I'm going to need your help, Adri. You've got to press here. I'm going to make a tourniquet.”

“I've been drinking.” Adri choked on a sob.

“I haven't. You'll be fine. Just do as I say.”

Headlights washed over them as Caleb finished cinching his belt around Will's shoulder. He pulled it tight, too tight if Will's anguished cry could be trusted. Adri was sickened at the sound of her brother's pain, but he wasn't aware enough even to register that she was there.

“I'm going to need you to help me lift him,” Caleb said. “This isn't your brother, Adri. It's just another patient.”

“But—”

“But nothing.” Caleb's tone brooked no argument. “You've got to pull yourself together. I need you.”

Adri wanted to scream. To throw back her head and bawl like a baby. But Caleb was right. Will's life might depend on it. She took a long, shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, she looked straight at Caleb. “What do you need me to do?”

“Lift,” he said. “On the count of three. We're going to lift him into the backseat of Jackson's truck.”

“Jackson's here?”

“Adri, focus.”

She nodded vehemently.

“Okay. One, two, three.”

They lifted Will between them in one smooth, calculated movement and began to sidestep toward the pickup. Jackson leaped down from the driver's seat and opened the back door, helped them ease Will onto the long bench as carefully as they could.

Harper was in the front seat, cowering against the door and hyperventilating hard; the sound of her wheezing filled the cab. But Adri only registered this on a clinical level, in the same way that she could assess a patient in one calculated glance. She didn't have time or head space for Harper. Not now.

“He's in shock,” Adri said, and knew that it was true. She wasn't Will's sister now. She was his nurse. “We need blankets. Tell me you have blankets in here.”

“I don't know.” Jackson was already speeding down the long drive, toward the main road and a hospital. “Open the sliding window.” He gestured toward the window at the back of the truck, behind Caleb and Adri's heads. It was black beyond the glass, the space obscured by a large canopy that undoubtedly housed some of their construction tools. “I think we have some canvases or tarps or something back there.”

Caleb was crouched on the floor of the backseat, one hand still pressing his shirt against the injury and the other holding Will's wrist, checking his pulse. “His heart rate is climbing,” Caleb told Adri.

She thrust herself up from the place where she hovered over Will's bent legs and yanked open the sliding window. It was a wild, claustrophobic ride, but Adri, lithe as a dancer, plunged half of her body through the narrow opening and emerged seconds later with an armful of dirty canvases. They sent a fragrant cloud of sawdust into the air of the cab, and Adri's lungs constricted. But she didn't care. She was already tucking the stiff fabric around Will, talking to him all the while.

“We'll be there soon,” she told him. “And if you're good they might assign a pretty nurse to you. A brunette.” Adri's eyes snapped to Harper as she stared wide-eyed over the back of the headrest. There was fury in Adri's gaze. She could feel it in herself, this billowing anger at the injustice of what had happened. At the sight of Will before her, limp, unmoving. There would be a reckoning—she would see to it herself.

“Blood pressure is dropping,” Caleb said quietly. “His pulse is faint. Systolic is below eighty for sure.”

“Can you drive faster?” Adri asked Jackson. The speedometer was already hovering around 90, but Jackson pushed the pedal down more.

“The closest hospital is Fairfield,” Adri reminded him. “Skip Blackhawk altogether. Take the highway.”

It wasn't far to Fairfield, a fifteen-minute drive under normal circumstances, but it felt like Jackson made it in five. The town was all but deserted, the streets empty of people in the middle of the night, but as they screeched to a halt beneath the neon red sign of the hospital emergency room, a police cruiser pulled up behind them, lights flashing even though he hadn't engaged the siren. Or had he? Adri's head felt stuffed with cotton.