“Did you happen to notice that you turned the wrong way on a one-way street?” the officer asked dryly as he pulled a
penlight out of his pocket and aimed it at the driver’s license.
“Maple’s one way now? Hell, I didn’t notice.” Lucas glanced automatically toward the street, wincing when he saw the prominently displayed one-way arrow at the exit of the parking lot.
The officer looked at the license in his hand, then seemed to go very still. His voice held a note of strain when he asked, “You’re Lucas McBride?”
Lucas knew this guy hadn’t been around fifteen years ago. Did they instruct all new cops to be on alert for Lucas McBride, in the unlikely event that he ever reappeared?
“Yeah, I’m McBride. What of it?”
The officer sighed. “I can’t give you a ticket tonight.”
Startled, Lucas scowled suspiciously. “Why not?”
“I’m marrying your sister in a couple of weeks.”
Lucas’s hands went slack on the steering wheel. “Well, hell.”
The officer tossed the driver’s license back through the window.
“That’s about the size of it,” he muttered. And he didn’t sound any happier about the situation than Lucas was.
LUCAS DREW a deep breath as he stared at the house in which he’d spent the first twenty years of his life. Though multicolored Christmas lights glowed from the eaves, and porch lights burned on either side of the front door, the night’s darkness wrapped around the place like a heavy blanket that might have seemed cozy to some, but had ultimately felt smothering to Lucas.
“It looks the same as I remember it.”
Wade Davenport nodded. “It needs some maintenance. I’ll be taking care of that when I move in.”
“You and Emily are going to live here when you’re married?”
“Yes.”
His gaze still focused darkly on that white-frame, black-shuttered house with its wraparound porch and winter-browned lawn, Lucas muttered, “Are you sure that’s such a good idea? No marriage has ever lasted long in this house.”
“We intend to change that.”
Lucas had a sudden urge to climb back in his car and speed away, as fast as he’d driven when he’d made his escape fifteen years earlier. He’d made a mistake coming back here. Emily was obviously safe and well, busy with her own plans. She was marrying a cop, going on with her life. She probably hadn’t given her long-lost half brother more than a passing thought in years.
He’d been a fool to let a strange compulsion draw him back here—a vague, unsettling feeling that Emily was in trouble, that she needed him. It was obvious that he’d been wrong.
He took a step back toward his car. “It’s too late for an unannounced visit. Tell Emily I’ll give her a call sometime, okay?”
“If I let you leave now, she’d never forgive me.” Wade’s voice was even, but there was a faint hint of steel beneath the easy drawl. “I think it’d be better if we just go on in.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes. Davenport had insisted on following Lucas to the old homestead after he’d stopped him on Maple Street. “Why are you so determined for me to see her tonight?”
“Because I want to be there when you talk to her.” Wade crossed his arms over his solid chest and leveled a look at Lucas, his brown eyes glittering in the gleam of security lighting, his face shadowed.
Lucas lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t trust me?”
Wade shrugged.
Running a hand through his hair, Lucas released a deep breath. “I suppose you’ve heard about me.”
“A few things.”
“None of them particularly flattering, I’m sure.”