Carson reached the truck as it finished a three-point turn. He yanked the door open and hauled the driver out by the sweatshirt. Most definitely Billy Wade Watkins.
Even under the mellow nimbus of the streetlight she recognized her student well, baggy clothes, body piercings and black do-rag tied around his head. Her heart broke a little more to think she could have misjudged him.
Wait, she reminded herself. Hear his story. And get over there fast before the vein throbbing in Carson's neck exploded.
Her feet quickly turning Popsicle cold, she danced across the yard. "Carson," she called out. "Everybody calm down." She sidestepped the walkway hedge. "Billy Wade, what are you doing over here this time of night?"
Carson's grip on the boy's hooded sweatshirt stayed tight. "And don't even try to say you were just driving around or some other BS answer. I've seen you case this house three times in the last couple of hours."
"Billy Wade? Did you really do that?"
His eyes actually filled with tears below his pierced eyebrow. "I was only looking out for you, Miss Price. I swear. You've been having so much trouble. You've been really good to me. I wouldn't do anything to hurt you."
She studied his expression, beyond the tears that could well be of the crocodile variety. He was left-handed, but strong enough to have swung with either. Yet he seemed to be telling the truth. Still she couldn't miss the additional glint of something more.
A crush.
Her heart hurt for the kid, but she couldn't ignore what logic told her, as well. This child was as big as an adult, and while she knew she hadn't done a thing to encourage him... And ah damn, what a time to be standing outside in her pj's, albeit more modest than most sleepwear.
"I think, uh, I'm afraid my dad might have been trying to hurt you." He swallowed hard, blinking back the glint in his big thug eyes. "Because maybe he's the one who killed that pilot and my old man's afraid you'll remember."
Nikki crossed her arms, rubbing away the increasing chill. "Your dad?"
"Yeah, he was that guy Owens's sponsor and they talked on the phone that day, and then Dad was out really late."
Carson's hand fell away. "You're William Watkins's son."
"Yes, sir. How do you know my dad?"
Carson hesitated, then answered, "Our paths have crossed at the base."
Carson didn't expand on the statement and just as she'd read the undertones in Billy Wade's eyes, she couldn't miss that Carson was hiding something now. Something she didn't have time to analyze as the porch lamp snapped on.
A door creaked behind her, broadcasting her awake household a second before her father burst onto the porch in sweatpants, tugging a T-shirt over his head. Her mother followed, slower, cinching her satin robe at her swelling waist.
Great. She'd wrecked her parents' reunion.
J.T.'s eyes radar-locked on Carson, then Nikki in her low-slung sleep pants and tight running tank, then right back to Carson again with a furrowed disapproval.
Geez, she was an adult woman. Her father really couldn't expect she would enter the convent. And darn, she had more important things to worry about now.
She was too old to be living at home, even temporarily. Yet as much as she wanted to politely tell her father to tone it down a notch, she couldn't ruin his homecoming. Besides, the cop sirens sounding from around the corner made a big enough to-do for one evening. Please God, this would clear away the chaos once and for all. And after the chaos?
Even with the end possibly in sight, she wondered if she would ever have the normal life she craved back again.
Chapter 13
A day out on the ocean felt too normal with Nikki along.
Although Carson figured they were both due some peace after the chaos of the night before. His eyes on the distant cove where he planned to anchor soon, he gripped the wheel, sunburst nylon sail stretching tauter, the hull slicing faster through Charleston Harbor on a cloud-free winter afternoon. Nikki stood in front of him, equally as tense in the bracket of his arms.
At least they were finally away from the prying eyes of her father—who'd stayed out in the dark yard working on bogus-ass tasks until Carson gave up getting Nikki alone again. Apparently daytime outings with Nikki were cool by the old guy.
Sailing had been his solitary escape, alone on the boat even when there were boats bobbing or skimming in the distance. While he'd thrown a couple of fishing parties in the past, he'd never used his boat for dates, something private that would invade his sanctuary.
Now whenever he stepped on board, he would always think of Nikki with her face tipped to the sun or her swishing pony-tail pulled through the ball cap. Chocolate hair swayed in time with the boat's rhythmic cuts through the waves. Wind plastered her clothes to her lithe body he now knew intimately well.
And with that knowledge came a possessiveness he couldn't deny. He wouldn't be Neanderthal enough to voice it, but he couldn't ignore the primal pump of rage that still charged through him every time he thought about that teenage kid stalking Nikki. A kid who happened to be the son of Will Watkins, Gary Owens's sponsor.