Superb and Sexy (Sky High Air #3)(16)

But you already have, just by coming here…

Ashamed, she closed her eyes. She’d screwed up again. Always…

Giving her sister some privacy, she moved out the back door and stood on the deck, then reached into her pocket for a cigarette before remembering she’d given up all the things that were bad for her. Wishing she’d left herself that one vice, she wandered into the woods, eyeing the towering pines, the wildflowers swaying in the breeze, everything so beautiful and in its place.

She’d never found her place. She’d never belonged.

And hell, if that wasn’t an overly dramatic, self-pitying thought, when she’d given up both dramatic and self-pitying thoughts along with the cigarettes.

Damn it.

Out here in no-man’s-land, she didn’t hear any voices, raised or otherwise, which meant Maddie had either kicked some Brody ass or she’d gotten rid of him. She still couldn’t believe that Maddie would actually work for someone like him, someone so…nerve-wrackingly big and bad and…undeniably sexy.

If one was into nerve-wrackingly big and bad and undeniably sexy.

Personally, she was not. Nor had she expected Maddie to be. But it’d been a long time since Maddie and Leena had been together. Things had changed.

A lot of things. With a sigh, she went back inside, where it was quiet, very, very quiet. “Maddie?”

“Up here.”

Leena found her in the master bedroom, looking through the small, intricately carved wooden box that had belonged to their mother.

That surprised her. Maddie wasn’t sentimental; neither of them were.

They’d never really been given a chance to be.

Maybe Leena wasn’t the only one feeling a little pessimistic about their future. “Where’s Brody?”

“Hopefully thinking about leaving soon.”

“Hopefully?”

“Don’t worry. He’s not a problem. I’ll figure it out.”

“You could just tell him the truth.”

“No, I can’t,” Maddie said. “That would leave a loose string, someone who knows.”

“You said you trust him.”

Maddie stared at her. “Well. That’s a new word for you. Trust.”

Leena lifted a shoulder. “I just think that it seems like maybe…maybe there’s something more between you two than just work.”

“If there is, it no longer matters.”

Because of The Plan.

Guilt stabbed at her, hard. “Maddie—”

“Forget him a minute.” Maddie pressed a photo into her hand. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

Leena looked down at the old picture of the two of them in the Halloween costumes, missing their front teeth and pretending to be superheroes, and along with the guilt came a new and completely unexpected surge of emotion.

Love.

“We were both strong then,” Maddie reminded her. “We can both be strong again.”

Leena lifted her gaze from the picture and looked at Maddie. In her sister’s eyes was more of that love, and that swamped her, too. Her heart couldn’t take any more, but she could admit this. “Yes. You’re right.”

A smile crossed Maddie’s mouth. “I like the sound of that.”

“But Maddie? I’m still going to go say good-bye to Ben—”

“Leena—”

“No, listen. Please. You have to understand. For years, I’ve gone about my life with my eyes closed, letting Rick rule my whole world. But I can’t keep pretending not to see what’s going on around me anymore. I have to change. And to do that, I have to face what I’ve done.” She took Maddie’s hand. “I have to try to make it right.”

“By admitting your part in criminal activity to Ben, a man who can use that admission to press charges against you?”

“By not being shallow. By growing a backbone.”

“Okay, give me a minute.” Maddie pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I admire the thought, but Jesus, Leena—”

“I know, but I have to right that wrong if I’m going to go on. I have to, or I can’t go on.”

Maddie stared at her, both deeply impressed and deeply terrified. “I want to pull the older twin card here and say fine, but you’re not going alone. No way in hell.”

Leena’s eyes were filled with an admirable steely determination. “I know I’m doing the right thing. And you’re only four minutes older.”

“Five minutes.”

Leena smiled. “Older sister or not, I’m doing this. And then we can put The Plan into motion. The Vanishing Off The Face Of The Earth Plan.”

In that moment, Maddie realized something a little shocking—all this time she’d thought of herself as the stronger of the two of them, but that wasn’t actually true.

Leena was the stronger.

Because unlike herself, Leena was going to actually have her good-bye.

Don’t worry so much,” Leena said softly. “It’s time for me to take care of myself.”

“Fine. But I’ve got your back.”

Ten years of karate classes and other various self-defense classes would have both of their backs, as well as the gun in her underwear drawer and the knife she always had strapped to her thigh because it never hurt to be prepared.