Games of the Heart (The 'Burg #4)(2)

He couldn’t believe she wouldn’t come back for Darrin.

This was what pissed him off.

Obviously, she hadn’t changed.

Well she had, once. A major, f**ked up change taking her from a sweet, hilarious, precocious young woman to a moody, troublemaking pain in the ass teenager. She went from daisies and rainbows to grunge but she did that with too much makeup, sulking and “the world doesn’t get me” teenage bullshit.

No one got it. Darrin was troubled by it. Debbie was ticked off about it. And their parents were baffled by it.

Mike was in Darrin’s frame of mind. He’d loved that kid. One of the best parts of going to Debbie’s house was seeing her. She was f**king hilarious and so damned sweet. She loved her parents, she loved her brother and she tolerated Debbie who always thought she was a pain in the ass even before she actually became one.

She also loved Mike and made no bones about showing him just as she didn’t anyone else. Debbie was two years younger than him, her younger sister three years younger than her. This meant when Mike was seventeen and eighteen and dating her sister, she was twelve and thirteen, gorgeous, loving and sweet as all hell.

Then when she hit fifteen she was none of those things. So much so, Mike was away at college and still, coming home, he heard all about it.

Darrin talked to her. Debbie yelled at her and got in her face. Her parents had quiet words. And Darrin even asked Mike to speak to her. Darrin knew his baby sister adored Mike. It wasn’t a secret. And he hoped, where they all failed, Mike could use the special bond she’d always had with him to break through.

And since they had that bond, he felt it and never lost that feel, he’d taken the time to find her and have a chat. This was a huge fail mostly because he treated her to gentle and open and she’d treated him to a teenaged bitch. It was like she wasn’t the same person. Gone was everything that was her and in its place was a person no one would want to know.

Their confrontation was over two decades ago and Mike still felt the pain from it. At the time he remembered he’d felt stunned at the depth of his reaction. And now, he still felt it like it happened yesterday.

He didn’t get it then, he didn’t get it now.

But over the years the pain had twisted and turned.

Sometimes, it made him contemplative. Wondering what was behind the change. Wondering if something had happened to her. Wondering if he should have tried harder. If they all should have.

Sometimes it just made him angry.

At that moment, he was feeling anger and it was manifesting itself as he sat there knowing she wasn’t going to show for her own brother’s funeral. Her brother who horsed around with her. Teased her until the light shone in her eyes and her smile was so big it looked like it would split open her face. Let her lie on top of him as they watched TV. Sat her in front of him on the tractor when he was out helping his Dad in the fields. Took her to school and, when summer started coming, swung by Fulsham’s Frozen Custard Stand to get her a cone before they headed home.

Oh yeah, he was angry.

Pastor Knox started speaking and Mike stopped scanning and looked to the reverend. The man knew Darrin, as did everyone, and his words were heartfelt. Then again, Pastor Knox was a good man. His church had recently suffered a stunning blow when he’d mistakenly hired a youth minister who was the worst kind of con man there was. But even as he dealt privately with his error in judgment, his strength of character was such that he’d hidden his personal pain and managed to guide his flock back to strong ground. And Mike knew why watching him speak about Darrin. His sorrow was obvious for Rhonda and her family’s loss, the loss to the community, the loss to his membership and he didn’t hide it.

Mike listened to Knox’s thoughtful words and he was handing over the podium to Ron Green, Darrin’s best friend since grade school when he sensed movement. He glanced over his shoulder and his body went still.

There she was, leaning against the wall at the back just inside the double doors.

Dusty.

Darrin and Debbie’s little sister.

Jesus, she’d changed again.

Completely.

No grunge. No heavy makeup. No hard look on her face.

She was wearing a tailored denim blazer over a black fitted turtleneck. Her lower half was covered in a full black skirt that hung heavy down to her ankles. Her feet were in black cowboy boots. She had a large, interesting silver and turquoise necklace that showed stark against the black of her turtleneck. Hanging close to the edge of the bottom of the turtleneck that was smoothed over her h*ps was a woven, black leather belt fixed at her hipbone with a silver disk set with turquoise. Black leather strands fell from the disk at her belt down her skirt nearly to her knees. She had long silver hoops set with little balls of turquoise in her ears. He could see more silver peeking from under the blazer at her wrists as well as huge turquoise and silver ring at the base of one of her fingers. She had a large, slouchy black suede purse decorated with fringe hanging from her shoulder. Her nails were tipped with wine colored polish. Her mostly straight but thick blonde hair was shining, healthy and very long, falling down her chest over her br**sts. And she was wearing makeup but it was subtle.

Darrin had told him she’d settled in a small town outside San Antonio and, by the looks of her, she’d absorbed the culture. She looked like a stylish white woman cowgirl who’d been adopted by Native Americans.

Darrin had also told him, not hiding the pride, that she’d done well for herself. Something artsy, pottery or some shit like that. Darrin said she had her own gallery on the River Walk in San Antonio as well as had her stuff in other places throughout Texas, the Southwest and the Rockies. Exclusive galleries, all top-notch. He also told Mike she lived on a ranch and owned horses.