The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7)(38)

The hair tousle turned into a knuckle rub. “Sooner or later, he’ll find out about your grandmother. And just so you know … You can’t cash a check he’s made out to her. Now you go inside while I talk to Bree.”

Bree clenched her hand into a fist. Mike Moody ranked along with her ex-husband, Scott, as someone she’d never wanted to see again. She’d known Mike still lived here, since his face stared out from half a dozen billboards along the island’s main road, but she’d intended to make sure she never ran into him. Yet here he was.

Toby stomped into the cottage. Mike came forward with his big suck-up smile and his hand extended to shake. “You’re looking great, Bree. Beautiful as always.”

She pressed her arms to her sides. “What do you want?”

He let his arm fall but didn’t lose his phony smile. “Not even a ‘hello’?”

“Not even.”

He’d been a smelly, weaselly-eyed fat kid with bad skin and crooked teeth who’d tried unsuccessfully to worm his way into their group of summer kids each year. But the only islander they’d let in was Star. Mike was too loud, too uncool. Everything about him was wrong—his clothes, his snorty laugh, his unfunny jokes. The only one who’d tolerated him had been David.

“I feel sorry for the kid,” David had said after one of her brothers had insulted Mike. “His parents are both drunks. He’s got a lot of problems.”

“We all have problems,” Star had said. “You’re only sticking up for him because you’re kind of an outcast, too.”

Had he been? Bree didn’t remember it that way. From the beginning, David had fascinated them. He was charming, charismatic, good-looking. Raised in poverty in Gary, Indiana, he was attending the University of Michigan on a full scholarship. At twenty, he was the same age as her oldest brother, but David was more worldly. Although she couldn’t remember any of them saying it out loud, they all thought it was cool to hang out with a black kid. Beyond that, there wasn’t one of them who didn’t believe David was destined for great things.

Mike gestured toward her cigarette. “Those coffin nails’ll kill you. You should give that up.”

He was still uncool, but in a different way. The crooked teeth, acne, and extra pounds might be long gone, but he still tried too hard. The scraggly, dirty blond hair of his teenage years had been tamed by an expensive cut, then overtreated with grooming products. His cheap summer wardrobe of ill-fitting shorts and T-shirts had given way to white slacks, a high-end polo shirt, and a belt with a Prada logo, all of it too ostentatious for casual island living, although not as objectionable as his heavy gold-link bracelet and college class ring.

Her cigarette burned close to her fingers. “What’s this about?”

“Toby’s run into some trouble with the new folks next door.”

She tapped the bottom of the filter with her thumb and said nothing.

He jingled the coins in his pocket. “No one seems to have told the new owner that Myra passed, so he thinks she’s still taking care of the place. But turns out Toby’s been doing the job ever since Myra got sick. I didn’t know about it till just now, or I’d have put a stop to it.”

The cigarette burned her fingers. She dropped it and stubbed out the butt with the toe of her sandal. A twelve-year-old trying to do an adult’s job. She should have paid more attention to his disappearances. Something else to make her feel incompetent. “I’ll talk to him.”

She turned away to go into the house.

“Bree, we were kids,” he said from behind her. “Don’t tell me you’re still holding a grudge.”

She kept moving.

“I tried to apologize,” he said. “Did you get my letter?”

She was good at walking away from her own anger. She’d spent ten years doing exactly that. Ten years pretending she didn’t know Scott was a serial cheater. Ten years avoiding a confrontation that would end her marriage. And look where it had gotten her. Exactly nowhere.

She whipped around. “Do you still spy on people, Mike? Are you still the same sneaky rat now that you were then?”

“I had a crush on you,” he said, as if that justified everything. “The older woman.”

A year older. She dug her fingernails into her palms. “So you went to my mother and told her you’d seen David and me together. Great way to get the girl.”

“I thought if the two of you broke up, I’d have a chance.”

“Never in a million years.”

Once again, he dug his hands in his pockets. “I was seventeen, Bree. I can’t change the past. What I did was wrong, and all I can do now is say I’m sorry.”

She and David hadn’t suspected Mike was spying on them that night when they hid in the dunes and made love. Mike had gone to her mother the next day, and Bree had been sent off the island that same afternoon into exile at her horrible Aunt Rebecca’s in Battle Creek. Bree had never come back to the island, not until three weeks ago when she’d gotten word that Myra had died and left Bree responsible for her grandson.

Mike pulled his hands from his pockets. “Let me help you with Toby.”

“I don’t need your help. Leave us alone.”

He rubbed his gold bracelet with his thumb. “I care about the kid.”