Facing West (Forever Wilde 1)

I felt my jaw tighten again and knew I was running out of energy to keep up a brave face.

“I think I’m going to skip family dinner after all,” I told Hudson.

A heavy arm landed on my shoulders as he pulled me in close. “Nope. C’mon. I promised I’d bring you. Grandpa and Doc will skin me alive if I show up empty-handed. Let’s go. You can cry your eyes out on the way there if you want. I promise I’ll pretend not to notice.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, following him out to his vehicle.

And damned if Hudson didn’t keep his promise, as always.

Chapter 5

Nico

I didn’t get very far through town before I remembered I was a fucking adult and not a petulant young teen who could just run away from his problems. Plus I’d be damned if I was going to confirm that asshole doctor’s assumption that I was good-for-nothing.

After pulling into the parking lot of the town park only a few blocks down the road, I turned off the engine and lay my head down on the steering wheel. How did I see this playing out? What were my options?

Adriana’s baby girl, Pippa, was alone. Why? Where was my mother? I hadn’t had a chance to ask many questions of the attorney before I’d been thrown into the deep end of meeting the people who’d been caring for my niece. And, honestly, I was almost afraid to ask. If my mother was dead too, I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle the news.

A sharp rap sounded on the driver’s side window, causing me to jump in my seat. I turned to see a uniformed officer glaring at me through the window, so I lowered it and looked up at him.

“See some ID, sir,” the officer said in a clipped tone. He kept his reflective shades over his eyes so I couldn’t see much of what he looked like other than having buzzed hair and being muscled to within an inch of his life. Gym rat, no doubt.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“Seems you’re loitering. ID please.”

“But I only parked here like three minutes ago,” I muttered, reaching for my wallet in my back pocket. Had I not been so mentally exhausted from the events of the day, I would have gotten mouthy with this small-town, piece-of-shit cop.

I handed the officer my license and the rental car paperwork before noticing the name tag on his uniform.

Billingham.

“Are you by any chance related to Sheriff Billingham?” I asked, trying to see behind his shades without success.

“I’m his son. Curtis.”

Curtis. As in bully-from-hell Curt Billingham.

“Curt?” I asked. “It’s Nico.”

“I know who you are.”

Uh-oh. That did not sound friendly. Which shouldn’t have surprised me, really. The kid had always been a jerk to me, especially after our parents started dating. He’d always thought he was better than I was.

“Then you know I’m in town for Adriana’s funeral,” I said, refusing to let the asshat intimidate me in his big, important, police officer’s getup. “I just pulled over to get my bearings before heading back to her house.” Okay, so that was a lie, but still. It was none of his business.

“You need to move along,” he said stiffly, extending my license back to me between two beefy fingers. “No one wants you loitering, Salerno.” The way he said my last name was like there was a poisonous, furry caterpillar on his tongue.

“Whatever,” I mumbled, reaching out for my ID. He pulled it back as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

“What did you just say to me?”

“I said, ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’” I glared at him as I spat the words in his direction. This entire scenario reminded me of one of the reasons I’d sworn never to come back to this shit town to begin with. I hadn’t even been in town for two hours, and it was already suffocating me. The whole thing was like a scene out of a cheesy movie.

Curt flicked my ID with his thumbnail, and it sailed past my face to land on the floor of the passenger footwell. I took a deep breath and looked straight ahead, chanting to myself to leave it alone. I knew better than to pick a fight with someone wearing a badge no matter how much of a snotty-assed punk he was.

I turned the engine over and reversed slowly out of the parking spot before making my way out of the lot.

The sooner I got my sister’s affairs in order, the sooner I could leave Hobie for good.

Again.

By the time I pulled back down the familiar driveway, I’d stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things to tide me over until the following day. I hadn’t known what to buy for the baby, so I hoped the woman who’d been caring for her had whatever she needed.