Page 15 of The Secrets She Keeps

Oh, her brother really needed to work on his people skills. It was time she found her mother, and they came up with a Dealing-with-Mac plan. Again.

Mac was a constant work in progress.

“And if your brother doesn’t get the message, Ilook forwardto giving it to him myself.” Heather’s face told Powell exactly what that would mean. Powell winced.

She had seen Heather’s niece Zoey look just like that before.

The results hadnotbeen pretty.

Still, Mac probably deserved it.

When Heather and her older niece were gone, Cara turned toward her. “Heather is really, really mad at Mac right now. She didn’t want me to come in at all today. She wanted me to stay home with her and Hope. Since Heather got suspended and everything. But Mom said I have to work my two weeks' notice. Because that is how other people quit jobs and everything. So we voted. But Heather was afraid your brother would try to manipulate me or something. I told her I can take care of myself.”

But Heather was probably correct. Mac was a master strategist. He’d see Cara as an “in.” No denying that. Well, Powell was trying to convince Cara not to quit. Mac wasn’t going to make that difficult. “Just stay with me. Mac is afraid of me. I’ll keep him away from you, no matter what.”

“I think you were probably a Coleson in another life.” Cara just blinked at her. “If I believed in that kind of thing. Can we go inside? I want to get to the conference room and find my assignment today.”

“Why the rush?” They usually spent a few minutes chatting when Cara first got there.

“Alex is watching me from the window right now.”

“Is he?” Powell turned. Her older brother was in their mother’s window. Watching them. Powell barely resisted throwing him a rude gesture. Her mother was right there next to him—Powell had to behave, after all. That example thing. Rude gestures—her mother would still try to ground her if Powell did that.

“He does that a lot, you know. Watches me now.”

That was something Powelldidnot know.

How completely intriguing. All thoughts of Mac and Heather, the cluster that was Zoey and Heather’s family, and even thoughts of Brianna were pushed aside.

Powell really thought she needed a road map sometimes.

And her brothers—they needed keepers. They both did. Powell just didn’t have the time tokeepthose two under control any longer.

10

Sometimes,he couldn’t stop himself. Timothy knew living in Hughes Heights was a damned stupid thing for him to do. Buthehad lived there for more than eighteen years now. He wasn’t going to give up the home he had worked his entire life to have because of the neighbors he didn’t want. The neighborhood was plenty big enough for all of them.

And it allowed him to keep a better eye on them. They needed that, and it was his responsibility. He had never lost sight of that fact.

Especially after what had happened to them before.

Sometimes, he found himself compelled to drive by there. To catch a glimpse of them all. Occasionally, he did.

They broke his heart to see sometimes. How much they resembled their mother.Shehad been the only woman in the world he had ever loved. He had taken one look at her that first day and just fallen. They had grown up in the same small town, yes, but he had been nine years older. He had known her father, considered him a real mentor—losing him hadhurt.But it had been the man’s daughter who had captured Timothy, heart and soul, back then. He had barely cared that she had existed at first.Until she had walked into the class he was helping teach that day and Timothy just fell.

So damned fast.

He still missed her to this day. No other woman had come close to replacing her in his heart. And never would.

She had definitely been an advantageous match for him too. But it hadn’t been like that for him—he had loved her.

And the three children they had created together.

When his wife had looked at him and smiled, he had felt like he could do no wrong.

Grief for her was still so strong. When he contemplated that he was getting older. That he felt so alone at times. He idled at the stop sign.

“Daddy, are we there yet?”

---