Nicole Young - Kiss Me If You Dare

She smiled. “Tish. Come on. There’s no time for games. Get your things packed so we can get you out of here.” I jerked the weapon. She stopped a few feet from the bed.

“I’m not going anywhere until I talk to my dad.”

She leaned on one foot, and casually crossed her arms. “What really convinced me I was wrong about Brad,” she said, “was the way he reacted that day I helped you get into his room.”

I sighed in disgust at the memory. “He threw me out. I think he’s done with me.”

“Austin had a crew of doctors and a physical therapist there for him the next day.” She lifted her eyebrows. “I think you changed his mind about cashing in his chips.”

I sucked in a breath. Brad wanted to live? The pistol in my hand wavered and lowered a notch.

Candice took a step toward me.

I yanked the gun to the level of her eyes. “Hold still.” She put her hands up in mock surrender.

I jabbed the weapon in her direction. “I want you to see something. It’s in my suitcase over there.”

She nodded. I could tell her mind was churning, trying to keep one step ahead of me. She slowly walked around the end of the bed.

“In that envelope.” I pointed with the gun, swinging it back toward her.

“Okay.” She slowly bent to pick up the envelope.

As her head lowered, I took a step closer and cracked the butt of the handgun across the back of her skull. The blow made a sickening thunk. She didn’t go down right away, just hovered a moment before collapsing face-first into my suitcase.

I gasped and fought the roiling of my stomach.

Tucking the pistol into my purse, I raced out of the hotel room to the lobby. I blew past the innkeeper and out the front door, cutting across the parking lot toward the residential area behind the town center. If I remembered right, Osprey Avenue was a block past Gull on the way to the mess hall. I tore between houses, feeling foolish as I caught the startled look on a face in one window. Snow piled into my boots. Back on the street once more,

I angled up Osprey, searching for the address numbers from the phone book. A group of children playing in a front yard stopped to stare at the woman sprinting through their quiet town.

I found the single-story home with its WELCOME TO THE JAMISON HOUSE sign on the door. I hammered with my fist, the sign thumping along with me.

I stopped to listen. Footsteps came to the door. I waited, sensing hesitation on the other side. A smile on my face, I tried to catch my breath. The knob turned and the door opened. I adjusted my eyes down to the height of a girl around ten years old. Dark hair, brown eyes, and the mouth, nose and eyebrows of Monique. Another sister.

“Hi,” she said, hiding half behind the door.

“Hi.” I stared at her. If she was ten, I would have been twenty-three when she was born. I’d been sitting in a jail cell on the day of her birth. “Think I could come in?”

“You’re that person, aren’t you?” Her eyes were huge as she studied every inch of me. “The one Dad said might come around some day?”

They knew about me? I looked both ways up the street, getting that horrible feeling that someone besides kids in snowsuits could be watching. “Is your dad here?”

She shook her head.

“Is your mom?”

She shook it again, no closer to granting me entry.

“Hey.” A girl’s voice came from behind her. “Let her in.”

The ten-year-old stepped back, swinging the door with her. Monique stood in the center of the living room as I made my way inside.

“Thank you.”

The door closed behind me.

“Let me take your things,” Monique said, eyes somehow hopeful.

I shook my head. “No, I can’t stay.”

“Then please sit down. Can I get you something from the kitchen?” Her voice was gracious. Her manners impeccable. I stepped out of my boots and walked to the sofa, considering whether or not I could eat with my stomach twisted in a knot. “No, thank you, I don’t care for anything right now.” I sat. My fingers fidgeted with the bottom zipper on my parka as I thought about what to say next.

The two girls sank onto the love seat opposite me, fingers busy as well.

“So,” I said, breaking the ice, “you guys seem to know something about me.” I figured since I was the eldest sister, I’d better be the one in charge.

The two girls looked at each other.

The older Monique spoke first. “Dad said he had a child with a woman a long time ago. He said you might find him someday.”

I nodded, too choked up to speak.

Meagan perked up. “He said if you found him, that was a bad thing, because that meant other people might find him too.”

I put a hand over my mouth. A bad thing. He’d told them I was a bad thing. Tears welled up. Why was I doing this to myself?

At any rate, Candice had been right. I was the mouse that led the assassin to the cheese. By coming here, I’d not only endangered my father but his new family as well. Why couldn’t I have just minded my own business? Settled down with Brad and had a family of my own? Let my dad have his life, wherever he was, and be content with living mine?

I sighed and cradled my head in my hands. That would have been impossible for me. It simply went against my nature to live an uncomplicated existence. I seemed to thrive on theatrics and chaos.

I looked at my sisters, who seemed a little freaked out. “Okay,” I said. “Here I am. I found you. And Dad was right. That’s a bad thing.”

“Wh… why is it so bad?” Meagan wanted to know.

No sense sparing any details. “When Dad was younger, he got mixed up with a big drug dealer, but Dad did the right thing and turned him in. Problem was, the guy wanted to get back at Dad for tattling and has been looking for him for the past, I don’t know,” I threw my hands up at a loss, “twenty-something years.”

Monique jumped in. “So they watched you, waiting for the day you’d lead them to Dad.”

“Bingo,” I said.

“Didn’t you know any better?” sweet little Meagan asked. “Didn’t you know you should stay away from him?”

I tried to control the black cloud that edged into my mind. “All I knew is, I had a dad out there somewhere who pretty much left me alone since I was born. I figured he was dead. But sometimes I thought he was still in trouble, doing drugs somewhere, wasting his life. Then,” my teeth gritted, “I end up in Churchill Falls for an entirely unrelated reason, and I keep running into this guy who gets sick every time he sees me.” I nodded my head at Monique. “And I meet a teenager who could be my sister. The pieces fall into place and I realize I found my father.” I gave Meagan a pair of don’t-mess-with-me eyeballs. “Yes, I’m going to come see him. I want to know why he left me alone and then went on to have some whole new family.”

The room was quiet as I finished my tirade.

“Are you mad at us?” Meagan asked.

Monique poked her on the thigh.

I sat back on the couch, looking at the two of them. “Yeah. I was pretty mad at first. But how could I stay angry when I realized that Dad’s new daughters are also my sisters? I always wanted a sister. And now I have two.”

“Three, really,” Monique said. “Mallory’s away at college.” I tapped at my lips with a finger to keep a bellow from escaping. After a moment I asked, “And how old is Mallory?”

Meagan answered. “She’s twenty-two. She graduates this year.”

I pursed my lips and nodded. Dad’s big do-over raising daughters seemed to be going pretty well. His firstborn didn’t make it past her sophomore year at Michigan State University, but the eldest in his next batch was getting her degree this spring. Couldn’t ask for better than that.