Tara Quinn - Once a Family

He noticed her nails were painted red. Tatum wouldn’t wear red. She said it was for old ladies.

“I’m Callie Harcourt,” the woman said. Del’s mom. “Please come in. I’ve been anxious to meet you, but every time I asked, Tatum said you were working. You’re a very busy man.”

Any invitations to this home were news to him. “I’m a farmer,” he said, which, to him, explained everything. “But I usually make time to attend Tatum’s functions,” he added. He wasn’t perfect. But he tried.

“We’ve had a couple of barbecues,” the woman said, ushering him into a bright hallway with cathedral ceilings before leading the way to a great room with tile floors and voluptuous plush beige furniture that looked as if a guy could relax back into it and drink a beer if he had a mind to.

The art on the walls and various tables reminded him of some of the pieces out in his barn. Except these were in exquisite condition, hardly resembling his dusty and scarred versions.

“Tatum says you’re in the old Beacham place,” Callie Malone said, crossing over to what appeared to be a wet bar on the far side of the room.

“That’s right.” Tanner stood his ground about midroom. Ready to take on whatever came his way over the next few minutes.

He wasn’t made of money, but he was as powerful as the next guy when it came to protecting his own.

Callie stood with one arm on the bar. “The Beachams were friends of my parents. I can remember attending summer parties there as a kid. Those barns were fascinating.”

“I’m told they raised horses.”

“Arabians.” Callie nodded. “So sad, the way he died. She just let the place fall into disrepair after that. I’m told she’s in a home someplace up north.”

As Tanner understood it, Walter Beacham had died at the hands of a drunk driver. And his wife had given up on life. They’d never had any children. She had no other family to help out.

Tanner had picked up the property when it went into foreclosure. Just happened to get a bid in during the fifteen-day period that had been restricted to owner-occupied bids before the place was offered to investors.

That had been eight years ago and he and Tatum had been occupying it ever since.

Another two years and his vineyards would finally start to show enough profit for them to start fixing up the property the way he’d envisioned when he’d first seen it.

And his winery would stand in place of those old barns....

“Can I get you a drink?” Callie asked, stepping behind the bar. “Whiskey? Or some wine?”

“No, thank you,” he said. Alcohol was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

And other than wine, he didn’t drink, anyway. None of the Malone children did.

“I’ve come for my sister,” he said now. “It’s time for dinner and she has homework to finish before school tomorrow.”

They could do this the easy way. If everyone cooperated.

Tanner realized that it was possible the Harcourt adults didn’t know that Del had been warned to stay away from Tanner’s little sister. Didn’t know that their son was not only dealing and doing drugs, but was trying to pressure Tatum into doing the same. And into sleeping with him, too.

Callie’s frown was his first warning that things weren’t going to be easy. “Tatum? But...she’s not here, Mr. Malone―”

“The name’s Tanner,” he interrupted, more curtly than was called for. If the Harcourts thought their friends in high places were going to intimidate him—as Del had asserted when Tanner had thrown the punk out of his house two days before—if they thought their money was going to make it possible for them to take his sister away from him, they had another think coming.

He’d been raising Tatum on his own for ten years. He wasn’t about to lose her now. Another three years and they’d be there. Just three more years. She’d be eighteen. Legal age of consent.

Then he could set her free—a healthy, well-adjusted, well-educated adult Malone.

A well-loved Malone.

He swallowed. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Mrs. Harcourt,” he started again, his hands at his sides as he stood tall and straightened his shoulders. He couldn’t do anything about the stained jeans he’d had on in the vineyard all day, or the equally stained button-up white-and-blue-striped shirt turned up at the cuffs. “But I assume your son is at home?”

Tatum had rattled on and on about the perfect Harcourt home, the normal, perfect family Del had. Including the way they ate dinner together every night, at the same time, with no television on. Just Del and his parents, talking about their day....

“Yes, Del’s upstairs doing his homework,” Callie said, coming out from behind the bar, her pretty, perfectly made-up features marred with a frown.

Looking at the woman he saw more of his little sister than he liked. It was as though Tatum was modeling herself after this woman. As if he was not only dealing with puppy love, but a case of heroine worship thrown in, as well.

Distracted for a second at the realization, he wasn’t about to let on.

“Can you call him down here, please?” he asked, as though he was the president of the United States addressing Congress.

“Of course.”

The soft click of Callie’s pumps on the shiny wood floor as she left the room was followed by her voice in the distance, calling for her son.

Tanner waited for the second call. For the sound of the woman’s footsteps on the stairs as she made a climb similar to the one Tanner had made a mere half hour before. Waited for her to realize that her son wasn’t home, either. The punk had taken Tanner’s youngest sister someplace and he wanted her back.

“Yeah?” The male voice that sounded at the top of the stairs held none of the respect Tanner had heard two mornings before when the asshole had tried to convince him that he loved his sister and would never do anything to hurt her. It was Del. He recognized the voice. Not the tone.

It was as if the kid was speaking to someone beneath him. A servant.

Or a woman?

“I’d like you to come down, please.”

“I’m busy.”

Did he talk to Tatum that way, too?

“Del, do I have to call your father?”

A door slammed. Tanner heard tennis shoes on the stairs. “I’m here, now what?”

“Come into the living room, please.” Callie’s voice lowered, as though she didn’t want Tanner to hear what she was saying. Or how she was saying it?

“What for?”

Just then another door opened, somewhere deeper in the house. “Your father’s home.” Callie’s voice took on strength.

And before anything else could happen, Del, dressed in tight-fitting jeans, a surfer shirt and expensive-looking rubber-soled sports shoes, entered the room.

“Mr. Malone? What are you doing here?” The boy’s tone of voice changed again. Back to two mornings before. Like the asshole didn’t know Tanner had heard him addressing his mother?

“He’s looking for Tatum, Del. Do you know where she is?”

“No.” The boy’s chin lifted.

“I don’t believe you.” Tanner didn’t bother with niceties.

Callie glanced from Tanner to her son. “Del? Do you know something you aren’t telling us?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know where she is,” Del insisted. Shrugging his shoulders he shoved his hands in his pockets, the blue ends of his blond hair giving him an air of otherworldliness that set Tanner’s already stressed nerve endings on edge.

“Where who is?” The quiet, deep voice belonged to the tall guy in the suit who just entered the room.

“Mr. Harcourt?” Tanner assumed the financier’s identity.

“That’s right.”

“I’m looking for my sister. I have good reason to believe that your son knows where she is. She’s only fifteen, it’s a school night and she belongs at home.”