“Fuck you, Remi!”
“Fuck you right back, Kimber. You don’t get to lay the blame on me and my dumb ass for your current problems. I take full responsibility for the shit you had to deal with when we were growing up. I am aware that I sucked up all the attention, and not all of it was unintentional. I know that I’m hard to love, that I’m too fucking much. But in case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t lived here in years.”
“What in the hell is going on here?” The flashlight blinded her, and she held up a hand to block the light.
“Gee. Look who shows up to save the day,” Kimber scoffed as Brick kicked the gate shut behind him and stomped toward them in the snow.
“I didn’t call him!” Remi insisted.
“No, but your sister’s next-door neighbor did. Said it sounded as if there was some kind of fight.”
“Oh, just fucking great!” Kimber was too far past the point of no return to stop. “Now the entire island is going to know my business.”
“Why don’t you blame that on me, too,” Remi shot back. The adrenaline was making her chest feel tight. But it was the most alive she’d felt in a while.
“Remington,” Brick threatened.
“If you reach for those zip ties on your belt, I will not be held accountable for my actions,” she warned him.
“Don’t make me use them.”
“Goddamn you! How am I supposed to pretend you don’t exist if you keep showing up?” Remi demanded, shrilly. Between the cold, the yelling, and her generalized fury, she could feel her throat tightening.
“Because you always need him. You always need someone to bail you out,” Kimber shot back.
Remi’s gasp was more of a wheeze.
“You know better than to get her riled like this,” Brick snapped at Kimber. “Where’s your inhaler?”
“Fuck you, Brick,” the sisters shouted together.
“If you two don’t knock it the hell off right now, I swear to God I will take you both down to the station and call your mother.”
It was the wrong move for him to make. Sisters divided were still sisters. And he’d just united them against a common enemy.
Remi picked up a fistful of snow.
“Don’t even think about it,” he growled as she formed it into a ball.
“I am not happy,” Chief Darlene Ford announced through the bars of the holding cell. She was wearing pink bunny fleece pajama pants and a Mackinac Police parka.
“Hi, Mom,” Remi and Kimber said innocently.
“Zip ties, Sergeant?” Darlene observed.
“I hit him with a snowball and tried to kick him in the balls,” Remi said cheerfully.
“I kicked him in the shin,” Kimber announced.
Darlene blinked, then sighed. “Let ’em out, Brick.”
“Only if you promise not to murder them,” he said. “I don’t want to deal with the paperwork.”
Remi watched her mom accept the keys from Brick. “You two are grounded.”
Kimber snorted. “I don’t think you can do that.”
“Yeah. We’re adults,” Remi agreed.
“Well, one of us is,” her sister said snidely.
“You wanna go again, Kimber?”
“That answers the zip-tie question,” their mother observed. “Cut ’em loose.”
Minutes later, they were bundled up and booted out onto the street to face the wrath of their bunny pajamaed mother.
“I’m not going to ask what this was about,” Darlene began. “Because frankly, I don’t give a shit. You’re both obviously going through something bad enough to get zip-tied and dragged downtown. By the way, Kimber, the kids are fine. Mrs. Croix let them have ice cream and watch an episode of Schitt’s Creek before putting them back to bed.”
“Great. I’ll never hear the end of this,” Kimber muttered under her breath.
“Enough.” Darlene’s voice cracked like a whip in the stillness. “If you have problems in your marriage, they sure as hell aren’t your sister’s fault. And you,” she said, pointing at Remi. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you. But you’d better get your head out of your ass and figure it out. We’re your parents. We love you both. But you two are fucking adults and you need to start solving your own problems. Not blaming them on someone else or running away from them.”
With that, she turned on heel and stalked off to the snowmobile parked on the street.
It was a long, cold, lonely walk back to Red Gate. Glumly, Remi glanced around the living space. There was no one here to talk to. Not that she needed to talk. Not that she needed the attention. She winced and dragged her hat off.
Was that it? Did she require so much attention just to exist that she eclipsed other people? People she cared about? Was that why Audrey had seemingly floated out of her life only to marry the one man Remi loved?
She needed a drink.
Her phone vibrated in her hand, and she glanced at the screen.
Brick: Need to talk to you.
There was no way in hell she was having a conversation with him right now. That would only reinforce every accusation Kimber had thrown in her face.
Another text came through.
Brick: Answer your phone or I’m coming over.
Ha! The gall of the man.
When the phone rang a second later, she ignored it. The same with the second call, too. To ensure she didn’t cave, she silenced the phone and headed into the bathroom.
“I’ll just drown myself in a nice hot shower,” she decided, turning the faucet to scalding. She cued up a playlist and blasted Queen’s “Someone to Love” through the speaker on the vanity counter. Stripping out of her clothes, she piled her hair on top of her head and slipped beneath the water.
The steam rose toward the ceiling as hues of red and orange shifted like clouds with the beat of the music. She closed her eyes and pretended not to hear the distant pounding on her front door. He’d give up and go away. Brick wasn’t the kind of man to cross any lines or disrespect a boundary. At least not where she was concerned. The rules mattered more to him than the reward for breaking them.
She held her face under the stream of hot water and pretended she was under the surface where everything was quiet, where she could scream and no one would hear.
The music cut off abruptly. “Damn it!” She drew back the curtain and froze. The opening note of a shriek climbed her throat, ending in a squeak.
For one split second, she thought it was him. The shadow that haunted her. The slicked-up charm that was only a veneer. And it froze her to the spot.
“Remi.”
Legs braced, arms crossed over his monumental chest, Brick Callan took up all the space in the room. He was still in uniform, still looking as if he wanted to throttle her.
“Did you break down my door?” she demanded, yanking the curtain closed. A flimsy barrier between them. She closed her eyes and willed her pulse to slow. He was so quiet on the other side of his many walls.
Finally, she heard a jingle and looked up. He was holding a keyring over the curtain rod.