Page 1 of Tempting Gabe
Chapter 1
Her brother, Maddox, had her mother's ring and she wanted it back. The will left it to her. It was all she had left now. Megan Murdock brushed her dark brown hair behind her ears and straightened her shoulders that slumped from the weight of her large, heavy pocketbook. She closed her eyes, swayed on her feet as the palm trees swayed in the wind behind her. Lawyers hadn't helped her get the one thing she wanted to keep, forever.
Once she felt stable, she was ready.
She knocked on the door and crossed her arms. A few seconds later, her brother's voice pierced the air. "Megan, go away."
Normal people didn't talk to siblings through the intercom. She glanced at the door and wondered where the camera was while she crossed her arms. "I want Mom's ring, Maddox."
"I'll send it in the mail."
No. She refused to lose another day. Her mother had left everything to her brother, except the ring. On her hospital bed, their mother had said Megan was capable of taking care of herself. She had always wished her mother saw more than raw strength, but the promised ring meant she at least left her something personal that she had worn every day of her life. It had to mean she saw more in her. Megan knocked on his door again. "You haven't in the past month. I'm here to collect it."
"Go."
Her face felt hot as the hottest day in South Florida where the air itself felt like hot soup that covered the skin. Soon, she'd lose her cool. She pressed her feet into the cement ground through her high heels. "Open the door and give it to me. I'm tired of waiting."
"Are you alone?"
"Clearly." She turned so he could see beyond her and onto the street. This was insane, but again it seemed so was her brother, after the war. She pressed her hand to her temple. Somehow she had to get through to him. He needed help. She softened her voice. "Maddox, let me in."
"Okay fine." The jingle and click of metal knobs told her that her brother was working on his half a dozen locks. The door opened to darkness, but then she saw the brown eyes that almost glowed from the sun beaming in the door. He wiggled his finger and indicated that she should come in.
To get the ring, she followed. The second she was inside, he locked all six of his door locks. Once done, he pointed her toward the living room and a gray couch that had seen better decades. "Wait here and I'll find the ring."
"Thanks." She brushed the goosebumps off her bare arms and stared at the mess in the room. Maddox had papers everywhere and the dust that came from her just walking in told her that he hadn't cleaned in years.
He stormed down the hall and left her there. She refused to even touch that couch and moved toward the closest pile of papers.
The same man's face was on the first half a dozen articles. She peered closer and read Gable Hawke. Her mind clicked that the Hawke name had something to do with computers, but she wasn't a techie like her last boyfriend. Neither was her brother, for that matter. She walked toward a different pile but stopped when she coughed on dust.
At least her brother had made an appearance at the funeral, though he had only stayed for a half an hour and had jittered the entire time. Before he served overseas, Maddox never sent chills throughout her body.
She called out, "Mom would have been happy you came."
"I was always a disappointment."
Bored, she glanced at the papers on the coffee table. Again Gable Hawke's name was highlighted, as was information about his family. He had two sisters and it seemed his parents were close to dying from an assassination attempt. Her brother doodled stars all over the news clipping. The back of her neck grew cold. "Did you find the ring?"
"Almost."
Good. She needed to go. Then she opened the red folder next to the news articles. The folder was like one of the ones they had used in school years ago, but inside she saw his handwriting and a print-out of an almost dead couple. Her stomach churned as she picked it up and read closer. She stared so hard at the papers until the words blurred into black pools. This letter with her brother’s name on it couldn’t say that her brother had murdered the couple on their way to help at a soup kitchen.
No. This wasn’t possible. Maddox wasn’t that bad. He could have written a confession note for a number of reasons, right?
Beads of sweat grew on her forehead.
In her handsshe held her brother's assassination plans. The drawings showed where he intended to stand, where the old couple went to buy Christmas presents and their route to deliver them to needy children at a shelter. Everything clicked in her head at once. The news article had said Mr. and Mrs. Hawke were hospitalized and in comas from gunshots near a homeless shelter and soup kitchen. Her heart raced.
Her brother had tried to murder innocent people. Her hands curled on the folder. All those years as a sniper in the Marines could mean he was interested in the murder that his expertise written all over it. She stuffed it in her pocketbook and then wiped her sweaty palms on her yellow sundress. Perhaps outside, she'd read this differently, but right now her breaths became shorter. She edged to the door.
Something fell in the other room and it felt like her heart might stop. She called out, "She'd want you to see a doctor regularly, Maddox."
"Doctors can't help me."
Despite how she shivered inside, she remembered how she’d promised their mother she'd do what she could for Maddox. She licked her cold lips. "Is there anyone that can?"
"I think I put the ring in here. Give me a moment."
