Karma by Phillips Carly Page A

him?” She stared at him, her expression hard. “Well? Which one was it?”
    He swallowed over the lump in his throat. “A combination of all three. After they got past the fact that a strange man had answered your phone and how would that look to their friends here. I explained that I was a local cop as well as a friend who was just here looking out for you until you could take care of yourself.”
    Liza blew out a long stream of air. “You shouldn’t have wasted your breath. They don’t care about me.”
    Though he wished he could argue, his quick talk with her parents merely confirmed what she thought. Which really made him sick. They hadn’t asked about Liza or hercondition. Their only concern was for Brian or, more accurately, Brian’s behavior and how it reflected on them.
    “You really stepped into a lot more than you bargained for by helping me.”
    “Why? Because your family is as dysfunctional as mine?” He shook his head, amazed that she really couldn’t see it. “You do know the infamous Barron family history, right?”
    “I know your parents died in a car accident,” she said softly. “But I’d switched schools by then and Brian started getting into real trouble…so not really.”
    “Are you sure you want to hear it? It’s a long story.”
    She smiled. “I have nowhere else to be and you volunteered to hang out here, so you might as well make yourself comfortable,” she said, laughing.
    The sound settled inside him. He preferred this lighter, warm version of Liza. “Is the pill kicking in?” he asked.
    “Mmm-hmm.” She patted the space beside her. “So come tell me a story.”
    He grinned and accepted the invitation, easing back into bed. To his surprise, she curled into the crook of his arm, resting her head on his chest. Man, that pill vanquished her inhibitions, he thought, his every breath filled with the scent of her shampoo. He was hard and aching. He wanted her badly.
    Good thing he knew just how to take the edge off that particular problem. “My family was a mess even before I knew they were,” he admitted. Yeah, that took the edge off his desire, all right.
    Until he felt her easy breathing against his chest.
    “Keep going,” she murmured. “It takes my mind off the pain.”
    “Well, it turns out my dad was having an affair with his assistant. I didn’t know. I’m not sure my brothers knew. We just knew it wasn’t always happy around the house. Ethan stayed out more and more and got into trouble. One night when I was fifteen, he was arrested for joy riding. My parentswent to bail him out and they were killed by a drunk driver.”
    She sucked in a breath. “I’m so sorry.”
    “It’s been a long time,” he assured her. Yet the pain accompanying those words never went away. “Ethan was eighteen. Nash and I thought he’d take care of us, but…” Dare shook his head, still unable to believe what happened next. “He took off without a word.”
    “God.”
    He found comfort in her presence and began to run his hand up and down her arm, her bare skin soft to the touch. “We ended up in the foster care system. Nash went to the Rossmans.”
    “I don’t think I really knew this,” she murmured.
    “You’d have been away at school by then.”
    “Stuart Rossman’s parents?”
    “That’s them.”
    “You didn’t go with him?”
    He shook his head. “It’s a long story.” And one he wouldn’t get into now, since ultimately it involved the night her brother threw the party and the punch that killed the couple’s son. He had no desire to get into a discussion over her brother or that part of his past. “It wasn’t the right place for me, so I ended up with the Garcias on the other side of town.”
    She struggled to sit up but Dare held her in place. He didn’t want her looking into his eyes and seeing his pain, his guilt, or anything else. “You need to rest, so keep still and relax,” he said.
    Liza immediately snuggled back into him. “Was it bad?”