The Right Kind of Trouble by Shiloh Walker

focused her attention on Gideon. Sparks fired from her pale green eyes, and they might have shot straight into his blood. He was on fire now. On fire and burning … for her. Just like always.
    She jabbed him in the chest. “Why don’t you yank that stick out of your ass?” she rasped.
    â€œStop.” He caught her wrist. “I’m on duty and I’m not going to listen to your temper or your tantrums.”
    â€œMy…” Her brows shot up almost to her hairline. “You son of a…”
    She jerked her hand away, or tried.
    â€œNeil.” He shot him a look. “Get lost.”
    â€œListen here, Chief.” Neil coughed and shuffled his feet. “You realize Moira and I aren’t really planning to cut up some miserable son of a bitch. He needs a lesson and all, but we wouldn’t do that, would we, Moira?”
    Moira bared her teeth up at Gideon.
    â€œI hear you and understand, Neil.” He didn’t look at the other man. “Now, go deal with your crew. I appreciate them getting out here so promptly.”
    Moira jerked on her wrist again, and this time he let go.
    She stumbled back half a pace and he reached up to steady her, but she smacked at his arms.
    â€œWhat the hell is your problem?”
    Her eyes, hot now, glittered up at him. “Don’t touch me!”
    Then she gasped and pressed a hand to her throat.
    â€œWould you stop tearing your throat up so much?” Exasperated, he gestured to the house. “Go inside. Let Ella Sue make you a hot toddy or something. She sure as hell makes them strong enough.”
    Maybe it will calm you down . He thought it. He didn’t say it.
    But it must have shown on his face anyway.
    â€œMaybe I don’t want to go inside!” She shoved up onto her toes, pushing her face into his. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Gideon Marshall. Hell, you are leaving, remember?”
    Then she spun around and flounced off.
    Nobody could pull off a flounce quite like Moira McKay.

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    There are few certainties in life.
    The sun will rise.
    The sun will set.
    Everybody dies.
    Money speaks.
    Friends will abandon you.
    Family will always stand beside you.
    The McKays will destroy everything that matters.
    He’d grown up hearing those very truths. Even as his father lie dying, the cancer eating him from the inside out, he’d heard that truth.
    They stole it all, boy. I’ve done what I can, but nobody listens to a sick old man. I have no voice. Money is the voice and they have it. I don’t.
    He knew those truths and he kept them close.
    Kept them and worked hard.
    Years had passed since the day his father was lowered into the earth, raining drenching him from the outside in as he stood alone by the grave.
    There wasn’t anybody else. It had been just his father and him.
    Now it was just him.
    Him and the knowledge that the McKays had taken everything from his family. Not just once, but time and time again.
    He’d been nudged out of the classes he wanted over a sodding McKay—Moira McKay, the elegant, icy queen had swept into the college where he’d been holding on with a wish and a prayer. Only a day after he’d been told he would most likely be able to get into the class he needed to finish out his major a year early, he’d been notified there wasn’t any room left.
    And who did he discover was a late enrollee?
    Moira McKay.
    A few years later, he’d been working in the French Quarter in New Orleans—learning, always learning what he needed to accomplish his end goals—and there she’d been, this time with her younger brother in tow. On a buying trip, she’d hardly said two words to him and later, he’d walked into the pub where his girlfriend worked and discovered said girlfriend all but wrapped around Brannon McKay.
    She’d all but thrown her knickers in that boy’s face. He hadn’t been much more than