“Are you going to stay here, Adam?”
Clay kicked her foot.
“I’ll leave you guys and stay at my place, now that I know it’s safe.”
“Why’d you come back here?” Clay stood up and grabbed his gun from the counter.
Adam’s gaze tracked Clay’s weapon into his hand. “Honestly, just to get my drugs. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“I didn’t mean this time. I meant why’d you come back here when you knew Jimmy was looking for you?”
“I knew it was empty. I figured he’d try my place first or Kenzie’s, so I wasn’t going to go back there. Just needed a quick place to crash.”
“And get high.” Clay jabbed his finger at Adam. “You need to get clean, get your act together. April’s not going to be bailing you out anymore. She doesn’t owe you a damned thing.”
April pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. Of course she owed Adam. She owed him for being her parents’ favorite. She owed him for inheriting all of their mother’s assets. She owed him because he’d been the one to find Mom murdered on the kitchen floor while she’d been off at school enjoying herself.
“Kenzie’s thinking about going into rehab. I might join her.” Adam tossed his empty bottle in the trash. “This just might be rock bottom for me.”
“Did you drive my car back? Where did you park that you didn’t realize someone was here? Clay’s truck is in my parking space.”
“I didn’t want to advertise my presence.” Adam jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I parked down the block. Can I take your car to Kenzie’s? You can pick it up tomorrow morning, but I will need my allowance a little early.”
“Allowance?” Clay’s eyebrows snapped together.
April ran her hand along the corded muscles in Clay’s forearm. “Take the car, and we’ll pick it up tomorrow morning. Leave me Kenzie’s address because I have no idea where she lives, and she hasn’t been answering my calls to your phone.”
“Good girl. She probably turned it off so Jimmy couldn’t track me.” Adam pulled open a kitchen drawer and grabbed a pen and a sticky note. “I’ll write her address here, and I’ll leave the car on the street in front of her apartment building. You can pick it up tomorrow morning.”
“That’ll work.” She peeled the sticky paper from Adam’s proffered finger. “And Clay’s right. The two of you need to get clean. Stop associating with people like Jimmy.”
Adam formed his fingers into a gun and pointed it at her. “Got it. Think allowance.”
April cranked her head around the apartment. “Do you have anything else here?”
“No, unless you were kidding about those drugs.” Adam raised his eyebrows at Clay, who scowled at him.
“I guess that’s it, then.” Adam skirted the counter and pulled April into a one-armed hug. “Take care. Let me know if you want me to pack up this place and get you moved out.”
“You, too.” April’s nose stung. She couldn’t help it. Adam would always be her little brother, a little lost and confused from the start.
He backed out of the apartment, jingling the car keys. “I’ll leave these tucked in the visor in case we’re not home.”
April called after him, “Be careful. Jimmy might be dead, but we don’t know anything about the others or the guys who killed him.”
Adam waved a hand behind him before slamming the door.
Clay turned toward her stiffly. “Allowance?”
“Don’t blame me.” She patted her chest. “That was a condition of Mom’s will. I got everything, but I pay out an allowance to Adam from the money. It’s a cash stipend so he can’t blow it all at once.”
“He must love that you control the purse strings.”
“He’s used to it, but it’s what fuels his get-rich-quick schemes or that’s just genetic from Dad.”
“Why are those schemes always illegal?”
“I don’t know.” She wrapped her arms around Clay’s waist and rested her head against his broad chest. “I’m just glad he’s safe—for now. And thanks for not ripping his head off.”
“You could tell I wanted to?”
“And so could he.” She caressed his face. “Let’s go to bed.”
Clay kissed the top of her head and then set her aside. He went to the front door and flicked the dead bolt at the top. “Too bad he didn’t leave your keys.”
“He’ll need them if I have him empty out this place.”
“If?” Clay slipped his hands behind his back and rested against the door.
“With Jimmy gone and his associates on the run, maybe I can settle in Albuquerque. It’s not a bad place.”
“Adam is here.”
“For now.”
“Do you think he’s going to give up on his dreams of El Gringo Viejo?”
“Probably not.”
Clay swore. “As long as he doesn’t involve you, because if he goes traipsing down to Mexico asking the wrong questions of the wrong people, his encounter with Jimmy Verdugo is going to look like a picnic.”
“I don’t know.” She plucked up the remote control and turned off the TV, which had been silently running in the background of their drama. “Maybe he learned his lesson.”
Clay pushed off the door. “It didn’t look like Jimmy taught him much of a lesson. Except for that redness around his eye, Adam didn’t have any marks on his face for a guy who’d been beaten by a couple of thugs.”
“He said Jimmy hit him on the head. That’s probably where all the blood came from. Head wounds bleed a lot, right? That was enough to incapacitate Adam and allow Jimmy to take him away.”
“Maybe.” Clay covered his face with his hands and then dragged his fingers through his hair. “I’m sick of Adam and his problems. Promise me you won’t fall prey to one of his scams again.”
“Yeah, no, I’m on to him.”
Clay drew close to her and brushed the pad of his thumb across the skin on her chest, right above her hammering heart. “You have a soft spot for Adam, and he knows it.”
Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed Clay’s irresistible lips. “I have a soft spot for you,
