I’d missed two shows.

Mac had covered for me. I only know because he texted me. I didn’t bother answering back. Both he and LeVan had done nothing but try to call and text, while I had done nothing but try and forget that a world existed outside my isolated little place here in the desert.

I wanted to try to forget that Emerald Sky Montrose existed.

But that wasn’t happening.

Every time I closed my eyes, she was there.

Every time I opened my eyes, I felt her.

It didn’t matter that I’d left her behind. It mattered that I couldn’t get her off my mind. She was deep inside my head, flowing through my blood now, sewn into my soul. Worse, I was starting to think she’d taken up residence in a place that didn’t have the capacity for doing anything except beating in my chest.

She opened my fucked-up heart, a part of me that was supposed to be dead. It was hard to believe it anymore because there was a dull, echoing ache in the middle of my chest that hadn’t gone away for the past week, ever since I’d left her at the hospital.

It was either heartache, or a really bad case of heartburn.

Personally, I was hoping for heartburn, because that at least had a chance of going away.

The sound of an engine was almost enough to stir me out of the slump where I’d been since I’d woken up, but not quite. Lying on the couch with my booted feet kicked up on the backrest, I stared at the ceiling and tried to decide if I was glad one of them had finally dragged their ass out here to check on me.

I was running low on booze, which was a certain indicator of my state of mind. I wasn’t sure I could convince either of them to make a run into the nearest town for me, though, so that was a bit of a downer.

When the engine finally came to a purring rumble, I closed my eyes.

It was Mac.

I recognized the sound of the engine.

The engine didn’t turn off either. He probably had Angel waiting in the car. I didn’t see why.

She wasn’t going to be able to talk me into coming to Las Vegas or anything else. I didn’t know if I even wanted to go back.

Didn’t matter that they counted on me or that I had shows booked through the rest of the year and through the early part of next. Refunding those tickets would cost me a shitload—and the hotel a fuckload—but so what? We had more shitloads and fuckloads of money than we’d ever spend.

A heavy fist pounding on a door somewhere interrupted my mental reverie and I cracked an eye open. Definitely Mac. LeVan couldn’t make it seem like the entire damn house might shake just because he knocked on the door.

Staying where I was, I craned my head around to study the bottles that littered the table. None of them looked like they had anything in them, which was a fucking tragedy.

Alcohol had helped numb the misery a little, which could account for the fact that I felt like I was still half drunk despite the fact that I hadn’t had anything since I’d finished off a bottle last night.

“There you are, you miserable son of a bitch,” a familiar voice said.

Mac didn’t sound angry. He sounded exasperated.

Great. It would be harder to get him out the door if that was the mood he was in. As he bent over the couch to study me, I summoned up what little energy I had and managed to say, “Fuck off.”

“Yeah, we’ve been fucking off and leaving you alone for a week—and you’ve been fucking off and getting drunk during that week,” Mac said easily. “Doesn’t look like either of us made the best decision there, now did we?”

I flipped him off.

“That’s nice. Wake the fuck up.”

“Get the fuck out of my house,” I said.

“Don’t make me kick your sorry ass,” Mac said again. “There’s someone here to see you.”

“I already figured that. You left your car running.” I did sit up—not because he’d told me to, but because it was annoying having him loom over me. Craning my neck, I took in the vista that sprawled out in front of the window. His car was visible and I could just barely make out the shadow in the passenger seat. “Angel ain’t going to be able to talk sense into me any better than you will. So why don’t both of you just fuck off?”

“It’s not Angel.” Mac bent over the couch even more and spoke almost directly into my ear. “You’re going to want to clean up and be a bit more presentable for this. So…either get up, or I’ll haul your ass off that couch and throw you into the shower myself. You stink like a dog. No, that’s an insult to dogs everywhere. You stink to high hell.”

“Yeah. Good luck with—you son of a—”

I ended up on the floor as Mac upended the couch and before I could pull my half-drunk ass upright, he leaped over the back of it, long hair flying around his shoulders. He came at me and it was pathetic how easy he got me locked and pinned.

“You fucker!” I bellowed at him, swiveling my hips and trying to find a way to break his hold.

If I’d been sober, I probably could’ve managed it.

But Mac knew my moves, knew my timing.

And he knew I was half out of my head, too.

“You going to cooperate here or do I have to haul you into the shower and make you clean up, you miserable asshole?” Mac demanded.

“Why don’t you leave me the hell alone?” I grunted and swung back with an elbow, but it hit his ribcage, which might as well have been carved from iron.

“I will, after you talk to the lady in the car.”

I went limp.

The lady.

If it wasn’t Angel…

“I don’t want to talk to Emmy,” I said woodenly.

“Yeah, well, it ain’t Emmy either.”

He got up.

Confused, I rolled onto my back and stared up at him. He held out a big hand and without thinking, I took it. A second later, I was up on my feet and my head whirled with the speed of the movement.

“You puke on me, I’ll make you eat it,” Mac promised.

“If it ain’t Emmy, who is it?” I asked, bemused.

“You’ll see for yourself…after you shower.”

* * *

I came out of the shower almost twenty minutes later. I’d guzzled some of the spray, hoping the fluids would clear the fog from my brain. It didn’t work. The hot water did make me puke, though, and I ended up spilling more than a little of the whiskey left over from the night before.

Surprisingly, that helped.

I wasn’t feeling particularly spry when I walked out of the bathroom, but at least the fog was gone. A miserable headache remained, but if it distracted me from the miserable ache in my chest, bring it on.

I stopped by the kitchen long enough to grab a cup of the coffee that Mac must have started.

The caffeine hit my raw, abused stomach like a hammer, but I gamely sipped more, waiting for the jolt to hit my system and help with the headache, even if just a little bit.

Out in the living room, I paused a moment to take in the coffee table, now clear of bottles. Mac must have worked some serious sleight of hand in here. It no longer looked like I’d had a one-man, weeklong party in here. I still needed a maid, but it wasn’t as much of a disaster.

I did another double take a second later, because out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone move, and I hadn’t even realized I wasn’t alone.

Turning my head, I met the green gaze of a tall, slim woman.

She was staring at me as if she’d seen a ghost.

“Who the fuck are…”

The rest of it died on my lips as she lifted shaking hands to her lips.

Red hair spilled down her shoulders. Red the same shocking shade as mine. And that green gaze…I’d seen it a million times in my life. Every damn time I looked in the mirror.

“Who are you?” I asked, forcing the full question out this time.

She didn’t answer at first. There was something familiar about her, familiar beyond the fact that her hair and eyes were so like mine, but I didn’t want to think about it. Because I couldn’t. It hurt too much.

“Who are you?” I said, the question coming out louder, harder.

She flinched this time, but just shook her head. As I watched, she reached into the purse at her side and pulled something out. I stiffened, but relaxed when I saw what looked like a picture frame. She lifted her hand and held it out. Her entire body trembled as she stared at me.

I had to drag myself across that floor.

It seemed to stretch out to almost a mile and my feet had turned to leaden weights, the journey inexorably long. But finally, I was close enough to reach her and I lifted a hand to take the picture she held out.

Somehow, I knew.

I didn’t know how, but I knew what I was going to find.

I had few clear memories of the time when I’d been a kid, fewer still of my mother and Addy, my little sister. Most of the clear memories were from the awful night when my stepfather told me she was gone because of me. I remembered that with near-crystalline clarity, then the way he came after me, with fists and fury.

But there was one memory.

A picture. Sitting on the dresser of the room I’d shared with Addison. A small, cramped room that smelled like dirty diapers after Mama died. He’d taken the picture once and I found it, brought it back to the room, and hid it under the mattress of her baby bed.

I hadn’t had a chance to go back and get it that final night.

I closed my fingers around the picture and lifted it, staring down at my mother’s face.

My mother, me, and the baby.

I had no idea who’d taken the picture, but whoever had done it had gotten my mother to smile.

The expression was strained, almost like it was odd for her to smile, but she was beautiful. With or without that smile, she’d been beautiful, with our red hair and eyes that might’ve been just as green.

Stunned, I fell back a couple of steps and I might have stumbled on back until I ended up on my ass if it wasn’t for the couch that I came up against. I hit it with my hips and stayed there, staring at the picture for the longest time before slowly looking up at the woman in front of me.

“Addy,” I whispered. “I don’t…” I shook my head. “I don’t understand. You’re… He told me you died.”

“Social Services came for me,” she said, her voice shaking. “They were there for both of us. But you weren’t there. They had to take me because I was sick.”

“I wasn’t taking care of you. I didn’t know how,” I said, feeling like the world had just been flipped end over end. Addy was alive.

“It wasn’t your job!” She took a hesitant step toward me. “You were just a little boy…” She licked her lips, looking hesitant and uncertain. “Your… They said you go by Sly. Is that what I call you?”

Numb, I nodded. “It’s really you.”

“Yes.” A nervous smile curled her lips. “It’s really me. The social worker went back to find you, but you were gone.”

“I ran away.” Feeling more and more out of touch, I focused on the picture, staring at this piece of my past and holding on to it. “He told me it was my fault and the cops would come for me. I ran. I…hell, it’s a long, ugly story. But I don’t understand. How did you find me?”

“I didn’t.” She bit her lip. “It was Emmy. She found me.”