So did Gavin, who seemed hugely relieved. “Oh, good. Someone not related to me, and you’ve got chocolate.” He turned to Piper. “Before you kill me, you should know that I’ve been hired by Cam to handle the marina books. So if you kill me, you’ll screw over Cam and Emmitt.”

So much for flying under the radar.

Chapter 13

“Wanting to kill each other is sort of the definition of being siblings.”

Piper was reeling. She was aware of Cam standing there, and that a part of her recognized him as both someone to be careful with and an ally, but she didn’t take her eyes off Gavin. Couldn’t. “What did you just say?”

“That Cam hired me.”

“Before that,” she said tightly. “What did you say before that?”

Gavin lost the smile and let out a long breath. “Please don’t ask me to say it again. It was hard enough the first time.”

“But . . .” She shook her head. “Rehab? For what?”

“Remember when I broke my wrist a few years ago? They gave me a bunch of pain meds.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, her mind doing the opposite and going a hundred fifty miles per hour. “The same ones Winnie had been given the year before for her appendectomy. And me for my sprained ankle.”

“I know. I stole Winnie’s leftovers because I couldn’t find any more and I needed them.”

Sadness and worry joined her fear and panic. “Oh, Gavin,” she whispered. “Two years ago? You’ve been taking pills that long?”

“Actually, three years, and yes.”

Winnie, who hadn’t said anything during this exchange, and who knew the whole story but only since he got out of rehab, suddenly burst into tears. Huge, gulping, loud sobs.

Before Piper could do anything, Gavin pulled Winnie into his arms. “Like old times,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “You always used to cry every time we’d fight.”

Winnie buried her head in his chest and kept crying.

Piper felt the urge to do the same. But she was the oldest, the one in charge, a failure apparently, and to make it all worse, Cam was a witness to all of it, all of their crazy, messy life.

“It’s going to be okay,” Gavin told Winnie. “Don’t make yourself sick.”

“It’s not going to be okay!” Winnie hiccupped through her tears and pushed away to point at him. “You’re not okay, and I don’t know how to make you okay! And I need you to be okay, Gavin!”

“Win,” he said quietly, but with utter conviction, “I got ahold of the demons, I promise you.”