Fate Actually (Moonstone Cove #2) - Elizabeth Hunter Page 0,15
finger or the tractor where we found it.”
“Huh.”
Her older sister was a scientist like Katherine. Toni wondered if her mind was going to the same place. “You’re wondering if there’s a whole body out there.”
Luna shrugged. “I mean, it would make sense. Nico’s place is pretty remote.”
“I know. That’s why I like living out there.”
“Luna’s right,” Jackie said. “If there was a body out in those hills, it could turn into a mummy before someone found it. There’s no cell reception or anything. If you got lost…”
“Who’s lost though?” Toni asked. “If it was someone from Moonstone Cove, someone would have reported them missing by now. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe a weekender?” Luna asked. “There’re a lot of people from LA and the Bay Area with vacation homes around here now.”
“True.” Jackie shrugged. “Well, if no one finds it, eventually the coyotes will.”
Toni finished her dinner and wandered out to the side yard where a bunch of the guys were playing horseshoes. Or rather a convoluted Dusi-rules version of the game with way more than four players and a lot more wine. It was a gathering of grown men who immediately reverted to teenage antics as soon as they were around their cousins.
Toni adored all of them.
“Hey, boys.” She leaned her elbow on an old wine barrel they were using as a table.
“Toni, get out of here!” her brother Frank shouted. “Nico, you better not—”
“Antonia!” Nico spread his arms with a grin that said he was on his third glass of wine, minimum. “A case of wine if you’re on my team.”
“You dickhead,” Frank hissed. “She’s my sister.”
“She’s my neighbor.” Nico held out a horseshoe. “Take the horseshoe. Turn to the dark side.”
She squinted at Frank, then at Nico. “Don’t you already owe me a case of wine for fixing your tractor?”
“Technically you didn’t fix it, but all that will be forgotten if you join my team.” Nico stepped between her and Frank. “Forget him. Remember when he cut your hair?”
“I was seven!” Frank said. “And I did a good job.”
“If you’d been blind, you did a good job.” Nico blocked Frank. “Just come on my team, Toni. We’re already six up.”
“Sorry.” Toni shot Frank a dismayed grin. “He’s right. About the haircut and the neighbor thing.”
“Oh man!” Frank stalked back to his side of the horseshoe pits, ignoring the betrayed faces of his team members.
It was well known among the Dusis that Toni was preternaturally gifted at horseshoes. She readily admitted it was her only athletic skill. As she lined up behind her cousin Ray, she elbowed Nico.
“What’s up?” Nico threw a careless arm around her.
“Any news from Max or Drew on that finger?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “And no one is talking around the ranch either. I thought for sure someone was going to cop to messing with the tractor when the police started questioning them, but not a word. I told Max they needed to go out to Fairfield’s place.”
Max was their younger cousin who was on the police force. He was working his way up to detective and idolized Drew Bisset.
“They haven’t gone out there yet?”
“Max said— Hold on.” Nico stepped forward, set down his wineglass on a large barrel, then tossed the horseshoe. It hooked once around the center stake before it jumped off and fell in the sand.
Nico cursed under his breath as Frank jeered him from across the lawn. “Serves you right, you rat!”
Nico flipped him off and walked back to the barrel to grab his wineglass. “Max said they called out to Fairfield’s office, but the secretary said he was in the city. Didn’t know when he’d be back.”
There were two more throws before hers, so Toni hung back and spoke in a low voice by Nico’s shoulder. “Did someone tell you about him and Marissa?”
He gave her a dark look. “I heard. Not from her, of course. She can’t be bothered to spare me or the kids any bit of embarrassment. They had to hear it from some shitty little gossip at school.”
“You know I think she’s an idiot, but there is an upside to all this.”
“Oh?”
It was Toni’s turn. She stepped forward and, ignoring the whistles and shouts from across the lawn trying to distract her—an accepted and expected part of Dusi-rules horseshoes—landed a perfect ringer around the center stake.
The cousins across the lawn booed and her own team cheered.
“Nine up!” Nico shouted. “Suck it, Frank!”
“Nico!”
Everyone fell silent when Toni’s mom called from inside the house.