As children, humans learned to compromise, share and make friends. I learned to identify animals by scent and to stalk them without betraying my presence. While normal parents discussed political elections and spiking interest rates, mine discussed expanding territorial boundary lines and how harshly to deal with trespassers. Humans just didnt understand my childhood, so I generally avoided the subject altogether.
Andrew coughed, but the sound was muffled, like hed covered the mouthpiece. So you withdrew from school?
Not yet. I cringed at the very idea of withdrawing, as if my absence from school wasnt real as long as I was still enrolled in a class. Ill do it over the phone tomorrow, but its only for the summer. Ill be back in September. Maybe earlier. It depends on how long it takes me to talk some sense into my father. Yeah, right. Like my father and I had ever had a sensible discussion. Or even a calm one.
No problem. Ill come see you during the break between summer sessions.
My stomach lurched at the thought of introducing Andrew to my parents. And to Marc. Um, let me talk to my dad first, okay?
Sure. But dont worry, parents always like me.
Not my parents, I thought, leaning against a sink jutting from the wall like a porcelain ledge. Not unlessyoure hiding fur and claws beneath yourAbercrom-biekhakis. But he wasnt. I didnt know every cat in the country personally, but Id know one if I met one, and Andrew was one hundred percent certifiably human. Which, of course, was the attraction.
I have to go now, but Ill talk to you later, okay? I glanced in regret at the bathroom door. If the facilities had been nicer, I might have considered staging a sit-in, in protest of being taken home against my will. But one glance at the filthy floor drove that thought right out of my head.
Sure. Ill give you a wake-up call before my first class, he said. Or do you farm girls get up with the roosters?
Not this farm girl, I said. We dont have roosters. Or any other livestock, for that matter.
Good to know, Andrew said. Im going to go eat now, all by myself. Talk to you tomorrow.
I said goodbye, and my stomach growled as I hung up. I thought of Andrews pizza with envy. Maybe I could talk Marc into swinging by a drive-thru on the way back to the highway. But Id probably have to say please.
Suddenly I wasnt that hungry.
Back at the car, Marc was nowhere in sight. I was searching the glove box for a spare key when I noticed him walking toward me from the burger joint next door. He carried a grease-stained paper bag in one hand and a cardboard tray of drinks in the other.
Damn. Now Id have to say thank-you.
Four double cheeseburgers, extra pickles, he said, sliding into the drivers seat with a creak of leather. But two of them are mine. He dropped the bag in my lap and settled a drink into each of the cup holders in the center console.
I opened the bag and stuck my nose inside. Warm, fragrant steam engulfed my face, and my mouth watered. The meat was grilled, my preferred way to have a burger. Marc had probably chosen this particular gas station just so I could have my favorite fast food.
Thanks, I said, feeling my cheeks flush with guilt. Maybe hed think it was the steam.
He almost smiled. Not quite, but almost. And his eyes practically glowed when they met mine. So how do you manage to eat enough at school without looking like a pig?
The same way I did in high school. I tore into the first cheeseburger, barely bothering to chew before I swallowed. Carry snacks, eat on the way, then again when I get to the cafeteria. And tell everyone Im bulimic. I snorted, doing an uncanny impersonation of a pig, if I do say so myself.
His eyes widened for an instant. Then he laughed. The sound of pure amusement caught me off guard, and I smiled, leaning back against the headrest as I watched him. For a moment, that old familiarity crept in, like the comfort of my favorite well-worn T-shirt. Then I remembered I didnt want to be comfortable with him, and my smile died on my lips, even as his laughter faded from my ears.
Marc watched the change in my expression with mounting disappointment. He knew what it meant. Jaw tight with tension, he slammed the car into gear, reversing in a tight arc across the empty parking lot.
I bit another chunk from my burger, staring out the windshield as he shifted into First gear. The beef, so appetizing moments earlier, was suddenly bland and difficult to swallow.
Marc snuck one more glance at my face and tore from the parking lot as if we were being chased. And we were, but you cant outrun your own memories. Not for long, anyway.
Three
Id fallen asleep for real by the time we got home, but the crunch of gravel and the unmistakable sway of the car on our quarter-mile-long driveway woke me. I sat up, staring out at an impressive display of stars as we pulled through the open wrought-iron gate. Marc poked at the remote clipped onto his visor, and I turned around in my seat to watch the gate close. At the top was a capital S lying on its back, as if at rest.
Ours wasnt the only Lazy S Ranch in the country, or even in Texas, but it was the only one I knew of which housed cats instead of cattle. Id told Andrew we didnt keep roosters, but the truth was that we couldnt keep them or any other livestock, because when animals smelled us, they smelled natural predators and they reacted in panic.
Years ago, in an uncharacteristic burst of optimism, my father bought a horse for my brother Owen, but it took one whiff of him and went crazy, charging the gate of its stall and running into the walls. They had to shoot the poor thing because no one could get close enough to sedate it. So, ours was a ranch in name only.
I sighed, staring through the windshield at land and outbuildings I hadnt seen in years. Nothing had changedat least, nothing I could identify in the dark. Waist-high grass grew in fields to the east and west of the main house, destined to become hay when the season changed. I smiled as we passed the barn in the eastern field, empty but picturesque in the moonlight with its peeling red paint and gabled roof. As a child, Id spent entire summers playing in there, hiding from life in general and my mother in particular.
And directly ahead lay the main house, stretched across the yard like a lion at rest.
Marc parked in the circle driveway, behind the Volvo my mother hardly ever drove. I got out and looked around, glancing at the guesthouse, where Marc lived with three of my fathers other enforcers. All the lights were out. No one was home.
Gravel shifted beneath my feet as I passed the cars lining the drive, trying to identify the owners. Id been gone a long time, having spent vacations at school for the last two years, and I could no longer say for certain what each of my brothers drove. But I could guess.
The Porschesolid black and gleaming in the glare of the floodlightshad to be Michaels. No one else was that ostentatious, except maybe Ryan, who would never come home voluntarily. Hed left when I was barely thirteen and wouldnt be back, because for him, that was an option.
Ethan drove the convertible, no doubt about it. But if I needed further evidence, there was plenty to choose from in the front floorboard, littered with fast-food wrappers and empty plastic soda bottles. I grinned, staring through his drivers-side window at the collection of CDs, ranging from nineties grunge to the latest hip-hop.
Ethan drove the convertible, no doubt about it. But if I needed further evidence, there was plenty to choose from in the front floorboard, littered with fast-food wrappers and empty plastic soda bottles. I grinned, staring through his drivers-side window at the collection of CDs, ranging from nineties grunge to the latest hip-hop.
The truck, a three-quarter-ton Dodge Ram, as clean on the inside as it was dusty on the outsidethat was Owens. I hadnt seen this particular model, but it was close enough to the last one to make me smile. Owen was a frustrated cowboy at heart, and only he would drive a work truck.
Marc led me through the front door and into the foyer, where I turned left out of habit, surprised to find the kitchen dark and empty. Huh. Usually all the guys hung out around the tiled peninsula, snacking and talking over one another with full mouths.
Go wait in the office, Marc said, pointing the way as if I could possibly have forgotten. Ill tell your father were here.
That wasnt necessary, of course, because just as I could hear them speaking in whispers in one of the back bedrooms, I knew they could hear us. Theyd probably heard the car from a mile away.
I considered arguing with Marc but couldnt think of a good reason, so I complied. See? I could play nice when I wanted to. I just didnt want to very often.
My shoes squeaked as I walked across the kitchen tile to the dining room, and back into the foyer. To my left, across from the front door, was a long straight hallway, dividing the house in half and ending at the back door. In front of me was my fathers office.
I crossed the hall and entered my fathers haven, savoring the darkness of a room with no windows. The air smelled like my father, like leather furniture, polished wood, and expensive coffee. To my right was a sitting area arranged around a rectangular rug: a love seat across from a couch, with Daddys armchair at one end, facing them both. In one corner sat a massive oak desk, coveredthough not clutteredin neat stacks of paper, notebooks and ledgers, arranged at perfect ninety-degree angles.
On one side of the desk, its flat-screen monitor turned toward the desk chair, was a state-of-the-art computer, equipped with the latest in drafting software. On the other side sat an antique lamp with a pewter base. I turned the knob on the base, and soft light washed over the room, leaving the corners thick with shadows.
Behind the desk, the glass display cabinet caught my eye, and I moved forward to examine it. My mother had ordered it for my father, to showcase his awards. I opened the right-hand door and flipped a tiny hidden switch on the end of the last shelf. Fluorescent light flickered to life inside the case, and I closed the door, pressing gently until I heard the latch click.
Each shelf was lit from above, so that the trophies and plaques shined, the words glaring almost too brightly to be read. Most were in appreciation of his charity work, but those on the top shelf were in recognition of his buildings, his best ones. My fathers buildings graced the skylines of five different U. S. cities, and in my opinionadmittedly biasedthey improved the view from every angle.
Wood creaked behind me. I froze, trying to interpret the blurred reflection in the glass. Another creak as he came closer, and I smiled, in recognition and in breathless anticipation.
You still have the sweetest ass this side of the Rio Grande. Hot breath caressed my neck, and lips brushed my earlobe.
I spun around to find my body pinned between the glass case and someone tall, hard and tauntingly masculine. Jace. I inhaled his scent. Bar soap, fabric softener, and something meaty, maybe beef jerky. But under those was something more, something wild, and pungent, that woke up my instincts and made my heartbeat echo in my throat. It made me crave things my human form couldnt accommodate, things my brain couldnt even articulate, but my heart and my nose recognized instantly.
I tilted my face up to look at him. What about the other side?
He grinned, showing two rows of perfect white teeth, framed by lips that would have been wasted on mere speech. Ive never been south of the river, but I bet you could hold your own down there, too. Jace bent his face toward my ear. I closed my eyes as he sniffed the length of my neck, trailing the tip of his tongue along my skin as he came back up. I shivered and gasped, and he responded with a moan as he pressed his hips against mine, nipping the flesh at the base of my neck.
Get off my sister.
Jace hissed in my ear, and cool air brushed my stomach where his body had been a second earlier. I opened my eyes. My brother Michael stood in front of me, holding Jace at arms length by the back of his neck.
I was only saying hello, Jace purred, his lazy smile still aimed at me.
Do it without your tongue. Michael enunciated each word carefully and slowly to make sure he was understood. He shoved Jace to one side, a little too hard to be playful.
Jace stumbled, catching himself on the edge of Daddys desk. If I were Marc youd let me greet her properly, he said, a hint of resentment in his voice.
There was nothing proper about that. Michael frowned, but I glimpsed amusement behind his stern, I-mean-business face. And if you were Marc, shed have tossed you off herself. But youre not Marc.
If I were, she wouldnt have left us in the first place. He turned his back on us both, slinking to the door with a fluid grace no human could have duplicated.
I blushed, thinking of the carnal promise in his casual words. No one else would have gotten away with such a comment, much less the intimate greeting, but I took a lot from Jace that would have lost anyone else an ear. Or worse. Jace got away with it because I secretly suspected he was right, that his body could really do what his teasing kisses and caresses hinted at. And because hed never really tried. Our relationship had always been fundamentally platonic, a safe zone for playful flirting, which Michael either couldnt or wouldnt understand.
High heels clicked briskly on the tiles in the hallway, and I turned toward the door, steeling myself to face my mother. She stepped into the office, pausing for effect in the doorway as she spread her arms in greeting. Faythe, were so glad to finally have you home. As if Id returned for a friendly visit, instead of for a command appearance.
My mother looked exactly as I remembered, down to her gray pageboy and charcoal-colored slacks. She had a closet full of them, hanging right next to a collection of novelty kitchen aprons, printed with not-so-funny sayings, like Id give you the recipe, but then Id have to kill you.
She came toward me, pausing almost imperceptibly when she realized I wasnt going to rush forward to meet her. Michael and Jace stepped back, making way for my mother, a tiny life raft of estrogen bobbing amongst the waves of testosterone.
She hugged me, her embrace bringing with it the scent of homemade cookies, with cinnamon and nutmeg. Who cooks with nutmeg in the middle of the summer? Only my pretty-kitty version of a mother, a remnant of the June Cleaver days of intact families and repressed emotions.
Over her shoulder, I watched Marc come in, followed by my father, who pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to polish the lenses of his glasses while he waited patiently for my mother let me go. Daddy was always the last man to enter any room, so he could take charge of everyone all at once. Tall, and still firm at fifty-six, my father commanded respect everywhere he went, and it was all innate. He could never have explained why people did what he wanted, but his authority was undeniable, and unless I was at home, unquestioned.