Shaking his head, Micah rolled his eyes. “Can we get to the kitchen now?” he questioned.
Joel laughed again. “Touchy.”
I followed Joel and Micah, and Hound followed behind me as we moved toward the back of the house, to the expansive kitchen that always seemed to take my breath away whenever I saw it. Whoever had built this house had done so intending to make the kitchen the center of it. It was designed for the family to congregate here, often. It didn’t take much guesswork from what Micah had revealed to me about his mother’s love for cooking, that she was the deciding factor in choosing or building the house.
“I still can’t get over how beautiful your home is, Mr. Townsend.”
Joel’s entire body stiffened, and he turned from the counter to face me. I instantly knew I said something wrong. I began panicking a little, hoping that my mentioning of the house didn’t bring up memories of his deceased wife.
“What did you call me?”
I lowered my eyebrows, confused.
“Don’t start with this shit,” Micah growled.
“Uh, Mr. Townsend,” I responded, ignoring Micah’s comment.
Joel began shaking his head and looked to his son. “You didn’t tell her.”
“That you can be highly irrational? No, I wanted her to think I come from a somewhat normal gene pool.”
Joel shook his head. “You were born a Townsend, boy. No chance in that. Especially not from me. I’m likely the most unreasonable out of the three of us that bastard sired.” Joel paused and looked up toward the ceiling, pondering. “Well, I take that back. The dead one was a junkie, alcoholic that almost killed his entire family in a car crash. I’ve never done that.”
“What?” I questioned, feeling utterly lost in this conversation.
Micah let out a huff of air and glared at his father before turning to me. “Joel doesn’t like to be called Mr. Towsend. It’s his bullshit hangup that he’s never dealt with.” He stopped and looked over at his father. “Anyway, it’s just Joel. As for the other shit he mentioned, he was referring to his brothers. Robert, whom you’ve met. There was another one, but he died a long time ago.”
I parted my lips, wanting to know more. I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk much with Joel the first time I came to his home. The tone and depth of Micah’s voice, and Joel’s for that matter, eluded to the fact that there was a hell of a lot more story to tell there, but I dropped it.
“How about you help me gather these steaks off the grill?” Joel said, looking directly at me.
“Sure.”
Despite his sometimes offhand nature, I liked Joel. He was tough and probably could cut you down with his tongue or a gun without thinking much about it, but there was also a softness about him. Perhaps only visible because we were in his home, and he was around his son. Yet, it weirdly warmed my heart. Micah and Joel seemed to have a bond that surpassed their DNA connection.
“Wait,” Micah called, pulling my hand into his, but he stopped due to the ringing of his cell phone. “Shit,” he cursed when he peered down at the screen. “This is Sy. I’ve gotta take it.”
“Go,” I said. “I’ll help Joel finish getting dinner ready.”
Micah took his time releasing my hand as he stared at me.
“You’re going to miss your call.”
His lips thinned, and when I thought the ringing would end, he pressed the talk button, answering it.
I smiled and turned to follow Joel out the sliding glass door to the huge deck where his charcoal grill was smoking.
“This better be fucking important, or else I’m breaking our deal and shipping your ass back to whatever government facility they want to lock you up in,” I said low into the phone, as soon as the door closed behind Joel.
Sy snickered on the other end. “Ya know, soon you’re going to have to find another threat. Contract’s almost up on that one.”
I frowned, hating that the little sucker was right.
“What are you calling me about?”
“We got a name.”
I stood up straighter, glancing around even though the house was empty, save for me. “Hang on.”
