“Love you too,” Jude whispered.
“And…” I hesitated for a couple of seconds. “You’ll find him. There’s no other chance.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” The forlorn tone was back again, and I hated it with passion.
“Bye.”
“Bye, Jack.”
I grabbed my book and slipped inside before anyone noticed me. Making my way into the living quarters, I realized I had nobody I could talk to about this.
The only one who had known about my family situation in greater detail had been Ruth. Now with her gone, I had nobody. I wasn’t going to tell Rhiannon, Billie, or Bennie that Jude had found Danny. Because we’d been there before years ago, and then that hadn’t worked out.
This was so much more than just finding a sibling for Jude. Danny was his other half, and being apart from him had taken a toll on him over the last twenty years.
They’d reconnected and met a couple of times at least in the past, but it never stuck. I couldn’t even begin to understand how this must feel to Jude and likely Danny too.
Suddenly the loss of Ruth hit me with full force, and I curled up on my bed as much as a guy my size could and did my best not to lose it.
Maybe I wasn’t a romantic, but having a person of my own sounded awesome right now. I just didn’t have one.
Chapter 5
Rey
Theo being depressed was weird and worrying, but everyone kept telling me he’d be fine given time and support, so I chose to believe that.
About a month or so in our stay in Illinois, Lake finally printed out the manuscript he was potentially going to finish and took it outside to the nice chairs.
River was interviewing for a position at a family clinic in town somewhere, so I decided to brave the outdoors. Kind of.
I grabbed my horse behavior book and went to sit right inside the back door. It was a calm moment. Sometimes there was a rustle of wind and it brought in the smell of horses, or I could hear a neigh from the paddocks.
I don’t know how long we’d been there. The sun moved across the sky, and everything was just so…pleasant.
“Be careful,” Lake said suddenly.
“What?” I looked around, alarmed.
“I hear you vampires don’t do well with sunlight.” He pointed at the shadow next to my feet.
I made a face at him, then moved very pointedly so that my legs were on the stairs, and my whole body bathed in the sunlight.
I felt this weird spike of hope that maybe one day I’d be able to really step outside again without being forced by the circumstance.
We went back to our respective reading. After a moment, I remembered something I’d read recently. “Did you know that horse hooves and human nails and hair are made of the same type of protein?”
“No, I didn’t know that. Kind of cool.”
I hummed. “Yeah.” I sank right back into my book.
I curled into the doorway, my back against the frame, and soaked in the vitamin D. It got quiet, and all I heard for a long while was the sound of one of us turning the page.
And then suddenly, there was a muffled bang, a yelp, and the heavy sound of thundering hooves that was definitely approaching from around the corner.
Lake got up and moved to stand closer to the wall for safety, and I got to my feet, too.
Hope, one of the two very large draft horses, rounded the corner.
