I jerk my head, scanning the dark corners of the loft.What was that?
Another knock, and I jump, feeling a scream rise up my throat. I clamp my hand over my mouth to stop it.
But maybe I should just yell. I don’t want to be here anymore. I watch the black voids, waiting for something to emerge.
Three more knocks vibrate through the attic. I think they’re coming from the kitchen area.
Heading from one beam to the other, I crouch down, spotting Lucas Morrow through a sliver in the panels. Hunched over the steel work table, he makes notes on his blueprints, and my stomach does that thing where it spins, like an ice skater pulling her arms in close to her body to go faster and faster.
Is he the one who knocked?
His light gray T-shirt is streaked with dirt and patches of sweat, the fabric a little tighter on him than it used to be. I don’t really like it.
I know he’s twenty-four—always have his birthday on my calendar like the rest of the family’s—but he’s looking more and more like my brothers. The way you can kind of see his body underneath his shirt. How his arms have little hills on them, up and down, up and down… And the veins in his hands and neck are always pushing up through the skin. Girls are always looking at him now. He had girlfriends in high school, but it’s all the time now.
He pulls off his light blue Chicago Cubs cap, slides a hand over the long strands of blond hair on top of his head, and fits it back on, backward this time. I don’t know what Jax had him doing today, but he glows with sweat, the stubble on his jaw glistening.
Lucas was only eight when Madoc took him under his wing as part of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. He’d lost his dad not long before. As my brothers’ honorary little brother, he’s been a part of the family since before I was born.
“Are you sure she didn’t go outside?” I hear Madoc call out from another room.
“We’re all supposed to stay in the great room,” Hawke shouts. “That’s the rule.”
“When’s the last time you heard from her?”
I sigh at Jax’s question. What does he think? That I stuffed myself in the deep freezer in the kitchen? Got kidnapped? Their kids climb trees taller than my house, but I can’t survive without wearing bubble wrap. Why do they worry more about me?
“Quinn!” Jared growls.
Followed by Madoc’s bellow, “Quinn Livia Caruthers!”
I straighten my spine. I’m in trouble now.
But Lucas moves under me, standing up tall.
“Quinn?” he says in a low voice. “I know you’re there.”
I keep my lips locked together, but I can’t stop the smile rising. He did do the knocking.
“I didn’t tell them where you were,” he tells me, his head still bowed to his blueprints as the rest of my family searches the other rooms.
It’s not like it was hard for him to find me. He showed me this was here in the first place. They found it when Jax was planning the renovations, but it won’t be here for long. He’s tearing down the false ceiling to open up the room.
“You could at least say hi to me,” he says, probably unsure if I can see him through the cracks. “It’s Lucas.”
“Yeah, I know.” I sniffle, the dust up here tickling my nostrils. “I always smell you before I see you.”
A laugh escapes him, and he hops up onto the table and comes at me, opening the latch. A square door big enough for a person to climb through opens up right under my head. “Hey,” he chides, pulling out the collar of his sweaty T-shirt to take a sniff. “Your sister-in-law bought me that cologne.”
And why are you wearing cologne to the lake?
But I don’t ask out loud. I like how he smells, I guess.
He jumps back down, and I slide to the opening, peeking my headout.
He pours over the blueprints. There are lines and numbers—measurements or something—and I can see several sheets for individual buildings. But he inspects one that has a layout of an entire ski resort. His dream project.
He probably brought them with him today to get Fallon’s advice. Madoc’s wife is an architect, and also Lucas’s mentor at the architectural firm where they both work.
