Despite my resolution a moment before, I ache to slide my fingers along her calf to earn another reaction. “I wanted to?—”
Movement in my periphery gives me a half-second warning. Whatever this thing is with Lanie, it’s new, and just us. I’m not ready to share that with my sister yet. Winnie has a tendency to meddle and I…want to keep Lanie to myself for a while longer. I stretch my arms across the back of the sofa as Winnie traipses into the room, already talking.
“I’ve been called in to work. We’re short on shift after the last batch of recruits quit en masse. Something about an ingrained culture on-site and blah de blah. What’s happening?” She halts in the middle of the room, looking first at Lanie, then me.
“I was just telling your brother how much you’re alike,” Lanie says with an impish grin that sends my blood deluging south.
Keep that sass up.I disguise a laugh as a cough behind my fist, knowing Winnie will rise to the bait.
“Nah, he’s adopted.” Winnie eyes us, her nose twitching. “I’ve got to get ready. Play nice, kids.”
I shake his head as she disappears into her bedroom. The thought of spending time with Lanie is heady…and terrifying.How fast is she getting under my skin? How fast can I fuck this up?The memory of my parents walking away from me years ago swamps me. Or maybe it was me from them. Every time I relivethe memory, it changes a fraction until I can’t quite work out what’s reality.
“No one wants money from you, Son.”
“I’m not offering it.” Just the hope that we’ll be a whole family again. That’s it. All I want.
But apparently, that hope’s too much for a pair of egos our size.
Pale blue eyes the same color as mine glare back at me. I’m still unsure who’s angered worse, myself or Dad. He seems to take my business success as a personal insult. Either I did too well or he didn’t do well enough. It doesn’t matter. I bear the brunt of his anger.
“Richard.” Mom’s soft voice is overshadowed by the growing cataclysm neither of us is willing to prevent.
In the end I’m not sure who turns away first. When I start walking, I don’t stop.
Not when I climb into my truck. Not when Mom calls my name again, or Dad’s.
Not when I start the engine and drive away without looking back.
The warmth along my side drags me from my thoughts. Lanie’s thigh rests against mine. My heart thumps in my chest as I focus on Winnie’s townhouse instead of my past, but I’m not sure it’s enough.Three things I can see.The old therapy mandate kicks in as I sweep my gaze about the room. The clothes tossed haphazardly across the backs of mismatched furniture, evidence of my niece scattered all over the small living space. It’s messy as fuck, and I love it.
Except for the fact that I can’t spot a single item that’s out of place, anything that might belong to Lanie. Like she’s kept her things in her room so she doesn’t intrude on Winnie’s life. I instantly hate that. A vision of her clothes draped over the furniture in my room, her things cluttering my perfectly neat and organized en suite fills my mind for a brief moment. The fantasy fades fast as rage overtakes the sweeter emotion, brewing in my chest, brought on by the memory I can’t shake.
Fail.
“I have some things to organize in town.” The lie falls out all too easily as I shift away from Lanie. Coolness glides along my side in the absence of her, like a void. My words shatter the peaceful air, my tone harsh.
Nice, Rand.I sit with the girl I’ve obsessed about like a schoolboy dating his first senior crush, andthisis what I have to say?
Lanie’s mouth moves. I focus on her, watch her dusky lips form words I don’t want to hear, her wild-cherry-red hair cascading around her. Dammit, sheisgetting to me. I can’t shake the fading vision of her things in my bedroom, the evidence of her filling Coyote Falls’ stunning, lifeless rooms.
“—there’s a hamlet, maybe half an hour from Coyote Falls. They had a touristy wolf thing going on.”
Her grimace tells me everything I need to know about Jenkins’s bullshit setup in Valiant Peak. I catch her drift, clenching my fists before I break my own damn rules a second time in as many minutes. “The dire wolf hunt?” I press my lips together.
“Do you know anything about it?” Lanie leans into me, her hair tumbling over my knee in a sheath I want to wrap around my fists and wind in until she’s too close to pull away.
Focus, Rand.
I clear my throat. “A few locals are getting trigger-happy over a ghost story that’s a hundred years old. It stirs them up on occasion. Sometimes the influx of tourists and enthusiasts brings money into the town, but not as much as they like.”Or want.I snort my derision at the superstition. “They resurrect it when things get tight. It does more damage than good, but it never lasts long, thank Christ.”
“So it’s a tourist trap.” Her pretty lips purse.
“Pretty much. Some of them are fairly gung ho about it. We have a few fanatics.” I watch for her reaction, my gut twisting with hope. “Are you worried about the impact on the local wolf packs?”
Lanie nibbles her lip. “A bit. I’ve seen populations halve out of fear. People are their worst enemy. There’s plenty of gray wolvesaround your area.” Her eyes widen like she wants to say more, but then her gaze drops as she looks away.
Tell me your secrets.
