Stray. Rachel Vincent

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 can’t outrun your own memories. Not for long, anyway.

      Three

      I’d 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 wasn’t 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. I’d told Andrew we didn’t keep roosters, but the truth was that we couldn’t 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 hadn’t seen in years. Nothing had changed—at 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, I’d 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 father’s 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. I’d 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 Porsche—solid black and gleaming in the glare of the floodlights—had to be Michael’s. No one else was that ostentatious, except maybe Ryan, who would never come home voluntarily. He’d left when I was barely thirteen and wouldn’t 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 driver’s-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 outside—that was Owen’s. I hadn’t 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. “I’ll tell your father we’re here.”

      That wasn’t 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. They’d probably heard the car from a mile away.

      I considered arguing with Marc but couldn’t think of a good reason, so I complied. See? I could play nice when I wanted to. I just didn’t 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 father’s office.

      I crossed the hall and entered my father’s 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 Daddy’s armchair at one end, facing them both. In one corner sat a massive oak desk, covered—though not cluttered—in 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 father’s buildings graced the skylines of five different U. S. cities, and in my opinion—admittedly biased—they 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 couldn’t accommodate, things my brain couldn’t 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. “I’ve 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 arm’s 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 Daddy’s desk. “If I were Marc