Ties That Bind . Amy Blankenship

visit, her grandmother had claimed she was tired and needed to go lay down for the rest of the day, but she made Angel promise to come back and see her in the morning. It worried her that her grandmother was going to bed so early and she wondered just how sick she really was. Her grandmother had been in such good health before she'd left Sanctuary to go to California. She had even blossomed after grandfather's death.

      Angel's lips thinned at the thought of the old man she'd always thought of as a monster. She had never hated anyone in her whole life, but a few hours before he had fallen down the stairs, he had caught her and Hunter coming back from swimming alone at the pond.

      Her grandfather yelled at her, telling her she was too old to be playing with the Indian riffraff from the reservation. He told Hunter to get the hell off his mountain then slammed the doors behind him. Seeing Hunter leave like that was heart wrenching. When she tried to speak up on his behalf, her grandfather had turned and smacked her so hard that she'd fallen down.

      Angel had cried out in pain but hadn’t said anything else knowing her grandfather was probably right. He hadn’t even known she and Hunter were doing things they shouldn’t have been doing… kissing, touching, and experimenting. If he had known about that, he would have hit her more than once.

      “See, told you it wasn’t a statue of an angel. It really is Angel,” someone laughed from behind her, startling her right out of her melancholy. Swinging around, she smiled seeing Uncle Robert’s identical twin sons, Devin and Damien.

      “Oh my gosh, you guys have grown up!” She smiled as they took turns hugging her and swinging her around in circles. They were the same age as Tristian, but they had somehow outgrown him in the last two years. Standing at least six foot, two inches, they looked like bouncers. Both of them were in skintight, black t-shirts with the logo, ‘Sanctuary’ on the front of them.

      She placed a hand on each one of their upper arms, watching the pride flash in their gray eyes. “I guess that tells me what you two have been up to,” she giggled. “Been staying out of trouble? Or causing it?”

      “Who? Us?” Devin laughed as he set her back on her feet, letting his hand caress her thigh and hip on the way down.

      “You should know us better than that,” Damien rolled his eyes at his brother as he slipped his arm around Angel’s waist and pulled her out of Devin’s hold. It was a game the twins had played for years… always trying to outdo each other when a pretty girl was nearby.

      “Lucky for you guys that she does,” Hunter glared at the twins then smiled as Angel turned at the sound of his voice.

      Angel’s lips parted as she laid eyes on Hunter for the first time in almost two years. Suddenly, all kinds of memories flashed through her mind, making her knees weak and her pulse race. Emails and phone calls just didn’t stand a chance against seeing him in person.

      His hair was longer than she remembered, going halfway down his back in inky darkness. He looked just like one of those guys on the front of a historical romance novel where the Indian and the white girl are pictured in a hot embrace.

      Blushing at the mental picture, she untangled herself from her cousins and stepped toward him. “You’re taller,” she breathed as she looked up at him. Hunter was the one person who knew more about her than her brother did.

      “No, you’re just shorter,” Hunter taunted right before he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her into the air. “Unless, I do this.” She always had been light as a feather to him. He growled inwardly as she reached down for him, ending the childish ride with a tight embrace. He inhaled her scent, reminding him of all the reasons he had waited on her to come back.

      Knowing they were being watched, Hunter quickly set her back on her feet and looked over her shoulder at the twins. “The pool party’s starting and there’s someone out there asking for you guys.”

      “Stacey!” the twins high-fived each other. “See you two later.” They took off as if it was a race to see who could reach the girl first.

      “So they finally learned how to share?” Angel asked with a straight face as she watched the twins leave then giggled lightly at her own joke.

      “I think they just like the competition,” Hunter mused. “This Stacey girl shows up all the time just so they’ll fight over her… so far, neither of them has won.”

      She smiled softly as she turned back to Hunter, noticing a long lock of ebony hair that had fallen into his face when he’d picked her up. Reaching for it, she tenderly moved it to the side, and tucked it behind his ear. “I feel like I can finally breathe.”

      “What was stopping you?” Hunter’s voice was just as soft as hers. He knew what she was saying because he could feel it too. He felt it so much it was making his eyes burn.

      His gaze lowered to her pouting lips and he felt himself getting closer… wanting to kiss her like he used to do before she left. He had been the one to teach her to kiss though he knew she had never taken it as seriously as he had. To her, it had only been childhood experimenting… to him, it had been the ties that bind.

      “A person should never be separated from their best friend… it hurts,” Angel sighed and then hugged him again.

      Hunter froze at the words ‘best friend’. Something she meant as an endearment had always felt more like a punch in the gut to him. Wrapping his arms back around her, Hunter leaned down to kiss the top of her head while trying to control his voice. “I know.”

      She had used the term ever since she had told him all her secrets… even the secret about her and Tristian. She had once even told him that she thought she was in love with her big brother. Hunter had then started taking her into the mountains… just the two of them... and showing her all the things he could make her feel that her brother couldn’t.

      That was the turning point between him and Tristian… because he knew Angel's secret feelings had never been one-sided. To his dismay, he’d only wound up convincing Angel that she was in love with both of them.

      Making himself pull away, he laid his arm across her shoulder and started walking her out of the garden. “I bet you haven’t even had a chance to wind down from your fright-flight,” he smirked, knowing she hated the helicopter as much as Tristian did.

      “You know… you could have talked grandmother out of doing that,” she said as she bumped against him. “You used to be able to talk her in and out of just about anything.”

      “Oh no you don’t,” Hunter smirked. “Don’t blame me for that chopper ride. “Besides, I’ve been letting your grandmother get her way more often lately.” They walked across the grass out into the open. He knew they were in full view of Ashton’s room so he slowed down just for spite. No one had ever accused him of being a saint.

      “You’re my hero… you know that?” Angel pulled him to a stop so he’d look down at her. “If you hadn’t found grandmother when she had her heart attack…” her voice softened to a mere whisper, “you saved her life.”

      Ashton wrapped the towel around his waist as he left the bathroom. That was what he needed, a long hot shower to start the week off. Maybe he could make a really good impression on Angel’s family and stake his claim on her. He’d never worked so hard to impress a girl as he had Angel.

      His last girlfriend wound up being a two-faced backstabbing whore that he’d had to teach a lesson, but not Angel. He could tell she was still a little sweet homegrown virgin that he’d had to con into getting just the simplest of kisses from. It hadn’t bothered him though. If he wanted sex… there were enough whores willing to put out, and then go away so he could spend time with Angel.

      Looking in the dresser mirror, he started towel drying his hair then stopped, noticing something in the reflection. Turning toward the window, he frowned seeing Angel and Hunter standing so close that it looked like they were whispering secrets.

      He clenched his teeth, making the muscles in his jaw jump as he watched his girlfriend and the Indian boy she so fondly called