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Over the centuries, our boundary lines shifted slightly along with the evolving landscape, but they remain much as they were originally. Those lines are the basis for the fragile structure which keeps us civilized. To preserve that civilization, Daddy would not breach a territorial boundary line without permission for anything, even a missing daughter.
I turned back to my father, preparing to state my case. “If there’s nothing we can do, let me go back to school. The term just started.”
His frown was impenetrable. “You’re not going back until we’re sure you’re safe.”
“I am safe,” I said through clenched jaws, praying Marc hadn’t already told him about the stray on campus. Yes, my father would find out eventually; there was no stopping that. But hopefully he wouldn’t find out until I was back on campus and out of the direct line of fire.
“Sean took her,” I continued. “He’s mad because she accepted Kyle’s proposal, and he’s either trying to change her mind, or get back at her.” Like most tabbies, Sara’d had several suitors to choose from when her parents decided it was time for her to marry. Unfortunately, one of those she turned down hadn’t taken the news very well. Sean had thrown an embarrassing public fit, then left the territory in protest. “It’s horrible, and scary, and infuriating. But it has nothing to do with me.”
I was starting to panic at the idea of sitting home all summer with nothing to occupy my time but chaperoned runs into town for groceries. If I was lucky. I’d been free far too long to ever go back to the way things used to be.
“Faythe, give it a rest,” Marc said. Everyone turned to look at him, including me. I stared at him, begging him with my eyes to keep his mouth shut. As usual, he ignored me. “You know it wasn’t Sean.”
“How would she know that?” My father’s voice was deep with anger. He clearly realized he’d been kept out of the loop.
I watched Marc, still pleading with him silently to keep his mouth shut. Just this once. Daddy would never let me out of his sight if he knew.
Marc gave me the slightest shake of his head. “A stray tried to grab her on campus.”
“Yeah, but I kicked his trespassing ass!” I whirled around to face my father.
“Faythe!” my mother cried, horrified more by my language than by what had actually happened.
“What? It’s true. Tell them, Marc,” I demanded, turning on him angrily. “I can take care of myself.”
Marc shrugged. And he conveniently forgot to mention where he was while I was kicking serious ass. I briefly considered ratting him out, as he’d done to me, but decided my secret might be worth more to him down the line.
“You’re not leaving,” Daddy said, completely unmoved by the news of my first victory in battle.
“The hell I’m not.” I clenched my hands together in my lap to keep them from curling into fists, which he would see as a sign of aggression. “I’m never alone anyway, so what does it matter? I know you have the guys watching me, even though you promised me privacy. I’m just not sure whether it’s to protect me or to spy on me.”
“Faythe, your tone is unacceptable.” My mother never raised her voice, because she never needed to. Until I came along, it had apparently never occurred to anyone to disobey. As children, my brothers were typically loud and raucous, managing to find trouble in the most benign places, but none of them ever thought to openly defy either of our parents. No, rebellion was my sole territory to explore, and I’d pushed the very limits of what would be endured.
“That’s old news, Mom.” Claustrophobia constricted my throat at the very thought of being confined to the ranch for an unknown period of time. “I’m old enough to vote, I’m old enough to drink, and I’m damn well old enough to make my own decisions. And I’ve decided to go back to school.”
My father nodded to Marc, who stepped in front of the door and leaned against it, both arms crossed over his chest. It would take a bulldozer to move him, and heavy machinery I was not. “Don’t make threats, Faythe,” Daddy said. “We’re only trying to protect you.”
One look at his face told me things were going downhill. Fast. If I couldn’t keep my cool, I’d wind up stuck in my room until I was thirty. “I’m not making threats, Daddy. I swear I’m not. But I truly don’t need your protection. I proved that tonight.”
My father sighed and met my eyes. “I know you think you can take care of yourself, and I think that with a little more training, you just may be right. If you’d like to take advantage of this opportunity to get in some more practice with the guys, I’m sure they’d all be happy to oblige. But you are not going back to school. At least not now.”
Furious at being patronized, I stood, and so did my father. He stared behind me at Marc and nodded again. They thought I was going to run and were prepared to stop me. Wonderful. “How long?” I asked, trying to keep defeat from my voice. It was too late for my face.
“Until they find Sara and whoever took her. You can speed up the process by giving us a description.”
“Get it from Marc,” I snapped, daring him to admit he’d barely seen the stray.
I took a step forward, and Michael stood, preparing to stop me. I rolled my eyes. “Relax, I’m just going to my room. Otherwise known as my prison cell.”
He glanced at my father. Daddy nodded, and Michael sat back down.
Spine stiff and chin high, I marched toward the guarded exit. Marc averted his eyes as he held the door for me, but I could feel his gaze on my back as I plodded down the hall.
In my room, I slammed the door and leaned against it, my eyes roaming walls I hadn’t seen in years. I crossed the floor in an instant, using speed I hadn’t had the nerve to display in front of my father. When I pressed the power button on my stereo, music blared to life through speakers Marc had mounted for me on my seventeenth birthday. My hand hovered over the volume knob as I considered turning it down. But then footsteps clomped down the hall outside my door. I turned the music up instead and flopped down on my stomach on the bed.
Welcome home, Faythe, I thought, eyeing the brand-new security bars on my window. For now.
Four
A soft scratching sound came from the hallway. I rolled onto my back, staring at the door. The scratching came again, and I sat up on the bed, sniffing the air. My nose works much better in cat form, but even on two legs I could identify each of my brothers’ scents.
“Go away, Ethan,” I yelled, not bothering to screen irritation from my voice. My misery didn’t want company.
The knob turned, as I’d known it would, and I leapt to my feet as the door swung open. A dark head appeared in the gap, and I found myself looking into eyes barely a shade greener than my own. “Damn it, Ethan!” I propped both hands on my hips, in unconscious imitation of my mother’s angry stance. “You can’t waltz in here anytime you want, just because my door doesn’t lock.” Daddy had snapped the lock the time I shut myself in and tried to sneak out the window. And he’d steadfastly refused to replace it.
“I didn’t waltz. And I’m not technically in.” Ethan leaned against the door frame, naked from the waist up, a half-eaten Granny Smith apple in one hand. He wore his typical lopsided grin, the one that said nothing in the world could ever really bother him. When we were kids, his inescapable optimism had frayed my nerves, but now I found myself welcoming that distinctive smile with one of my own. I couldn’t help it. His attitude was contagious.
“You still mad, or can I have a hug?” he asked. I shrugged. It wasn’t his fault Marc had dragged me home.
Ethan set his apple on my dresser, and before I could blink he’d enveloped me in his long arms, my cheek resting on a chest smooth enough to be mistaken for a boy’s, if not for an obviously mature physique. And it wasn’t just his chest. Ethan was two years older than I was, but you couldn’t tell it from his cherubic face, all dimples, wide eyes, and long, gorgeous lashes.
He squeezed just a bit too hard, to show me how much I’d been missed. Then he swung me in a complete circle as I squealed, taking me back to my childhood, when I’d spent every summer tagging along behind him and Jace, just in case they decided to let me play.
He set me gently on the floor, then plopped down on my bed and leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows. The pose was familiar enough to send a pang of nostalgia ringing through me. As children, we’d spent hours sprawled across my bed, making fun of Michael’s latest girlfriend and laughing at Owen’s most recent attempt to sneak a terrified pet past our mother.
“So,” he said, still grinning. “Got your escape planned yet?”
“Like I’d tell you if I did.” I curled up at the head of the bed and pulled a small, frilly pillow into my lap. It was one of those worthless, decorative things that do nothing but get in the way. My mother bought it, assuming I’d like it because I had ovaries. She was right, but for the wrong reason. I used it when I needed something to punch.
“You think I’d rat you out?” Ethan asked, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
“I know you would. That’s your job.” He didn’t deny it, and I couldn’t work up any real indignation. Trying to hold a grudge against Ethan was like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands. Not impossible, but damn near.
A soft shuffling sound from the doorway drew my attention. At the threshold stood Owen, my third brother. He was just tall enough that a chunk of his perpetually tousled hair brushed the top of the door frame. Dark eyes met mine and a smile spread across his face, slow and sweet as his Texas drawl. “Hey, sis, I heard you were home.”
“Owen!” I crawled off the bed, tossing the pillow aside, and ran toward him. He met me in the middle of the room, scooping me up into a hug to shame all others, the kind that pops your spine and steals your breath, all in the name of brotherly love. Owen was our resident farm boy, cowboy hat and all. He smelled like the land, like dirt, fresh water and hard work. His jeans were torn and permanently stained, which meant he hadn’t changed out of his work clothes yet. But then, he hardly ever did. Or, more accurately, he hardly ever stopped working, which eventually turned all his clothes into work clothes.
“Aren’t they feedin’ you up there?” he asked, holding me at arm’s length for a better view. “You’re lookin’ kinda skinny.”
“She looks good to me,” Jace said from the doorway. He dropped my suitcase on the floor and snatched Ethan’s apple from the dresser. Grinning, he took a big bite and sank backward into my desk chair, his arms crossed over the arched back.
“She is thin.” Ethan sat up to scratch one tanned shoulder. “But it wouldn’t be quite so noticeable if you’d wear actual clothes, Faythe.”
“I am wearing actual clothes.” I glanced down at myself, trying not to see his point. Okay, maybe my shirt was a little low cut. And tight. And my jeans didn’t quite reach my belly button, but that’s how everyone on campus dressed in the summer. We lived in Texas, for crying out loud. It was hot. “Besides, it’s not like you have any room to talk,” I said, eyeing his bare chest.
He shrugged, as if to say he didn’t make up the rules. “It’s different for guys.”
A double standard. Shocking, really.
“Leave her alone before you scare her off again,” Owen drawled. “You know how sensitive women can be about their clothes.” He put his arm around my waist and squeezed me affectionately, a gesture as smooth and gentle as his temperament.
“She’s no woman, she’s our sister,” Ethan said. I twisted in Owen’s embrace to stick my tongue out at him. Ethan reciprocated and moved to sit on the edge of my bed, feet brushing the thick taupe carpet.
“She’s not my sister,” Jace said around a mouthful of half-chewed apple. His easy grin spoke of casual teasing, but his eyes met mine with enough heat to make me pause with uncertainty for a moment before replying.
I smiled to soften the coming blow. “I’m not your anything.”
“Ouch!” He leaned back against the desk with one hand over his heart, covering an imaginary wound. Then his smile reached his eyes, and he took another bite of the apple. Clearly I’d dealt him a fatal blow.
Owen hugged me one more time, brushing the top of my head with his chin full of prickly stubble, then let me go, backing up to lean against my wall. On the radio, the first notes of “Miss Independent” played, and I smiled at the irony of listening to it from inside my tumbleweed prison. Lucky bitch, I thought, turning it up to give my father every opportunity to hear the song through the walls.
I sank onto the bed next to Ethan and leaned my head against his bare shoulder. “What’s this about you fighting a stray at school?” he asked, draping one arm around my waist. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not ladylike to pick on boys?”
Had she ever. “It was nothing. Just a scuffle.”
Jace tossed the apple into the air and caught it behind his back. “Marc thinks it was the same guy who took Sara.”
Like he’d know, I thought. But what I said was, “Couldn’t have been. He was too easily frightened. It was just some asshole intruder looking for a little excitement.”
“Sounds like he found it.” Owen drawled.
I grinned. “Damn right.”
“Looks like you found a little too,” Jace said, his gaze focused on my stomach.
Shrugging out from under Ethan’s arm, I looked down at the gap between the hem of my shirt and the waist of my jeans. An amorphous purple blob had taken shape on my left side, over the lowest of my ribs. “Beautiful,” I said, standing to get a better view in the mirror. “Just lovely.” It hadn’t looked anywhere near that bad when I’d left campus. Sammi hadn’t even noticed.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked, tugging my shirt down to hide the bruise as I sank back onto the bed.
“Vic’s out looking for Sara,” Jace said. He tossed the apple core into my trash can and held both fists up in victory. I rolled my eyes. Guys may get bigger, but they never really grow up.
“Yeah, I heard.” I pulled away from Ethan, rolling my head on my shoulders, trying to ease the tension that had been building since the moment I’d smelled the stray on campus. It didn’t work, but it did give me a pretty good crick in my neck. “What about Parker?”
“He’s around,” Ethan said. “Marc has him out playing foot soldier.”
“On our own property?” My eyebrows arched in surprise as I rubbed my neck. Then the implication sank in, and my hand fell into my lap, my discomfort temporarily forgotten. “Daddy must be really spooked by all this.”
Ethan and Owen exchanged looks, but I wasn’t fast enough to interpret them before their expressions were gone. Something else was up, but they weren’t talking. Wonderful. I hate secrets I’m not in on.
“We better go,” Owen said, shooting Ethan a stern look. “We’re supposed to help Parker.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ethan mumbled, pulling himself off the bed with one hand wrapped around the corner post.
Owen slapped him on the shoulder and shoved him toward the door, turning back to look at me from the threshold. “We’re going huntin’ later, if you wanna come.”
“We’ll see,” I said, careful not to commit myself. I loved hunting, and he knew it. But if I appeared too eager to go, they might think I was glad to be home, and I certainly couldn’t have a dangerous rumor like that floating around unchecked.
Owen gave me a leisurely, knowing smile and disappeared into the hallway. I listened until I heard the back door slam shut, then turned to look at Jace.
He smiled back at me from my desk chair, showing no inclination to leave. Big surprise. I considered kicking him out so I could pout in private, but then he turned those bright blue eyes on me—the playful sparkle mingling seamlessly with a hint of that earlier heat—and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kick him out and watch the light fade from his eyes.
Instead, I returned his smile, running my hand over the bed to smooth out wrinkles I didn’t really mind in the first place.
Jace leaned back in my desk chair, his Kentucky Wildcats T-shirt stretched across broad shoulders. He was descended from the original Kentucky wildcat, which, of course, was more than just a mascot. “Don’t be mad at me,” he said. “None of this was my idea.”
“I know.” I tilted my head to the left, still trying to work out the muscle cramp. “You can stay. Until you start to bore me.”
“Why, thank you, Your Highness.” He stood to perform a deep, highly sarcastic bow. But instead of returning to the chair, he sat down behind me on the bed, brushing my hand away from my neck. Careful not to tug, he gathered my hair and laid it over my shoulder, then began massaging my neck at the base of my skull.
His touch was firm and warm, and his fingers moved with confidence, seeking the tensest muscles. I moaned with relief, then stiffened and flushed from embarrassment. Jace only laughed and rubbed harder until I relaxed again.
“So, how ya doin’, kid?” he asked, moving down to work on my shoulders.
“Not too bad, for a prisoner.”
He chuckled, sounding distinctly unsympathetic. “Could be worse.”
“How?”
“You could be a hostage.”
I huffed, plucking imaginary fuzz from my comforter as he moved lower, kneading the muscles between my shoulder blades through the thin cotton of my shirt. “At least a hostage has hope of a ransom.”
His hands hesitated for a moment, his breath stirring my hair as he sighed. “Your dad’s only trying to do what’s best.”
“For whom?” I pulled away, turning to half face him.
“For everyone.”
“What’s good for the gander isn’t always good for the goose, Jace,” I said, resorting to a mutilated cliché. It didn’t help. He couldn’t understand. Tomcats were immune to my particular plight, a fact I’d envied all of my adult life.
“You’re not poultry,” Jace said, grinning as he brushed a strand of hair from my shoulder. “And anyway, after everything that’s happened the last couple of days, you have to admit us watching out for you was a good idea.”
“The hell it was.” I beat Jace over the head with that stupid fancy pillow as I spoke, punctuating each word with another harmless blow, even when he brought his arms up in defense. “I…watched… out…for…my… self.” After one final whack, I dropped the pillow into my lap and sat frowning at Jace. “Marc wasn’t even there. But don’t you dare tell Daddy. I’m getting ready to try my hand at blackmail.”
“A new hobby? What, you get tired of the disappearing act?”
“Funny.” I smacked him one last time with the pillow. “But I’m not kidding. He has no right interfering in my life. For that matter, neither does my father.”
Jace’s grin faded slowly. “My father died when I was three, and my stepfather never gave me anything but a hard time. Your dad gave you five years of freedom. Why isn’t that enough?” With nothing appropriate left to rub, his hands settled aimlessly into his lap, and I stared at them to avoid seeing the dejected look in his eyes. He was taking it too personally. It wasn’t like I’d left him in particular.
“Because my life isn’t his to give,” I said, my words clipped short in frustration. “It’s mine, and I should be able to do whatever I want with it.” Whyis that so hard for everyone else to understand?
Jace shrugged. “So, what do you want to do with your life?”
My hand clenched around a handful of my comforter. “I don’t know yet.”
Instead of laughing, he nodded as if he understood. He probably did. If Jace had any long-term goals, surely he wouldn’t have still been working for my father.
