Following Fabian (11 page)

“You don’t mean that, Vettie.”

“Oh, I mean it. I’d leave you. I swear I would, but I’m gonna stick with you to make sure you don’t sell away pieces of anyone else’s soul along with yours. If you even try it, I will neuter you with my own claws. Do you understand me?”

Billy didn’t answer.

“I asked do you
understand
me?”

The camper door swung open, and the feuding Cats paused their argument to see a tall, white-haired man in a fine wool coat filling the stairs.

Same cold eyes. Same lack of propriety when it came to other peoples’ personal space. When Jacques wanted to be somewhere, he went. He’d always considered himself to be above knocking.

“Billy, have the other groups checked in?” he asked. “None of the heads are answering their phones.”

That was because by then, they were probably awaiting transport to federal prison. Just as he’d expected, some of the suppressed had risen up and helped Senior overtake their group’s enforcers. Some had chosen to flee on their own afterward, while others took up his offer to put them on a bus. They’d let immigration officials sort them out, and maybe they could get home. But, those were the strong troupe members. There were others, still missing.

Women. Children.

Senior’s plan had been to kill the ringmaster when he saw him, but things had just taken a complicated turn. He didn’t know those girls, but he couldn’t just leave them to suffer, no matter what their grandfather had done to disrupt the Creature groups in the North Carolina mountains. Not when they were so obviously on a side they didn’t want to be on.

Not when there were still people Senior knew from way-back-when in need of rescue.

Mierda
.

He couldn’t very well go and rain Hell down on this last group when there was more than one person who needed to be dealt with first. Maybe this Billy didn’t deserve killing, but he needed to pay amends for what he’d done, and it wasn’t Senior’s job to make him do it.

He’d have to call the Shrews. If anyone should take a chunk out of his hide, it was they. He’d watch, then wait his turn to deal with the ringleader.

Astrid had just heeled off her sneakers and dimmed the lights in her apartment’s living room when her cell phone buzzed. It threatened to vibrate right off the coffee table, and she barely caught it before it hit the floor. Shrews were pretty hard on their phones given their line of business, and this was the fourth smartphone she’d acquired in the two years since her contract renewal. The phone company kept threatening to pull her phone insurance plan because of her supposed recklessness, so she was being extra-cautious just in case.

The display screen flashed blue with the incoming text messages. She’d expected more frantic messages from her brother who had last complained about his vision changing back and forth from extra-sharp to a bear’s more nearsighted gaze. One of Bryan’s made-Bears was on hand to help Eric through the transition, but it wasn’t like
family
.

It wasn’t Eric getting in touch again, though. She furrowed her brow upon reading the name. Felipe
never
called her. Never had a reason to. “Maybe Sarah has his phone,” Astrid muttered.

Sarah had destroyed almost as many phones as Astrid in two years.

Astrid squinted at the text message.

Can you ask the gate guard to let me in?

“Nope. Not Sarah.” Sarah was on the permanent guest list. The guard would have recognized her on sight.

Okay
, she texted back, followed by,
Not to be rude, but why are you here?

She didn’t expect a response if the man was actually driving, so she called the guard to relay the approval, set the phone back on the table and shuffled down the hall to the kitchen. It was nearly midnight, but she wasn’t tired. Still hadn’t adjusted to being back in the Eastern time zone, probably.

Humming to herself, she opened the cabinet over the stove exhaust fan and reached for Maria’s box of herbal, sleep-inducing tea. If she had to be at the gun range in the morning, she would need to get a good night’s rest. Her aim was generally astounding, but testing it on so little sleep seemed like an experiment she didn’t want to risk.

Her phone rattled on the table in the living room again, and she turned the heat on beneath the kettle before returning to it. Before she could reach it and read it, there was a knock on the apartment door.

We’re coming up
, Felipe had said.

“We who?” She tucked the phone into the pocket of her flannel shirt and moved the few feet to the door. Standing on her tiptoes, she peered through the peephole to find two identical blond heads.

“What the hell are they doing here?” Quickly, she patted her messy ponytail into submission and wrenched the deadbolt open.

“What are you doing here?” She said, looking from one Castillo to the other. Standing that close and both wearing Felipe’s clothes, she couldn’t tell which brother was which, and she felt scandalized for it. Being attracted to one meant being attracted to both, at least physically, and she couldn’t suppress the feeling of guilt of admiring her friend’s husband’s assets.

Husband
.
Right.
She scanned down their arms to their left hands and found the right-side Castillo to be Felipe. Seemed obvious now that she’d located the wedding band. Felipe had a slight crook in his nose from that ill-fated trapeze stunt.

“You could have just asked,” Felipe said, and his lips quirked up at one corner.

Ass.

“And admit I sometimes can’t tell you apart? A girl’s got to have some pride. Come on in.” She moved out of the way of the door, but only one brother stepped in.

“Thanks, but I can’t stay. I drove him because he doesn’t have a driver’s license,” Felipe said.

“Why did you drive him here?”

A shrill whistling sound pealed from the kitchen, and as she jogged toward it, Felipe called after her, “I’ll see you at the range.”

She turned and walked backward, calling, “Wait!” but the door closed. Felipe was gone, and Fabian paced in her living room.

Shit
.

She continued to the kitchen and flicked the burner’s knob to its off position. “Forgot the tea.”

Fabian had his hand extended before Astrid reached him.

She put her hand in it. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Must have been something in the water.

“It’s only midnight,” she said. “That doesn’t seem long enough for Felipe and Sarah to get impatient and pass you off.”

“Perhaps I should rephrase. I tried to sleep, but I was anxious.”

“Why?”

“The empty room. Can’t exactly bunk with my brother anymore.” He smiled, but she could tell his heart wasn’t really in it. “Felipe offered to stay up with me, but I asked him to bring me here. I hope you don’t mind. Or Maria.”

“Maria’s on a stakeout. I don’t know when she’s coming home, but I don’t mind that you’re here. I was going to have some tea and watch a movie.”

He dragged his thumb over the back of her hand, never pulling his gaze from her face.

The way he looked at her…well, she didn’t know what to think.

No man had ever looked at her that way, and maybe that look didn’t mean what she thought it did. So much of what they did was lost in translation. Maybe he was just a nice guy and looked at every woman that way…or maybe there was some truth to what Sarah had said. She’d said he was interested. He’d said as much back in South Dakota, but for some reason, Astrid found the secondhand information to be more trustworthy.

Apparently, she had a hard time taking men at their word.

Go figure
.

She didn’t want to feel like that, though.

He extended his free hand toward her face and brushed her long bangs away from her eyes. “There you are. I see you know. What’s with the heavy curtains, anyway? I want to see your eyes.”

“Why?” Her voice had gone breathy as if she’d just made a dash toward a ringing phone. She really hoped he didn’t notice, because she didn’t like this feeling that he could not only walk through her, but see right through her, too.

“Because when you’re looking me in the eyes, you’re paying attention to me.”

As if she wouldn’t pay attention to him when he was in a room. It was impossible not to.

She forced down a swallow and willed the burning in her cheeks to subside. “Do you want some tea? Like I said, I was making some when you knocked.”

“No. Thank you.”

“Then I’ll skip it, too. I was going to watch a movie.”

“Something with subtitles, perhaps?” The skin at the sides of his eyes crinkled at the corners with his amusement, and she couldn’t help but to smile back.

When was the last time a man had made her smile just from the fact that
he
had? Someone besides Eric or her grandfather? She certainly couldn’t remember anyone else managing the feat.

“Something with subtitles,” she said breathily. “I can arrange that. Come on.”

He didn’t let go of her hand as she walked toward the armoire.

She pulled the doors open with her free hand and slid out the bottom drawer where she and Maria stored their commingled Blu-ray collections. “Do you want something funny, something action-packed, something bloody…what’s your preference?”

“Hmm.” He knelt down and riffled through the selection. Way at the bottom, he found one that still had the plastic wrap sealed around it. “How about this one?”

Astrid nudged up an eyebrow as she took it. Must have been one of Maria’s. It was some documentary about Central American ruins. She loved to travel, so that was probably one of her trip-planning, research aides. Astrid didn’t think she’d mind.

“Are you sure you’re not in the mood for something fictional and scripted?” she asked as she bumped the drawer closed.

He shook his head. “I’ve traveled a lot but have seen very little of the world. I feel like I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“I recall Felipe saying the same thing about six months ago. Can’t really do much about it with Sarah being off her feet, though. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable on the sofa, and I’ll pop this in?” She eased her hand out of his so she could work the plastic off the Blu-ray case.

Reluctantly, it seemed, he drew his hand back and eased toward the sofa.

She looked up to find him untying his shoes and stepping out of them. She was going to ask if they were Felipe’s, but figured he wouldn’t understand. She’d meant to study that dictionary, but hadn’t gotten around to it. They’d never learn to communicate verbally if they kept touching each other. God forbid he ever needed to call her with some emergency.

The very idea made a jolt of panic ripple down her spine. What if he deed need to call her for help? Would they understand each other? Understanding each other seemed to be a more and more critical thing. She wanted nothing lost in translation.

He’d eased onto his right side and stuffed a couple of throw pillows under his head by the time she approached the sofa. He patted the space in front of him, and for some reason, she obediently sat on the middle cushion near his waist. Normally, she would have wanted her own space. She would have sat in her favorite recliner and pulled the afghan up over her knees, but she was drawn to Fabian in a way she’d never experienced with anyone else before. She didn’t feel like she needed to work so hard around him. When he watched her, she didn’t feel like she needed to perform. Or hide.

She reached for the remote control on the coffee table and pressed the appropriate combination of buttons to activate the television and Blu-ray player.

When the show started, he wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her back a bit so her ass was against his crotch. He snaked his hand beneath her shirt and pressed it just above her waistline.

She drew in a breath.

“Why don’t you grab that blanket and lie down? Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll both fall asleep.”

“Uh. Good idea.” Given the movie narrator’s deep monotone, she’d probably doze off within five minutes. She stood, grabbed the afghan from the recliner, and returned to her previous spot on the sofa. She curled up next to him and draped the blanket over their spooning bodies.

Being snuggled next to him like that felt natural, and with each exhalation, she relaxed a little more into his embrace, and even more when his hand found her belly again. He dragged his chin across the top of her hair, moaning a little.

“You smell good,” he said.

“I use much better shampoo and conditioner when I’m not traveling. I don’t bother weighing down my bag with the good stuff when I’ve got to haul firearms with me.”

“Logical.”

“Is my logic off-putting? I had an ex once tell me I would be so pretty if I did less thinking and less talking.”

He tensed behind her.

And just like that, her mood spiraled south. It wasn’t so much the memory of what David had said, but more so the fact that she’d actually tried to heed his request, though subconsciously. She’d found herself not wanting to speak up—not wanting to volunteer information, even when she knew damn well she had the answers other people lacked. Even when she knew speaking up would save them all some time and effort.

“No. Not at all.” Fabian trailed his fingers up her side beneath her loose shirt, tickling her belly, her ribs, and stopping just short of her bra band before skimming downward. “Whoever said that must have been some kind of fool. I like that your mind is always churning. More than that, I love that you had the education to feed it.”

“Oh, that’s right. You and Felipe didn’t have any formal schooling.”

“No, we didn’t. Some of the old ladies in the troupe taught us to read and write. We picked up scraps of this and that as we could from handed-down correspondence coursework. Homeschooling textbooks. That sort of thing. It was nothing like having a real teacher. I worry now that even if I tried to enroll somewhere, I wouldn’t be able to keep up. You know what they say about old dogs.”

She pressed her elbow back against his ribs and nudged him. “You’re not that old.”

“How old are you,
dragón
?”

“Twenty-eight. Some people dread getting their AARP cards in the mail when they reach a certain age. Well, I dread getting my Old Maid card. It should be coming any day now.” She wanted to clap her hand over her mouth for even saying it. She’d never given that a lick of thought, at least not consciously. But now that it was at the forefront of her thoughts, maybe the idea of being alone did terrify her a bit. Not finding someone willing to put up with her shit long-term. Not finding someone devoted enough to try and try again for the babies she wasn’t sure she could have, but wanted so badly.

“I’m thirty-five.”

“I know,” she said, chuckling. “Felipe is thirty-five.”

“I suppose if you know Felipe, you know me, huh? I guess we’re pretty much interchangeable.”

She scoffed. “You so aren’t.”

“How so?”

She closed her eyes to shut off the visual stimulation from the television screen and blew out a breath. “You just aren’t.”

She didn’t know exactly what had made them that little bit different. Maybe it was their separation all those months, or maybe they’d always been that way. Felipe was just a bit bolder, more assertive, whereas Fabian tended to hold back a bit more. He didn’t take anything for granted. Maybe it was the simple difference between older brother and younger brother. Who knew?

“Do you mind me coming over? Without asking, I mean.” He drew his fingers back up again, this time toying with the elastic of her bra band.

She wished he’d stop being so tentative. She wouldn’t be upset if he wanted to touch her. In fact, she
wanted
to be touched. Normally, she might have said something snide like, “I’ll get over it,” but she didn’t want to leave room for anything to be misunderstood. She wanted him to know that he was welcome wherever she was, at least for now. She didn’t understand what was happening. She wasn’t going to make it out to be true love or anything like it just because the Shrews tended to fall for the men they rescued. She didn’t want to trick herself into feeling a certain way just because of a
trend
. She didn’t know if she was falling in love with the man, but she did know for sure she’d liked him a hell of a lot, and not just as a friend.