“I can’t believe you made that shot,” I murmured, severely impressed.
“Thanks.” She beamed and we started in the direction of the escaped duck. “If you’re sticking around, I’m happy to teach you. Even Calder will tell you I’m the best shot in the family.”
I swallowed an instant surge of bitterness. She had no idea just how little her oldest brother actually wanted to tell me.
As soon as we cleared the trees, Colby held up her hand. “Wait.” Her head cocked. “Do you hear that?”
I listened, and then, hearing nothing, closed my eyes and listened again.
“Come with me.” She didn’t leave me much choice before taking off in a direction that was kind of close to the way we’d come.
I caught up and kept close. Donnie waddled off as soon as we reached the fields, and that was when I heard what Colby was talking about. A rhythmic sound that echoed to the tune of a heartbeat.Thump, thump.Pause.Thump, thump.And it was coming from the partially restored barn.
“Colton?” Colby called, jogging toward the structure and disappearing inside for a solid minute before I reached the open barn door, stopping to catch my breath.
Or so I thought.
As it turned out, there was going to be no catching of breath, when inside the barn was a shirtless, sweaty Calder, one wrapped hand resting on top of a punching bag that hung suspended from a thick beam, the heavy weight still swaying from the impact of his last punch.
Biceps brachii. Triceps brachii. Deltoids. Pectorals. Rectus abdominus.This time, the Latin left clues that brought me right back to where I’d started: dangerously attracted to my sister’s ex-boyfriend.
“You shouldn’t be boxing with a stab wound,” I said, watching him go still.
Calder straightened his spine and his shoulders to roll back. He swiveled his head to me, and his jaw locked familiarly into place. Sweatbeaded on his brow, and his short hair glistened in the lowering sunlight that filtered through the distorted planks of the barn.
“It’s a cut, and it’s still sealed shut,” he ground out, sounding like he had just as much experience exerting himself while injured as I had in treating emergency wounds.
His chest rose and fell rapidly from exertion, the pace just as quick as when he’d held me. Touched me. Kissed me.
At my side, my fingers twitched, itching to ground themselves to him. To slide over muscle and sinew, ligaments and bones, and absorb every inch of the man who looked as chiseled as if he’d been carved from his namesake.
A horse neighed.
“I know, Achilles. I know I should’ve brought treats,” Colby murmured, walking over to the closest stall and letting the horse nibble in her hand as she glanced at the neighboring empty stall. “I guess Colton isn’t back.” She returned to her interrogation, worry marking a blip in her brow, obviously having hoped to find a different Stone inside the barn, pummeling the heavy bag.
“No.” Calder reached down and grabbed his water bottle, downing several swigs as I approached. “What are you doing out here?” He grabbed a towel and began to pat himself down.
“Creighton duck-napped Donnie, so we were—” Colby stopped short, realizing the question hadn’t been directed at her, then noticing the way Calder was looking—glaring—at me. “You know what, I’m going to check the back pasture for Colt and Ajax.”
“He’s not—” Calder tried to stop her, but there was no point; she was already gone. And it was just the two of us again.
Chapter 24
Calder
Rule #28: Silence is a tool, not a weakness. When you’re hunting or being hunted, the one who breaks first usually loses.
My sister wasn’t going to find Colton outside, and she knew that as well as I did. But man, could Colby read a room.Unfortunately for me.It was times like these I wished she had the social aptitude of Creighton, who’d stay in a conversation just to see how insufferable he could get.
“Colby needed my help deciphering the clues to finding Donnie,” Lara said, looking like she expected me to tell her to leave.
“Deciphering? Why? Did he write them in Latin?” I joked, and her only reaction was a blank stare. “Seriously?” I dropped my arm and let my head shake. “Of course he wrote them in Latin.”
Creighton would tell you he’d learned Latin because it was the foundation of many prevalent languages (because he was loath to use the wordromanceeven in this context), but in my mind, Latin appealed to him because it was considered “dead,” and that was how my brother liked to think of himself on the inside. Dry, droll, and dead.
“I’m not sure if they were correct or properly conjugated, but they were definitely in Latin,” Lara said, moving closer, and suddenly, the giant barn started to feel like the size of a matchbox. And just as hot.
“Is that what you told my sister?”
