Page 67 of Wild Thorns

Tonight I survived.

That's enough.

Chapter eighteen

Playing House

The next morning, I came downstairs to find all three brothers waiting.

They were in the kitchen, Callum by the window, arms crossed, watching the preserve. Jasper at the table, coffee in hand, deceptively relaxed. Eli leaned against the counter, glasses catching the light, expression unreadable.

When I walked in, they all turned to look at me. The weight of their combined attention was almost physical.

In passing moments it had hit me. In the yard, across tables. But never like this—never all three, never focused. The air in the kitchen had a quality to it I couldn't name: dense, charged, the specific pressure of a room where something important was about to happen.

My eyes traitorously found Callum first.

He was still watching the preserve, or had been a moment ago, and now he was watching me with that dark, steady attention that made it hard to remember what I'd come downstairs for. I knew what I had with Jasper. I knew what ‘to be continued’ meant and what it cost him to wait. I also knew that the warmth I felt every time I was near him was real and good and worth protecting.

I also knew that I had just looked at Callum Voss before I looked at his brother, and the guilt of it landed in my stomach like a stone dropping into still water.

I dragged my eyes to Jasper. He was watching me with that particular warmth, and something in his expression shifted slightly, careful, taking stock, and I wondered if he'd noticed the order of things.

Then I stopped wondering about it, because I needed to be a functional adult.

"Good morning," I said, trying for normal. "Did I miss a meeting?"

"Jasper told us," Eli said directly. "About your ex. About why you came here."

I shot a look at Jasper, who shrugged unapologetically. "They needed to know. We protect our own."

"I'm not—"

"You are," Callum said. His voice was flat, certain. "You've been ours since you dropped that lamp in the driveway."

Silence.

I stared at him. He stared back, unblinking, uncompromising.

"That's a lot of claim," I managed, "from someone who barely speaks to me."

Something flickered in his dark eyes. "I don't speak because words are inadequate. They do little to portray what I feel."

The breath went out of me.

And immediately, immediately, before I'd even processed the sentence, I thought: Jasper. The almost-kiss. The knuckle-kiss. The crazy hot sex that started on the stairs, continued in the hall and ended up in a tangle of sheets on my bed. All of it sitting right there in my chest. And here was Callum saying something that cut straight through every wall I had, and my body responded before my brain could intervene with a list of reasons why it shouldn't.

A person with consistent emotional priorities, I thought, would not be feeling this right now.

I was not, apparently, that person.

"Okay," Eli said, stepping in before the moment could stretch further. "Here's what we know. His name is Marcus Webb. He's staying at the Bayou Inn, room 12. He's been in town for three days."

I blinked. "How do you—"

"I told you we have resources." Jasper's voice was casual, but I could hear the steel. "We know he's been asking about you. We know he's been watching the studio, the coffee shop, the routes you take through town."

My stomach lurched. "He's been watching me?"