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“Is this about the girl I just saw walking down the driveway?”
“Clare.” Hunter couldn’t read his dad’s expression, but the man wasn’t an idiot. He’d probably figured out half of it already. “She’s in my government class. I did a presentation on firearms and she had some questions.”
This would be it. Hunter didn’t even know how to prolong the interaction. He didn’t look at her. “So.”
“Your dad has a lot of weapons.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know about a lot . . .”
Clare looked up at him. “Would you let me see them?”
His dad would definitely have a problem with this.
Thank god his dad wasn’t home yet.
Hunter had worried his mom might be home, though she was the polar opposite of her husband: She never interfered in Hunter’s activities. It didn’t matter, anyway. A note hung from a magnet on the refrigerator, something about a trip to her store in town and a snack on the top shelf.
He looked at Clare. He felt jittery now that she was in his house. Somehow the kitchen felt both larger and smaller with her presence. “Are you hungry?”
“Not yet. Your mom has a store? What does she sell?”
Hunter shrugged. “Odds and ends. You know.” His mother really worked for a New Age store in the antique district, but that usually launched a whole line of questions he didn’t feel like answering.
Clare stepped forward and leaned close. His pulse jumped, but she was only reaching out a finger to touch a photo stuck to the refrigerator. “Is this you and your dad?”
“And my uncle. Yeah.” The picture was from a camping trip last fall. They’d gone into the Appalachian Mountains, and it had rained almost the entire time. In the picture they were drenched and smiling.
“You look just like your dad.”
“Everyone says that.”
She touched another picture. “You have a dog?”
“My uncle does. Casper is a police dog. Uncle Jay is a cop.”
Clare looked up at him. “You’re close.”
He shrugged. “You know. Family.”
“Must be nice.”
The tone in her voice reminded him of the uncertainty when she’d talked about her brother. He wondered just how upset her parents must be—and where Clare fit in.
Hunter reached on top of the refrigerator to grab the keys to the gun locker before he could think better of it. “Everything is in the basement. Come on.”
The gun locker wasn’t really a locker at all; it was more of an extra bedroom with a steel door, a dead bolt, and a six-key combination lock.
He wanted to cover his hand while he punched the numbers, but that would look stupid, and what was the difference if she knew how to get in here? She was scared of the very mention of guns; it’s not like she was going to be back later to steal something.
Clare watched him push the buttons until the door clicked and the lock released. “What’s twelve-fourteen-twenty?”
He stopped with his hand on the knob. “Our birthdays. My dad’s is the twelfth, mine is the fourteenth, and my uncle’s is the twentieth.”
“Not your mom’s?”
Hunter had never thought about it. He shrugged. “I guess he ran out of numbers.” He hesitated before pushing the door open. Now that they were down here, he was having second thoughts.
Clare put a hand on his arm. “Are you going to get in trouble for showing me?”
