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“Melissa, who is it?” Evan’s voice comes from inside the house, and I bite back a grin.
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Matt and Octavia Hansen,” Matt says. “He knows us.”
She turns away. “It’s Matt and Octavia—”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Evan says, and appears at the opening, swinging the door wide open. “Oh God, thank you for coming.”
His left arm is in a cast, a heavy-duty sling keeping it immobilized against his chest. There are dark circles under his eyes, the mottled purple hue of bruises, his cheeks sunken in as if he lost weight recently.
Matt takes his uninjured hand, gives it a light squeeze, frowning as he takes Evan in. “You look like something the cat pooped out.”
I snort-laugh. Oh my God, how embarrassing, but there’s something about Matt Hansen saying “pooped” that has me snorting again. He’s been trying to use fewer bad words in front of his kids, and it’s cute, and sexy, and oh crap…
I clap a hand over my mouth, my cheeks on fire. “Sorry.”
“Octavia. Nice to see you again.” Evan sends me a warm smile. “And I noticed Matt’s sense of humor hasn’t improved.”
Matt scratches at his beard, still frowning. “I wasn’t trying to be funny, dammit. You look like shit.” He glances at Melissa who’s giving us wide-eyed looks that also manage to be glares from under a chestnut fringe. “Sorry, kid.”
“What for?” she mutters.
He winces. “Nothing.”
“Don’t worry about cussing in front of her,” Evan informs us, turning and limping back inside the house. “I do it all the time. Come on in.”
Exchanging quick looks, we follow Evan inside, under the death glare of his niece. She’s a tiny thing, her hair a wild tangle of brown curls, her eyes cat-like, a pale hazel, like gold.
Like her uncle’s.
Evan is a tall, lanky guy with hair the color of coffee, cropped close to his skull. A tattoo peeks out from the neckline of his T-shirt, curling over the back of his neck—it looks like spread black wings, a raven or another bird of prey.
“Make yourselves at home,” he mutters, limping into the big, cozy kitchen and opening a cupboard one-handed to pull out mugs.
He sets them on the table. “Melissa, grab the sugar for me, will ya?”
The girl glares at him mutinously for a few long seconds before stalking to a low cabinet and getting out a sugar pot. She comes over as we take our seats and puts it on the table.
“So you’re friends?” she asks, hovering beside me, and I want to pull her into my arms and caress her bouncy curls. “With Uncle Evan?”
“They are,” Evan replies for us as he pulls out a chair and sinks down in it with a weary sigh. “Matt and me, we used to work together at Jasper’s. And I’ve known Octavia for many years. She used to live here. Grew up here, isn’t that right?”
I nod, smile, pretend the smell of coffee isn’t turning my stomach. “Sure did. I was born here, in Destiny. We only moved away a few years ago.”
The girl, slightly mollified, climbs on the last free chair and stares across at her uncle as if waiting for cues.
“They came to help me out a little,” Evan goes on. “Just for a few days.”
He’s a handsome guy, I realize with a start. I never paid him much attention, and he’s so different from Matt it’s ridiculous. Where Matt is tall and muscular, built like a tree, Evan is slender and shorter, though his bare arms are sleekly muscled.
“Matt mentioned you have pets,” I say, glancing around for any sign of them, any water or food bowl, any animal bed, but there’s nothing.
“I have birds in the back, and a turtle.”
“They’re canaries,” Melissa adds, smiling for the first time since we arrived. “And Mabel needs food.”
I had somehow thought he’d meant dogs, or cats. “No problem. We’ll take care of them.”
