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“What are we doing here?” I asked as we got out of the little rideshare vehicle that had brought us to the posh enclave. The gates to the elder Mortcombe residence were locked.
“Stealing one of my father’s trucks.” Sterling keyed in the passcode and pressed his finger against a biometrics panel. The gates ground open, and we walked into the small compound. The landscaping was on point, but the scent in the house told me no one had been there in a long time.
His phone buzzed as soon as we entered the house. Sterling picked up as we crossed into the kitchen. “It’s just us.”
The house was immaculate and somehow both barren and stocked at the same time. Nothing perishable on the counters. Not even a solitary apple. I didn’t peek in the fridge.
Sterling moved through the kitchen down a long hallway. “I’m stealing one of your vehicles. No, everything’s fine. Winter’s with me. No, we aren’t running away. No, we’re not going to the island. No, no one but the Powers That Be know.”
Sterling blithely opened immense double doors at the end of the hallway into the master bedroom. He crossed the threshold. I stopped dead like an uninvited vampire. Holy shit, he was just walking into his mother’sdenlike that?
I choked on my offended little sensibilities. I hissed. “What are you doing?”
Sterling glanced over at me. “Getting some keys.”
“Inhere?”
“Where else would they be?”
“It’s your mother’s—it’s her bedroom!” I caught myself before I saiddenbecause Cerys had gone human.
“It’s Winter,” Sterling told his father, “she’s clutching her pearls that I’m in your bedroom.”
I flipped him the double middle finger.
“I know, proper feral princess to the very end.” Sterling chuckled as he headed into of all places,their closet.
I squawked and flailed like a deranged crow and died of mortification. We could have justrenteda car. We could have justboughta car.
Sterling rustled around in the closet, then returned with two keyfobs attached to a keychain proudly sporting a tacky smiling sun and the wordsSunshine State!emblazoned under it in puffy letters. He smiled as he pocketed his phone. “Dad says hello.”
“Eep,” I wheezed.
He bent and kissed me lightly, trying not to laugh while he pulled the double doors closed with deliberate care, a smirk on his lips.
“Jerk,” I said, still flustered.
He twirled the keychain around his finger.
In the garage were three vehicles: a somewhat salt-riddled truck, a very large SUV, and something that looked like a phallic artifact strapped to wheels. Sterling clicked the fob, and the truck wentbeep.
“Not as charming as your New York ride,” I told him as he opened the passenger door for me. “It doesn’t even creak. And it’s anautomatic?”
“It’s not mine. I claim no responsibility for it.” Sterling got in next to me. He dangled the key fob, then dropped it into the cupholders. “Even has keys. And bluetooth.Andfloormats.”
“And no bench seat.”
Sterling looked down at the center console between us. Then back at me. Center console. Me. “You’re going to letthatstop you?”
“Maybe.”
“Then you drive, and I will demonstrate.”
I snickered.
We headed out of the Mortcombe enclave and towards the highway, stopping to pick up paper maps and some needlessly large beverages and crawdad-flavored potato chips. I opened them and the smell punched me in the face.
I held the bag with one hand while mashing the window button with the other.
