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“It comes with this furniture,” the realtor said. “All of this could be yours if you want. The previous owner went missing two years ago and the children just want to sell.”
“What was his name?” I asked.
“Jonathan Reynolds,” she said with a tense smile, hoping she hadn’t just ruined the sale. The Reynolds case was a mystery, but it was heavily suspected that the eldest son had killed his dad at their hunting cabin just to get the fortune. That would explain why the house had stayed on the market for so long and why they would do anything to sell it.
“I don’t care about that,” I said, looking around. There wasn’t much left in the way of furnishings, just what you’d expect for staging a house of this side. It still felt sparse and half empty, but I liked that. It gave fewer spaces for an intruder to hide.
“Leave the furnishings and I’ll pick up what I want when I have time,” I added.
My father agreed and went off to sign the paperwork. I was able to look around some more and went outside to the back patio. It was stone and curved around to include the pool. I saw Nat running across the grass towards me with my mother behind.
“They have a stable for horses!” Nat shrieked and for a moment she finally looked like a little girl. She’d been trying too hard lately to look grown up and it had always disturbed me.
“Are you asking for a pony?” I laughed.
“Do you think Ivan would buy me one? I mean, he’s not my dad but he’s kinda like my dad, right? I’ll pretend he is if he gives me some of that money!”
She was joking, but it gave me shivers, the way she said it.
“Don’t ever say you’ll do something for money,” I told her. “It’s not worth it. He’d probably buy you a pony just for being you, but you shouldn’t have to pretend anything to get it, okay?”
“Okay,” she said and looked puzzled, but I felt like my words got into her head somewhere. “So when do you move in here and can me and Mom move in with you?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” I stammered. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
I felt bad, I’d been having so much fun being away from home and spending time with the Kings and Ryker that I hadn’t even considered what it meant to Nat. Or Mom, for that matter. “I can move in tomorrow if I want and you can come visit, but I don’t think you guys will live here. What if your dad comes back?”
“I don’t care if he does,” she said with a dark look in her eyes. It wasn’t the first time she’d made some reference to not caring about Reg, but it was the first time she said it so openly and with something akin to anger.
“Do you have a problem with your Dad?” I asked. I was so scared to find out the answer, but I had to know.
“No, he just makes me feel icky sometimes. I don’t like the way he looks at me. And I hate the way he talks about you,” she said and then she started talking about a horse again. I didn’t think Reg had done anything to her yet, but it emphasized again to me that I should have fucking killed him when I had the chance.
Mom walked up to me then, just as Ivan approached from inside the house.
The two of them were, to borrow Nat’s word, icky together. Not in a creepy way like with Reg, but in a way that let me know they were still interested in each other.
“Lev,” Mom said, using her nickname for him. She pressed her skirt down against her thighs in a demure gesture that was a contradiction to the heated glances she threw at him when he was around. She walked differently, too. More slinky, as if she was wearing heels and not her white mom running shoes.
“Bunny,” he said in an appreciative tone. Nat and I looked at each other and made a retching motion with our fingers. Nobody ever called Mom Bunny, and we didn’t know where the nickname had come from. We didn’t want to know.
“You look good today. It’s like you haven’t aged a day since I last saw you,” Ivan continued. “The years have been kind to you.”
“You as well,” Mom said, and drew her eyes up to his face.
I hated it, I mean, it was cute to see two older people flirting, I guess, but it annoyed me that it was my biological parents.
It also annoyed me because his acceptance of her felt like a betrayal of sorts. Ivan should be angry with her, and angry as I was. He should hate her for not realizing what Reg had been up to, or for denying it and letting it happen.
He should be pissed off that she’d taken two hundred thousand dollars that had somehow mysteriously disappeared, and he should be upset that she’d kept me from him.
But he wasn’t, and that irritated me.
Then again, maybe I was the only one who was irritated by this. I was the only one who had a right to be irritated. This was my little burden to carry. Fuck, maybe I needed therapy or something.
And then something better than therapy came strolling across the lawn from the opposite direction of the stables in the form of four deadly hot, sexy men. Four who were all mine, who would help me work out the stress that I was carrying about so many things.
I couldn’t wait to get them alone in the master bedroom upstairs. I wanted to throw everybody out right then and there so we could test out the gigantic oversized custom bed that had been installed just for the house viewing.
