Chapter One
Wow. My own brother. Shouldn't really be such a surprise. The guy had been out to get me since my mother gave me a Nintendo DS for Christmas when I was thirteen years old and he'd gotten Heelys because she thought he already spent too much time locked away in his room at fifteen.
To be fair, fifteen was really probably too old for shoes with a wheel built into the back. The worst part had been that, in all her infinite wisdom, she'd thrown all his other shoes out. He'd literally had those shoes and his wrestling shoes until she'd finally broken down and bought him some more six months later.
I'm pretty sure after that, he'd resented everything about me.
Not really fair since he'd played with my Nintendo DS way more than I did.
Or maybe it had nothing to do with the gift from ten years ago. Maybe it was the fact that my brother was an innately selfish asshole who could very well be a sociopath and always had been for as long as I could remember. All I knew was I was sitting in best friend Stephen's basement while they argued about whose responsibility it was to keep the number for that Oscar guy from the last time.
"Oscar's dead," I mumbled, staring blankly at the odd collection of garden gnomes littering the shelves of this twenty-five-years-old-but-still-living-at-home's basement.
"Shit!" Stephen said, slapping my brother in the chest. "He wasn't supposed to wake up, Jax! Now what are we going to do? If he ever gets away again, he'll rat us out."
"I put enough of that shit in his coffee to keep him out for a while," my brother whined.
"I didn't drink all my coffee because it tasted like shit." I locked my eyes on my brother, giving him a dry look. "Probably because someone poisoned it."
"Please, I spiked it at the most."
"So, you talked directly to Oscar last time, huh?"
The knot behind my back was easy enough to get my hands free of. My brother definitely hadn't been a boy scout. But now I had to find a way to get past these two.
Oddly, I was barely nervous at all. I'd already lived through this shit once. And I'd witnessed a lot while living at the leap. There honestly wasn't much anymore that could phase me.
"You know Oscar?" Stephen asked, narrowing his eyes.
"I knew of him," I said with a sarcastic smile. "I also watched his body get gurnied out." Making eye contact with my brother, I blinked innocently. "What was left of it anyway."
"Whatever," Jaxon scoffed turning to Stephen. "He's full of shit. Keep looking through your phone."
"It's not here, man," my brother's friend answered. "I deleted it after the last time because I didn't want to get caught with that number in my phone just in case everything went ass up."
Suddenly the basement door opened, and a cute, blond head popped around the edge.
"What the fuck?" Stephen growled. "How the hell did you get in my house?"
"Sorry to bother you, sir," Carter said, making eye contact with me for a brief second. "Did you know your front door is about to be busted right off its hinges?"
Standing slowly, I walked over to the shelf of Gnomeville, selecting a lady with a rather plump rear-end covered in a purple skirt and a stout looking male who looked to be holding a large stone and walked up behind the two idiots engaging my friend and not paying a bit of attention to me.
"What do you mean my front door is busted off of its hinges?" Stephen asked, still watching the little blonde.
"Well, it isn't yet," Carter said, rolling his eyes as I raised the two gnomes over my head. "But it will be as soon as––"
Swinging down with both pieces as hard as I could, I slammed them against the thick skulls of the two men. They collapsed immediately, and the two gnomes skidded across the floor, completely unharmed.
"Damn, Marshall," Carter said, picking up the lady gnome and throwing it against the concrete floor.
Again, the thing was completely intact.
Hmm, sturdy little bastards.
"Do you think I killed them?" I asked, bending over my brother and squinting my eyes to see if he was breathing.
"Nah." Carter shrugged, once again picking up the girl gnome and holding it out to me. "Here, try again."
I wasn't completely sure if he meant try again to kill my brother or break the garden décor. Honestly,it could go either way with him.
"How did you find me?" I asked, taking the figurine and tucking it under my arm.
"Quinn."
Frowning, I scanned my brain for the name, coming up empty. "Who's Quinn?"
Carter smirked, meeting my eyes with his cold, blue ones. "Funny story."
For reasons unbeknown to me, I absolutely adored Carter. Even though I was pretty sure the only person in the whole world he even liked was his mate. I'd seen the man threaten more than one life for even looking in Harley's direction without respect. And something about the way he looked at those he was threatening, told me there was nothing idle about them.
"Damn it, little shit!" Harley roared just before the basement door was ripped from its hinges.
Carter raised his eyebrows, reaching out a foot to kick at Stephen's––hopefully not lifeless––body. "Sorry. I meant your basement door. Slight miscalculation."
Stephen didn't respond.
Harley clomped down the steps, looking angry as hell until he was standing directly in front of Carter. When all the blonde did was blink slowly, Harley sighed. "Fine, let's go."
I tried to hide a smile, looking away.
I heard the stairs creak, and I looked up and…
Holy…I don't know. Holy something. I can't brain right now.
"Hi, Marshall," the gorgeous man with chocolate-brown hair, light-brown eyes, a broad, strong brow, and square jaw said, a smile kicking up the side of his wide-set mouth.
And I said…
I said nothing. I said abso-fucking-lutely nothing.
I did, however, hold out the female gnome to him and grunt.
***
We'd driven for a while, stopping at a diner just inside the border of Idaho for dinner when it started to get dark, deciding to go ahead and find a hotel when Carter realized it was New Year's Eve and that there was bound to be drunk drivers on the road.
Unfortunately, the little town only had one little motel and though it was actually pretty clean, four of its five rooms were booked. It didn't take a genius to know that Harley and Carter were going to share one of the full-size beds.
And guess who that left awkward ol' me sharing a bed with? Yep. The gorgeous, completely intimidating man who I hadn't even spoken a word to since we left Stephen's.
Sighing at the window, Harley turned to Cater, pouting. "We should have planned this better."
His blond mate shrugged from where he sat up against the headboard of the bed the couple had claimed, he continued to play some game on his phone. "Nothing to be done now."
Frowning harder, Harley walked over and plopped on the edge of his bed, turning his attention on me. "So, on of those dead guys was your brother?"
Wow, I'd forgotten how fun it was to have a conversation with Harley when he was bored. He'd been so busy being the boss lately, he'd had very little time to be like this. Which was a shame really. He had an oddly innocent way of looking at things sometimes.
I opened my mouth to answer, but Carter groaned, dropping his phone to the bed, glancing at me in apology. "He wasn't dead."
Harley shrugged, focusing on his mate. "He probably is now."
My face probably looked crazy as I smirked at my friend and then frowned and then smirked and the frowned again.
I love Harley for the person he was. The guy who just said whatever he was thinking. But I was concerned about why the thought of my brother possibly being dead––and by my hand––wasn't more painful. Hell, I wasn't even hurting from the truth that my own brother was the reason I'd been separated from my family in the first place.
"Harley, honey," Carter said, moving up behind the big bear shifter and putting his arms around his shoulders, leaning his head against the other man's. "Normally, I wouldn't try to put a kink in your truth hose, but maybe this time we should err on the side of caring for Marshall's feelings a bit. That was his brother."
"I didn't murder him," Harley insisted before throwing a hand in my direction. "Marshall did."
I snorted out a surprised laugh, blinking at my friends as Harley tried to glance over his shoulder at his mate, looking confused.
Carter groaned, dropping his forehead to Harley's neck and I laughed again, not really sure what to think in that moment. This whole thing had been out of my realm of understanding, and far beyond surreal.
The door opened, letting cold air in and I shivered.
Quinn, the man Carter nor Harley, neither one, had actually introduced me to, stomped his feet against the threshold, knocking snow off of his shoes before walking the rest of the way in, dropping a shopping bag on the table by the window right next to the door.
I tried not to stare like a complete freak as he unzipped his thick jacket and pushed it off of his huge, sexy shoulders, dropping it on one of the chairs.
I startled when he turned, his eyes landing directly on me, catching me in my perusal. He wasn't exactly scary. Probably pretty intimidating to most people, but I was used to huge intimidating men. I lived in a house full of them, and it had been a really long time since I'd felt scared in any way.
More, his presence just unsettled me, making me a little restless and unsure. I wanted to impress him. Needed to. But I had definitely fallen short so far. In fact, I don't think I could possibly have been less impressive if I tried.
Quinn's gaze wasn't unkind or even remotely hostile. It was just assessing and intense. Like he was cataloging every little thing about me so he could put me in the appropriate phylum.
Apparently, he just didn't like my particular kind of bacteria, but I was trying really hard not to take offense to the passive expression constantly present on his gorgeous face as his gaze met mine.
I was failing hard. Every uninterested look was like a stab to the heart with a dull knife.
I took a deep breath as he turned to the bag, pulling out various toiletries and laying them on the table while Carter whispered something in Harley's ear, making the giant of a man snicker.
Quinn turned, again nailing me to the spot with his unemotional gaze before looking at the empty space on the bed beside me and then the chair situated in the corner across the walkway from the foot of my bed.
I wasn't surprised in the least when he chose the chair as opposed to the spot beside me on the bed. I was actually surprised he came back. I'd thought when he'd disappeared for nearly and hour that he wouldn't be back. I'd felt bad because all I could think was that my presence bothered him so much he was going to go sleep in the vehicle in the cold.
Earlier on the way here, I'd thought he was going to try to climb out the back passenger side door of the SUV. It was a good thing the doors had safety locks,or the sheer weight of his giant body would probably have popped the door right open as hard as he'd been leaning on it.
I didn't know what the guy smelled when he scented me, but whatever it was must have made his animal extremely unhappy because he'd kept his window open a crack and had nearly had his nose pressed there the whole time.
My chest constricted oddly, for some reason the thought of this man I barely knew not liking my smell causing a knot of emotion to form in my throat.
I knew I didn't stink. I had had a shower and applied all the appropriate hygiene products just before my brother drugged and kidnapped, and I hadn't been missing more than three or four hours, so I probably didn't smell any worse than I would have on any given day at the leap house, and nobody ever acted like my smell was a direct assault on their person, but even now, while he took his shoes and socks off, I could see his nose twitching like he smelled something particularly foul and I didn't think it was his feet.
I dropped my head, looking at the remote in my lap. Carter had handed it to me earlier, hoping I wouldn't have a nervous breakdown if I got to pick the channel. So far, I'd managed to find a news station that was alternating between politics and celebrity gossip and I was pretty sure I was getting the stories all kinds of mixed up when a vision of the president in a gold cocktail dress popped into my head.
He didn't really have the legs for it. And I thought maybe he'd look better in red velvet.
Glancing at Quinn again, I tried not to notice how the gorgeous man moved, or how his shirt pulled tight across his muscles as he bent forward to tuck his socks inside his shoes.
He made a noise in his throat and when I ripped my eyes from his body and up to his face, he was cringing with his head turned away from me like even the eight or so foot of space separating us wasn't enough.
I could honestly say, it had never bothered me so much that someone didn't care for my presence. But for some unknown reason, Quinn not liking me...or worse, finding me disgusting, made my chest ache in a way I'd never experienced before. I must have made a noise of distress or something because all heads in the room snapped in my direction.
"Are you okay?" Quinn's deep, sexy voice inquired as he stood, moving to the end the bed, so he was standing over me.
Nodding, I opened my mouth, but speech eluded me as I looked into those gorgeous, light brown eyes. Eyes that belonged to a man I apparently disgusted. A man I was going to either have to share a bed with or one of us was going to be sleeping on the floor.
When it was obvious that I wasn't going to get my voice box going anytime soon, he cleared his throat, leaning forward and sticking out his hand. "I'm Quinn, by the way."
Oh! Damn his mouth is nice. And I fucking hated that I was having thoughts like that while he was probably eyeballing the bathtub so he could find a place to sleep where my scent didn't linger.
I blinked, not really sure what I was supposed to do. All I could seem to concentrate on was how much I wanted to lick his bottom lip and how very unwelcome that move would be. But it was plush and sexy, and I could just imagine what it would look like glistening from my mouth.
Glancing back down at his outstretched hand, I reached out…and placed the remote in his palm.
I wanted to take it back immediately, my brain finally catching up to what he'd said, but it was too late. He was already pulling back, frowning unsure down at the remote.
"Thanks," he said hesitantly, looking around the room. "You keep giving me such nice things."
"This is painful," I heard Carter mumble out of the side of his mouth and when I met his gaze, he cringed.
"Did he get a head injury or something?" Harley asked, his loud, booming voice making me start just a bit.
Carter frowned, moving away from his mate and sliding off the side of the bed to walk over closer to me, glaring into my eyes. "He was fine when I got there," he mumbled absently.
Putting my hand in the middle of his forehead, I pushed him away, sighing. "I'm still fine. Just…processing."
Processing the fact that I may or may not have killed my brother. Processing the fact that the man I was more attracted to than I had been any other in my entire twenty-two years of life, was drawn to in a way I couldn't quite understand was apparently not on the same page, not even in the same book, possibly the same language. Processing the fact that even though we were still on our way back to Purdy where I'd learned to feel safe the last few months, I still wasn't sure if that was where I belonged.
Would I always feel so displaced?
"Oh," Harley said, nodding, though he looked anything but convinced. He was probably going to be watching me closely for the rest of the time to make sure I didn't have any signs of a concussion. "Are you going to pick something to watch, Quinn?"
"Uh," Quinn glanced down at the remote, blinking a couple of times before shrugging. "What do you want to watch, Harley?"
"The New Year's Eve shows should be starting soon," he said, kicking off his shoes and scooting up the bed to rest his back against the headboard. "Let's find one of those."
Spreading his legs, he looked at Carter, patting the spot between them and opening his arms, adding grabby hands when the blonde didn't move fast enough.
After watching them settle into an intimate snuggle, I glanced Quinn's way, wondering at the frown on his face as he too considered the couple before turning to catch me watching him.
When all I did was widen my eyes awkwardly reaching for something beside me and coming up with the channel guide, I glanced down at it before holding it out to him, more than happy when for once, I was actually handing him something useful.
Snorting out a small laugh he tried to hide with a cough, he took the guide, quickly reading over the information before flipping the channel over to a station that had a large amount of people standing outside in New York City, in very little clothes and no doubt freezing their asses off.
It looked like a blast.
"I've always wanted to go to New York City during New Year's Eve," Quinn said, drawing my attention back to him. "I thought I'd get a chance to, now that everything is taken care of in Tennessee, but I don't know how many of those big plans I’ll actually get to do now."
Why? What was stopping him? If I now didn't have to worry about someone finding out I was a chosen and kidnapping me and selling me off for my super baby making abilities, I'd probably start checking locations off my bucket list like a champ.
The money my grandmother had set aside for my schooling or whatever I chose to do with my life after high school was still sitting in the bank collecting interest because the restaurant I'd worked at all through high school had already promoted me to manager and I was making pretty decent money doing that.
Once again, I was stupidly staring at Quinn, and he was staring at the screen, looking conflicted. When he glanced away, it was directly into my eyes, the same confused longing on his face.
"I would have been there this year," I said, glancing away when his intense stare made my stomach flutter. "I booked my plane tickets last April…but then I got kidnapped." Sighing, I rolled my eyes still not looking at Quinn. "I was actually just getting up the nerve to use them when I found out about my gran."
"How is your gran, Marsh?" Carter asked, drawing my attention away from the odd painting of flowers hanging over Harley's head.
I smiled softly, remembering how grouchy Gran had been when we left the hospital, snapping at some poor nurse because he reiterated an instruction and she felt like he was treating her like she was senile. "She's good now. Took her a little bit, but she's finally back to normal."
Or at least she had been when I'd tried to leave to go back to Purdy. She probably thought I was safe in my own bed back in Nebraska by now. Little did she or anyone else know that my own brother had drugged my coffee that morning and I'd passed out on the stairs on my way up to get my stuff, so I could catch my flight.
If I hadn't gotten away, nobody would even know I was missing until she tried calling me the next week. But she would notice if my brother didn't show up that night or the next morning since he was living with her again. My stomach dropped just thinking about the phone call I was going to receive if he didn't show up over the next couple of days.
"What if my brother really is dead?" I asked quietly, my eyes no longer focused on Carter or Harley, but on the yellowed fire alarm on the wall high above their bed. "That might kill her."
In the very least, she'd have some kind of attack and have to go back to the hospital. What if I had to come back home because she couldn't take care of herself and my brother was dead, and my mom was too brokenhearted to care for my grandmother?
What if Stephen lived and Jax died and Stephen turned me in? There would be no way my family would survive one son being dead and the other being in prison.
I hadn't realized I was freaking out until Quinn's gorgeous face suddenly appeared in front of me, concern in his pretty brown eyes. "Hey," he said calmly, grabbing my shoulders. "Breathe for me. It's okay."
"I think it's starting to sink in," I heard Harley say,and if I wasn't having a fucking panic attack, I might have laughed.
One could never say that Harley wasn't observant.
Quinn gave me a small shake, making my eyes focus once again on his.
Oh God! He's going to have my scent on him now. He doesn't want that!
Swatting his hands away, I stood in the middle of the bed. My breathing was getting worse, and I could actually feel my heart as it pounded in my chest. I felt like if I looked down in that moment,it would be like those damn wolves in old cartoons when they saw a beautiful female and their hearts started beating out of their chest.
I actually reached up to put pressure on mine as I jumped from the bed, making a run for the door.
I didn't even feel the cold on my feet as I stumbled out into the parking lot tripping on a cement parking barrier and falling to my knees on the snow-covered asphalt, what had been deliciously greasy diner food hitting the ground almost as soon as I did.
I felt myself tip sideways and knew at the rate the ground was coming that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to stop myself from passing out. I was just thankful I wasn't going to land in my own puke.