Broken Read Free

couldn’t find with my eyes closed, not a mark I couldn’t explain.
    He closed his eyes as my fingers moved down his chest. I stared up at his face, a rare chance to look at him without him knowing I was looking. I don’t know why that still matters. It shouldn’t. He knows how I feel about him. I’m having a child with him—it doesn’t get any clearer than that, not for me. But after ten years of pushing him away, trying to pretend I didn’t love him—wasn’t still crazy-in-love with him—I’m still cautious in some small ways. Maybe I always will be.
    Gold eyelashes rested against his cheeks. His skin already showed the glow of a tan. Now and then, when he was poring over a book, I caught the ghost of a line forming over the bridge of his nose, the first sign of an impending wrinkle. Not surprising, considering he was forty-two. Werewolves age slowly, and Clay could pass for a decade younger. Yet the wrinkle reminded me that we were getting older. I’d turned thirty-five last year, right around the time I’d finally decided he was right, and I—we—were ready for a child. The two events were, I’m sure, not unconnected.
    My stomach growled.
    Clay’s hand slid across it, smiling, eyes still closed. “Hungry already?”
    “I’m eating for two.”
    He chuckled as my stomach rumbled again. “That’s what happens when you chase me instead of something edible.”
    “I’ll remember that next time.”
    He opened one eye. “On second thought, forget it. Chase me and I’ll feed you afterward. Anything you want.”
    “Ice cream.”
    He laughed. “Do we have any?”
    I slid off him. “The Creamery opened last week. Two-for-one banana splits all month.”
    “One for you and one for—”
    I snorted.
    He grinned. “Okay, two for you, two for me.”
    He pushed to his feet and looked around.
    “Clothing southwest,” I said. “Near the pond.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Let’s hope so.”
     

    I stepped from the forest into the backyard. As clouds swept overhead, shafts of sunlight slid over the house. The freshly painted trim gleamed dark green, the color matching the tendrils of ivy that struggled to maintain a hold on the stone walls.
    The gardens were slowly turning the same green, evergreens and bushes interspersed with the occasional clump of tulips from a fall-gardening spree a few years ago. The tulips ended at the patio wall, which was as far as I’d gotten before being distracted and leaving the bag of bulbs to rot in the rain. That was our typical approach to gardening: every now and then we’d buy a plant or two, maybe even get it in the ground, but most times we were content just to sit back and see what came up naturally.
    The casual air suited the house and the slightly overgrown yard that blended into the fields and forests beyond. A wild sanctuary, the air smelling of last night’s fire and new grass and distant manure, the silence broken only by the twitter of birds, the chirp of cicadas…and the crack of gunfire.
    As the next shot rang out, I pressed my hands to my ears and made a face. Clay motioned for us to circle back along the woods and come up on the opposite side. When we drew alongside the shed, I could make out a figure on the patio. Tall, lean and dark, the hair that curled over his collar as sporadically clipped as the lawn. Standing with his back to us, he lifted the gun over the edge of the low stone wall and pointed it at the target. Clay grinned, handed me his shoes, then broke into a silent lope, heading around the other side of the patio.
    I kept walking, but slower. By the time I neared the wall, he was already vaulting over it. He caught my gaze and lifted his finger to his lips. As if I needed the warning. He crept up behind the gunman, paused, making sure he hadn’t been heard, then crouched and sprang.
    Jeremy sidestepped without even turning around. Clay hit the wall and yelped.
    Jeremy shook his head. “Serves you right. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot