Picture this (Birds of a Feather Book 3) Read online

  Too sweet.

  I knew Bo was gearing up for an argument, and having him explode on us when we were having such a good time was not something I wanted, so I laughed, and slapped Kit playfully on the arm.

  “It’s not the painting you’re grumbling about, is it, Kit? I think it’s the fake silk because it gets all static and –”

  I got cut off by another round of squeals, and then the ones sitting at my sides started rubbing me playfully to see what it did to the fabric. Bo gave Kit a long, thoughtful look, but left it at that, and when we left shortly after that, he was his usual happy self.

  Kit drove me home and walked me to my door.

  “You looked good tonight,” he murmured, and leaned down.

  I expected the usual kiss on my cheek or at least the air close to it, but to my surprise he kissed me on the mouth, long and hard. It was nice.

  As the kiss went on, I started wondering why I didn’t feel anything and thought that not disliking a man’s kisses surely wasn’t good enough. Then I started wondering why I was even analyzing his kiss as it happened. Then I pulled back a little.

  “Kit…” I whispered, not sure how to continue.

  I’d been dating Kit casually for a while, even though I knew that I shouldn’t. I liked him a lot, but I also knew that it’d be much better for us to remain friends, and told him so after he kissed me goodnight the first time. He just smiled calmly and continued to ask me out. I said no the first time, but he cajoled me into coming, and if I was honest with myself, he didn’t have to try very hard. The next time he asked, I just accepted. Part of why I did was because I was a little lonely. I had school and worked part time, but since Wilder met Mac and Jinx moved to Marshes, what free time I had was empty.

  “Goodnight, Mary,” Kit said, interrupting my thoughts.

  Before I got a word out, he walked away, and I closed the door to my small apartment. When I’d slipped into a pair of gray yoga pants and a huge flannel shirt, I pulled out my sketch pad. Too many thoughts were bouncing around in my head, and I knew I wouldn’t sleep, so I started drawing Carson and Bo’s house. Much later I realized that I’d mostly drawn two men sitting there calmly drinking beer straight from the bottle, breathing in the cool night air and relaxing after a long day.

  Outside, a police car passed by and as the sound of the siren faded away, I sighed and went to bed.

  C

  hapter Two

  Skinning a pheasant

  I drove up to the low, wide building right behind Wilder and Mickey, who were in Wilder’s rather worn down pick-up that once had been a deep red but now looked dirty more than anything else. I knew it was a surprise to most people that she was rolling around in that vehicle when she owned a huge and wildly successful ranch and could afford a swanky sports car, or twelve.

  Her boyfriend, Mac, was already there, and he drove a huge, black SUV which was parked next to her dad’s equally humongous and black ride.

  Men, I snorted as I parked my own small piece of crap car. I didn’t care so much about what I drove, although I would certainly have something more reliable when I could afford it. Just a little while longer, I told myself, and then I’d be done with school. There’d be no university fees and hopefully a job that paid better than what I earned from the part-time work I did to support myself.

  Mac immediately walked out of the house and Wilder jumped out of her car, running into his arms. He swung her around and kissed her like they’d been apart for months, which I thought was sweet since I’d been there when he left the evening before to investigate an incident in one of the museums in Treville. This was normally not something that would be a high priority for Hawker Johns and his group of men and women who covertly protected our small country, but a part of Wilder’s grandfather’s art collection was on display in that museum, so they wanted to make sure it was all still there. We’d heard back from them that only a few minor pieces had been stolen, and none of them were Wilder’s. They also shared that they thought the security system sucked, and that the police in Treville seemed completely incompetent but that “even a slow donkey reaches its goal eventually.” This was Hawker’s words, and I assumed it meant that they’d leave further investigations to Treville PD.

  “For heaven’s sake,” Mickey muttered as I walked up to him.

  He’d also been there when Mac left, and he tried hard to look like he thought they were ridiculous. I knew that it was all fake, though, and in reality, he was happy that his best friend and surrogate sister had Mac.

  “It’s cute, Mickey,” I told him, and drawled, “Romantic.”

  He slung a strong arm around my shoulders and grinned down at me.

  “Yeah, yeah. I keep telling Mac to grow a pair and be a man, but he’s not exactly the obeying sort, is he?”

  I started laughing as I wrapped an arm around his waist, thinking about all the times I’d seen Mac and Wilder sort out their different opinions. They usually did it loudly, and this had concerned me because fighting like that was surely not healthy in a relationship, or at least, it didn’t seem like it to me. They seemed to find ways to compromise surprisingly easy, though, and since they both seemed absurdly happy, I assumed it worked for them.

  “Kit isn’t with you?” Mickey asked as we moved toward the house where a group of men had exited.

  I giggled and asked him if he really thought I’d been in my own car if Kit had been with me.

  “You know he refuses to be seen in my baby.”

  Kit was extremely picky about what car he drove, and had a bigger SUV than any of the other men, with more extras and pale beige leather seats that I always felt a bit awkward climbing up in. I’d gotten a deep frown the one time I threw a wrap from a chocolate bar on the floor, thinking that I’d grab it as I got out, so I made sure to never have anything to eat or drink in it.

  “Gotcha,” Mickey snorted, squeezed my shoulders and let go of me to walk over to the others.

  “Jinx and Dante are half an hour away, they were apparently delayed by something,” Wilder said, and echoed Mickey’s question, “Kit isn’t with you?”

  “He just called, he’s delayed too,” a lean man replied so I didn’t have to. “Hey there, sweetie,” he added and put his arm around me.

  “Carson,” I mumbled into his soft shirt, inhaling the scent of fresh air and smoke from the grill, with an undertone of a very manly perfume that I was sure he hadn’t chosen himself.

  Carson was the kind of man who used a regular soap bar and pulled his wet hair back with his finger after a shower. The scented shower gel he’d obviously used would have been carefully selected by his partner Bo.

  “Come and help me out with the food?” Carson asked, so I put my arm around his waist, waved at the others, and went inside to spend time in my favorite place with one of my favorite men.

  As I started slicing up veggies to roast on the huge indoor grill, I wondered if part of why I kept going out with Kit was because of his father, and Bo.

  “Get me some sugar, sugar? Carson asked with a wink as he stirred the glaze.

  I rolled my eyes at his silly joke but went into the pantry to get what he asked for, asking if he wanted white or brown. There was no reply, and instead, I heard another deep voice.

  “What do you want me to do with these?”

  “Huh. Looks like hunting was good?” Carson asked.

  Miller made a grunting sound that seemed affirmative, and I walked out to look at the five pheasants he’d lined up on the long worktable in the middle of Carson’s kitchen.

  I recognized Mill immediately that first night at Wilder’s ranch when they all walked into her living room. Then I’d seen Hawker and had almost dropped the tray of sandwiches I carried. The last time I’d seen that man he’d been wearing a pair of tight, red latex briefs, and I couldn’t believe they were standing there right in front of me. Neither of them recognized me from their drunken night in a strip joint on a back road in Prosper,
although they wouldn’t because years had passed and I’d let my hair grow from the bleached short crop I’d had back then until the reddish, brown waves almost reached my waist. I managed to cover my confusion up credibly by pretending that I was overcome by how fantastic they looked, and I never told any of them or my girlfriends. They didn’t know about my past, and I wasn’t ready to talk about it, not even to them.

  When I saw Miller that first time, I’d been fourteen years old, and he had been so beautiful to me. His eyes had been warm, and they still were as he stood there in his brother’s kitchen, looking calmly at me with one brow slightly arched. Over the years, the memory of him had stayed with me, and I’d made up stories about what he was like. I knew it was silly, but I’d been so sure I’d never see him again, so my dreams had been an escape from reality that had felt harmless.

  Getting to know Miller quickly made it clear that my fantasies had been quite ridiculous, although I also realized that he was a nicer man than I’d imagined.

  I took drawing classes in the evenings and had asked Kit to bring his bird so we could draw it. When Kit canceled just a few hours before class started, I went up to Wilder’s home, hoping that someone at the ranch had a dog or even a pet bunny that I could borrow for the evening. Miller was there, and he’d been on his way home, but when he heard about my problem he asked his kite to come, and then they went with me. The other girls had been awestruck, both by the bird and the man, and there had been a lot more giggling than usual as we drew the bird. We’d shared a meal after class, Miller and me, and it had been a simple burger and fries, but I’d had such a good time. I told Kit, and he just smiled and said that it was good that his uncle had lots of free time. Miller actually had less free time than Kit, so when I wanted to find a dog for Jinx, I’d hesitated, but eventually called him. It took him less than a week to find a beautiful golden dog that looked just like what I’d described. Mill picked up the dog and brought him to me, and then we shared another meal although that had been hot dogs on the street where I lived, with a very hungry dog looking longingly at our food.

  I tried to act casually as I looked at the pheasants Miller had brought for his brother.

  “You messed this one up a bit, didn’t you?” I said with a mischievous grin as I picked one of the birds up and wiggled it a little. “We’ll have to throw it on the grill today, but the others can hang.” I turned to Carson who was staring at me over his shoulder, and when he didn’t say anything, I frowned. “You do hang them somewhere, right?”

  He turned slowly, blinked, and said nothing at all.

  “Carson?” I pushed. “Hang. Cook. Right?”

  “Sure,” he said as a wide grin spread on his lips.

  “Do you want me to do this one?” I asked, wondering if the single glass of whiskey he’d been sipping while we cooked had gone to his head.

  “Absolutely,” he said with a smile spreading on his face.

  I moved over to the counter and started pulling off the tail feathers. Then I stretched for the filet knife and swiftly trimmed off the wings and feet, grabbed the cleaver to remove the head, and flipped the bird around.

  “Ma would have loved you,” Carson said and peered over my shoulder as if he hadn’t seen a dead bird before.

  “Yeah?” I said and glanced over my shoulder at him.

  “She wanted a daughter so much, but that wasn’t going to happen,” he murmured.

  “Why not?” I asked, and they both started laughing.

  “There have only been sons in our family as far back as we know,” Miller chuckled. “And that’s pretty far back,” he added.

  “Ma used to grumble about it, but Da always said he’d warned her early on that hell would freeze over before we had any girls born into our family,” Carson shared.

  I laughed as I turned back to the bird. I’d skinned plenty of pheasants, so I got the skin off easily and started washing the bird in the huge double sink.

  “You’ve done that before,” Miller said calmly.

  “Where I grew up; if you shot it – you skinned it,” I replied.

  “Uh, Mary… I thought you grew up in the suburbs?” Carson asked, and I winced.

  “I grew up in many places,” I murmured.

  Then we heard another car drive up to the house, and I dried off my hands.

  “That’ll be Jinx and Dante,” I said and walked out of the kitchen, relieved that I wouldn’t have to get into all the details of my messy life.

  Jiminella Sweetwater, genius extraordinaire and one of my best friends, got out on the passenger side at the same time as her fiancée opened his door. Dante d’Augustine was a huge, blond man, with the coolest disposition of anyone I’d ever met. Nothing seemed to ruffle his feathers… except when it came to Jinx. Right then, he was frowning at her, and while she let her beautiful golden dog out, he swiftly moved to place himself between her and the road leading up to the house, as if he expected an army to invade any second. Dante had a protective streak a mile wide, and when it came to his girl, it widened to cover even more territory.

  Unlike Wilder who was uniquely equipped to take care of herself, Jinx needed it, though. She had been targeted by a group of rogue government agents and almost gotten herself killed a while back, though except for losing all memories from before she turned ten, she’d recovered fully. Hawker and his men had hunted down all the agents, and I did not want to know what they did to them although I hoped it had been painful.

  Dante put a hand on Jinx’ back, shuffling her toward the house as he scanned the area intently. She must have said something to him, although silently since they, to everyone's surprise, could speak in each other’s minds. His face gentled as his hand slid around her waist, and I guessed that he must have said something too because she blushed and their eyes met.

  Then another car sped up the driveway, stopped by the big gate, and Kit stepped out. He looked up at the sky, and I saw his bird circling. When Kit walked over to lower the beam, I knew that the bird had told him he was the last to arrive.

  Mind speaking and communicating with birds of prey seemed like something out of a fairytale, but at the same time everyone treated it as if it was normal, so I did too. In a way, I was envious of the others and their paranormal powers, though on the other hand, that kind of abilities came with great responsibility. Maybe it made me boring, but I was actually quite happy being perfectly ordinary with no magical talents of any kind.

  “Kitty-kitty-kitty!”

  Wilder and I burst out laughing when we heard Bo running through the house, squealing loudly, and then he burst through the door. He paid no attention to us as he jumped the three steps and jogged toward his step-son. Kit parked the car and got out, spreading his arms and bracing for the impact as Bo reached him.

  “You haven’t been here since forever, son,” Bo said tenderly, for once not sounding or acting like the flamboyant, gay stereotype he showed everyone most of the time.

  “I was here last week,” Kit said.

  “Bah, last week? I could have died since then,” Bo said as they stepped out of the embrace. Then he slung an arm around Kit’s shoulders and added, “I almost did, not that you care.”

  “Pricked yourself with a needle, did you?”

  “Silly boy,” Bo replied with a grin that Kit returned affectionately. “I had the worst paper-cut ever,” he added and widened his eyes in mock horror.

  When they reached us, Kit let go of Bo and came to my side. I got up a little on my toes and raised my face, but he slid a hand softly along my arm and touched his lips briefly to my cheek.

  “Hey, Mary,” he said.

  “Hey,” I replied, and forced my lips into a happy smile.

  I remembered how Wilder had rushed into Mac’s arms, and the look Jinx and Dante shared and knew I had to talk to him. I wanted what they had and not this ridiculously middle-aged version of a relationship, and when I thought about it, Kit deserved more too. Not tonight, though. We were
finally together all of us, nobody was injured, and we had no mysteries to solve or bad guys to hunt down. Tonight, we’d have a nice dinner, and just relax. I could talk to Kit when we were back in Prosper.

  Summer was almost over and the evenings were getting chilly, so we moved inside after dinner. Nobody in the group was a heavy drinker, but we’d had both beer and wine with dinner so we were all a little bit tipsy and a lot happy. Then Bo started up the music, and before long he’d pulled Jinx from the couch. Mickey turned out to be a surprisingly good dancer, and Wilder didn’t know any fancy moves, but she pranced around with such confidence it looked like she owned the dance floor. I wanted to dance too, and turned to Kit who was next to me, doing something on his phone.

  “Sweetie, put that away and come dance with me?” I asked, and nudged him.

  He took a step to the side, and his eyes left the screen for a brief glance at me, and then his fingers moved again.

  “Maybe later,” he muttered.

  “Kit, please,” I said, “The phone will be there tomorrow, why don’t you –”

  “I’m sorry, Mary, but you know I don’t like to dance anyway. I have to do just one thing…” he interrupted, and walked off.

  I stared at his back as he walked out on the back porch and raised the phone to his ear. I knew that he was working on something with a few friends, and he apparently thought this was more important than a family dinner. Then the music shifted, and a song from the backcountry by the mountains started. I smiled a little sadly because hearing it brought back bittersweet memories of a part of me I thought I’d left behind when I left home.

  With a glance at Kit, who was frowning and making an impatient gesture with his hand, I turned and started clearing some of the plates from the table.

  “I’ll help,” Jinx said and started to gather up plates. “Is everything okay with you and Kit?”

  “Not really,” I answered quietly.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really,” I repeated.