“Mom, you didn’t have to do all this.” I sank onto the closest bar stool and crossed my arms on the countertop, trying to hold my head upright though it felt about ten pounds too heavy from exhaustion.
“Kaci needs the energy, and from the look of the rest of you—” her gaze flicked over my shoulder to where Ethan and Dan had followed me into the kitchen “—so do you.” My mother set down her shredder and rinsed her hands at the sink, then dried them on a clean towel hanging from a drawer handle. “You must be Mr. Painter,” she said brightly, rounding the end of the peninsula with her arm extended.
Dan nodded and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.” I’d never seen him look so…bashful, and I was just plain amused by the amazement with which he watched my mother. And for a moment, I saw her through his eyes: pretty, petite, nurturing, and efficient, with a surprising strength in her handshake and a bright gleam of intelligence in the Caribbean depths of her eyes.
I smiled and waved the guys toward the remaining bar stools, then swiped a slice of bacon from the platter.
“You made fantastic time,” my father said from the doorway, and I turned to see him frowning. “Which means someone drove entirely too fast.”
I pointed at Ethan, and he smacked the back of my head, but his grin never faltered.
“Mr. Painter.” My father stepped forward and extended his hand toward our guest, as Dan slid off his stool. Apprehension flitted across his face for a moment before his blank look settled into place—another lesson well learned from Marc. He shook my father’s thick hand, and I couldn’t help but contrast this greeting with the less enthusiastic welcome he’d gotten the last time he’d been on the ranch, when he was interrogated about the time he’d spent with Manx during her crime spree.
It felt like my entire world had been spun off its axis in the four months since then. Everything had changed, and not for the better.
“May I see this scar?” my father asked, and Dan turned and pulled his shirt off to present his back for examination under the bright fluorescent lights.
I smiled at the strange sight, while Dan flushed. I could sympathize. My partial Shift had been perfunctorily examined many times, and I hated being presented like a show horse. But Dan was a good sport about it, due in part to his agreeable nature. Though I assume he was also equally eager to have the foreign implant removed from his body.
I sympathized with that, too.
“I’ll be damned…” my father mumbled, removing his glasses to squint at the short, smooth white line on Dan’s back. “This is the strangest thing I’ve encountered in more than thirty years as an Alpha.” He looked up and locked gazes with my mother, who had paused in the process of scooping shredded potatoes into the first skillet. “Things are changing, Karen.”
She nodded mutely, the slight dip in the thin lines of her forehead the only indication that she shared his mounting concern with the state of the world. But that was plenty for those of us who knew her.
My father stood, his mouth tugged into a deep frown, and motioned for Dan to put his shirt back on. I knew what he was thinking. How could he possibly keep up with rogues committing crimes aided and inspired by technology he didn’t know existed?
“Dr. Carver’s running late, but he’ll be here within the hour. We’ll eat, then he can remove the chip from Mr. Painter’s back.” My Alpha’s gaze found me as I snagged another piece of bacon. “And when Kaci wakes up, you have to talk her into Shifting.”
I could only nod and chew my bacon, hoping Kaci was ready to get it over with.
Ethan went to the guesthouse to wake up Jace and Brian, and by the time they’d showered and dressed, Owen had joined the rest of us in the dining room. We were careful not to wake Kaci—though I couldn’t resist peeking into her room to check on her—because in her weakened state, she needed all the sleep she could get. And because we didn’t want her to hear about what had happened to Manx or Marc, or the possibility—however slim it was in my mind—that he might not be found alive.
She would have to know eventually, of course. But not until she’d Shifted and could regain her strength.
Dr. Carver arrived as we were sitting down to a huge, hot breakfast. My mother set another place at the long dining room table for him, and Ethan and I introduced Dan and caught everyone up on what had gone down in Mississippi. Including our suspicion that Kevin Mitchell was working for either his father or Calvin Malone, the two Alphas most outspoken about the “stray problem” and least concerned with violating the civil rights of a segment of the population they had no use for anyway.
I was on my third helping of scrambled eggs when soft footsteps whispered from the hallway, and Kaci stepped into the doorway, long brown curls tangled from sleep. She clutched the door frame with one thin, white hand, her huge eyes taking in all the new arrivals at once.
“Kaci!” I smiled and stood, cutting Ethan off in the middle of an off-color description of Eckard’s corpse, hopefully before the tabby had heard too much. All eyes followed my gaze to the doorway, and my mother rose immediately to fill another plate, while I shoved Jace’s empty chair over to make room for the one he had taken from against the rear wall.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” She lowered her frail form onto the chair between mine and Jace’s, glaring at me with accusation swimming in her eyes. “I didn’t even know you were coming home.”
“It was a last-minute decision. Mr. Painter—” I gestured at Dan, by way of an introduction “—needed to see Dr. Carver for…a checkup. So Ethan and I brought him.”
She wasn’t buying it; I could tell from the firm, straight line of her mouth. But she’d learned enough diplomacy in her months with us—in spite of my sometimes less than perfect example—to know better than to call me out in front of everyone else. So Kaci just frowned and accepted the plate my mother handed her with a whispered “Thanks.”I’d been gone for less than forty-eight hours, but I couldn’t believe the difference in her. Her eyes were dull, and looked bigger than they should have, while the rest of her seemed to have shrunk. Her skin was so pale I could clearly see the veins peeking through the dark smudges beneath her eyes, and her arms were all sharp angles, thanks to the too well-defined bones of her wrists and elbows.
While I watched her push eggs around on her plate, the table went quiet. No one seemed to know what to talk about, now that Kaci’s arrival had put an end to the update on the search for Marc.
When everyone was finished except for Kaci, who’d finally donned a small smile as she watched Jace and Ethan spar with the last two sticks of my mother’s homemade biscotti, my father gestured for me to follow him and Dr. Carver into his office. He shut the door behind us, and I sank onto the leather couch as if I hadn’t just dozed through most of the drive home.
I had slept, but I hadn’t slept well—not in several nights—and both the physical and emotional stress were getting to me.
Carver lowered himself onto the couch next to me, clutching a steaming mug of coffee in both hands while my father settled into his armchair. “I need to get Kaci out of the house until Dr. Carver has finished removing Dan’s microchip. We don’t want her to overhear any of that, for obvious reasons.”
I nodded, but my gaze remained glued to the mug I was seriously starting to covet.
“What do you think, Danny?” my father continued, and I tried to tune back into the conversation. “How long will this procedure take?”
Carver shrugged and somehow avoided spilling his coffee. “Half an hour, at the most. It’s very simple. Local anesthetic, a short cut, pull out the microchip, then some sutures.”
“Do you think Kaci can handle a half-hour walk in the woods?”
The doctor nodded. “I don’t know that she’ll feel like walking the whole way, but if someone is willing to carry her when she gets tired, the fresh air might actually do her some good. Assuming she’s properly bundled.”
Fortunately, the cold front had already passed over Texas, so it was nearly ten degrees warmer at the ranch than it had been in Rosetta.
“I’ll take her.” I stood, intending to pour coffee into a travel mug before heading back into the great outdoors.
My father frowned, templing his hands beneath his chin. “I want you to stay here and rest. You look like hell.”
“Um…thanks?” But I sank back onto the couch, partially relieved. I couldn’t remember ever being quite so tired.
“Jace and Ethan can take her,” the Alpha continued. “She seems to enjoy their company.”
“Yeah, that’s because she has ovaries.” The wonder twins were chick magnets, plain and simple, and Kaci was not immune to their powers. But if anything, that strengthened my father’s argument. She’d enjoy a walk in the woods with two handsome, older men. And we could trust them to watch her carefully.
The Alpha dismissed us both, and the doc went to set up his stuff in Manx’s room, currently the only unoccupied bedroom in the house.
I headed into the kitchen for some coffee, but I got there just in time to see Jace pour the last of it into a clean mug. I groaned in frustration when he added sugar and cream, then began to stir. I’d hit that odd point of exhaustion at which I could no longer function without caffeine, but I was too tired to make a fresh pot of coffee. It was like being too hungry to eat, or too tired to sleep. Only worse.