Protector(5)

“Yes,” Roslyn replied eagerly, toying with a lock of her hair. “Caitlin and I are from Jerome, and Danica’s from Flagstaff.”

Might as well have given them our phone numbers and addresses, Caitlin thought sourly, but there wasn’t much she could do about it at this point. Roslyn never had possessed exactly the best judgment when it came to good-looking men.

“Two McAllisters and a Wilcox,” the strange young man said. “We don’t see too many of you down here in Tucson.” He smiled, and although he had very straight, shining white teeth, something about that smile made a shiver go down Caitlin’s back. She wished she could think of some excuse to get herself and her two friends out of there. “I’m Matías, and this is Jorge and Tomas.” The other young men smiled as well, but Caitlin didn’t feel very reassured.

“Hey,” Roslyn whispered to her, “scooch over so they can sit down with us.” Tilting her head to one side, she let her dimple show as she said more loudly, “Why don’t you join us?”

Caitlin had no intention of “scooching,” but that didn’t really matter, because Matías said, “Actually, we were wondering if you’d be interested in coming back to our place. We won’t water down the margaritas like they do here, and we were going to barbecue some carne asada.”

Alarm bells started going off in Caitlin’s head, and she opened her mouth to protest, to say that maybe it would be better if they just stayed here. But Danica and Roslyn were too quick for her, both of them saying that sounded like a lot of fun. What the hell? She could believe Roslyn going for such a scheme, but Danica? Usually she had way more common sense than that.

But Danica was smiling up at Matías, too, her dark eyes shining as if she’d just seen the promised land. This was not good.

And somehow they were gulping down their margaritas so they wouldn’t be wasted, then dropping a couple of twenties on the table so they could get out of there without waiting for the server to come back. Before she could really figure out what was happening, they’d emerged from the restaurant into the warm sunshine and were walking down the sidewalk, Matías in the middle, with Danica on one side and Roslyn on the other, and Caitlin sort of uncomfortably sandwiched between Jorge and Tomas.

Every nerve ending was screaming at her to get away, which on the surface sounded completely ridiculous. Wasn’t this what spring break was supposed to be about — getting out and having fun, meeting guys, maybe hooking up if everyone involved was amenable and knew there wouldn’t be any strings attached?

Never mind that the mere thought of kissing any of these guys, let alone going to bed with one of them, was enough to make her want to throw up.

They passed the condo complex where the girls were staying and kept walking. Well, that wasn’t so very strange; there were a lot of complexes like that in the area, and the odds of the guys staying in the same one where they were renting were pretty low.

“So,” Caitlin managed, even though she found it hard to get the words out past the tight knot of worry in her throat, “are you staying in a condo, too?”

The guy on her right — she couldn’t remember if he was Tomas or Jorge — shook his head, looking amused. “Oh, no. We live here in Tucson. Our house is just down the next block.”

House. For some reason, that sounded ominous. It seemed far more innocuous to be going back to a rented condo rather than a house they lived in. “Oh,” she said faintly. “So you guys are all roommates?”

“Yeah,” he said, his gaze moving from her face to the half-revealed curve of her breasts in the lightweight top she wore. “Tomas and I, we’re brothers, and Matías is our cousin.”

Caitlin forced down a breath. Maybe he really hadn’t been looking at her chest. Maybe she was just imagining things because she felt so crappy. “That’s cool,” she said, hoping she sounded casual and not as if she was about to gag. The sensation was pressing so heavily on her now that it felt as if she could barely pull in enough air to speak. “Roslyn and I, we’re cousins, too. Her dad is my mother’s older brother.”

“Yeah, we witches, we’re all related somehow,” Jorge said, and for some reason Tomas seemed to find that amusing, because he began to chuckle.

If only she had enough breath to ask him what was so funny. At the moment, she felt as if she were about to pass out at any second. And of course Roslyn and Danica weren’t paying any attention to her, were still staring up at Matías with that gaga expression on their faces, which didn’t make sense at all, because although he was good-looking, he wasn’t that good-looking. Not really.