“It did, but that’s not the reason.” He sighed and, at last, really looked at her. “Today is Mick’s birthday.”
Mick…Rule’s half brother, several years older. Mick, who’d killed and conspired to frame Rule for it, longstanding envy ripened into madness by an ancient staff and the crazy telepath who’d wielded it. Mick, who had died the same night Lily killed Helen. Died saving Rule’s life.
She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “I didn’t know. I should have.” Rule had mentioned Mick’s birthday last year—not the exact date, but that his father had gone off by himself for two days on the anniversary of his second son’s birth.
“Isen didn’t want you thinking about it. You would have been careful with him. That would have annoyed him.”
Was Rule talking about his father or himself? Didn’t matter, she decided, and set her glass down and stood.
Rule had the sexiest eyebrows she’d ever seen on a man. Even when they drew down like they did now in a go-away frown, they were a total turn-on. “I’m okay, Lily.”
“I know. But ‘okay’ is a pretty roomy place, isn’t it? Room for all sorts of stuff you do not want to talk about. I get that.”
His fingers tapped on the table rather the way a cat’s tail twitches when it’s annoyed. “Think you know me pretty well, do you?”
“Yeah, I do. Especially the parts that are a lot like me, like when you work really hard so you don’t have to think about something. The problem is, now that I’ve forced you to talk about the thing you weren’t thinking about, it’s going to be harder to cram yourself down into those reports.”
“It will be easier once you stop talking about it.”
She nodded as she reached him. “That’s one option, but it will be a bitch, won’t it? Pretending you give a damn about, uh…” She tilted her head to read the heading on one page. “EPS.”
His mouth tightened—but maybe that was because he’d had to work to keep it from twitching. “Earnings per share is a vital part of analyzing a stock’s potential.”
“I’m sure it is.” There was just enough room, she judged, and slid one leg over his lap, and sat. “Kind of crowded here.”
His hands came automatically to her hips. Large, warm hands, their heat all on the surface at first.…“Lily—”
“I was thinking you might have to up the ante, go for physical distraction since I’ve made the mental sort harder.” She threaded her hands together at his nape. “I was also thinking that this is the first time we’ve ever had the house completely to ourselves.”
Oh, yeah, his mouth did twitch this time. “No Carl.”
“No Isen.”
“No Toby.” His hands shifted slightly, but the motion seemed more restless than caressing. “It seems more appropriate to distract myself with work than with pleasure.”
Lily had never lost a sibling. Both her parents were alive. She didn’t really know what Rule was feeling, but…“My father’s mother is extremely alive, but his father died before I was born. Grandmother has observed his birthday every year.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“When I was a kid, it was a mandatory family thing. We’d go to Grandmother’s every April sixteenth and eat ourselves sick—Chinese food for dinner, followed by an array of American-style desserts starring an enormous birthday cake. She and my father would talk about Grandfather. She wanted us to know him, but she also wanted a party. Birthdays, she says, are for celebrating life, and neither grief nor death erases the life someone lived.” She smiled slightly. “Mother is more traditional, which is funny, since she’s third generation, while Grandmother is so very Chinese. Have I told you about Qingming?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Mother observes Qingming every year by taking flowers to the graves of her ancestors—first her grandparents’, then her parents’ graves. So that’s how I honor my grandparents on her side, because that’s how she does it. But every April sixteenth, I have a Grandfather cupcake.”
“Did you do that this year?”
“Yes. Should I have told you?”
“Probably. As I should have told you that today was Mick’s birthday.” He was silent a moment, and still, his eyes losing focus as he looked inward. “Mick was an asshole sometimes. He wrapped up all his problems in me so he wouldn’t have to deal with them.”
She said nothing, but she listened hard.
“He wasn’t an asshole all the time.” Rule’s sudden grin delighted her. “He knew how to have fun. When I was twenty, he took me to Tijuana for my birthday.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t hear the details of that celebration.”
“Among other things, I learned that it is possible for a lupus to get drunk. It takes real dedication and the condition is extremely short-lived, but it is possible.”
“Do I want to know how you achieved that?”
“Five quarts of tequila downed as fast as I could swallow.”
“Did they come back up as fast as you could vomit?”
“I staggered and giggled for a few minutes, felt queasy a couple more, then both nausea and intoxication faded.”
“That’s it? No hurling, no hangover?”
“I did have to piss most urgently.”
“Life is just not fair.”
“Lily.”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
She smiled and tipped her head and kissed him—softly at first, but as his breathing quickened she put more effort into it. When she straightened, one of his hands had shifted well north of her hip, while her hands were enjoying all that lovely bare skin along his shoulders and chest. Her smile this time was wicked. “I promise I won’t be careful with you.”
Words could be overrated. He omitted them entirely in his reply.
She was bare to the waist and extremely distracted a few moments later when her mate abruptly straightened, his head tipped ever so slightly. It was a posture she recognized.
“What did you…oh, God. Isen.” Rule must have heard his father returning. She looked around frantically for her shirt—saw it on the floor, but not her bra—
“Not my father.” He pushed his chair back, his face still distant. Listening.
She clambered to her feet, bent, and snatched her shirt—and there was her bra, under the table. She snatched it up. “What, then?”
“You didn’t hear it? No, obviously not.” Rule grabbed his phone from the table. “Something just blew up.”
SIX
“SHIT.” Lily hooked the bra around her waist, twisted it, slid her arms in, and yanked it up.
Rule tapped the screen on his phone. “Isen didn’t take his phone with him. Or his guards.”
“Double shit.” Bra in place, she reached for her shirt.
The phone—the landline—rang. Rule had his phone to his ear. He gestured at her to take it. “If it’s Pete, put him on speaker.”
She hurried to the old-fashioned stand the phone rested on and snatched up the receiver. “This is Lily.”
“I need the Rho,” the second-in-command of clan security told her.
“He’s on a run. Alone. Rule wants me to put you on speaker.” Lily did that, set the receiver down, and tugged her shirt over her head. “Rule is talking to someone on his mobile, but he—”
“I called Hammond,” Rule said, sliding his phone in a pocket as he joined her. “He lives near the draw where Isen often runs. He’ll cast for Isen’s trail. Pete, what happened?”
“Don’t know yet, but there’s a fire halfway up Big Sister.”
“Halfway?” Rule asked sharply. “Which side?”
“East. It’s not big yet, but I can see the glow from here. Hang on.” Lily heard a voice in the background, then: “You heard?”