by Jaycee Clark
His tracks leading into the trees were clearly visible, but then, they always were. It was, after all, a habit for him to walk or jog in the mornings or evenings. Everyone was used to seeing him take that direction and he wanted them to be.
He smiled.
And what he’d seen this morning, hours before dawn . . . The Kinncaids had an impressive home. Larger, by far, than this one, and at least a century older.
Richard, however, was only interested in the layout, which his newest golfing buddy was only too happy to show him.
Jock Kinncaid was a big man, if a bit lacking in intelligence. He’d become complacent in his old age. Mr. Kinncaid was, after all, only a few years older than Richard himself, but one couldn’t tell it. Jock wasn’t as healthy as he should be. Richard thought it imperative to keep in shape. Perfection must always be maintained.
The truly sad thing, Jock used to be a killer in business. Someone Richard could have admired once. Now the Kinncaid sons seemed to have that go-for-the-jugular instincts. The old man gave others control of what had once been his.
Richard would never be that stupid. God, the damage that could be wrought. He shook his head, his gaze drawn back to the tracks in the snow. Tracks that led through the woods and straight to the Kinncaid home.
There was—as far as he’d been able to tell—no alarm system. Foolish that, probably the old man’s idea of too much hassle.
Around four this morning, Richard had stood in the shadow of the large home and waited, counted the windows down to the room he’d known was hers. His host had given him the grand tour a few weeks ago. Since then, he’d even eaten over at the Kinncaid home several times.
And because of that “friendship,” he knew exactly which room was Josephine’s. The thought of her not in her room, but in Brayden Kinncaid’s, had him raging. That was when he’d noticed the lights come on in the indoor pool. The blue haze bounced and shifted through the glass of the solarium.
He stood in the shadows, shifting so he could see through all the interior trees and plants circling the indoor pool. Finally he’d found a place so that he had a clear view. It was in the corner where the solarium met the house. Bushes grew heavily against the glass, hiding him from anyone outside as well as from her inside.
She’d cut through the water with the grace and ease he’d remembered of her. Sleek and wet, her body had called to him. The siren’s perfection sang out to his blood. The thought of going in, waiting and watching while she swam, of turning the lights off, of getting in the pool with her had taunted him.
But that would be stupid, stupid indeed.
He’d watched as lap after lap she’d swam. His groin tightened when she’d climbed out of the pool, water sluicing down her centerfold body.
A body that someone else had touched.
A body she let someone else touch.
“. . . but I don’t know. What do you think?” Estella’s voice pulled him back to the present.
“What do you want to do?” he asked ambiguously, turning back at her.
“Well, they seem like nice people.”
He had no idea whom she was talking about.
Richard wondered if the Kinncaids had gotten his package yet. Special presents he’d left the last time he’d gone to visit with Jock.
Jovial Jock.
“But they’re not really in our circle. Though I like Kaitlyn, she seemed nice enough at the country club party. She did invite us to their New Year’s party.” Her sigh grated on his nerves. “I suppose it would be rude of us not to go, wouldn’t it?”
Sometimes his wife could be rather trying. Clearing his throat, he only said, “I rather like the Kinncaids. We’re going to their party.”
With that, he stood and strode from the room, his heels clicking on the hardwood floors.
He wished he could have been at the Kinncaid home when they opened their gifts.
Richard smiled, chuckling to himself as he walked to his study.
• • •
Brayden hugged his mother.
“The vase is just beautiful, darling. Thank you both so much,” she said.
“You’re welcome, Mom.”
Seemed everyone like their glass gifts from Murano.
Brayden leaned against the sofa Christian sat on. He draped his arm over her knee, incredibly conscious of where his elbow rested high up on the inside of her thigh.
Christian shifted.
He leaned his head back and grinned at her; she narrowed her gaze at him.
“Miss me?” he asked.
She snorted and reached for another package.
“Christian, I see you didn’t get a certain Christmas gift you should have,” his father pointed out, then turned a glare on him. “You don’t know where a jewelry store is?”
Several chuckled. Brayden did not.
“You know,” Jock continued, “I think this is your fault, Kaitie lass.”
Kaitlyn Kinncaid arched one perfect brow. “Care to share that brilliance with us, dear?”
“Well, it’s your curse.”
She sniffed lightly. “I recall the epithets were actually hurled at you.”
What?
None of them asked, as they were used to their parents’ vague jabs, but their faces were all a collective look of question.
Jock Kinncaid waved a hand as he explained. “Well, whichever, she was your grandmother. The old bitty.” He shook his head. “You see, your mother lived in America with her parents until she was fifteen.”
They knew all this. Before her sixteenth year, their grandparents had been killed in an auto accident. Then their mother had moved back to Ireland, where she lived with her paternal grandmother, whom they all referred to as Grammy.
“Dad, we know this,” Aiden said.
“No, you don’t. You and Jesslyn battled a serial killer, Gavin and Taylor that . . .” He looked at the kids. “Witch of a woman. And now Brayden and Christian—this monster. It’s the curse.”
Jock Kinncaid was a practical man, believing in what he could see for the most part, but old family legends were the exception for him. However, this was one Brayden had never heard of before, and from the looks of his brothers, neither had they.
“A curse?” Brayden asked.
“Well, your mother’s other grandmother was a bitter woman. She never liked the man her daughter married, and liked even less that he moved her baby girl off to America. She was upset after the accident when your mom decided to live with Grammy instead of with her. And she liked me even less than her late son-in-law.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “So, a few days before your mother and I married, she said we’d be cursed. Our road would be hard and our children would fight to find peace and happiness with their own marriages.”
Brayden had never heard this before. His mother walked over and sat by her husband.
“She was just unhappy. Surely you’ve never put stock in her words,” his mother said.
Jock only humphed.
“A curse?” Quinlan asked.
“Well, that explains it,” Aiden said, chuckling.
“Hell, better than thinking it was something we did,” Gavin agreed.
“And how come we’re just now hearing about this?” Brayden asked.
Both his parents shrugged.
“Well, at least I’m saved,” Quinlan remarked. “Either I won’t marry at all, and save myself the trouble, or I’ll just find a mail-order bride.”
“I don’t think those are still around,” Brayden told his brother.
Quinlan shrugged. “Well, good, I’m off the hook.”
Christian said, “You, brother dear, are going to be brought to your knees by some slip of a woman who’s going to turn your world upside down.”
“God forbid,” Quinlan muttered, opening another gift.
Brayden patted Christian’s thigh, trailing his finger from one side of her knee to the other before leaning up to see what Tori wanted to show him.
“Look. Isn’t it co
ol, Daddy?”
The grow-sugar-crystals kit was every parents’ dream. Educational, yes, and bound to reward the kids with plenty of sugar.
“It is that.”
“Ryan gave it to me.”
“Did he now?”
“Yes, and I got sheet music and a pennywhistle from Grams and Pops and this makeup kit from Aunt Taylor and Uncle Gavin.”
“Makeup?” he asked, turning to glare at his brother. Makeup? Over his dead body.
Gavin in turn glared at his wife and said to Brayden, “I didn’t get Tori any makeup.”
Taylor shrugged off her husband’s glare. “Every girl needs makeup, even if it’s only to play.”
Jesslyn laughed, while all the men grumbled about daughters and makeup.
Makeup?
Tori had migrated over to her grandmother, showing her the trove of lip gloss and shadows and . . . God only knows what else.
He turned to see what Christian thought of it all, but she wasn’t paying attention.
Pale and silent, she stared at an angel she held in her hand.
“Oh! How . . . interesting.” Jesslyn said, reaching over to run a finger down the little figurine. “Who gave you this?”
One of the wings fell off. As it toppled in Christian’s palm, the other wing leaned to the side.
Christian did nothing but stare at it.
Brayden crouched in front of her.
“Christian?”
Her chest rose on a deep breath, and she dropped it down in the box it came in.
He noticed the cracks in it then, and the fact it was missing its eyes. Miniature black holes marred the face where eyes should have been.
An angel.
His angel.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Brayden Gallagher Kinncaid!” his mother said; only then did he realize he’d cursed out loud.
He tried to take the box from Christian, but she gripped the edges and wouldn’t let it go.
“What is going on over there? There are plenty of presents. You have years to argue over things. I hardly think a gift needs to be one of them,” his father said, a mixture of befuddlement and amusement.
Brayden didn’t care. He saw her haunted eyes, the anger and determination burning in them.
But no fear.
No fear.
That alone had him letting go.
“Bray?” someone asked.
She shook her head, leaned close and said, “Please, please don’t spoil it for them. It’s not important.”
He kissed her forehead and sat down beside her, crowding both her and Jesslyn in between him and Aiden. “The hell it’s not,” he told her. But she was right. Not now. Looking to his mother, he only said, “Sorry, Mom. I forgot something.”
A single russet brow rose in a look he knew all too well. “Your manners?”
“Can I see it now?” he asked Christian, his arm going around her shoulders.
“Why?”
He looked straight at her. “Don’t push me.”
A sigh huffed out. “Here then.” The small box jostled as she shoved it at him.
Carefully, he picked through the pieces, not really touching them as much as moving them around with a shake of his wrist.
Jesslyn struck up a conversation about what they were going to do after all these presents were opened. The kids each had several ideas. He tuned it all out. Christian opened another gift.
“Let me see it,” Aiden said over the women, both of whom shook their heads.
Brayden passed the morbidly offensive and broken figurine over.
What did it mean? The man had always referred to Christian as his angel. At least that was what all the cards had written on them. He’d even seen a photo of the painting the man had sent her. So what? The man wanted to break her wings? And what was with the damn eyes? Or, for the simple fact that the whole thing was shattered.
Did he now see her as fractured, broken?
Fallen angel?
And if the man saw her as fallen?
Brayden pulled her tighter against him, a cold settling down his spine while the sunlight warmed across the room.
“Open another one and forget about it for right now. We’ll talk about it later,” she said absently.
Damn right they’d discuss it all later. He looked around to see if any of his brothers had noticed what was going on, other than Aiden. Quinlan’s brow quirked in question. Brayden only shook his head.
Gavin was talking to both Ryan and Taylor, keeping Tori busy by asking them all questions. The quick glance said he knew something was up, but he was deflecting the attention.
The next present Christian opened was from Quinlan and it was a music box. Brayden quickly looked over her cards, noting whom the gifts were from.
Sighing, he leaned back and grabbed one of his own. Out of habit, he tucked the card in the gift and reached for another one, mumbling a thank-you to his twin.
How had the bastard gotten the gift in here in the first damn place? Maybe it was delivered. The Kinncaids had friends far and wide, the front door saw many a delivery man around the holidays. He watched as Aiden placed the lid back on the box with the angel before handing it back to him. Brayden put it on the side table by the lamp.
Christian seemed fine, if somewhat angry. Upset, yes. But more annoyed. She wasn’t reaching for her inhaler, crying, or trembling.
Her smoky eyes looked up to him. “What?” she asked.
Leaning close, he gently kissed her. “I’m so damn proud of you.”
“I thought you were mad at me.” Her brows furrowed.
“A little.”
Her smile was brilliant and sucker-punched him right in the gut.
Brayden picked up another gift. There was no card. It was about a foot long and a foot wide. Shaking it told him nothing. It wasn’t really heavy either. Huh.
Carefully, he slid his finger under the gold and red diamonded paper. The big red bow slid to the floor.
Inside was a box.
Unease slithered around him.
Someone laughed.
“Daddy! Look, Grams and Pops got Ryan a pennywhistle too!”
His daughter’s exuberant voice turned his head.
Hoping no one noticed his unease, he said, “Now we can hear whatever duet you two come up with next.”
“Grams, can we look through your Irish music? We’ve already opened our gifts,” Ryan asked.
“Yes, I suppose if you just can’t wait another moment.”
The two youngsters ran out of the room in a whirl of chatter and laughter.
Brayden lifted one flap, then another. Inside was packing and tissue paper.
“Look, Brayden.” Christian nudged him. Inside her music box was a locket and inside was a miniature family picture of all the Kinncaids, and the other was a family picture of him, her, and Tori. “See, Quinlan even had it engraved. ‘Sis.’”
Her eyes lighted and twinkled. She looked down. “What do you have?”
“I have no idea.” He shoved the packaging out of the way and lifted the tissue paper. A frame?
He tossed the bubbled covering aside and looked in.
The roar that filled his head stopped his heart.
Mother of God!
His gaze narrowed to the gold-framed picture in the box. In harsh black-and-white detail, Christian lay naked, blindfolded, gagged, and spread-eagled on a bed. Across the glass: Mine.
He couldn’t touch it. No way in hell. The urge to rip it, to shatter it, to destroy it clawed through him.
“Don’t,” Christian whispered in his ear, her breath jerky. “Don’t. He—he—he wants to up—upset you.”
Upset? Blinking, the world fell back into focus. He turned to her. She was as white as the snow outside, and he noticed her breathing was ragged. “Upset? No. No, I’m not fucking upset. I’m way beyond that.”
With a muttered curse he stood, but the box slipped from his hand and tumbled to the floor. Careful that no one saw what was ins
ide, he picked it up and realized there was more.
Another brown packet. He cursed.
Brayden Kinncaid was neatly printed on the front.
Looking around, he noticed everyone was watching him, but at least the kids were out of here.
“I dearly hope you have a good reason for talking that way,” his mother said.
Brayden ignored her. There on his haunches, he put the photo back in the box and shut the lid, keeping the envelope under his arm.
“What’s got you so riled?” his father asked.
Brayden looked up and no words came to mind. Not a single damn one.
“What’s that under your arm?” His father’s shrewd blue eyes narrowed on the brown envelope, now drawing the attention of all.
“Give it to me,” Christian said from behind him.
Standing, he ignored her, walked to the window, and ripped the packet open.
Eight-by-tens slid easily into his awaiting palm. Deftly, he flipped through them. More of the same. Christian tied and helpless, some just of her face, pulled tight in fear. One of no more than her blindfold and bridge of her nose. All of them made him sick. On each and every one was the word Mine. Knowing what had happened to her, hearing her tell it, seeing her bruised and fearful face had been bad enough. But this—this slapped him in the face with her terror and the reality of what she’d gone through.
Bastard!
He bit down until pain shot up his jaw, and still rage roared through him.
Without a word, he shoved the photos back into the envelope. His hands were shaking.
He turned and stared at Christian. By God, she was going to tell him the man’s name.
Brayden’s eyes launched flaming arrows at her. She’d bent down and picked up the box and looked inside while he flipped through the photos by the window.
Immediately her chest seized, her heart slammed, but then she closed her eyes and breathed deep.
It was only a photograph. She wanted the power and this game was all about power.
He couldn’t hurt her anymore. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. Neither could his gifts or bad memories.
She wouldn’t let him. Period.
If she wanted the power, she had to act like it. Otherwise she would always be his victim. Always be his.
But it was hard.