clicked the links. Read them all. Read them again. It was true. Arson, for Christ’s sake. His hands shook.
“So she’s the one, huh?”
Miles’s quiet voice from the doorway made him jump. He’d forgotten the kid was there. “What? She’s what one?”
“The one you keep that huge computer file on,” Miles said. “The reason you never stay with any one girl for more than four days.”
“What the hell do you know about my file?” he barked. “I never gave you permission to mess around in my private files!”
Miles dropped his long body into the other computer chair and gave Sean his long-suffering puppy dog look. “Remember those three days I spent trying to recuperate your data when your system crashed?”
“Oh.” Sean covered his face with his shaking hand. “Fuck me.”
Miles cleared his throat. “It’s, uh, real hard to keep secrets from your computer doctor.” His tone was apologetic. “Sorry.”
Sean stared into the screen. His face felt hot. Nobody was supposed to know about his hobby of keeping tabs on Liv Endicott. It was just a small, private insanity that did not bear close inspection. By anyone. Not his brothers, certainly. Not himself.
“You never said anything about it,” he muttered.
Miles shrugged. “Figured I had no right to point fingers. It was funny, though. Didn’t know you had it in you. To be obsessed, I mean.”
Sean winced. “I am not obsessed. And it’s no weirder than that vid clip of Cindy blowing a kiss that you used for your screen saver,” he said through clenched teeth. “Now that’s obsession for you, dude.”
“I trashed that screen saver,” Miles said, his voice lofty. “Now I have a flock of migrating birds. It’s very relaxing.”
Sean whistled. “Wow, sounds like a real dick-tingler. Relaxation, is not what you need, buddy. You need—”
“To get my bone kissed, yeah. You’ve told me that already, like, a thousand times,” Miles said impatiently. “So who is she, anyway?”
Sean buried his hot, throbbing face in his hands. “Hometown girl,” he said dully. “A direct descendant of our city’s illustrious founder, Augustus Endicott. His great-great-granddaughter, I think. You know that bronze statue of the pioneers in front of the library? The tall guy in the front who looks like he’s got a rifle shoved up his ass?”
“Oh, man,” Miles said, whistling. “Them? So she’s, like the heir to that huge construction company? Yowsa. Bart Endicott practically owns this town. And what he doesn’t own, he built.”
“Tell me about it.” Sean’s voice was bleak.
Miles studied him, slouched in the chair, his dark eyes heavy lidded and thoughtful. “Huh. So she’s the reason you do it, then?”
Sean gave him a wary look. “Do what?”
Miles’s eyebrow lifted. “Fuck everything that has a pulse.”
Sean was stung. “I do not fuck everything that has a pulse,” he said haughtily. “I have my standards. I limit myself to endoskeletal organisms. I always go for vertebrates. And I don’t do reptiles. Ever.”
“Aw, shut up,” Miles grumbled. “Man slut. It’s not fair.”
Sean gave him an appraising glance. Miles had changed since he’d started hanging with the McClouds. The results of two years of relentless martial arts training, dating from the historic battle of the Alley Cat Club, to save Cindy from her pusbag pimp of a then-boyfriend.
Miles got pulped that night, but he’d developed a burning yen to learn to fight, just like the McClouds. Which was a tall order, but they’d made big progress. He had a black belt, for God’s sake. They’d finally gotten him to stand up straight, and his lanky frame and sunken chest had filled out nicely with all the weightlifting Davy made him do. He ate real food now, not just Doritos and Coke, so he no longer looked like an undernourished vampire. Sean’s tireless lecturing about grooming was beginning to bear fruit, too. Miles wasn’t a sharp dresser yet, by any means, but his T-shirt was clean, and his black hair was pulled back into a shiny ponytail, no longer lank, greasy wings framing a pallid face. He’d ditched the weird round glasses, and his big hooked nose looked better without them. He’d taken antibiotics for his zits, praise God. The resultant scarring gave his face a tough, weathered look.
Add in the big puppy dog eyes and the bulging biceps, and voilà. Not too fucking bad. If he would just lighten up, maybe even smile occasionally, he would look like a guy who could get laid with minimal effort on his part. About time, too. The guy was a volcano about to explode.
“Are these karate classes you’re teaching mixed?” Sean asked.
Miles snorted. “I’m working with little kids. Ages four to twelve.”
Sean shrugged. “There’s always hot and hungry single moms.”
“This might come as a shock to you, but some people actually do things for reasons which are not specifically aimed at obtaining sex.”
Sean widened his eyes. “Really? It worries me to hear a healthy twenty-five-year-old male say stuff like that. Either you’re ill, you’re pathologically screwed in the head, you’re a closet gay, or you’re lying.”
“I’m not—”
“Gay, yes. I know damn well you’re not,” Sean finished. “You’ve been obsessed with Cindy since I met you. You don’t look sick, either. That leaves screwed up, or lying. Take your pick. I’d buy either one.”
Miles’s mouth hardened. “I am totally over her. And I do not want to hear her name spoken for the rest of my natural life. Get it?”
Sean winced, pained. He’d overdone it again. He was used to kicking around his rawhide brothers. Sometimes their little buddy Miles was too soft for hard-core McCloud style teasing. “Fair enough. Sorry.”
“So, what’s the deal? Are you giving me a ride?” Miles gave him a crafty look. “You do want to check out this girl’s bookstore, don’t you?”
Sean let out a grim snort. Opportunistic, guilt-tripping little bastard. He turned back to the computer and read the articles again.
He wouldn’t, of course. He wasn’t that stupid, that masochistic.
But something inside him was buzzing, wide-eyed, totally zinged from hearing Liv’s name spoken aloud. He hadn’t felt that kind of buzz since he didn’t even remember. Maybe not since…
Since he’d seen her last? Oh, please. Give him a fucking break.
He’d do a thorough and exhaustive inventory of every single high point in his life before he’d admit to that. Talk about pathetic.
Still. Who was she, now?
Not that this burning itch of curiosity would be mutual. On the contrary. Liv hated his guts. She thought he was the embodiment of all evil in the known universe. Rightly so. And getting
