Vaughn’s room was across the hall—full of even more eaves and angles but his walls were painted a soothing moss green.
Jossie, Nate and Heather slept in the addition on the ground floor.
They’d slowly remodeled the farmhouse since they’d moved into it after they’d bonded ten years ago.
“This is nice, Jossie,” I said as the dusky shadows crept closer and a whippoorwill began a plaintive song from the pine tree near the barn. “A lot different from Boston.”
Jossie smiled. Her daughter, Heather, rested in her lap and faced the front of the porch. The glider sat to the side so Heather had to crane her neck to keep me and Murphy under her wary gaze.
I snapped a green bean in half and gave her a little smile, which made her eyebrows lower suspiciously.
Murphy was getting a real kick out of the baby’s attitude. He blatantly flirted with her, but she was having absolutely none of it, which secretly tickled me. Here, at last, was one female who wouldn’t succumb to his Irish charm.
Vaughn stretched his legs out in front of him as he slouched in his rocking chair, wine glass perched on the wide arm rest near his hand. He hadn’t said anything since we’d gathered on the porch, just looked out the screen at the gathering darkness. I wondered what he was thinking about. Callie? Peter? Jossie? A combination of everything? Or maybe nothing at all.
Nate bustled back and forth from the porch to the kitchen to fetch more wine, a plate of cheese and crackers, and put on a jazz CD then adjusted the volume so it didn’t interfere with the desultory conversation. He couldn’t keep still and brimmed over with vitality and energy.
Jossie had always been energetic, but Nate took it to all new heights. How she managed not to go crazy with his frenetic movements was beyond me. He never sat still for more than three minutes before he jumped up to get something or to start another project.
“Want some beer, Liam?” Nate offered right on schedule. He’d sat for two and a half minutes. I’d timed him. “I brew it myself. Got a little home brewery in the basement. I’m sure it won’t compare to what you’re used to in Ireland, but it’s pretty good, if I do say so myself.”
Murphy’s wine glass was still half-full, but he agreed to try the beer because he was a nice guy and Nate had a puppy dog look of expectancy.
Nate leaped to his feet and, in his excitement, nearly forgot to duck his head on the way in the front door. Luckily he remembered at the last second and avoided a possible concussion.
“God, he’s tall,” I shook my head. “Does he ever sit still, Jossie?”
Murphy smothered a laugh and gave me a gentle nudge in the ribs with his elbow. Sure I was being rude, but Jossie and I went way back. The bad blood between us seemed distant and meaningless on this twilit porch. It was almost like old times when we’d been teenagers together.
“No,” said Jossie with a martyred sigh. “He’s constantly in motion.” For some reason she blushed and was quiet for a small beat of time that intrigued me. “One project after the other. That’s why I’m thankful for this old farmhouse. You should have seen it when we moved in. The roof leaked in twenty different places, some of the floorboards were rotten and the plumbing was practically nonexistent. He did it all himself mostly. What he didn’t know how to do, he taught himself. I thought he was crazy when he wanted to live in this place just because it was on the same road as most of the Pack’s houses and near his great-grandmother, but now I’m grateful.”
“He’s done a brilliant job,” Murphy said. “I like to do a bit of renovating myself, but my meager talents mostly run to the cosmetic side. Painting, putting in new cabinetry and fixtures, that sort of thing. Plumbing and roofing are way out of my range.”
“You could learn.” Nate reappeared with a pitcher of beer and five glasses. Apparently we were all going to drink beer. “It’s not that hard.”
Murphy grinned and watched him pour a frothing glass of dark beer. I stared at it doubtfully.
“I filtered it three times. There shouldn’t be any bits floating in it.” Nate laughed at my expression.
I grimaced at the thought of bits. It wasn’t that. It was just the fact that he’d made it. I was leery of someone Pack who made things to eat and drink that I hadn’t watched them prepare. Kathy Manning was an exception, but I’d spent time with her and watched her cook. The prickling of unease made me realize how paranoid I had become since I’d uncovered the plot buried within our Pack.
Nate held the first glass out to Vaughn. At first I didn’t think Vaughn was going to take it, but after he and Nate exchanged a look that excluded the rest of us, he accepted the glass. Jossie kept her head down and rocked the baby, but I could see the nervous flutter of the pulse beat in her throat.
Nate filled a second glass and gave it to Murphy.
Murphy had no qualms. He gulped down a mouthful without blinking. When he didn’t immediately expire, and a pleased smile spread across his face, I accepted a glass, aware of Nate’s genial amusement. He didn’t know about the conspiracy, so he was still convinced I was worried about floating bits of hops.
The beer was dark and nutty, not bitter precisely, but not what I was used to tasting when I thought of the word beer. Nate still smiled, but now he was also a bit defensive.
I took another sip and then another. I didn’t like it as much as Murphy obviously did, but it was a taste I could get used to. Eventually.
Vaughn sucked his down too. Beer was like mother’s milk to that guy. He always had a least three different kinds in the refrigerator. He set aside his nearly full wine glass and embraced the beer with gusto.
Nate watched all our reactions and seemed satisfied. Two seconds after he refilled both Murphy’s and Vaughn’s glasses, he sneaked an inevitable look at his watch.
“Have I got time, babe, to go visit Grandmother Emma?”
Jossie gave him a smile that made her look almost like the teenage girl I’d once been great friends with.
“Be back here for six. Dinner will be on the table. We’ve got to discuss things, Nate.”
“I know, but Emma’s lonely. Plus I think there might be a storm tonight and I’ve got to make sure all her windows are closed.” Nate waved at us all as he leaped down the porch steps. I heard the garage door trundle up and he reappeared on a motorcycle, his blue helmet flashed in the last of the dying sun—then he was gone up the dirt drive back to the road.
“Emma is his great-grandmother by blood, not just a grandmother in the pack,” Jossie explained. “She and her bond mate founded this pack. About twenty years ago, there was a terrible family feud and to this day the only blood family member Emma will talk to is Nate. One of the reasons we took over the farmhouse is because she’s only two miles up the road in the closest house to ours. Most of the pack lives on this road, but farther down in the opposite direction.”
Vaughn’s fingers tightened around his beer glass as he became very still.
Jossie shot him a confused look and burst into speech as if to cover up for a faux pas. “All this area was a farm once. This is the actual farmhouse. Everything else is newly built within the last hundred years or so. After founding Maplefair, Nate’s great-grandparents worked on the farm. When the farmer died, he left them the land Grandmother Emma’s house is built on plus a few other parcels. The rest of the pack lives on those lots. We build as we need to. He’s a good guy, my bond mate.”
She spoke almost as if she thought we believed otherwise and I frowned.
“Makes a hell of a beer,” Vaughn raised his glass in appreciation, but somehow the accolade fell short.
“Hear, hear,” seconded Murphy and they both downed half the contents of their