“She is thin.” Ethan sat up to scratch one tanned shoulder. “But it wouldn’t be quite so noticeable if you’d wear actual clothes, Faythe.”

“I am wearing actual clothes.” I glanced down at myself, trying not to see his point. Okay, maybe my shirt was a little low cut. And tight. And my jeans didn’t quite reach my bel y button, but that’s how everyone on campus dressed in the summer. We lived in Texas, for crying out loud. It was hot. “Besides, it’s not like you have any room to talk,” I said, eyeing his bare chest.

He shrugged, as if to say he didn’t make up the rules. “It’s different for guys.”

A double standard. Shocking, real y.

“Leave her alone before you scare her off again,” Owen drawled. “You know how sensitive women can be about their clothes.” He put his arm around my waist and squeezed me affectionately, a gesture as smooth and gentle as his temperament.

“She’s no woman, she’s our sister,” Ethan said. I twisted in Owen’s embrace to stick my tongue out at him. Ethan reciprocated and moved to sit on the edge of my bed, feet brushing the thick taupe carpet.

“She’s not my sister,” Jace said around a mouthful of half-chewed apple. His easy grin spoke of casual teasing, but his eyes met mine with enough heat to make me pause with uncertainty for a moment before replying.

I smiled to soften the coming blow. “I’m not your anything.”

“Ouch!” He leaned back against the desk with one hand over his heart, covering an imaginary wound. Then his smile reached his eyes, and he took another bite of the apple. Clearly I’d dealt him a fatal blow.

Owen hugged me one more time, brushing the top of my head with his chin full of prickly stubble, then let me go, backing up to lean against my wal . On the radio, the first notes of “Miss Independent” played, and I smiled at the irony of listening to it from inside my tumbleweed prison. Lucky bitch, I thought, turning it up to give my father every opportunity to hear the song through the wal s.

I sank onto the bed next to Ethan and leaned my head against his bare shoulder. “What’s this about you fighting a stray at school?” he asked, draping one arm around my waist. “Didn’t your mother ever tel you it’s not ladylike to pick on boys?”

Had she ever. “It was nothing. Just a scuffle.”

Jace tossed the apple into the air and caught it behind his back. “Marc thinks it was the same guy who took Sara.”

Like he’d know, I thought. But what I said was, “Couldn’t have been. He was too easily frightened. It was just some asshole intruder looking for a little excitement.”

“Sounds like he found it.” Owen drawled.

I grinned. “Damn right.”

“Looks like you found a little too,” Jace said, his gaze focused on my stomach.

Shrugging out from under Ethan’s arm, I looked down at the gap between the hem of my shirt and the waist of my jeans. An amorphous purple blob had taken shape on my left side, over the lowest of my ribs. “Beautiful,” I said, standing to get a better view in the mirror. “Just lovely.” It hadn’t looked anywhere near that bad when I’d left campus. Sammi hadn’t even noticed.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked, tugging my shirt down to hide the bruise as I sank back onto the bed.

“Vic’s out looking for Sara,” Jace said. He tossed the apple core into my trash can and held both fists up in victory. I rolled my eyes. Guys may get bigger, but they never real y grow up.

“Yeah, I heard.” I pulled away from Ethan, rolling my head on my shoulders, trying to ease the tension that had been building since the moment I’d smel ed the stray on campus. It didn’t work, but it did give me a pretty good crick in my neck.

“What about Parker?”

“He’s around,” Ethan said. “Marc has him out playing foot soldier.”

“On our own property?” My eyebrows arched in surprise as I rubbed my neck.

Then the implication sank in, and my hand fel into my lap, my discomfort temporarily forgotten. “Daddy must be real y spooked by al this.”

Ethan and Owen exchanged looks, but I wasn’t fast enough to interpret them before their expressions were gone. Something else was up, but they weren’t talking. Wonderful. I hate secrets I’m not in on.

“We better go,” Owen said, shooting Ethan a stern look. “We’re supposed to help Parker.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ethan mumbled, pulling himself off the bed with one hand wrapped around the corner post.

Owen slapped him on the shoulder and shoved him toward the door, turning back to look at me from the threshold. “We’re going huntin’ later, if you wanna come.”

“We’l see,” I said, careful not to commit myself. I loved hunting, and he knew it. But if I appeared too eager to go, they might think I was glad to be home, and I certainly couldn’t have a dangerous rumor like that floating around unchecked.

Owen gave me a leisurely, knowing smile and disappeared into the hal way. I listened until I heard the back door slam shut, then turned to look at Jace.

He smiled back at me from my desk chair, showing no inclination to leave. Big surprise. I considered kicking him out so I could pout in private, but then he turned those bright blue eyes on me—the playful sparkle mingling seamlessly with a hint of that earlier heat—and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kick him out and watch the light fade from his eyes.