“Looks like word got out,” Rowan said.
Lauren turned. “What the ...?” Cars lined the road, leaving no room to pull through. He drove up behind the last car and put the SUV in park.
A string of expletives, not any of them in English, rose from the back of Lauren’s throat as her heart skipped in her chest. Was her mother there? God, please no. “Oh, Christ.” Lauren groaned aloud as she found her older brother in the crowd assembled on the lawn.
A giant hand-painted sign sprawled across the yard, tied between two trees: “WELCOME HOME, LAUREN!”
“So much for keeping it on the down low,” Rowan said.
Lauren felt her heart race. Her face flamed red. She reached for the door handle. “I’m going to kill George.”
Chapter 4
“See.” George turned to his younger brothers. “I told you she would come.”
“Well I’ll be damned.” Michael rose stiffly from his lawn chair. “Maybe I should make myself scarce before she bolts and runs.”
David nodded. “That might be best.” He watched as she stormed towards the house. “She looks pissed.”
“George, you might wanna run too.” Michael limped away from the family gathering and went to find a place to hide.
* * *
Lauren recognized few of the people in the crowd; a crowd that filled her brother’s front yard. Lawn chairs circled the lawn. A group hovered around the giant barbecue grill, partially hidden in a cloud of smoke. Normally, this time of year marked the traditional fall harvest celebrations. Her homecoming gave them an excuse to extend the festivities. The aroma of roasting meat and corn perfumed the air as Lauren stormed towards the house. Rowan jogged a pace behind, Henry on his hip.
“Lauren! You’re home!” George opened his big arms wide, not waiting for her to lean in.
“I thought you were going to keep it a secret,” she grumbled as George embraced her tightly. She melted into him, her anger abating, but not completely.
“You said not to tell Mom,” he said, not letting her go. “I didn’t tell Mom.”
Rowan stopped, taken aback by the giant. Henry turned away and wrapped his arms around his father’s neck, whimpering. The man stood almost a foot taller than Lauren’s husband, who found himself looking up at his brother-in-law. “You must be Rowan,” the giant said, a deep timber in his voice, but a twinkle in his eye.
“You must be George.” Rowan all but panicked as the man raised an arm, and Rowan steeled himself for a blow that didn’t come. Instead, George pulled him into his arms and gave him a manly, but genuine, hug. Henry fussed, and Lauren moved in to rescue him.
“Sorry I missed the wedding,” he said in a deep voice. “It’s hard to get away during wildfire season. That and the Tribe’s Hazard Mitigation Plan was overdue.”
“I totally understand,” Rowan said, when the giant released him. He heaved a huge sigh of relief as he stepped back, feeling lucky to be alive. “Lauren didn’t mention she was related to giants.”
“Wanna guess what my nickname was when I played football?” George grinned impishly. His round face was cut with dimples even deeper than Rowan’s.
“Yes, I do. I really do. Was it Shorty? Tell me it was Shorty.”
George laughed. “That’s a good one. No, man. They called me Sasquatch.” He grinned, holding up a sandaled foot. “Size 17 ½. Extra wide.” Rowan looked at Lauren who just lifted her shoulders and shook her head. George let out a sudden whistle that startled the baby, but if he wanted to cry, he didn’t. Instead he just stuck out his lower lip. “This must be Henry? Right?” He took the baby and held him up inspecting him. “Sturdy kid. Like his dad.” He put Henry up over his shoulder and turned, waving everyone over. “Our baby sister has come home!” Cheers echoed above his thundering voice. “This is our nephew, Henry!” He turned the baby around so the copper-haired child could see his relatives. “And our brother, Rowan!”
Cheers continued as Henry finally burst out bawling, his face turning red as crocodile tears welled up in his eyes. He wasn’t used to so much noise, and it frightened him to see so many people all at once. Lauren pursed her lips, blushing but stepped forward and took Henry from his uncle.
He seemed happy once he had a fist full of Lauren’s long hair and wrapped himself around her neck. It was a good thing. It took nearly an hour for Lauren to go around and say hello to everyone, and introduce Rowan to all her cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and various relations.
Once she got a chance to sit down under a shade tree, she set to nursing Henry, who’d grown fussy and wasn’t happy about his supper being late. Someone brought Lauren a red Solo cup of iced tea, and all the women circled around her to visit as she fed the baby. The men returned to the grill and the coolers. She scanned the crowd as her brother took Rowan to join the men and was relieved that her mother was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
George threw an arm around Rowan. “How do you like your venison?” he asked as they approached the grill.
“What? No rattlesnake?” Rowan smirked.
George grimaced at him for a moment. “Dude, it’s not rattlesnake season.” He snarked.
Rowan started hemming and hawing, realizing he’d stuck his foot in his mouth. George’s glare turned to a grin. “Haha! I was just kidding you, brother. If you want rattlesnake, I think I got a couple in the freezer.”
Rowan let out a breath of relief. “I don’t even like rattlesnake.”
“Are you sure?” One of Lauren’s other brothers handed Rowan a beer. “You never had it how George makes it.”
“I have eaten almost every kind of snake you could imagine, cooked a dozen different ways ... I just can’t seem to get a taste for it.”
“Seriously, bro?”
Rowan nodded. “Yeah,” he said as he inspected the beer. Rowan thought he needed something stronger. Still, he tipped back the bottle and the cool bitter liquid slid down his throat without effort, providing some measure of comfort.
“What’s the craziest thing you ever ate?”
Rowan had to think about that for a moment. “I’ve eaten bugs, snails, frogs, worms, grubs, you name it.”
“You still didn’t tell me how you take your venison.” George beamed, seemingly impressed with his brother-in-law.
“Anyway I can get it,” Rowan retorted, glad grubs weren’t on the menu.
“I guess if our sister had to marry a white man, this one will do.” Rowan’s brow lifted as he forced a smile.
George glanced down at him and grinned. “You know I’m kidding you? Right, bro?”
“Sure.” He wasn’t, but he didn’t want to let on. No one had ever given him any kind of a hassle for being an Anglo and he wasn’t quite sure how to take it.
George’s smile faded. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said, lowering his tone. “I was just joking around.”
“I didn’t take any offense.” Rowan hadn’t, either. “I just realized ... I never thought of Lauren and I as being any different ...”
“You’re not,” George said. “And that’s how it should be. The way I see it, you’re family and that makes us the same.” He lowered his voice again. “Seriously. I am sorry.”
“Please ...” Rowan’s smile returned. “No apology needed.”
He and George made peace over venison steaks, roasted corn, squash, and ice-cold beer.
* * *
Lauren saw the dark shadow slinking in the crowd as someone handed her a plate and her cousin took Henry. All the kids gathered around with their plates of hot dogs, hamburgers, and everything that went with it. Lauren was pleased to find a lean venison strip, an ear of corn and potato salad on her plate. She hadn’t eaten much all day and she was ravenous but seeing Michael lurking in the crowd made her stomach turn sour. She considered him for a moment and decided he wasn’t worth missing out on a good meal for. She couldn’t afford to miss many meals. Clearly the family had been prosperous, and the hunting had been good last year.
<
br /> “How’s your steak, Aunt Lauren?” One of George’s daughters came over and sat down beside her.
Lauren chewed analyzing the morsel. “It’s terrific,” she said. “Perfectly cooked. Well-seasoned. Tender. Lean. All my favorite things.”
“I shot it with my bow,” she said. “My first buck.”
“How old are you?” Lauren asked.
“Sixteen,” she said. “Dad’s been taking me hunting since I was little, but I hadn’t gotten a buck ‘til this year.”
Lauren’s gaze went to Michael. She noticed for the first time that he walked with a limp as he seemed to circle the family gathering, staying just outside of the circle, like a young wolf who had been exiled by the pack. He was a lone wolf; always had been. He’d never been one to participate in family gatherings. He was usually too busy hanging out with his friends. As the star of the football team, he had been popular; unlike his brainy little sister. While Michael had been a jock, he wasn’t a dumb one. Besides making All-State and being a first round draft pick at OU, he carried a 4.0 GPA; made the honor roll, and National Honors Society.
Lauren had earned every academic accolade available and had since elementary school. There had been a time where he would help her with her homework, but he made fun of her when she struggled with math and she stopped going to him for help. By the time she went to high school, he was already off making a name for himself in the field of astrophysics and radio telescopy. Still, his legacy haunted her. Teachers judged her based on the Michael-Grayson-Scale of intellect, dedication, and drive. Even the typing teacher called her out in 8th grade because she didn’t type as fast as her brother and she made twice as many errors.
Nothing she did had ever been good enough for any of the teachers who’d had Michael before her. Fortunately, the new biology and history teachers had never met Michael Grayson, and both took her under their wings, lauding her as the brightest student in the history of Tahlequah High School.
The first bragging right she earned — an accolade which outshone her brother—was scoring higher on the SAT and the ACT than Michael had. While she didn’t make a perfect score, she beat him by several hundred points on the SAT, and several points on the ACT. Before she knew it, she had offers coming in from schools all over the country. It had been a toss-up which degree plan she would pursue; biology or history. Biological anthropology turned out to be the best of both worlds.
His dark eyes brought her from her thoughts as their eyes met. She stared him down. Without words, she laid out her challenge, not blinking; not turning away from his gaze. Words at twenty paces. Would he wait ‘til high noon, or would he come gunning for her sooner?
“Aunt Lauren?” She turned back to the girl beside her. “Did you ever go hunting with my dad?” She realized the child had to repeat the question.
“Oh yeah,” Lauren said. “All the time.” Her eye went to where Michael had stood, but he was no longer there.
* * *
“So, how many kids do you have?” Rowan asked, taking a bite of his venison steak, surprised to find it so tender.
“I have five,” he said. “Jeff is twenty, Jack is eighteen, Jenny is sixteen, Jered is fourteen, and Jessica is twelve.”
“And there are six boys and Lauren, right?”
“There are only five of us now,” one of her brothers said. “We lost Kenneth in Afghanistan.”
“When did that happen?”
“February 27, 1991,” George said. “Kenneth had been in the 4th Battalion, 229th Advanced Attack Helicopter Regiment. His unit had just successfully completed the first night attack against enemy formations. His chopper returned from one run, then refueled and reattacked across the enemy lines. That’s when his bird took hostile fire.”
“That was the Flying Tigers,” Rowan said. “Did he fly the Blackhawks?”
“How’d you know?”
“I was deployed over there for a couple of tours,” Rowan said. “Medic.”
“Thank you for your service,” a chorus of voices said with polite respect.
“Thank you for your support,” Rowan replied, his hand going to his heart in true gratitude. “So let me see if I have you all straight.” Rowan pointed to each of the men that had been introduced to him as Lauren’s brothers. “David, Bryce, Andrew ... and George.” He was the easy one to spot, being so tall. The others weren’t little by any means, but George stood out.
“Pretty good. Most people mix me and Michael up,” David said. “We’re twins you know.”
“Twins?” If Lauren had mentioned her siblings included a set of twins, he couldn’t recall. He’d been looking for someone he might be able to pick out as her tormenting brother, but he still hadn’t been introduced to him, if he were even here.
“They run in our family,” one of the uncles said. “I had a twin, and my sisters were twins.”
“What about you, Rowan?”
“No twins in my family, at least not that I know,” Rowan said. “I have a sister though.”
“Oh yeah? Older or younger?”
“Older,” he said. “Cassandra is a fitness model and actress.”
He had everyone’s attention at that point. “Oh yeah?” David lifted a brow.
“She’s also a Marine and if you mess with her, she will kick your butt,” Rowan said. “If she doesn’t, I will.” It was said in jest, but the look on everyone’s face suggested they believed him. Rowan grinned, waggling his eyebrows as he returned his attention to his dinner.
A man approached and sat down across from him, scowling with the same almond-shaped dark eyes that smiled at him from across the dinner table every night. The family resemblance was stronger between Michael and Lauren than any of the other brothers. Rowan recognized Lauren’s antagonist immediately. He resembled David, but his hair had been chopped off even with his strong chin. He had a deep cut healing on his cheek; surgical tape held the flesh of his eyebrow together. He had raccoon-bruises at the inside corners of his eyes; evidence of a recently broken nose.
“I’ve been trying to reach my sister for a couple of weeks,” Michael said curtly. “Have you guys been in the witness protection program or something?”
Rowan’s brow arched. “No, we live in Hawaii. We just came back to the mainland for work.”
“I tried calling the studio, but no one would tell me anything,” Michael said. Rowan had given strong orders that they weren’t to be bothered during their leave. Lauren didn’t need her phone going off at all hours of the night and day with requests for interviews, or queries for speaking engagements.
“Sorry,” Rowan said. “We were on sabbatical.”
“I saw your show on Bigfoot.”
Rowan hesitated. “What’d you think?”
“You didn’t do it right,” Michael said flatly.
There it was. That’s the kind of comment that would set his wife on edge and his own flesh bristled on her behalf. “Do what right?” He kept his voice neutral.
“You can’t catch Bigfoot ... or any other wild animal ... with all those people,” he said. “Besides, Bigfoot’s not even real.”
Everyone laughed, but Rowan managed only a weak chuckle. “I’ll be sure to tell him that next time we see him,” he retorted. While he still couldn’t explain everything that had happened in Washington State, Lauren’s bond with Tsul’Kalu was real enough to her, and he’d come to accept it. It occurred to him at that moment that her recent episodes might be related. He hadn’t considered that before and wondered if she had. “I’m sure he’ll be relieved to know he’s just a myth.” Rowan’s own sarcasm was overt, and he noticed the darting glances between the other men. Michael just scowled, holding his gaze with his angry dark eyes. “So I hear you work for NASA, huh?”
“I do contract work for them. I’m working on radio telescopes,” he said, a wide grin spread across his copper face. “Did Lauren tell you; I recently finished my second PhD in physics?”
“A second one? No, she didn’t mention that.”
> “She’d have known if she’d given me her phone number.” His tone suggested he was trying to be playful, but Rowan could see what Lauren meant now. His teasing wasn’t light-hearted at all. “I need to talk to her.”
Rowan scanned the crowd for her. “She’s right there,” he said. “But I should warn you, she’s been traveling all day, and that’s the first meal she’s had since breakfast. If I were you, I’d wait ‘til she wasn’t tired or hungry.”
“Noted.” Michael got up and walked away, tossing his empty plate in the trash can that sat near the table where the food had been served.
Rowan saw Lauren glaring at her brother as he passed. She glanced back at Rowan. She shook her head, before returning her attention to the conversation around her.
Chapter 5
Michael made his bed on the pull-out sofa at his brother’s house. David’s house wasn’t as big as George’s, but his wife was a gracious hostess, and a decent cook. She brought him extra blankets and pillows, and a fresh towel in case he got up and wanted a shower before she came down to make breakfast.
“You look like you’re still sore,” she observed as David came in. “Do you need some aspirin?”
“I got some muscle relaxers when they discharged me from the hospital,” he said. “I intend to take one before I go to bed.”
“You sure you’re okay?” David asked. “How long has it been since the crash? A week?”
“Not quite,” he said. “I’m fine. It’s just been an awfully long day.”
“Lauren didn’t punch you in the face,” David said smugly. “I was ready in case she didn’t recognize I wasn’t you.”
“I half expected that husband of hers to take a swing at me,” Michael grumbled.
“What? He seems like a pretty decent guy,” David said. “I don’t think he’d have slugged you.”
“I don’t think he would have, but I’m not so sure he didn’t want too.” Michael sat down on the edge of the bed, trying to rub the crick out of his stiff neck. “But Lauren still didn’t come over to talk to me, even after I told him I wanted to speak with her.”
The Alien Accord Page 5
