Selena took his hands in hers and pressed them to her lips. “I cannot believe you didn’t tell me. I’d have come over there to take care of you.”
“It was relatively quick. Fortunately it was a seminoma and didn’t require anyone to dissect my lymph nodes. You know they actually call it that?” Selena didn’t seem to appreciate his attempt at levity, so Lars continued his explanation. “I didn’t want to worry Mother, so I opted to have the surgery—they call it an inguinal orchiectomy—to remove both testicles. They did some radiation treatments, and I eventually got implants. Now I’m good as new.” He thought of the one thing that was forever out of his reach. The one thing his mother wanted most of all. The thing that rendered him unfit for a woman like Mattie with dreams of a future.
“You’re sterile,” Selena whispered.
Even his smile felt bitter. “Well, I don’t know if I’d really call it that. I’m simply—not.”
He could see her putting the pieces together in her head. Conversations they’d had, things he’d said, stuff that hadn’t made a bit of sense before but likely did now.
“You have to tell her.”
Okay, that wasn’t what he thought she’d say. He had no desire to have a heart-to-heart with his mother that would hurt her so badly. “I don’t know that it would make things better. I think it would crush her. I’ve been trying to find a way to let her know without making it worse.”
Selena made an impatient gesture with one hand. “Not Aunt Caroline. At some point you’re obviously going to have to explain things to your mother. I’m talking about Mattie. You need to tell Mattie.”
“What?” The idea made the bottom drop out of his stomach. “Why the hell would I do that? I can’t give her what she wants. End of story. I don’t want to sit down and explain all the ways I’m defective. Why put either of us through that?”
She looked stunned. “You’re not defective!”
He thought of the dissolving hormone tablets he placed between his cheek and gums every twelve hours to maintain his testosterone levels, the months of waiting for the implant surgery when he could hardly look at himself in the mirror. There had been times when he wondered if his waffling sexuality was tied to losing his testicles in his early twenties.
Except I was always bi-curious, even in grade school.
“I’m not dragging all that out in front of Mattie.” He wouldn’t even consider it. Better she see him as some kind of male asshole than someone who wasn’t a man at all.
“So you’d rather she think you left her because she had the balls to tell you she loves you.” Selena’s cheeks went pink. “Excuse the pun. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
And there was one of the major things Lars abhorred about telling people he’d had cancer. All of a sudden things that should have been funny suddenly weren’t. He shook off his irritation and focused on the problem of what to tell Mattie. “She’ll find someone else, Se. Hell, she sort of already has. The chemistry between her and Owen is intense.”
“Oh ick!” Selena wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue. “Spare me the details of Owen’s sexual exploits. Between him and you, it’s like trying to imagine my best friend having sex with my brothers.” Her expression turned pensive. “Besides, I think Owen has his own problems.”
Lars’s protective instincts roared to life. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Just stuff he’s said. Maybe a couple of things I’ve overheard.” She shrugged. “There were a couple of rough-looking guys who wanted to see him last night.”
“Who?” Lars began compiling a local list of dirtbags, wondering who might possibly have a connection to Owen. The heightened sense of urgency made it almost impossible to stand still.
“One of them looked sort of Native American, although not nearly as much as Owen does. He told Malachi his name was Jason.” Selena’s gaze narrowed. “Why do you care? You keep trying not to get attached. Why is this your business?”
The worst lies we tell are the ones we believe.
The truth was jarring. No matter how much he shouldn’t care. He did. He cared a lot. Not just about Owen, but about Mattie. Owen was right. Lars had to stop torturing himself—and them.
“What are you going to do?” Selena had always been able to interpret his expressions, even when he kept them under wraps.
“I’m not even sure what my options are at this point.” Lars drew her in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Please don’t mention what I told you to anyone.”
“Am I really the only one who knows?” She looked bothered by the possibility.
He was more troubled by the identity of the one other person who could out him. “Other than the lovely Ms. Adams-Channing? Yes.”
Chapter Eight
Mattie tried to concentrate on her sketch but couldn’t bend her mind to the task. She’d manned her booth on Artists’ Row for several hours before stopping by to finalize a few sales at the gallery. Now she was home to enjoy some peace and quiet. Being alone didn’t usually bother her. Selena was constantly teasing Mattie that she lived like a hermit in the woods, but Mattie enjoyed feeling close to nature. Now, the house felt empty and cold despite the flames crackling merrily in the stone fireplace.
She’d grown up in the old house with her grandmother and her twin spinster great aunts. It had been filled with love and laughter and the kind of squabbling that always happens when too many cackling hens occupy the same kitchen. The women in their family didn’t have much luck with men. Her grandfather had died with his young son in a car accident, leaving his wife and daughter behind. Not long after, her grandmother’s twin sisters had moved in. Both of her aunts had lost young men in Vietnam, though Mattie had often suspected they’d lost the same man. The twins had quarreled over everything in life with a certain amount of relish that suggested they enjoyed it.
Her grandmother had always told Mattie that her mother, Adeline, was born wild. Addie left home as soon as she turned eighteen and drifted all over the northeast. After leaving infant Mattie with her grandmother, Addie had come home periodically to visit. Mattie never begrudged her mother that decision. She’d had a good childhood. Addie stopped by whenever she was in the area, but Mattie’s grandmother had been mother and mentor. When Mattie was seventeen, they’d received a letter from one of her mother’s acquaintances saying Addie had died of pneumonia.
In the last several years, Mattie had lost her grandmother and both of her aunts to old age. The house had grown quiet. She longed to fill it with love and laughter and children. She’d dreamed of the picture-perfect family since girlhood. A normal mother and father to love a house full of children. She wanted a family more than anything else in the world. She just couldn’t seem to find a good man willing to share that with her.
A big fat tear plopped onto the page, creating a huge smear on the bark of the hickory tree she was trying to draw. She quickly reached for a rag to blot it away. Taking a deep breath, she tried to get herself under control. The tree she was attempting to sketch wasn’t going anywhere.
Flipping idly through her sketch pad, Mattie suddenly found herself staring at the quick rendering she’d done of two men at a bistro table. She caught her breath as she realized how uncanny it was to have drawn something bordering on prophetic.
Except for the part where we’re all apparently too damaged to sustain normal, healthy relationships.
Dropping the sketch pad to the inclined surface of her drawing table, Mattie stood up. She needed a walk. Hopefully it would help clear her head. If this kept up, she was going to have to consider taking drastic measures. A lobotomy came to mind.
She grabbed a hoodie off the hook in the screened-in porch and pulled it on over her cami top. Her rain boots were cold and clammy when she slipped them on over her bare feet. The woods were always damp this time of year, and she preferred mucking about in boots rather than her tennis shoes.
The spring gave a protesting shriek as she shoved the door open and stepped out. She ma
de a mental note to oil the hinges and decided the entire porch could use a coat or two of paint while she was pretending she was going to get to her ever-present list of chores.
Once in her backyard, Mattie inhaled deeply of the woodsy air. Rich earth and the spicy scent of wild blackberries mingled with the scent of thyme and rosemary from her herb garden. It was almost time to start clearing the little patch for winter, but she had a few weeks of good weather yet before the chore had to be done.
A lazy meow made her smile. “Decided to come back home for a meal, hmm?”
Neutering her giant orange-striped monstrosity of a tomcat hadn’t done anything to quell his urge to wander far afield in search of trouble. She’d named the stray Van Gogh when he’d showed up on her doorstep, because he’d already been missing a good chunk of his left ear. Since then she’d realized the cat was as eccentric as his artistic namesake.
Mattie stooped down to pet the silky fur and caught sudden movement in her peripheral vision. Startled, she whipped around to see something hanging from one of the trees.
Her heart began to pound. She swallowed, her throat dry and cottony. There was really no reason for her to be this jumpy. It was probably trash caught in a low branch. She was just feeling edgy because of her run-in with Daniel Hyde the day before.
Trying to seem nonchalant, she left Van Gogh to his study of a clump of crabgrass and walked toward the scrap of white. As she got closer, she could see it was parchment of some kind. Her curiosity overcame her apprehension, and she snatched it out of the tree.
There weren’t any words. It was a crude drawing of the Wheel of the Year with tiny symbols sketched in for each feast day. The other Sabbat signs were common, but what concerned Mattie was the weird rendering of a hangman’s noose added to Samhain’s place on the wheel. There were plenty of Wiccans in the area out and about harvesting items for their Samhain altars. Mattie had been collecting a few things from her garden for the one that occupied the corner of her living room. But she didn’t know anyone who would find it amusing to associate a noose with Samhain. The local community didn’t take their history lightly.
Her fingers were cold where they clutched the parchment. She wasn’t sure if it was real or imagined, but the thing felt evil. Still, if someone had left it on her property on purpose she needed to keep it around. Holding it gingerly between thumb and forefinger, she carried it back toward the porch.
* * * *
Owen saw Jason before his brother spotted him. Jason and two others were shoving their way around the perimeter of Triptych’s dance floor. It was crowded. Half of Boston had shown up to see the local band on stage. Jason’s crew’s push-and-shove method was earning them more than a few curses from the other patrons. Owen caught the eye of one of the other bouncers and made a quick movement with his hand. He wanted to handle his brother without interference. Until Owen knew why Jason had resurfaced, he didn’t care to discuss their business in front of the other staff members at Triptych.
The years hadn’t been kind to Jason. His lean face was sharp, his dark eyes hard. He carried a little more muscle in his lanky frame these days, and he’d shaved his dirty-blond hair. He looked more like his mother than their shared father, Xander Bloodmoon. Xander had always had a taste for Caucasian women, especially blondes. He’d been married to Jason’s half-Narragansett mother when he had a fling with a waitress from Southie. Xander had only been with the woman once, but that had been enough to spawn Owen.
Owen waited until Jason and his rough-looking companions were about to pass his position near the door leading to the Underground. “Looking for someone? Or are you here for the music?”
Jason spun around, a snarl twisting his upper lip. “I’m surprised you didn’t knife me in the back.”
There was enough tension snapping around Jason and his cronies to start an electrical storm. Owen bit back the sharp retort that waited on his tongue and opted for caution. A prickling sensation on the nape of his neck drew his attention to a shadowy form crouched on a balustrade three stories up. For the first time ever, Owen was glad to see Demon Yen skulking around.
Owen spread his hands to show he was unarmed. The knife he carried in his right boot didn’t count since they couldn’t see it. “I’m just working a shift, Jason. Malachi said you wanted to talk to me. It’s the only reason I knew you’d be here. I’ve kept up my end of our agreement.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed to slits as he stepped forward to crowd Owen. His buddies moved in close, blanketing Owen’s senses with the stench of unwashed bodies. Their ratty jeans, worn T-shirts, and scuffed leather jackets didn’t suggest the three of them were doing particularly well. The guy on the right looked as if he might be from Native American stock mixed heavily with African-American blood. The guy on the left had red hair, pale freckled skin, and the kind of acne that came from using steroids to bulk up.
Jason put one finger in the middle of Owen’s chest. “I need some cash for a job, and you’re going to win a fight for me.”
The translation being that Jason had put together an illegal fight with horrendous odds, and he didn’t mind putting Owen’s life on the line to get the capital he needed. Owen sighed. Time hadn’t changed anything between him and his brother, and Owen suspected it never would.
After the last fight had gone south, Owen had vowed it would be his last. Jason had wanted Owen to take a dive for the bigger paycheck, and Owen had refused. To keep things interesting and make the payoff worthwhile, Jason had locked Owen in a cage with a set of psychotic triplets who’d been too bloodthirsty to become professional fighters.
Jason took Owen’s silence for compliance. “The fight is this weekend. The usual place. Be there by midnight.”
“I told you I’m not fighting anymore,” Owen said calmly. “I put two guys in the hospital last time and almost wound up in a box myself. I’m done.”
Jason’s dark eyes gleamed with malice. “Grandmother will be so sorry about that. She’s been having some trouble with vandals. There was a break-in at her neighbor’s house just last week. So far nobody’s been hurt, but you know how these things tend to escalate.”
Anger rose like a tidal wave inside Owen’s chest. Blood roared in his ears, and he clenched his hands to keep them away from Jason’s neck. “So let’s say I fight this weekend. What then? This is bullshit, and you know it.”
“You could always do another kind of job for me.” Jason’s deliberately casual tone put Owen on edge.
He mulled over his options before choosing the one least likely to end badly. “What’s the job?”
“Some weird ritual.” Jason smirked, looking pleased with himself.
Apparently his brother had been branching out from doing odd jobs for local criminals to renting himself out to the occult.
Owen wasn’t impressed. “What kind of ritual?”
“Some binding thing.” Jason shrugged off the potential danger of messing with power he didn’t understand with an ignorance that made Owen want to roll his eyes. “This crazy-ass guy came down to the rez talking about ancient power places and crossroads and some other bullshit. He talked to Dad, but you know how he is about that kind of stuff.”
Owen did know. Xander Bloodmoon liked a lot of things about his Narragansett heritage. Mysticism wasn’t one of them.
Jason wasn’t through. “So Dad told him the only ones who still bought into the old mumbo- jumbo were living in the houses the tribe keeps for the old folks.”
“He talked to Grandmother?” Owen cursed the strain in his tone, but he couldn’t hide his concern for the woman who’d taken him in as a child and raised him as her own. With his grandfather dead, it should have been Owen’s responsibility to see to her care. Instead he was forced to stand back and hope his idiot brother would keep his word that he’d direct his clandestine activities somewhere else.
“You know how she is. Always going on about the seasons, her weaving, and all that other bullshit.” Jason crossed his arms and scoffed. “This idio
t ate it up. Next thing I know, he’s asking around for a couple of us who might want to make a few bucks on the side.”
“What’s the guy’s name?” Owen had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The kind that told him life was about to get messy fast.
“Daniel Hyde.” Jason was oblivious to Owen’s obvious unease and rattled on without a clue. “So I’m in, and Tony and Phil said they’re in, but we need a fourth guy. You don’t want to fight, you do this instead.”
Owen ground his teeth, squashing his anger into a tiny box and cramming it behind a locked door in his mind. “Why me?”
Jason looked miffed. “Because this Hyde loony says he needs guys from the local tribes. Phil has a couple drops of Wampanoag. Tony here is a half-blood Shinnecock, and you and me are Narragansett.”
“And nothing about this concerns you…at all?” Owen couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice any longer. “Not even if I tell you that your buddy Daniel Hyde got arrested here in Boston last year for performing animal sacrifices?”
“At least they weren’t human,” Jason joked.
Icy dread filled Owen as he realized just how crazy this whack job Hyde really was. It was obvious he had an interest in Mattie as much as he did her art. What if he was planning on trading up on the object he wanted to sacrifice?
Why Mattie?
Jason’s voice brought Owen crashing back into the moment. “You do this for me, and I’ll arrange it so you can visit Grandmother.”
Owen’s heart did a double tap. It had been years since he’d seen his grandmother. She’d been a constant presence in his life for so long. A guide always willing to lend an ear, give a hug, or offer insight, she’d loved him unconditionally. Thanks to one night of losing control and giving in to the violence within, Owen had to leave. He’d severed his relationship with the one person who’d always welcomed him home, proving he was the disease his stepmother had always accused him of being.
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