“If we need to go back for answers, we can do it without anyone knowing you’re there.”
“We?”
“I told you. We’ll figure this out together.”
You are not alone, he’d said, and I think . . . I think he’s been alone a long time and I want to know why. “Where were you from before you moved here?”
“Houston.”
“Do you remember it?”
“I remember it. I’ve been back. But mostly I remember my father. He is Houston to me.”
“Your dad was a Hunter, you said?”
“Yes. That’s how I started.” He gives a sad laugh. “And a regular cowboy. Boots. Jeans and pickup trucks. I still listen to country music.”
“What country music?”
“Jason Aldean. Luke Bryan. Keith Urban.”
“Those people are fairly new on the scene. Well, not Keith Urban, but Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan.”
“You know your country music.”
My brow furrows. “I guess I do. Hmmm.” An image of my father working on a pickup truck, with music playing in the background, comes to me. “My father liked it, I think.” I shake off the thought that for some illogical reason makes me uncomfortable. It’s just music. I happily, eagerly refocus on Kayden. “We were talking about you. You’re more biker than cowboy.”
“Biker.” His lips quirk sexily at the corners. “A few motorcycles does not make me a ‘biker.’ ”
“Okay, maybe that was the wrong choice of words. Rebel is more like it. Or wild card. Very dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Is that what you still think of me?”
“Your own words.”
“Yes,” he agrees, his voice tight. “My own words.”
I wait for him to explain. He doesn’t, but nor do I sense the wall between us as I have in the past, so I cautiously push for more. “And your mother. What did she do?”
“Music teacher.”
“Music teacher?” I whisper, a shadow of a memory stirring in my mind.
“Memory?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“You don’t sound certain.”
“I get feelings sometimes but I don’t know what they mean.” I refocus on him. “I don’t know why, but I’m afraid to ask the next question.”
“You want to know about my sister?”
“Yes.”
“She was eight. We’d had a fight right before they were murdered.”
“All siblings fight, and you were kids.”