Across the Vanishing Sky (Starlight Grove, #1)(8)

“Damn it, she’s fast,” Maverick called on a wheeze as he ran around the side of the house.

I choked on a laugh as I took in the youngest of our bunch, adjusting my glasses. He wore a cowboy hat, a hot-pink feather boa, and held a shield and sword. Behind him charged a mini-Highland cow decked out in fairy wings.

“I thought hotshots were in better shape,” I yelled back.

Mav flipped me off. “Smoke jumper now, you asshat.”

“Swear jar!” Skylar chastised.

Mav scowled. “You’re always getting me in trouble.”

I arched a brow as I deposited Skylar back on her mud-caked boots. “Pretty sure you don’t need my help in that department.”

Maverick did everything he could to live up to his name: reckless to the bone and always searching for his next dose of adrenaline. Uncle Waylon blamed Maverick for his white hair.

Mav rolled his eyes. “The FBI really did make you boring as shit.”

“Swear jar,” Skylar singsonged again.

Without warning, I dove for my brother, trying to get him into a headlock and attempting a noogie at the same time.

Maverick instantly retaliated by thwacking me with his plastic sword as Skylar giggled.

“Shots fired on an unarmed man!” I accused.

An ear-splitting whistle pierced the air, which had Maverick and me releasing each other.

“Do I need to turn the hose on you two?”

I grimaced as I took in Uncle Waylon, clad in his favorite Carhartt overalls complete with a Bigfoot patch on the bib, work boots, and his worn ball cap that read The truth is out there.

Lucy, the sweetest Irish wolfhound known to man, ambled down the porch steps after him, making her way toward me.

“He started it,” Mav complained.

I crouched low to give my old girl scratches. “There she is,” I cooed.

“Mav,” Waylon began, “you start shit nine times out of ten.”

Skylar giggled. “Swear jar, Grampa Way Way.”

She’d called him that from the moment she learned to talk. Because he was a grandfather to her in all the ways that mattered and the only grandparent she’d ever have.

A door slammed. “I ask you two to keep an eye on my daughter for two hours,” Kol grumbled as he ambled away from his Forest Service truck.

Maverick clamped his hands over Skylar’s ears. “Newsflash, buzzkill, she already knows more than a couple of four-letter words.”

This was not the thing to say to Kol. You did not expose his daughter to anything that might harm her in any way, even if that was just a curse word.

“Boy,” Uncle Waylon warned in Mav’s direction. “You wake up on the stupid side of the bed this morning?”

I pushed to my feet, dropping my hands from Lucy’s scruff. “Pretty sure that’s every morning.”

Mav released Skylar to take a swipe at me that I dodged with a laugh, and I turned to Kol, pulling him into a back-slapping hug. “How the hell are you?”

“Language,” Kol warned.

“Is hell really a bad word?” I asked.

“It’s on the no-no list,” Skylar helpfully informed me.

“Whoops,” I muttered as I released Kol.

He clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s good to have you back.”

I took a second to really take Kol in. His dark scruff was thicker, edging on beard territory, and he was just as broad and tall as he’d always been, but it looked like he’d put on more muscle. With his job as an investigator for the Forest Service, he could resemble a lumberjack. But those hazel eyes, which leaned toward the dark side, were the same ones we all had—the ones we all hated. Because of what they reminded us of.

I shoved that thought down. “It’s good to be back. Wylder and Orion around?”

“Wylder’s at the bar like always,” Maverick offered about our eldest brother.

“Orion?” I asked.

Mav and Kol shared a look, and my gut sank like a boulder in a lake. Orion hadn’t been what I’d call good since the day our whole world imploded. But Orion’s world had fractured more than the rest of ours because of the higher price he’d paid for our survival.

“He’s been sticking to his place more than usual,” Kol hedged.

All my brothers lived on ranch property except for me, while I’d been working for the FBI in their tech wing, what I lovingly referred to as Hackers Anonymous, and Wylder, who lived above his bar. But Orion’s house, which he built with Waylon’s help and moved into the second he turned eighteen, was as far from the rest of the residences as he could get.

My jaw worked back and forth as worry set in. I’d be paying him a visit before long. And his cantankerous ass would be talking to me, in whatever way Orion was willing to talk these days.

I cracked my neck. “I need to get over to the guest cabin, unload my stuff, and take the longest shower known to man.”

Maverick eyed my back seat. “You mean unload your two duffel bags?”

“Hey,” I shot back. “I also have three boxes.”

“Let me guess,” Mav continued. “Computer crap?”

I narrowed my eyes on my brother. “Do not demean Betty Lou.”

“Who’s Betty Lou?” Skylar piped up. “Did you get a kitty?”