hair mussed by the whip of the breeze, straying into eyes as mysterious and deep as one of the Glade’s peat bogs. And just as dangerous to one as careless of her own sure footing as Patrice tended to be.
Reeve Garrett, Byron Glendower’s illegitimate son, a study of unapproachable angles—rugged, hard, without a trace of softness except when he extended one of his infrequent smiles.
The sight of him made Patrice breathless.
“What are you girls doing, peeking through the curtains like a couple of nosy housemaids?”
Starla groaned and stepped away from the window. “If it isn’t Deacon Sinclair, come to preach what’s right and proper. Is Deacon your name or your calling?”
That barbed quip faded from memory upon Patrice’s sigh. She turned from the room full of ghosts, from the figures haunting her lawn a lifetime ago.
She couldn’t quite make her self go upstairs where the memories were more personal, more difficult to manage. Instead, she crossed into her father’s darkly paneled study. There, if she closed her eyes tight and inhaled, she could catch the hint of cigar and success lingering in the old wood and dusty volumes. His clipped voice resided in the tap of tree branches against the grimy panes.
“Patrice, you are a Sinclair. Never forget that and never let anyone else, either.”
He’d made it a struggle to maintain that Sinclairperfection. He’d almost lost Deacon, but at the end, his son had come around to be the brilliant protégé. She’d been the disappointment, always scoffing at tradition, always kicking up heels in the face of decorum. She hadn’t understood back then the weight of responsibility that came along with the name Sinclair. It meant providing for those who depended upon you for strength. It meant being an example of what was right and good to those who were striving or uncertain. It meant wedding oneself to a lifestyle of privilege that became a prison of restraint. Such tremendous changes to make over the period of a few years. She needed to talk about them with someone who would understand the significance. She needed Deacon in a way she never had before. He’d gone through the same changes, and she wanted to ask how they’d felt, inside him. If he regretted the loss of his freedom to the shackles of duty.
She and her brother hadn’t been close since childhood. She’d always sensed he was mildly disapproving of her, and, when younger, she’d enjoyed making his straitlaced sensibilities wince. Now, she yearned for the chance to feel his admiration, to hear him say he was proud of the woman she’d become.
The paint on the doorjamb scratched rough and cracked beneath her cheek. She leaned against its support the way she wished she could rely upon his presence, so stalwart, so sturdy. She wanted to weep, to wail, but in the end, constrained herself to a whisper.
“Deacon, please come home. I can’t do it alone.”
Dark clouds charcoaled the afternoon sky by the time she left the house. Approaching rain salted the air and cooled the breeze blowing against her skin, warning of a fast-brewing storm. Not wanting to get caught at the Manor in a deluge lest her absence frighten her mother, Patrice called to Jericho to bring her mount, anxious to be indoors when the heavens split in earnest.
But it wasn’t Jericho who brought Zeus up to where she was impatiently waiting.
It was Reeve.
And he was mad as hell.
Chapter 4
“I must not have heard you ask to borrow horse,” Reeve said casually enough. “Of course I’m sure it wasn’t stealing, that being a hanging offense and all.”
She had the nerve to look angry at him for demanding she make an accounting. It was, after all, his horse in her barn. He’d come all the way after them on foot, was tired, hot, and none too amused. And she stood there glaring bullets, furious with him because he dared question her right to what was his.
Her reply amazed him.
“I didn’t think you’d mind.”
He gave an
Reeve Garrett, Byron Glendower’s illegitimate son, a study of unapproachable angles—rugged, hard, without a trace of softness except when he extended one of his infrequent smiles.
The sight of him made Patrice breathless.
“What are you girls doing, peeking through the curtains like a couple of nosy housemaids?”
Starla groaned and stepped away from the window. “If it isn’t Deacon Sinclair, come to preach what’s right and proper. Is Deacon your name or your calling?”
That barbed quip faded from memory upon Patrice’s sigh. She turned from the room full of ghosts, from the figures haunting her lawn a lifetime ago.
She couldn’t quite make her self go upstairs where the memories were more personal, more difficult to manage. Instead, she crossed into her father’s darkly paneled study. There, if she closed her eyes tight and inhaled, she could catch the hint of cigar and success lingering in the old wood and dusty volumes. His clipped voice resided in the tap of tree branches against the grimy panes.
“Patrice, you are a Sinclair. Never forget that and never let anyone else, either.”
He’d made it a struggle to maintain that Sinclairperfection. He’d almost lost Deacon, but at the end, his son had come around to be the brilliant protégé. She’d been the disappointment, always scoffing at tradition, always kicking up heels in the face of decorum. She hadn’t understood back then the weight of responsibility that came along with the name Sinclair. It meant providing for those who depended upon you for strength. It meant being an example of what was right and good to those who were striving or uncertain. It meant wedding oneself to a lifestyle of privilege that became a prison of restraint. Such tremendous changes to make over the period of a few years. She needed to talk about them with someone who would understand the significance. She needed Deacon in a way she never had before. He’d gone through the same changes, and she wanted to ask how they’d felt, inside him. If he regretted the loss of his freedom to the shackles of duty.
She and her brother hadn’t been close since childhood. She’d always sensed he was mildly disapproving of her, and, when younger, she’d enjoyed making his straitlaced sensibilities wince. Now, she yearned for the chance to feel his admiration, to hear him say he was proud of the woman she’d become.
The paint on the doorjamb scratched rough and cracked beneath her cheek. She leaned against its support the way she wished she could rely upon his presence, so stalwart, so sturdy. She wanted to weep, to wail, but in the end, constrained herself to a whisper.
“Deacon, please come home. I can’t do it alone.”
Dark clouds charcoaled the afternoon sky by the time she left the house. Approaching rain salted the air and cooled the breeze blowing against her skin, warning of a fast-brewing storm. Not wanting to get caught at the Manor in a deluge lest her absence frighten her mother, Patrice called to Jericho to bring her mount, anxious to be indoors when the heavens split in earnest.
But it wasn’t Jericho who brought Zeus up to where she was impatiently waiting.
It was Reeve.
And he was mad as hell.
Chapter 4
“I must not have heard you ask to borrow horse,” Reeve said casually enough. “Of course I’m sure it wasn’t stealing, that being a hanging offense and all.”
She had the nerve to look angry at him for demanding she make an accounting. It was, after all, his horse in her barn. He’d come all the way after them on foot, was tired, hot, and none too amused. And she stood there glaring bullets, furious with him because he dared question her right to what was his.
Her reply amazed him.
“I didn’t think you’d mind.”
He gave an
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