Uncut Bundle

Matthew and Alexander hemmed and hawed and waltzed around the question of why Cam was so desperate to find a woman whose name he didn’t know, who hadn’t made any effort to find him, but Matt finally asked the question.

“So,” he said carefully, “she’s important to you, huh? This—uh, this woman, I mean.”

“I want to know what happened to her.” Cam’s eyes narrowed. “You got a problem with that?”

“No problem,” Matt said quickly.

“Yeah.” Cam let out a breath. “Sorry. I’m just—”

“Edgy,” Alex said. “Anybody would be, after all you’ve been through.” He cleared his throat. “What I don’t get,” he said carefully, “is how a man gets involved with a ba—with a woman and never gets around to learning her name.”

Cam thought about telling him it was none of his business, but he knew his brothers meant well. They loved him. They were just trying to figure out what in hell was going on.

So was he.

“We were on the run,” he said. “It was a life-or-death situation. I gave her a nickname and it stuck.”

“Salome,” Alex said, shooting a sideways glance at Matt.

“Like the dancer who got the guy’s head on a platter,” Matt said.

“Which she could do without any sweat because she’d seduced him.”

“You want to say something, just say it.”

“Take it easy, man. We love you, that’s all. We’re worried about you. You took a bullet, lost a lot of blood, almost died—”

“And your point is?” Cam said, trying to lighten things and succeeding, at least for a few seconds, when all three of them laughed.

“Only what you already know,” Alex said. “On the run, life or death… That tends to heighten things, you know?”

Cam nodded, picked up his beer, then put it down again.

“I told her that.”

Alex nodded. “Good. I mean, it’s good you understood that, because—”

“Of course I understood it. She was the one who didn’t.”

His brother gave relieved sighs. “You don’t know how glad we are to hear you say that,” Matt said, “because, you know, for a whil

e there—”

Cam slammed his fist on the table.

“She lied, damn it! She said she loved me. Then, where the hell is she?”

“Yeah,” Alex said cautiously, “but like you just said—”

“Nobody lies to me and gets away with it.”

His brothers exchanged a baffled look. Cam had just said that this woman he called Salome hadn’t really loved him. Then he’d said he wasn’t going to let her get away with not really loving him.

Neither was foolish enough to point out that interesting inconsistency. Wise men that they were, they finished their drinks in silence.

Avery phoned late on a cold, miserable Saturday.

“How are you, son?”