at Bean's house, your old house—"
"If I stay, I'm staying here."
"Well, I'm staying here." She had to spell it out for him? "So, you know...you can't. Two single people, one a man, one a woman, sharing close quarters..."
A smile split his face. "So that's not 'seemly'," he said, shaking his head. "Priss—"
"Cilla."
His smile didn't dim. "C'mon. 'Two single people'? Surely we're more like...like..."
Oh, don't go there, she thought on an inner groan. I've enough doubts about myself and my attractiveness to the male sex without you saying what I think you're about to say. But then, of course, he did.
"...brother and sister."
Ren exited Gwen's small, canary-colored cottage that dripped with gingerbread trim and strolled into the morning sunshine, its warmth immediately starting to dry his shower-damp hair. Narrowing his eyes against the California-brightness, he sucked in a breath and tried shaking off the strangeness of the morning.
Jet lag was seriously screwing with him, he decided. Usually a few hours of sleep would clear his mind. But today, he'd opened his eyes and things had gone from weird—an unexpected woman in his bed—to weirder.
Priscilla Maddox's mouth had turned his normal morning wood to a rod of aching steel.
Shit.
Shoving that thought from his head, he turned in a circle, taking in the pool and tennis court in the distance as well as the three homes where he and the other rock royalty had grown up. At seventy-five yards away, Bean's place was closest. Western-styled, with a shake-shingle exterior and a front door sporting a steer skull, it looked the same as when Ren had lived there. Beyond it was where Mad Dog Maddox had built a rock-faced castle-type abode, with a Rapunzel tower which Ren remembered had been a particular refuge for little Priscilla. The third member of the band, Hop Hopkins, had a severe glass-and-chrome two-story home where Beck, Walsh, and Reed had grown up.
His mind snagging on the missing member of that family, Ren pulled his phone from his jeans pocket and pressed a speed dial number.
"Yo," a male voice answered. "Isn't it like the middle of the night wherever you are?"
"I thought when you went home everything was supposed to seem smaller," Ren said to his half-brother Payne, by way of answering. "It's all so...so." So sun-drenched. So lush. So bright with flowers and birds and colors.
The arresting blue of Cilla's eyes.
There was a small silence. "Are you telling me you're at the compound?"
"Yeah. I needed a break." When he said it, Ren realized it was true. He'd been on a grueling schedule for months, years, maybe, and if he told the complete truth, learning of Gwen's death had thrown him a little. "And Bean put the pressure on me to personally ensure the place was doing okay in the Lemons' absence."
"That's bullshit. A gardener comes by. The pool guy. Seven of the nine of us live within an hour's drive if traffic isn't jammed. We'd look in if asked."
"Well, I'm in California now." And not resenting the arm-twisting so much. He did need a breather. Then his brother's words sank in, seven of the nine, and he remembered his purpose for calling. "Why the hell didn't you call and tell me that Beck is missing?"
"I didn't know you'd care."
That rankled. Ren paused as he started up the path that led toward the fruit orchard planted on the hillside behind the pool. "Way to make me feel like an asshole."
"I didn't mean to," Payne responded mildly. "We all live pretty independently."
"Shit," Ren muttered under his breath. "Give me a Cami report," he ordered, referring to their younger half-sister, Campbell. "And I don't want to hear that—surprise!—she's married with a passel of children."
"As if any of the Lemon progeny are eager for that state," Payne said, "given that not one of us knows what a normal, healthy relationship looks like."
Ren grunted. His brother had that right. "So, she's what...?" Not much would surprise him, not after he'd realized that little Priss—Cilla—had actually grown up and now had a career.
"She runs one of my wrecking yards by day," Payne said. "Getting gigs to sing by night."
"Hmm." Ren ran his fingertips over the yellow skin of a lemon as he breathed in the scent of their blossoms. That's what Cilla had smelled like this morning, he realized. Citrus blossoms. He remembered that Gwen used to rinse the little girls' hair with water infused with the tiny flowers and he wondered if Cilla continued the practice. "The wrecking yards doing okay?"
"I'm in my