Chapter 9
Jordan
“Why are you so quiet?”
I looked over at my dad and shook my head with a smile. “No reason.”
His bushy eyebrows rose and I realized everyone was staring at me. I’d floated through all of yesterday and I still couldn’t get that kiss out of my head.
Ricochet had nearly set me ablaze. I’d always heard about that all-consuming lust that people felt. I’d just never experienced it for myself. Not before Friday night.
“What have you been up to?” Mom asked, giving Dad a warning look not to pry. We were spread out as we walked along through the desert.
Dad let out a shrill whistle when the baying from the beagles got too far away.
The sound had the dogs circling back to us.
My brother encouraged his hawk to take flight so he could squat down as Belle and Ellie ran up.
Belle was limping on her front left paw, so he lifted and examined it.
He took out a pair of pliers and pulled the cactus spine from her paw.
He was barely finished before she was wriggling in his arms, baying loudly, so she could chase back after Ellie and the ever elusive rabbits again.
We laughed as we watched the dogs zig and zag through brush and cactus, noses to the ground as they ran. Bells jingled as my hawk shook out her feathers. She wasn’t as impressed with the dog’s antics as we were.
“They’re restless,” Dad said, adjusting his hawk’s jesses. The leather strapped to their feet held little bells that helped us locate the raptors when they were down on the ground.
“That’s because we missed last week,” Jenna replied, giving Noah a dark look.
“Wasn’t my fault,” my brother replied with a grin.
He held up his gloved hand so his hawk could land on it again.
It absolutely had been his fault. He’d gotten drunk the night before—not something my parents knew—and overslept.
If one of us wasn’t able to go out on a hunt, the rest didn’t go.
We all got up at the crack of dawn, so by the time we got out into the sparsely populated areas we didn’t have to worry about the heat.
It wasn’t getting hot in the mornings yet, but it would soon enough.
Noah yanked on Jenna’s ponytail, causing her to squeal with laughter. Their hawks danced on their gloves.
Falconry was a family sport for us. It was unusual to have an entire family with their own birds, but once Dad had gotten into it we’d all joined in.
We went hunting together each weekend, then had a meal together.
It was important to each of us. Gave us the perfect excuse to spend time with one another.
With Noah about to turn twenty-nine, me at twenty-five, and Jenna only fourteen, we were all at different stages in our lives.
Our parents wanted to keep us close as long as possible.
I was supposed to be going with Noah to pick out a ring for his long-time girlfriend.
That was the reason he’d gotten drunk. He and his friends had been celebrating and he’d lost track of time and how much alcohol he’d downed.
We all loved Mallory. She was even in the process of being an apprentice falconer.
Normally, she was out on these hikes through the desert with us.
Her parents were in town this time and she was busy this weekend showing them around.
Mom raised her gloved hand and sent her Harris Hawk flying off into the desert.
The rest of us followed suit. Our birds were used to hunting together.
It was the reason we’d all gotten this breed of hawk.
It was less likely there’d be any territorial disputes amongst our raptors.
“Well?” Mom asked me, giving me a knowing look.
Somehow she’d already picked up on the fact that something was going on with me.
“I had dinner with Gwen and her family the other night,” I said, adjusting the pouch I wore around my waist. It gave me something to focus on so that hopefully my mom wouldn’t notice that anything was different with me.
“She’s such a nice girl,” Mom commented.
“She is,” I replied. “I’m lucky to have a friend like her.”
“You should invite her and the kids over to dinner at our place one night,” Dad suggested. “It’s been too long since we’ve seen them.”
“Oh, well, she’s been busy. Her brother is staying with her right now.” If it was just Gwen and the kids, I would have jumped on the invitation. The kids loved coming over and my parents were obsessed with them.
My sister raised her head and gave me a lascivious smile. “Is he hot?”
“Jenna!” Mom snapped, then gave her a look of disbelief.
Jenna may be the youngest, but she was by far the most outgoing. Not that Noah and I were wilting wallflowers. Noah and I gave each other an amused look. My mother continued to scowl at Jenna, then asked me, “Well, is he handsome?”
“Yes,” I answered, as innocently as I could. “He’s hot.”
“Jordan,” Mom sighed, realizing her control over this situation was slipping away faster than she could reel it in.
Dad wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Ah, got your eye on him, huh?”
I laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know, yet.” Honesty was always the best policy with my family. It was like my mother had a divining rod for lies. She always knew when her kids weren’t telling her the truth.
“Yet,” Noah echoed with a laugh, elbowing my dad in the ribs. “Looks like we’re going to have to set up more space in the mews before long.”
I laughed along with my family. Only we would see one of us getting a new girlfriend or boyfriend as a chance to get a new hawk to add to our brood.
A sharp cry rang out and I shaded my eyes against the early morning sun.
One of the hawks split off from the group and flew back toward us.
We all raised our gloves, but Haze landed on mine.
She eyeballed me, tilting her head this way and that before launching back into the air.
It wasn’t an unusual behavior for her. She liked to check in on me while we hunted.
Our birds all had different personalities, as all animals do.
True to the breed we went with, our raptors all seemed to love and care for us, but Haze was as devoted to me as I was to her.
Dad had once had a hawk that didn’t care about him at all.
Dad had only been a food delivery method to it.
He’d found a better suited home for that bird.
With so many of us hunting together, we needed birds who were friendlier.
They weren’t dogs, though. Most raptors would never give the loyalty a hound would. I bent and scrubbed my hand over Ellie’s back as we walked past the dogs. They’d momentarily lost the trail and were resting, waiting for us to catch up.
Between us and the dogs walking through the brush, we soon scared out a jack rabbit. The hawks dipped and soared as they worked together to direct the terrified rabbit into a position where one of the birds could swoop down on it.
We all broke into a jog to keep up as they hunted. As soon as one of the birds went to ground, the others began landing in nearby mesquite trees and on saguaros, focused eyes watching as their family member killed breakfast.
It was Delilah, Mom’s hawk. She approached slowly and tossed a skinned piece of rabbit she’d pulled from her own pouch off to the side.
Delilah immediately hopped over to the new meat and swallowed it down.
Mom used the moment of distraction to stuff the dead rabbit into her pouch, out of the birds’ view.
If we allowed the birds to gorge themselves on the first kill of the morning, they wouldn’t want to hunt anymore.
They always happily took the already skinned meat we kept on hand, over having to do the work on the fresh kill.
Putting a piece of meat between my thumb and finger on my gloved hand, I whistled for Haze.
She landed and set into her treat immediately.
I watched as she tore into the strip, shaking her head when blood and a fleck of sinew got stuck on her beak.
Laughing, I ducked as the gore went flying.
Watching these birds eat wasn’t for the faint of heart.
I loved this. Loved the sport. Loved the birds.
Adored my family and our time out here together.
Taking a deep breath of cool air, I wondered if this was something Ricochet could eventually enjoy? Shaking my head at myself for even thinking that far into the future, and for the fact that he was in it, I released my hawk once again. It’d only been one kiss.
Not quite. It was far more than that. It had been an invasion of my senses and a deposit, a promise of what was to come. One soul twisting, pulse pounding, delicious kiss. A part of me couldn’t wait to see him again.
It didn’t matter that I was on a sabbatical after the last boyfriend had broken my heart. I couldn’t seem to convince myself that thinking about Ricochet in any way was a bad idea. He was just there, in my head.
“Hurry up, Slow Poke!” Jenna called out.
I pushed all thoughts of the sexy biker from my mind. There’d be time enough later to figure out what I was going to do about him. For now, I was going to enjoy the rest of the time with my family.