Grant never cries. I’ve known him practically my whole life. He was the first member of the Brotherhood my father brought to live with us at the mansion. Since the moment my father introduced us, seventeen years ago, I’d never once seen him cry. Not even at my father’s funeral, and he regarded my father as dearly as his own.
Not that we were like siblings or anything. Hell no. Grant was twenty-one when my father found him. He was a grown adult the first time I set eyes on him. He was a man then, and he was a man now. He’d always been all man.
Back then, he was the best safe cracker on the west coast. My father brought him to live with us mostly to keep him out of trouble. He was too talented to end up in a prison cell, my father said. And that was pretty much how the Brotherhood started out.
First with Grant, and later with Jackson, Forrester, and Grady, my father had a habit of taking in strays and giving them the guidance they hadn’t found elsewhere. It was a weird way for me to grow up, surrounded by thieves, but it sure was interesting. The boys, the brothers, as we called them, were all talented thieves, brave criminals, and they weren’t afraid to put their neck on the line to do what was required. If it wasn’t for my father, they might all have ended up as common criminals. But the way my father trained them, they realized that a talent for stealing large sums of money could be used for good just as effectively as evil. My father taught them that the world was full of corporations and rich men that had more money than they needed or deserved. If someone was willing to take that money and spread it out among the people who really needed it, they’d be performing a valuable service.
And it all started with Grant. My father never intended for it to grow, but by the time he passed away, there were four brothers, and to this day they’re the only family I have. Well, them, and Faith and Sam.
I felt self-conscious as I walked down the aisle. Faith insisted I have the honor of preceding her, and she would be following me down the aisle in a moment. Faith’s own family had let her down badly in life and wouldn’t be attending the wedding. To be honest, I wasn’t even certain if her parents were still alive. She never spoke of them.
I never knew my own mother, she died of cancer a year after my birth, but for this special day I was wearing her wedding dress. It was light blue. As I stepped carefully along the aisle, beautiful music playing, I imagined what it would be like one day to get married myself. If that day would ever come.
I looked ahead. Jackson was there of course, with the priest, and standing next to him, tall and strong and handsome as ever, was Grant.
And he was crying.
Just a little, a few tears that barely filled his eyes enough to spill down over his cheeks, but they were there.
He was crying.
He was the best man, I was the maid of honor, and for a brief second, I felt as if I was walking down the aisle toward him. As if he was my husband-to-be, waiting at the altar for his bride.
It was a foolish thought. Grant would never be a groom.
I remembered as clearly as if it was yesterday, the day my father brought him into our home.
I was seventeen, a high school junior. I spent my time listening to Joy Division and New Order. My favorite movie was The Breakfast Club. I wore my hair like Blondie. I can’t imagine what Grant thought of me when he met me, but for my part, I was instantly and completely taken by him. He was like no one I’d ever seen before. His size, his sheer strength, startled me even then. It was like the time when I was a child and my father took me to the zoo, and for the first time I saw the majesty and power of a grizzly bear.
There was something noble, but also sad and lonely, about the depth and darkness of his eyes.
I was so taken by him I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I did all the things girls do when they’re infatuated. I drew pictures of him in my diary and practiced writing my name as Lacey Lucas. I concocted detailed imaginary situations in which we confided our love to each other. I watched him wistfully as he did his chores around the vineyard, learning the ropes, helping my father. It was during those long days of work that my father taught him he could use his talents to help people as well as steal money. It was a revelation to Grant, who’d never thought of using his skills for the benefit of others.
It was during those months that I first realized I was a sexual person. There was a desire flowing through me that was so powerful, so filled with longing and passion, that it startled me.
Usually at the end of the work day, especially when it was hot and the sun beat down on them mercilessly, Grant would shower by the barn with an old garden hose. I’d watch him rip off his shirt and hose down his strong, sweaty muscles, and ashamed as I am to admit it, he made my panties wet. God, it was a delicious torture. To be that close to something so beautiful, so sexy.