Altered by Jennifer Rush Page A

dust. I coughed, clearing the air with a wave of my hand. This place needed a good scrubbing. My fingers itched to do something. I’d been in charge of the cleaning at home, and I worried about it now that I wasgone. I couldn’t imagine the house surviving on its own without me there to look after it. Or maybe what I really meant was that I couldn’t imagine my dad surviving without me to take care of him.
    Was he worried about me like I was worried about him?
    I jumped from the couch, restless, and joined Cas in the kitchen. A cobweb stretched over his hair. I nabbed it, holding it in front of him so he could see. “Sometimes I think you’re hopeless.”
    He put an arm around me. “That’s why I have you. You’re good at keeping us in line.”
    “And by us you mean you.”
    “Sure. Whatever.” He left my side and tried the burners on the stovetop. Nothing happened. “Damn it. I’m frickin’ starving.”
    “You are perpetually starving.”
    “I’m used to having three square meals a day.”
    “If the house has been untouched for years—and it looks like it has been—I doubt anything is usable.” I moved around the L-shaped kitchen counter to the window that looked out on the garage. “Have you been out there yet?”
    “No. But I’m game for an adventure. What do ya say?”
    I grinned. “Game.”
    The others were in the living room, inspecting the fireplace and the chimney. Cas let Sam know where we were headed before we eased out the back door. We ran from the porch to the door at the side of the garage. A kiss of rain hit my face and I shielded my eyes with one hand. Cas rammed his shoulder against the door and itswung open, scraping against the concrete floor. Poor light stole through the two small windows, but it was enough to see what we were dealing with.
    “Look.” I hurried to the far left corner. “A grill. We could barbecue.”
    Cas’s expression was nothing short of ecstasy as he caressed the black steel dome that made up the grill’s hood. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I had a grilled steak? Or a barbecued chicken leg?”
    I raised my eyebrows. “Um… a long time?”
    He ignored me. “All those damn barbecue commercials on TV. Dangling it right in front of my face like a frickin’ carrot in front of a donkey.”
    “How do you even know what barbecue sauce tastes like? You never had it in the lab.”
    “A man never forgets the taste of barbecue. I probably had it before the lab.” He hoisted the grill hood and took a whiff. “Oh, God—it still smells like charcoal and sizzling meat.”
    “It’s amazing you don’t weigh three hundred pounds.”
    He pushed up the sleeve of his sweaty, muddy shirt and flexed his biceps. “All that food gave me this svelte figure, I’ll have you know.”
    I eyed the bulkiness of his arm, the broadness of his shoulders. “ Svelte means ‘slender.’ ”
    “But it also means to have clean lines. Which obviously I do.”
    I couldn’t argue with that.
    I left him to drool over the grill while I surveyed what else might be useful. Some yard tools had been organized on rubber-coated hooks on the far wall. Different-sized boards were stacked up below the tools. Directly across from that, I spotted a power box and a bulky contraption on the floor beneath it. “What is that?”
    “That’s a generator.”
    I looked over my shoulder to find Cas rummaging around a loft area built beneath the peak of the roof.
    “How did you get up there?”
    He nodded at the stack of boards. “I jumped.”
    “You are such a monkey. Now come look at this.”
    He hung over the edge of the loft headfirst, flipped and then dangled there for a second in a backhanded pull-up, the threads of muscle tightening in his forearms before he let go. “Whoa. Am I badass or what? I didn’t even know I could do that.”
    I stood there, mouth hanging open. “Then why did you? You could have been hurt!”
    “Because I felt like it.” He nudged the boxy