She didn’t always agree with her mother’s entirely pragmatic approach to food. Mercedes had learned to appreciate more than store-bought meats as a child. And growing up, Eve and her sisters had often been more than grateful for her mother’s ability to prepare wild game. Though Eve herself found she much preferred buying her meat from the grocer rather than raising it herself.
Now, staring at the porch, seeing the blood and mutilated carcasses of the animals that had been penned close to the house to ensure that no predators attacked them, Eve well understood why her mother was screaming.
Mercedes had been screaming for Timothy and her daughters, terrified that if someone had been brazen enough to come onto her porch and do something so horrific, then her family could be in danger as well.
Timothy and, surprisingly, Dawg had made it to the back porch ahead of Brogan and Eve. Behind her, she could hear her sisters’ gasps, then the silence that filled the room.
“Why would anyone do this?” Her mother was furious.
Turning on Timothy as he held her to him, his gaze hard, cold as he stared at the carnage, Mercedes demanded an answer. “Timothy, why would they do this?”
Timothy could only shake his head before his gaze turned to Dawg, then Brogan.
Brogan had separated himself from the other two men. Enough distance was left between them that Eve had the feeling that he was ensuring that no one could ever mistake him and the other two men for friends.
Who would care?
“Are they pets?” Brogan asked her, his voice low.
Eve shook her head. “We get a lot of hunters as guests. She breeds them for when they stay. ”
The hunters often swore they came more for Mercedes’s preparation of the wild meat than they did for the hunting.
The look in Brogan’s eyes was so hard, so frigid, Eve actually shivered.
Casually, Brogan leaned against the side of the house, pulled a pack of the slim cigars he smoked from his shirt pocket, and lit one up.
“I guess you don’t know anything about this, right, Brogan?” Dawg snarled as his head swung around.
Several other guests had moved out to the porch, following Mercedes’s screams.
It was almost dawn, and most people were asleep, but the guests on Eve’s side of the house had obviously been awake.
The two single men, Jed Booker and Eli Grant, stood at the other end of the porch, their eyes on the bloody destruction spread out before them.
“I want everyone to stay as far back as possible,” Timothy ordered as he led Mercedes into the house.
Eve slid to the other side of the door as he did so, turning to go in.
Her mother was immediately surrounded by Piper, Lyrica, and Zoey as they led her to the other side of the kitchen and began preparing coffee. Their move allowed her to ensure that she heard whatever the men decided to discuss.
Eve could feel the tension in the air.
Unless they were standing exactly where Eve was, no one could have seen the looks that passed between Timothy, Dawg, and Brogan. But Eve saw them.
Brogan might be giving the impression of distance, but the look they shared assured Eve that they were all three on the same wavelength at the moment.
“Campbell, you and the other guests should return to your rooms,” Timothy ordered.
“Looks like a fox ig
nored the henhouse and went for the rabbits instead,” Jed commented as he scratched at his chest through the jersey jacket he wore.
Jeans and a jersey jacket wasn’t exactly summer attire, she thought.
He’d pushed the sleeves to his elbows and put his hands in the pockets as he leaned against the corner of the house and stifled a yawn.
Eli didn’t say a word, just continued to watch out of hazel eyes that seemed darker in the low light. Finally he gave a slow nod toward the three men before turning and heading back down the hall.