Thomas joined his family on the porch when the conversation moved there and he huddled between his mother and Judith to keep the freezing wind from reaching him, as a car came to a stop next to theirs. Corina jumped out. “Dad!” she ran into Magnus’s open arms. “How’s my girl?” the old rat asked, hugging her. The rat still in the car looked out mournfully, as Corina told her father about the trip, before turning the engine off. He zipped up his jacket, then grabbed something on the back seat before exiting and hurrying to pull on the thick looking long coat and buttoning that. Then he took bags out of the trunk and joined them. “Dad,” she said, moving next to Ettore and taking his arms in hers. “This is the man I told you about,” she flashed her engagement ring. Magnus glanced at it, then look the rat over critically. “Isn’t that a lot of layers?” he asked. Like the rest of the Hertz on the porch, the older rat wore a jacket over a shirt, jeans, and winter boots. But unlike at least Thomas, who couldn’t stop shivering, Magnus didn’t seem affected by the cold. “Can we all go inside?” Thomas asked. “I think my tail’s about to fall off.” “Are you sure about him?” Magnus asked. “Seems to me he’s on the thin side. Can he even carry you over the threshold?” With a roll of the eyes, Corina put a hand on her father’s chest. “He’s plenty strong for me.” She pushed him back. “Inside, before you catch your death. You might act like an arctic rat, but you’re not one.” Magnus shook his head, but moved inside. “I should have taken you kids to the father country. You’d know what cold is after a winder in the north of Germany.” “You guys are from Germany?” Ettore asked, heading for the lit fireplace, where Thomas joined him. “Do you know the Brukhammers?” “I know of them,” Magnus replied. “Honey,” Carina said, joining her fiancée. “Our family has its roots in Germany, but it’s been over a century since we’ve called it home.” “But you still know the Brukhammers?” Ettore asked in surprise. “I know of them.” Magnus emphasized the word. “I used to be a financial adviser. Knowing which industries were connected to the Brukhammers was critical to analyzing the German markets. Doubt that’s changed since I retired.” Eric snorted, and Magnus glared at him. “That’s nice, Dad,” Eric said. “You claiming to be retired with the way you keep your nose in the markets. He’s a workaholic,” he told Ettore. “Says the son of mine who barely sleeps.” Magnus looked at Nadia. “He managed to slip out of bed without waking you?” “Not once,” Judith answer as Nadia grinned. “These two are like an alarm clock. And now, it goes off an hour earlier because Dad decided he had to drive Roland to practice.” “At least they don’t go at it all night,” Roland countered. “Like you do when they let you have a guy over.” “Can we please not start with the comparing sex lives?” Thomas demanded. Magnus smirked. “What do you do for a living, Ettore?” “I’m something of a corporate trouble-shooter,” the rat answered. “My family owns a chain of hotels, and I go around making sure they perform to our expectations.” “And before you ask, Dad,” Corina said, putting an arm around her fiancée’s waist and pulling him to her. “Ettore performs quite well.” The old rat smiled. “Never doubted that. No daughter of mine would settle for a man who couldn’t keep up.” Ettore glanced at Eric. “I thought the open sexual discussions were a Royer thing, not a Hertz one.” Eric shrugged. “It’s more of a ‘my Dad’s thing’ here.” His ears flushed as Nadia pressed against his side. “Needless to say, he approved of my marriage.” “We’re rats,” Magnus stated, handing Ettore a mug of hot chocolate. “A healthy sex life leads to a healthy life. Please tell me your family aren’t prudes, Ettore.” Thomas coughed as Ettore smiled. “Oh far from it, you might even say we raise the curve quite a bit.” Magnus raised his mug. “To being rats.” Thomas and Roland did not join in the toast. As soon as the mugs were lowered, his parents exited the room, his mother whispering in his father’s ears something that had those ears going red. Hopefully, they were going to close the door to whatever room they’d end up in. The walls weren’t as soundproof as at the frat, but a closed door went a long way toward keeping the sounds from filling the house. “So, you have a good job and you satisfy my daughter.” Magnus nodded thoughtfully. “I guess all that’s left is for you to show me how well you can provide for her.” * * * * * Thomas trudged along the flank of the wing formation the rats had fallen into, his boots snapping the layer of hardened snow as they sank to his ankle. Even with the added layers he’d borrowed from his grandfather, Thomas was freezing as he walked through the forest that lay behind the property. He’d been surprised at how many sets of winter clothing out of what filled the closets no longer fit him. If Madoc planned on getting him any bigger, Thomas was going to have to make buying him a new wardrobe a condition. Roland trudged along on the other side of the formation. He’d joined Thomas in arguing against going, just as Carina had argued she should go. Magnus didn’t give into anyone’s argument. Ettore didn’t need the pressure of performing for his future wife in this demonstration of his skills, and the boys would come along because their grandfather said so. Judith had simply smiled at Thomas, sipping a hot chocolate, as he’d glared at her. Magnus pointed, and Ettore raised the hunting rifle to his shoulder and fired twice. Eric ran ahead. As they started walking again. “So,” the older rat said, “how often do you and my daughter go at it?” Dear God, no. “Depends on how busy we are. Four, five times a day. Six or seven if I can sneak into her office.” “Her office?” “I can justify my presence anywhere within the hotel, but getting in her office during business hours requires a reason.” Ettore smiled. “The staff has to know at this point, but you have no idea how fun it is to push her against the wall by the window, raise her blouse and—” Thomas made a left as his father returned holding two hares, having no desire to listen to the levels of details he knew were coming. Carina had to have been a Royer, adopted into the Hertz family, and so was Ettore. Even his frat brothers weren’t as open about the sex they had. Limbani excepted. Thomas knew the woods well enough. After eight years of visits and hunting it with his grandfather, he could find his want back to the house from anywhere in it, but the house wasn’t his destination. He’d been ten years old. It had been his first time in the wood with his father and mother, Judith and Victor, Magnus and one of his girlfriend as well as a handful of others from the financial firm his grandfather had worked at. He’d gotten separated from them chasing a quad squirrel, he thought. He didn’t remember that clearly, but looking up and realizing he was alone, that had stayed with him. The way his calls for his mother and father were muffled by all the trees. He’d headed in the direction he thought the house was, getting more and more scared as it didn’t come into view. He would be alone forever. Lost in the woods. His mother would never hold him again. He’d never get to watch television again. When he found the grotto, he’d been cold and exhausted. Thomas stepped into the small cave again and the heat wrapped itself around him. He unzipped the jacket as he stepped to the back and sat on the flat stone there. As far as he’d been able to find by searching the net, there were no hot springs around Bozeman, but there had to be something running under the cave that made this place the sanctuary that had kept him warm until his family found him. He let the silence soak into him as he leaned against the wall. He loved his family, but sometimes they didn’t know when to stop. Sometimes, you just had to stop. Stop and listen. Birds singing in spite of the cold, the snow cracking until its weight, or that of a small animal running over it. A quad coyote, howling in the distance. Thomas hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until it melted away. This was a family trip. There shouldn’t have been any tensions there. But the way his father brought up Thomas’s academic performance. How his mother, Judith, Corina and even Ettore over shared. And Roland being so temptingly close. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about his brother like that? They were brothers. The way his frat brothers kept talking about sex within their family like it was normal had to be the reason his mind couldn’t stop going there. Then, he’d been stuck in the car next to his brother anytime he wasn’t driving. And because of Carina and Ettore’s arrival, Thomas had Roland had to share a room again, and unless Thomas was willing to sleep on the hardwood floor, because his grandfather didn’t have an air mattress, he was stuck sleeping in the same bed as Roland. Thomas knew he was going to roll over in the night and smack his brother with his erection. Then things were going to explode, and not in a good way. “Fuck.” Even in his sanctuary, he couldn’t seem to stop falling there. He closed his eyes and tried to think about anything other than his brother. The heavy crunching of snow pulled him out. That had been too heavy for a small animal. Someone was approaching. He sighed. Solitude wasn’t so precious it couldn’t be interrupted, it seemed. The steps approached, and his father became visible in the entrance. “I figured I’d find you here.” He looked around, then pointed to a flat rock. “You were curled up over there. You’d managed to fall asleep.” “I’d cried myself out,” Thomas said. “I guess there’s only so much I could feel before exhaustion carried me away.” Eric sat next to him. “How are you doing, Son? You seemed tense during the drive. If you’re worried about your grades, you don’t have to be. You—” “Will you stop being my adviser for five minutes?” he demanded, his breath fogging. He didn’t want to do this. Not here, not now, not ever. But by the surprise in his father’s expression, Thomas had the sense this wouldn’t be postponed. * * * * * “Not a bad hunt,” Magnus said as the house became visible through the trees. “We’ll make a great hunter out of you yet, Roland.” Ettore had been giving Roland instruction when Thomas and his father had rejoined them. Magnus had greeted them, then returned to observing his future son-in-law. After Roland brought down a hare, Thomas had been handed the rifle. He’d been too distracted by the unexpected way the conversation with his father had ended. Eric had also been thoughtful the entire walk back. “The hunters return!” Nadia yelled from where she sunned herself, wrapped in blankets, on the porch. “And they bring back food.” Corina stepped outside, arm-fur red to her elbows. “We can hang them to bleed overnight, then prepare the meat tomorrow. I’m just about done with tonight’s.” “What happened?” Ettore demanded, hurrying to her side. “Aunt Corina decided to out do mom’s bear story,” Judith said, her head appearing in the open door only the length of the statement. “Bear story?” Ettore asked. “I’ll recount it later,” his mother replied. “It’s not like there’s a competition going. A cougar passed by the house and Corina grabbed the rifle and brought it down. It must have been a three-hundred feet shot.” “Three-fifty,” Corina corrected. “She only needed one shot!” Judith shouted from within the house. “That’s my girl,” Magus said, beaming brighter than the sun.