DANGEROUS LOVE
Ahead of them, lanternlight spilled warm across the garden path leading back toward the house, voices and laughter drifting from the dining room already, the whole evening humming with a kind of ease Lance hadn't expected to find in a family this dangerous, this guarded, this quietly determined to keep its secrets locked away behind smiles and pastries and easy teasing in a moonlit garden.
He didn't know yet what they were protecting him from. He didn't know, either, how far each of them — sister with her whispered threats, brother with his easy warmth, husband with his silent, unshakable resolve was already prepared to go to make sure he never had to find out the hard way.
For now, there wa