Kissing Under the Mistletoe - By Marina Adair Page 0,49

but he was. Disappointment turned to irritation when, after a hot shower, he walked out to find his brothers sitting in his front room, football on the plasma, feet on the coffee table, and enough takeout for ten.

“That had better not turn up on my charge.” None of them responded. He took in the sticky counter, the chow mein noodle on the couch, and the beer ring on the side table. “Don’t you have houses of your own to destroy?”

“Plates on the counter,” Marc said, eyes glued to the game.

Gabe grabbed a plate, stole Trey’s beer, and sat down.

“Hey,” Trey whined.

“Did you buy it? No?” Gabe eyeballed him. “Then it’s mine.”

Trey helped himself to another beer from the fridge. “What crawled up your ass?”

Gabe had no idea. His brothers showed up unannounced and destroyed his house all the time. During football season it was an expected event. One that had been going on since he’d gotten his own place. So why was he so bent?

“Did our girl give up anything that could help us find Richard?” Marc asked.

“Nope.”

“Nope, she hasn’t told you anything, or nope you’ve been too busy trying to shake her tree to ask?” Marc said.

“I’m not trying to shake her tree,” Gabe snapped. Okay, that was a lie. There was nothing he wanted more than to get in Regan’s pants. But he wasn’t going to do it to get information on Richard.

“Christ, maybe you should. Then you wouldn’t be such a tight-ass all the time,” said Nate, the tight-ass of the family, getting up for seconds.

Gabe was the easygoing one of the brothers. A difficult task since he was also the oldest and had to deal with his family’s crap all the time. But he took a lot of pride in his ability to not let things rile him. This, though—invading a woman’s life and lying to her on the off-chance that she had some kind of information on Richard—got him fired up. And not in a good way.

“As far as I know, she has had no contact with Richard. And there is no way she is sitting on a pile of cash. The woman doesn’t have a damn bed for her kid.”

Gabe shoved Trey’s feet off the coffee table, went for another beer, and that’s when he realized that no one was speaking. They were all staring at him like he’d grown another head. He dumped his plate in the sink, wiped down the counter, and inhaled three fortune cookies. Still, no one said a word.

Gabe sank back into the couch. “She’s a single mom. I don’t even date single moms. And somehow I have managed to screw up this one’s life at every turn.”

“She slept with our sister’s husband,” Nate said quietly.

“So did half of the women in this valley,” Gabe said, feeling suddenly tired. “Why aren’t we hounding them?”

After Richard had disappeared, their investigator discovered that the bastard had conducted dozens of affairs. He loved them young, and he loved them often. But the only one he’d kept around for more than a few months was Regan. And now that Gabe had gotten to know her, he understood why. She wasn’t the kind of woman you got casual with and walked away. She got under your skin and stuck there.

“He lived with her for a year,” Trey said, as if Gabe didn’t already know. As if he hadn’t thought about that fact every time he saw her.

“And when he said he was going to Santa Barbara to make sure things were running smoothly, he went to Oregon instead. Three weeks later he and the money disappeared. He only made one call that day, Gabe. Only one. And it was to Regan,” Marc said, stating nothing new. “For all we know she helped him take the money.”

“What part of her kid sleeping on the floor didn’t you guys hear?”

Nate’s face turned serious. “Broke or not, those are the facts, Gabe.”

“Regan didn’t do it.” That much he knew. But arguing with his brothers about it didn’t feel right. Arguing with his family never felt right. It felt like a betrayal of his parents’ memory.

“You’re willing to bet Abby’s future on that?” Marc challenged. “Half the people in this town still wonder if Abby was covering for her husband. A husband who she doesn’t want and can’t divorce. The other half are taking bets on how fast she’ll tank Ryo. She’s under enough pressure without running into Regan buying groceries or on her way to rehearsal for