The Brothers Rule - Carolyn Faulkner Page 0,82

as a group, that they wouldn't go outside the country—well, off the continent, anyway—wanting to save that for a trip they would all take together, perhaps for their fifth wedding anniversary.

It was about a month in between each trip. She and Adam had done the camping/hiking thing, and they'd had a blast in Vegas. She and Ryan went old school and did the Niagara Falls trip. There were pictures in Jace's study of their parents posing while looking over the falls on their own honeymoon, and they had added pictures of themselves there, too.

Jace had always wanted to visit the Seattle area and Mount Hood, and Laurie was keen to go anywhere once. It couldn't have gotten much more different from where they lived, climate wise. As luck would have it, they got some decent weather, more sun than rain. So, they'd spent a wonderful time being tourists there.

But she was just as glad when she was able to put her valise away for a while. Laurie was anxious to go downtown and get a TIN, a business license, and a webpage for her business, although she was having a hard time coming up with a name.

And the brothers were no help.

"Laurie's Luscious—" Tanner helped.

And she frowned. "Stop right there. It already sounds like the name of a porno."

He frowned back at her.

"Toot Sweet?"

She wrinkled her nose at Adam's suggestion. "Sounds like a candy shop."

"Half baked?" Ryan offered.

"I don't want people to think I'm selling botulism in a box—half-baked cookie dough will kill you."

"Wake and Bake?" he tried again.

Everyone looked at him suspiciously.

"Is there something you're trying to tell us with these suggestions, brother?" Jace asked.

Nick added helpfully, "Yeah, just say no."

"To drugs and those ideas." Laurie rolled her eyes.

"Take the Cake," Jace said quietly.

"Hmm. That's the one to beat, only does it say that I only do cakes?"

Everyone fell silent while they were thinking.

"Our Sweetheart Bakery," Ryan tried again, and everyone looked at him again, but this time in amazement.

Even Laurie agreed. "I like that!"

"So do I," he said, getting up to drop a kiss on the top of her head, "because you're our sweetheart."

"Aww!"

Not that they really had a vote—although she allowed them to think that they did—but everyone seemed to like that, especially the older brothers.

"It hides our secret in plain sight, and I like that," Jace nodded, winking at her.

"Oh! And the logo could be four hearts—three silver, one gold!"

"That's freakin' genius." Laurie was trying to get all of these notes down.

"I thought it was kind of romantical, myself," Adam whined.

And right on cute, Laurie responded in a patently distracted, somewhat nasal tone, "Yes, dear."

Setting up her business seemed to be going well. All of the guys offered to help in any way they could. Adam was surprisingly good with web design, Nick with legal stuff, of course, and Jace and Tanner helped her set up her books.

Ryan provided moral support and back rubs.

Their dynamic hadn't changed in the least, and Laurie had to admit that she had worried that it might, now that she and Adam were married. But Jace and Ryan seemed to have come to terms with it, thankfully. She'd told them early on that she wasn't going to put up with any displays of jealousy from any of them, and she'd meant it.

But if anything was a provocation for that, this was, and she would have had a hard time being angry at them, frankly, no matter how she would have hated it.

They'd slipped right back into their usual routines—well, they had, anyway. She'd had to find one of her own and was still kind of working on it, along with her business. They offered to hire someone to do the housekeeping, but she thought that was ridiculous, since she was home all day, and she told them that. But they extracted a promise from her that if it was getting to be too much for her, she had to tell them.

Like she was going to hesitate about that—not freakin' likely! She wasn't going to wear herself into the ground, even for them!

It was amidst all of her preparations, along with everything else that went into trying to run their household as smoothly as possible, that the bomb dropped.

It was a Wednesday, one of those rare nights when everyone was home—or was expected home. Adam hadn't quite made it yet, and she was just putting the beef stroganoff over egg noodles on the table for dinner.

"Ryan, would you grab the veg for