The Brothers Rule - Carolyn Faulkner Page 0,84

wife."

They'd sent in the paperwork to make sure that happened in more than enough time, just in case, but this was the government. Nothing happened quickly, and snafus were the natural order of things.

Adam grinned. "Like a deferment?"

Nick snorted. "I think the only way you could get one of those was if Laurie was pregnant."

Everyone looked at her expectantly.

Only, she wasn't expecting.

"Sorry. I'm no help."

"I think she'd have to be like, in labor, anyway."

"A little late to tell us that now, Nick," Ryan said as he took his turn giving his big brother a bear hug. "We'll make sure everything's taken care of back here for you, bro, just like we did before."

"Thanks so much, man."

Jace hugged Adam with everything in him. "We'll take care of her, too."

"That's a given!" Ryan cried.

"I know you will."

"Are you hungry?"

Laurie really didn't wait for an answer—Rule men were always hungry. She made him a plate and nuked it. "Sit down, babe. I'll bring it to you. Want a beer?"

She became a bit overprotective of him, which the guys realized was probably natural, but they'd been through this before, and it hadn't been anything like that for them. But then, there wasn't a woman in the house then. Laurie made his favorite foods, and even Adam got sick of eating her famous ribs by the end of the month. She made a full breakfast for him every morning and kept him drained and stupid-satisfied every evening.

He was talking with his brothers one evening about how she was acting as they sat around the den. "Damn, if she feeds me anymore, they're going to put me on the Fat Boy program before they send me over!" he complained quietly, not wanting her to hear as he patted his slightly poochy belly. "And she's after me all the time; I can barely stand in the morning—"

Jace frowned at him. He didn't hold with talk like that, even among themselves.

Ryan got right to the point, "Shut up. I don't want to hear you complaining about that, ever."

Adam grimaced then sighed. "You're right. But I think it's going to be really hard on her when I leave. You guys have to take up the slack."

"Don't you worry about that, Ant." Jace took a sip of his beer.

Laurie brought Adam his second slice of cake. "Is there anything else I can get you, honey? Anything at all?"

He smiled up at her. "No, Laur. Why don't you just come sit down next to me? You've been running around like a little hummingbird since I got home from the police station."

"They okay with you leaving?"

"They have to be—it's a federal law. Yeah, I'm off until I leave, then I'll have a couple weeks to decompress before I have to go back. Probably be riding a desk for a little while until they're sure of me, and then I'll be back out on the streets."

"You should take the sergeant's test when you get back."

"Maybe I will, at that."

Laurie had perched next to Adam for all of about three seconds before she realized his beer was nearly empty. Ryan and Jace watched her race to get him another one, but when she came back, Jace said, very quietly and calmly, "Laurie, come sit with me."

She looked at him, and he could feel how she was struggling between the need to wait on Adam hand and foot and the need to obey him.

Jace waited another few seconds while still looking at her—not seeming or acting angry in the least—but then he said one thing that made her jump and run to him. "Three."

She was on his lap in record time.

He'd been surprised to see how well that worked. Sometimes she got all caught up in her head and ended up disobeying when she didn't mean to. It was actually Nick who suggested he do that.

The thing that would encourage her to respond immediately, he'd confided, was that she would never know if he would go through the whole count—because, technically, he didn't need to count at all. He could simply punish her because she didn't do what he asked her to do the first time.

But it did work—very nicely—after he'd done it once or twice and spanked her after he said "three" and waited a second, or "two.”

It was just enough of an impetus to cut through her busy brain and get her to obey.

Not that she still wasn't getting spanked a lot—for one thing or the other. She was. But this appealed to