to him again, putting my hands on either side of his waist.
“I want to say that you should shake this off. But it’s your mom. Even being distant from her, you can’t shake this off. I don’t know how to help you feel less anger than you’re feeling now. But I’m not sure I want to. That anger is justified. What she said is hideous, and it’s hideous even without a man you loved having died that way. The rest was salt in a wound. But your anger will burn out eventually, and that’s when I’ll feel sorry for her.”
Again, looking at me like I was crazy. “You’ll feel sorry for her?”
“Yeah. Because when you stop feeling this deep about shit she said to hurt you, she’ll have lost the power to hurt you, which means she’ll have lost your love. And when she does that, I’ll definitely feel sorry for her.”
Rush stared down on me.
Then I let out an, “Oof!” when he yanked me roughly in his arms and held on way too tightly.
I slid my arms around him and did my best to breathe before he came into himself and loosened his hold, but he didn’t let me go.
“Was a dick,” he muttered in my ear.
“It happens.”
“It’s not cool.”
“Maybe not, but in this instance, it was understandable.”
He lifted his head and I pulled mine back so I could find those crystal-blue eyes.
They were troubled.
“Honey,” I whispered.
“I got a bad temper.”
I didn’t miss that.
“This may make me sound like a freak, but I’m kinda glad. You were wearing me out by being perfect.”
His brows went up and his chin jerked back before his face relaxed and his lips twitched.
“Now I know,” I told him.
“Know what?”
“That you’re for real.”
A beat went by where his face froze.
It unfroze when he growled.
I lost sight of it after that because he kissed me.
I went up to the toes of my boots to kiss him back.
When he broke it, he murmured, “Ready to go?”
I gave him a big smile.
“Absolutely.”
Still Giggling
Rebel
With the way things were going, I totally should have known.
Even so, I was unprepared for when Rush and I stood at the door of a nice house with a great yard, plump balls of rust-colored mums planted in some pots on the front porch, Rush hitting the doorbell and then promptly pulling open the storm, pushing open the door, and hand in mine, guiding me in only for the first thing we saw to be two dark-headed boys racing up to us.
I lost Rush’s hand because he was a big guy, and he was built, but no man could be tackled by two boys without at least going back on a boot.
He went back on that boot as both boys shouted, “Rush!”
I stared down at them, trying to come to terms with the fact that his sister had a baby, not young boys who looked maybe seven and nine (or around there), before I realized these weren’t Tabby and Shy’s.
They were Rush’s brothers.
His freaking baby brothers.
Of course.
I wasn’t having dinner with Rush’s sister, brother-in-law and their baby.
I was having dinner with the Allen family.
I processed that about a nanosecond before I processed Rush getting them both in a headlock and demanding in his rough, deep voice that was now filled with brotherly affection that they, “Give.”
That voice would sound like that, except better, when he had Rhodes in a headlock and he was demanding he “give” with fatherly affection.
On that understanding, my heart squeezed, my belly fluttered, and I had to remind myself it would not be appropriate to pounce on him mere seconds after entering his sister’s house with his baby brothers right there.
“Never!” one boy, the taller of the two, who I could just about see had blue eyes, shouted.
“Give!” the other boy who had green eyes shouted.
He was let go.
The tall one twisted around in the headlock, wrapped his arms around his bother’s hips and made adorable grunting noises as he tried unsuccessfully to heave Rush off his feet.
Upon a moment’s reflection, I saw Allen stamped all over the both of them.
They were totally Tack’s.
I then gave up any hope of passing on my red hair.
Or, say, anything.
The one with the green eyes definitely got those from his mother.
But other than that, they were all Kane Allen.
Like Rush.
It was then I turned my head and saw walking our way a female version of Tack, including his sapphire-blue eyes.
And apparently like Tabby.
Man, she was a knockout.
“Ride, kid, stop. I want you to