“While that sounds lovely, I think your brothers would notice if I came downstairs in your clothes,” she said.
“Well, I don’t mind if they do,” I said, kneeling on the bed and pressing a kiss to her lips and slipping my boxers on.
“Not exactly the first impression I’d like to make,” she said, smiling.
I threw on my shirt and some sweatpants of my own and went into her room to get her bag. When I came back, she was in the bathroom, washing her face. I leaned against the doorframe and admired her as she opened the bag and got out makeup. She seemed to hesitate when she pulled her makeup bag out, and then settled on just the basics. It was more how she looked on the drive than when she arrived. There was less camouflage, less to protect her.
When we made our way downstairs, the noise of the other brothers was already creating a wall of sound from the dining room. From the sound of it, everyone was there, except possibly Garrett. Entering the kitchen, my assumptions were proven right, and a dozen or so heads turned in anticipation to see Jane as she walked into view.
“Hey, guys,” Colt called from the dining room. “Come get some breakfast.”
Suddenly, there was a stream of people coming from the dining room into the kitchen. Jane was visibly overwhelmed but handled it like a champ. I introduced her one by one to the brothers, and when she saw Gia, they exchanged a quick hug.
“Gia made pancakes and eggs and bacon,” Clayton said. “I’ll make you guys some plates if you want to head on into the dining room.”
“I would appreciate that,” I said.
“Sure, sure. I’m sure you have an appetite after… the drive,” he said and laughed heartily.
“Shut up,” I said, shoving him in the shoulder.
As we sat down beside each other across from Gia and the empty chair where Clayton would sit, Jane turned to me. Her eyes sparkled with emotion, and I worried she was upset. But her smile was wide across her face when she leaned in to whisper to me.
“They’re all so nice,” she said.
“Why wouldn’t they be?” I asked.
“They don’t know me, though,” she said.
“They know I thought enough of you to ask you to stay the night, and brought you down for breakfast,” I said.
Her cheeks flushed red and she tried to sit up straighter in the chair. Clayton returned with plates for us, and I grabbed two glasses off the middle of the table and filled them with orange juice. We dug in quickly, devouring our breakfasts as we chatted.
“So, this is the Montgomerys,” Colt said as a way of introducing us all to Jane as we finished eating. “All except Garrett, who’s over at Annabelle’s.”
“It’s very nice to meet you all,” Jane said.
Colt’s eyes flickered to me. “So, I know I told Boone this morning, but have any of the rest of you heard the story about Sawyer getting jacked up by a pissed off cow?”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “My shoulder still hurts.”
“Fussy baby,” Colt said.
“What’s this now?” Clayton said in between bites of bacon.
“Sawyer was very brave,” Jane said, smiling at me. “And if my cousin weren’t such an idiot, it would have been fine.”
“Oh, thank god you called him that,” Colt said. “I was going to feel bad if I started calling him names at the breakfast table and you got upset.”
“By all means, he’s a jackass,” Jane said, causing a ripple of laughter around the table.
“All right, I have got to know what happened,” Wade said. It was rare that he piped in with the stories of the day, usually preferring to be his sullen, quiet self, but even he had a grin on his face. His primary focus in life was the animals, and he would fly into a rage if he thought one of them was being hurt, but people falling on their ass was one of the few things that could get him laughing.
“I could tell it,” Colt said, “but I think Jane might have a better point of view. I’ll pop in with anything she misses.”
“Thank you, Colt,” Jane said and leaned forward on the table. “So, it all started because my cousin Rubin got jealous that Sawyer and Colt were real cowboys and he wasn’t,” she began.
I sat back and listened to her recount the tale, with Colt adding color to the situation with terms she didn’t know