Chapter Five
Brooke came awake to the sound of a familiar voice.
At first she was fairly certain she was dreaming. She’d almost definitely
dreamed the whole of the night before since she wasn’t the girl who boldly
walked up to two men in a bar and invited them home with her. No. She was
careful and cautious. She always did the right thing.
So hearing Bay’s voice was certainly a dream because that
would be a bad choice, and she didn’t make those.
Her brothers gave up way too much of their lives for her to
make poor choices.
“Hey, keep it down, kid. She’s asleep,” he was saying.
She was asleep, and the bed was strangely comfy. Way more
comfy than the mattress in her tiny bedroom in Manhattan. It was also warmer.
Or it had been when she was dreaming about them, about them spanking her and
fucking her and eating her pussy and sliding into bed beside her, despite the
fact that it was tight up here. She’d dreamed that Shane had hit his head on
the ceiling, and she’d opened her eyes and watched that fine ass of his moving
toward the ladder.
“She’s my auntie and I came to see her, and she don’t have
no boyfriend,” another familiar voice said.
Nightmare. Nightmare. That was her niece. Paige was invading
her dreams.
Another shushing sound came from Bay. “Don’t wake her up.
She had a long night. And I’m her friend.”
“No, you’re the one Daddy calls an asshole of epic
proportions. I don’t know what that means but it’s bad. Papa says you’re just
another cowboy numbskull. Does that mean something’s wrong with your brain? I
don’t think my auntie is friends with people with bad brains.”
“Okay, that’s actually very ableist,” Bay said, obviously
under his breath. “And rude. Not everyone thinks the same way. Hey, what are
you doing? Oww. That’s my shin.”
Shit and balls. She sat straight up and realized last night
was real and she had slept with two men her brothers hated, and at least one of
them was still here. Why was he still here? And why was her stomach growling?
Probably the smells coming from downstairs. She glanced at the clock, and it
was way later than she’d planned. She was having lunch with Gemma in a couple
of hours. The Kent brothers were supposed to slip out after she was asleep.
She peeked out of the tiny window, pushing back the blinds.
The truck was gone.
Why was Bay here?
“You’re in my auntie’s house, and I don’t think you have
permission. I think you’re a serial killer and you’re here for her Lucky
Charms,” Paige announced, and there was another grunting sound.
Brooke rolled out of bed and wrapped a fluffy robe around
her body. “Paige. Sweetie, what are you doing here?”
She stopped at the top of the ladder. It was awkward how she
had to get down. Of course the only thing more awkward was the scene playing
out in front of her. From her place in the loft she could see the living area.
The place where they’d shed all their clothes and started the raucous sexscapades from the night before. Shane had tossed the
condom wrappers on the ground, and if Paige found one, she would have a lot of
explaining to do.
The living room was spotless with the exception of her
clothes from the night before carefully folded and put on the table that sat
beside the couch.
Paige was in full-on rage-killer mode, but it was okay since
Bay had figured out she was barely seven and could be held back with a single
hand. Bay had his big palm on her head, and Paige seemed to be trying to break
free by running in place as fast as she could and flailing her arms.
Bay looked up, and the expression on his face would have
made her laugh if the situation wasn’t so dire.
Paige would totally talk.
She had to bribe her niece. Or blackmail her… What did she
have on Paige?
Brooke started to scramble down, praying the robe was long
enough. Actually, it made her wonder where the fluffy robe had come from since
it was explained to her that only Max and Rye ever slept out here. And yet
she’d found the pink robe when she’d stored her own clothes.
Max did have some sensitive skin.
She pushed it aside as she got to the floor and faced her
niece. “Paige, stop trying to kick Bay in the shins.”
Her niece was heartbreakingly adorable, with golden brown
hair and eyes that looked like her mother’s. The rage was kind of her momma’s,
too. But that smile she gave Brooke when she stopped her running in place was
all her brothers’. “I already got him once, Auntie Brooke. My momma watches
lots of stuff about cereal killers, and I ain’t allowed to watch those shows, but I can protect you.
What kind do you have here? I like Lucky Charms.”
Bay’s head fell back, and he laughed and looked utterly
delicious standing in the too-small living room wearing nothing but his jeans.
Also, the whole place smelled like bacon, and that did something for her, too.
“I love this kid. She’s weird.”
“I am not. I am normal,” Paige declared. “Also, it’s okay to
be weird. Charlie and Zander are real weird, but they’re my best friends, and I
ain’t going to listen to anyone talk bad about them.”
Brooke dropped down to her knees. She’d overheard this
discussion last night at dinner. Everyone was supposed to help improve Paige’s
grammar since she’d spent all of her formative years with cowboys. “How would
Ms. Leal feel about that sentence?”
She’d learned that Ms. Leal—who could do a shot of tequila
with the best of them—was considered an actual saint in the Harper house.
Brooke was surprised there wasn’t a halo-around-her-head,
eyes-tilted-toward-heaven portrait of Sabrina hung in a prominent place in
their house.
Paige’s nose wrinkled. “They’re my best friends, and I do
not want to listen to anyone speak poorly of them. See, I can say it right. I
just don’t want to.”
“You give ’em hell, baby girl.”
Brooke let out a yelp and fell on her ass because she was
not expecting that voice. She stopped and stared at Bay, who gave her a weak
smile.
“Your brother’s here,” Bay explained in a whisper. “He
showed up as Shane was finishing breakfast. We were about to wake you up, but
then he took all the bacon and the kid thinks I’m going to eat all the cereal
because she has not gotten to the portion of her education where she learns
about homophones.”
“What?” her brother asked.
She turned, and he was sitting at her tiny bistro table.
Well, his, technically, but it was supposed to be her haven while she was here.
“Two words that sound alike but have different meanings. Is Rachel on a true
crime kick? Good, because it will teach her where to bury your body. You are
not supposed to eat that bacon, Mr. Cholesterol.”
Max sat back, his eyes narrowing. “Well, Missy, I don’t
think you were supposed to have guests overnight.”
Bay had gone stiff beside her. “I did not realize that was a
rule, Mr. Harper.”
Max frowned. “Don’t you Mr. Harper me, you little shit. That
makes me sound like a dad.”
He was so annoying. She pointed to Paige, who had gone back
to her previous occupation of whirling dervish being held back by a masculine
hand. Bay was good with her. He proved he could multitask. And that he was
willing to kiss ass. Which was not cool.
How many cowboys would properly point out how to use the
word homophone? He was so weird, and yet it did something for her. Something he
hadn’t done when she’d viewed him as a frat boy version of a cowboy. She didn’t
bother to look at the man she’d spent the night with. Well, one of them. She
chose to put all her feminine rage into the stare she sent her brother’s way.
“You don’t apologize to him, Bay. I need Shane here because my brother is
acting like we’re in Regency England, and I might have ruined my chances for an
advantageous marriage.”
“Wait.” Max looked confused for a moment and then slightly
outraged. “You were planning on marrying them? Girl, what is going through your
head?” There was a knock from the outside and without missing a beat, Max
picked up a piece of what looked like beautifully cooked bacon and then shoved
it out the open window. It disappeared, and Max kept going. “I did not send you
to that godawful expensive school so you could marry two down-on-their-luck
cowpokes.”
“There is no marriage,” Bay said as he sighed and held back
Paige, who seemed to think this was the most fun a kid ever had.
It was annoying, and somewhere deep inside she knew what she
was about to say next was more about all the shit she’d been through in the
last couple of weeks than it was a mad desire to walk down the aisle. She was
so sick of being told what to do and what was and wasn’t cool and what to eat
if she wanted people to take her seriously and how to wear her damn hair, and
it was too much.
She kind of wanted to burn it all down. Or at least have
someone look at her like she wasn’t the most pathetic thing to walk the earth.
How often had her brothers called her practically an angel?
Who never did anything wrong. Who didn’t seem to have an interest in boys, and
wasn’t that a good thing. She was so into her studies. So ambitious, and she
was going to do all the right things to succeed in life.
Well, she’d done them, and this was what she got.
She crossed her arms under her breasts and turned to Bay.
“That’s not what you said last night.”
There was a pause as even Paige seemed to realize something
was wrong. And then another knock on the window.
“Not right now, Rye.” Max had gone pale. “Our baby sister is
pulling the worst practical joke of all time.”
So Rye was sneaking bacon, too. She walked the whole four
steps it took to get to the door and threw it open. “You might as well join us.
Or are you the lookout? You know when you tell your wife, who’s given you four
kids in seven years, that you’re going to take your diet seriously and then you
run all over town hiding the fact that you’re eating fried everything, it’s
cheating.”
Sometimes their antics got to her because she felt for