Chapter 6
When I say “the other day” it could be anytime between yesterday and birth.
— Brecken’s secret thoughts
brECKEN
I walked out of my house on tired feet.
Normally at this time of day I’d be getting up for my long run of the week.
Or, at least, I’d be lying in bed, telling myself I needed to get up.
But there I was, dressed in lined leggings, my UGGs, a sweatshirt, and a huge jacket that once upon a time belonged to my father.
It was one of those lined jean jackets with the fluffy white material around the lapel.
One button didn’t button, another was hanging on by a thread, and the pockets had a hole in each liner making it impossible to put anything smaller than my phone in it or I’d lose it.
But it was sentimental.
My dad had owned it once upon a time, and it’d been the one that my mother had stolen from him when they started dating.
It’d been one of the things I’d taken with me when my parents decided to downsize and move into a camper and tour the country full-time.
My mom still occasionally asked about the jacket, and if I was taking care of it.
Thinking of my mom, I handed my phone to my brother when he pulled up and said, “Take a picture of me so I can send it to Mom.”
“Your mother and this jacket have an unhealthy relationship,” Tibbs said.
I snorted and posed, making sure to hide my bottle of beer in my hand behind the car door.
Tibbs handed the phone back to me and said, “Why do you have a bottle of beer this early in the morning?”
“Because I was thirsty, and the only thing I have left is beer,” I said as I twisted the top off and took a swig.
Beer wasn’t my first choice of drink in the morning.
Truthfully, I would’ve killed for some coffee or an ice-cold water, but the water out of my tap was disgusting, and I’d run out of coffee two days ago—hence me going to the coffee place by the school—but I rolled out of bed ten minutes after my alarm went off, and Tibbs had been patiently waiting outside for fifteen minutes now.
I highly doubted he’d be agreeable to stopping to get coffee.
Hence the beer.
“You’re weird,” he pointed out. “Try to finish it quick. I don’t want to get pulled over by any cops.”
I made sure to pay attention to where I was drinking it and finished it up before putting the top back on and shoving it into Tibbs’s glove box.
I raised my brows and used the neck of the bottle to pull out a pair of red lacy thong underwear.
“New fashion choice?” I drawled, dangling them in front of him.
Tibbs shrugged unremorsefully.
“You’re lucky I got them out of your seat before you got in,” he said.
I curled my lip and shoved them both into the glove box before shutting it closed a little too hard.
“That’s disgusting, Tibbs,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said. “You should’ve driven yourself if it was a problem.”
“At least tell me that you wore a condom, and I don’t have to deal with your bodily fluids,” I begged, eyeing the seat with a disgusted look.
“No glove, no love,” he teased.
I looked at him and said, “I feel like dating as I get older is kind of like when I go to Walmart and try to find a buggy that runs smooth.”
“You’re thirty-two, Brecken.” He laughed. “You still have plenty of time.”
“Thirty-five is considered ‘old’ when you get pregnant. I want lots of babies, Tibbs. And it’s not looking like I’m gonna get those.” I shrugged.
“Stop finding the ones that are easy. Look for the ones that make your heart race,” he said. “If it’s easy, it’s not worth it.”
“Is that what you said when you had the girl in the front seat of your truck?” I teased.
He grinned unrepentantly. “Sometimes easy is the answer.”
I rolled my eyes and sat back in my seat, my eyes closing as the warm feeling of the beer in my belly started to take root.
I was dreaming of donuts and hot coffee when Tibbs slowed to a stop and pulled into a parking spot.
I opened my eyes to see my other brothers all gathered around Ryler’s Bronco—the old kind of Bronco, not the new kind.
I got out and shivered at the chill in the air.
The one freakin’ day that it could be warmer, and it wasn’t.
This was going to really suck.
I hated being cold.
“Where’s Holden?” I asked as I took a look around.
There were a ton of bass boats everywhere. People were backing in. Others were loading the boats. Some were in the water.
And every freakin’ one of those boats were brand new.
Not a single dingy boat in sight.
Except for one, near the dock.
A lone male figure was on the boat, hands in his jacket pocket, hood up, staring out at the fog coming off of the lake.
Well, that one and Bronc’s bass boat that he got when he was seventeen.
Ryler’s boat was far newer, had way more bells and whistles, and still couldn’t outrun Bronc’s old Skeeter.
“How does this work?” I asked them.
“Two-boat team,” Holden said as he came up to us with a packet of papers in one hand. “One boat can fish and the other one can run fish in to get weighed. Female has to stay on the fishing boat at all times, though.”
I rolled my eyes. “What if I have to pee?”
“I got your potty right here,” Bronc drawled as he held up the bucket that I used to pee in when I had to go while fishing with him.
“There are about a hundred and fifty boats out here,” I said. “There’s no way in hell that I’m peeing in a bucket.”
“You could pee on the shore,” Holden said as he patted the boat. “We’re in position twenty-four to drop the boats in. Let’s get in line.”
I hopped into Bronc’s boat and shivered. “Hey, any of y’all have a bigger jacket in the car?”
“I have my hunting bibs,” Ryler said.
“Bring them, please,” I begged. “I’m freezing already.”
“I got you coffee,” Holden said as he handed me the cup of perfectly blended goodness.
He’d even remembered the cinnamon sugar sprinkles!
“Wow!” I gasped as I took a deep inhale. “You remembered my coffee order?”
“Not exactly,” Holden said. “I went to The Grizzly and the owner knew what you wanted.”
I giggled and took a sip through the straw.
She’d even remembered that I didn’t drink coffee without a straw!
I loved her.
“You should give her a fat tip,” I said.
“I did,” he admitted. “And she sent this.” He tossed a bag into my lap.
I peeked inside and found a pumpkin muffin, still warm from the oven.
“Wow,” I said. “I think we’re going to be best friends.”
Holden muttered something under his breath and got into Ryler’s boat.
Bronc and Tibbs joined me in Bronc’s, and we got in line.
The closer we got to putting our boat in, the brighter the sun in the sky became.
Bronc had just made the turn at the boat ramp to start backing his boat in when a familiar head of dark hair caught my eye.
My heart began to pound as that dark head of hair shifted in the breeze, stray locks of what looked to be the softest hair ever went this way and that, causing me to want to bury my fingers into it.
And of course, he was on the one old, bruised and battered boat out of all of the expensive, flashy ones there.
“Hey, nice boat,” I heard Bronc call as he backed up.
The man turned, and there were his eyes, intense and soul-stealing, directed only on me.
“Thanks,” he said to me, even though I wasn’t the one to say it. “My good friend owns it.”
The good friend lifted his hand, and my breath caught.
Two very sexy men, both of them with their eyes directed on me now.
“It’s nice,” Bronc said. “I’ll bet it outruns everyone here.”
The man, Shasha, shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Totally gonna run us out of the water,” Tibbs murmured. “Look at the motor.”
I did and saw that the boat had two two-hundred horsepower motors on the back.
Jesus Christ.
Bronc stopped and the boat Tibbs and I were sitting in started to drift backward.
Tibbs started the boat up and we drifted backward, closer and closer to the man that was seriously starting to become the star in my waking and sleeping fantasies.
“Good morning,” he said as I drifted closer to him.
His arm came out and caught the side of our boat when it started drifting too close to his.
He gently pushed us away, his long, strong fingers dominating my vision.
I’d seen him in a perfectly fitted suit.
I’d thought about how buttoned up and precise he looked, like he was a studious businessman without a single ounce of wild in him.
But today, with him wearing a pair of jeans, boots, and a very well-fitted Henley in a different color than the one I’d seen him in last time, sleeves pushed up to his forearms revealing those muscles and tattoos…
Rawr.
Also, it didn’t surprise me to find him here with all the rich bitches of Dallas proper.
The man was loaded. You could tell that just by watching how he handled himself.
Plus, the man was wearing a Patek Phillipe.
That was a very expensive watch.
I knew that because Rupert had watched those stupid watch videos on YouTube, drooling and dreaming of a day when he’d be able to afford one of his own.
“Dude, are you not freezing right now?” the friend with him asked.
“Yeah, but you made me help you tie a lure onto the line instead of letting me put my jacket back on…” he pointed out as he stood up and stretched.
He reached for the jacket I hadn’t realized he’d discarded and shrugged it back on. As he moved, his Henley lifted and revealed a dip in his lower belly that disappeared into his jeans.
Holy. Fuck.
I quickly looked away, hoping he didn’t catch me ogling him.
The soft laugh of my brother as Bronc hopped in had me thinking I was in the clear.
Bronc shifted to the spot between Tibbs and me and said quietly, “Do not, under any circumstance, get any ideas about that guy.”
I looked up at him sharply. “What?”
“What what?” He rolled his eyes.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“I saw you staring hard,” he said. “You know who that is?”
“The partial coffee shop owner,” I supplied.
“No.” He leaned forward so that only I could hear. “That’s Shasha Semyonov. He’s the leader of the fuckin’ Bratva.”
“What’s a bratva?” I asked. “Is that like a type of sausage?”
Bratwurst. Bratva.
They seemed similar.
“No, you idiot.” Tibbs rolled his eyes. “Like the Russian Mafia.”
“What?” I gasped. “Are you joking me right now?”
“No,” he said. “We worked on his place. Like, no joke, he’s the leader of the Russian Bratva. He’s a scary motherfucker, and you need to stop making googly eyes at him.”
“Where’s this house at?” I wondered.
“The lake.” He jerked his chin toward the other side of the lake.
I gasped. “ That one?”
“That one” being the several-million-dollar-profit job that my brothers had first cut their teeth on in their business. It was the one job that created hundreds of other jobs for them. The one job that kept them with a four-year waiting list.
Holy shit!
I gasped for another reason when I remembered something.
Viveka had been killed just down the road from that man’s house!