Chapter 26
“Wait When did this happen?” Jake asked.
“We’ve been thinking about it for a while,” Eli told him. “We just had to wait until Arabella was comfortable with the idea.”
“And are you, Arabella?” Jake asked. “You can say if you’re not. If you don’t want that there will be no repercussions.”
This was it.
The moment that could change everything. If she said no, then what would happen? She didn’t agree that there would be no repercussions.
There were always repercussions.
Maybe they’d never ask again. Maybe they’d leave and not want anything to do with her.
But was she ready for that leap?
“Can you give us a moment, Jake?” Eli asked.
Jake looked at her. “That okay with you, Arabella?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I think it might be a good idea.”
“All right. I’m going to try and call Ravina. I’ll let her know what’s happened if you like? And I will call Mrs. Taylor as well.”
“Oh, I should do that.”
Jake shook his head. “I’ve got it. Take one thing off your plate. I’ll be back in about ten minutes.”
“Thanks, Jake,” she said.
After he left, Kellan stood and set her down on the sofa. She immediately felt the loss.
Was he angry over her hesitation? If he was, she got it. She should just trust them. Without trust it wouldn’t work.
“Are you upset with me? I know we talked about it. I’m just . . . I’m scared.”
Kellan kneeled in front of her while Eli took her hand in his and squeezed it. She immediately felt grounded.
Why was she hesitating?
These guys were amazing.
Sure . . . she’d only known them a few weeks, but it wasn’t like they were asking her to marry them.
They said they would go slow.
But maybe it was best for Jake to remain her guardian for a while? Although she hated the fact that she was in trouble with him. It felt weird. Strange.
“No one is upset at you,” Eli told her. “But you shouldn’t feel scared. What you need to realize is that we will do anything to keep you safe. And that we would never harm you. If we did, you can punish us.”
“Me punish you guys?” she asked. That seemed ridiculous. Look at the size of them! Although she guessed not all punishment had to be physical.
“Although nothing you could do to us would be as bad as what we would do to ourselves if we harmed you,” Eli added.
She sucked in a breath. She’d never encountered anyone like the two of them.
Protective, possessive, careful with her safety and health.
Bossy, ridiculously so.
But no one had ever put her best interests first. Maybe Pop-Pop but she’d taken care of him more than the other way around.
Was that why she was hesitating? Because she hadn’t experienced this before?
Because she couldn’t believe that someone might feel like this about her?
Yeah, her self-esteem was in the toilet. And she had to do something to bring it back up.
She also had to realize that maybe Laken and Shaw were right.
She deserved to be happy.
“It might seem like we have all the power,” Kellan whispered to her. “But you are the center of everything. We’re the ones orbiting you. You are the focus. Everything we do will be with you in mind.”
“Even when we spank your ass for breaking the rules.” Eli gave her a serious look.
“What if I don’t want to be spanked?”
“Like we said before, that’s not the only punishment that we can come up with,” Kellan told her. “There are other things.”
“Although I personally think that spanking works the best and you can’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Eli said.
“Have you tried it?” she asked Eli.
“Yep. I didn’t care for it.” He grinned as she gaped at him.
“Someone spanked you?”
“It was part of our training for a club we’re members of in Houston,” Eli explained. “We don’t go there much anymore, though.”
“So you were spanked too?” she asked Kellan.
“The guy spanking him was actually shaking in fear,” Eli told her.
She bet.
“I’d have paid good money to see that,” she murmured.
“Brat,” Kellan said. But there was something hot in his eyes that said he didn’t mind a bit of sass.
“We want to take care of you, not hurt you,” Eli told her. “We can go at your pace when it comes to our relationship, but we also can’t stand the idea of someone else having responsibility for you.”
“You’re ours,” Kellan said.
Eli shot him a look, then stared back at her. He seemed to be bracing himself for her response.
Probably worried that they were scaring her away.
She knew she was a bit of a flight risk. She’d pushed them away once before. It was terrifying. She could take a leap and fall.
Or she could fly.
And she so wanted to fly.
“I want to come first with someone. All I’ve ever wanted is to be loved. To feel important and not like a tool to be used. And it’s not that I think you guys will use me. I just . . . I just . . .”
Everything was building inside her and she couldn’t get her words out. It was so frustrating!
“Yell,” Kellan said suddenly.
“What?”
“You need to yell. You’re like me in a lot of ways. You keep things close to your chest, locked in. You should let it out.”
“Our father picked on Kellan,” Eli said.
“Everything was always his fault. He’d call him names, he’d beat him as punishment for things he hadn’t even done.
And Kellan would always just take it. If one of our older brothers was home, they’d stick up for him.
But if it was the younger ones . . . Kellan would take it so we never had to. ”
“Oh, Kellan,” she whispered. She’d known it was going to be bad.
She hadn’t realized how bad, though.
And here she was complaining over her life. At least her father had never beaten her.
“I always had trouble expressing myself. Showing emotion. And it seemed he liked to take that as a challenge,” Kellan told her. “He wanted a reaction and yet the more he beat me, the more I held everything inside.”
“It was just a vicious cycle that went on and on,” Eli said with frustration.
“Why did no one do anything? Why did no one help you?” she asked.
“The sheriff back then wasn’t a good guy like Jake,” Eli told her. “He was an old hunting and fishing buddy of our father’s. We knew he’d just turn it back on us. Tell us that we needed a good whipping to be kept under control.”
“That’s terrible,” she said.
“It’s why I hate this place,” Kellan told her. “They claim that this town is safe and that they take care of the people in it . . . but we all slipped through the cracks.”
“In fairness, we learned early on to hide what was going on because we didn’t want anyone to find out,” Eli said. “We thought we’d all be separated.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Kellan said.
“Some people might have helped us,” Eli said, looking at Kellan. “But we just thought we were better off together with the devil we knew.”
“Things are a lot better now with Jake as the sheriff,” Eli said. “He’s a good man. A decent man. But that doesn’t mean that he should be your guardian. He has a lot of people to take care of and you need more care and attention than he can give. Plus, you deserve more.”
She sucked in a breath. She deserved more. It was hard to believe it.
But perhaps it was time to start.
And she would always wonder if she didn’t.
Be daring.
Be brave.
Live.
She’d moved to a new town, away from a fiancé she didn’t know, leaving everything behind.
Already she was being far braver than she thought she could have ever been. So maybe she could be even braver and get everything she never thought she’d have but really wanted.
“All right,” she said. “I guess sometimes you have to take a risk to reap the rewards and honestly if I didn’t say yes, I’d regret it. So maybe I’ll end up hurt. But also maybe I’ll end up with everything. Because being with the two of you is a dream that I never thought I’d get.”
“Well, you haven’t seen Eli when he doesn’t get enough sleep yet,” Kellan told her. “So I’d hold off about the dream stuff.”
“Oh, and what about when you watch murder mystery movies? You got so frustrated at the inaccuracies that you broke our last television.”
“You didn’t.” She let out a small giggle. It was hard to imagine composed Kellan breaking something in frustration.
“I didn’t break the television,” he said. “I simply threw the remote and it happened to hit the television. Two different things.”
Another giggle followed by a snort. She clapped her hand over her mouth in mortification. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Eli asked.
“Um, for snorting like a pig. How embarrassing.”
“I thought it was adorable,” Eli told her.
“Definitely adorable,” Kellan added.
“You’re beautiful,” Eli told her.
She’d heard that before but she didn’t know that she truly believed it.
“But you’re stunning when you smile,” Kellan added.
It was like they were doing a twin thing even though they weren’t twins. Maybe it was just that they spent so much time together.
“Even while snorting?” she asked in disbelief.
“Especially then,” Kellan told her.
Sheesh.
“What . . . where do we go next? We can’t stay in this hotel room forever and you guys don’t live here. Are you . . . are you wanting me to move to Houston?”
The thought made her want to cry. But that’s what you did for the people you cared about, right? You sacrificed. They were willing to take a chance on her and all of her baggage. She could do this for them.
“I mean, it makes sense,” she said. “I can do my work from anywhere. And I’ve been here less than two weeks. You’ve lived in Houston for longer. Your lives are there while I—eek!”
She cried out as Kellan reached out and lifted her down onto his lap, holding her against his chest.
“No one is making you move to Houston. You want to live here, we live here.”
“But you hate it here.”
“Do I?” Kellan asked. “Because I haven’t hated it here these last few weeks. In fact, some of them involve my very best memories. Like when I watched Eli kiss you.”
Holy heck.
“And I haven’t forgotten that I have yet to kiss you.” His gaze was intent as he stared down at her.
“Oh. Yes. You should do that.”
“Soon. I think I want to build the anticipation.”