6. #2
“We’ve got plenty of shit on you, little sister!” James boasted.
“Is it as juicy as Mrs. McPherson? What about . . .”
“You’re adopted, and your parents don’t even love you!” Lake yelled angrily, using a movie quote we threw around all the time.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Dante exclaimed suddenly.
I looked over and gasped when Dante moved aside and I saw Shiloh standing in the doorway.
“Did you go three rounds with Tyson or what?” Dante asked.
Shiloh cleared his throat, his gaze flickering to mine before he looked back to Dante. “I had a minor accident last night.”
“Did you get into a bar fight?” Lake asked, wrinkling her nose. She turned to me. “He got into a bar fight on your first date?”
“That’s not horrible,” Lana chimed in. “Jason and Kelcie’s first date was at a bar. He got so drunk he passed out, and Beau had to carry him home. They’re happily married now.” With a grin, she asked, “How’d he do?”
“Not as well as he wanted to, since she doesn’t have a visible hickey,” Lake pointed out.
I snapped my gaze to my sister and yelled, “He’s standing right there, Lake!”
“And?”
“Welcome to my life, Shiloh. You’ll find that when you’re with a Donovan, there’s never just one around. They rarely ever shut up, and they pick on each other like it pays good money.”
When Jolie growled, Dante winced and hurried to say, “Except my lovely wife. She’s a peach.”
“That looks like it hurts,” Quinn said.
Shiloh nodded before sticking his hand out to introduce himself. “I’m Shiloh Duvall, and yes, it really freakin’ hurts.”
“How did it happen?” Lake asked. She looked from me to Shiloh and then back again. “You’ve gotta explain, because my imagination is all over the place right now.”
“Ninjas,” Shiloh lied, his expression completely flat.
“What?” Lake asked in shock.
“We were walking to the bike after we had dessert, and ninjas accosted us.”
“Ninjas? Really?” Lana asked.
“Yeah! There were three . . . no, five ninjas. They were all dressed in black with masks covering their faces and carrying those things . . . you know, those stick things. And one of them had the . . . uh . . . on the chain . . . the two pieces of . . . er . . . anyway, they came running toward us out of the alley, jumping around and doing cartwheels and stuff. They were making the same sounds they do on television, and then suddenly they were on us! We fought them off for as long as we could, but they were ninjas, so things happened and now he looks like this.”
Every eye in the room was on me. Their expressions were a mix of disbelief and humor. I sighed before I looked at Shiloh and watched him shrug. His expression seemed to say, At least we tried.
“Wow.” I looked over and found my three oldest nieces sitting on the stairs with Shiloh’s daughter. I wasn’t surprised it was Colbie who spoke up. “You really suck at lying.”
“Is that what I sound like when I lie?” Raylee asked incredulously. When Shiloh only nodded, she frowned. “I’ve gotta work on that.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and rubbed my forehead with my fingertips, wondering how in the hell I was going to get out of telling my family the truth, knowing the story would have all of them laughing and teasing me for the next thirty years.
“Fess up, Lara,” James ordered, using the same tone of voice my dad always had when he caught any of us in a lie.
It was the voice. I couldn’t resist it. “I did it,” I blurted. “I hit him with my helmet and broke his nose.”
“What the hell?” Lake asked. I dropped my hand and looked at her, but she wasn’t staring at me in shock; she was glaring at Shiloh.
In perfect unison, Lake and Lana asked menacingly, “What did you do?”
Shiloh recoiled. “Holy shit, that’s creepy!”
“They do it all the time,” Clay said, nodding in understanding.
Mark agreed. “It still freaks me out.”
Again, in perfect unison, my sisters asked, “What did you do?”
Shiloh shuddered. “I’m the one with the broken nose! Why do you automatically assume I did something?”
“She doesn’t go around smacking people for no reason,” Lake proclaimed.
“I call bullshit on that one!” Wes argued.
“Nope. She’s hit me a bunch of times when I didn’t do anything to deserve it,” James agreed.
“Were you talking?” Jolie asked. Before he could reply, she snorted and said, “Then you deserved it.”
“He didn’t do anything, you guys,” I assured them. “We were standing close together, and there was a loud noise. It startled me, so I jumped and bumped his nose.”
James cocked an eyebrow and looked from me to Shiloh and back again. “She’s still lying.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s at least five inches taller than you. Unless you jumped a foot in the air while he was staring straight ahead and then hit him on the way down, it’s not possible.”
“If he were leaning forward, she could have hit him with the edge somehow,” Lake suggested.
“Oh, good grief!” I glanced over at the stairs. “Girls, go upstairs. This is not for little ears.”
Colbie let out a fake laugh. “Not happening. You couldn’t pay me to miss this.”
Quinlee frowned. “How much money are we talking about here?”
“I’m very patient,” Raylee announced with a grin. “I could sit here all day.”
“Fine! We were making out, and he was holding me up. Some asshole on the highway honked and startled us both. I thought I was going to fall, so I grabbed his shoulders and jerked forward, right into his nose! And then the nurses at the emergency room thought we were in an abusive relationship and were afraid for his safety.”
Everyone’s laughter probably drowned out that last part. I sighed as James reached for his phone. “I’ve gotta call Mike and tell him this shit. He’ll love it!”
While my siblings were making asses out of themselves at my expense, Shiloh walked across the room. He stopped in front of me and took the mug out of my hands, lifting it to his mouth for a sip.
His eyes drifted closed. He took a few more sips before he sighed and handed it back.
“I needed that. I ran out of grounds, and the beans are in a storage tub on the bottom shelf of the cabinet. Since I thought my head was going to explode when I bent over to pull on my boots after my shower, I didn’t want to risk getting them out. My caffeine tank was on E.”
“I’ll get you a mug,” I said, perhaps a little too eagerly.
“No need, Cupcake.” Shiloh shook his head and took my mug again. “I’d rather share yours. It’s sweeter because your lips have touched it.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “You just don’t stop, do you?”
Shiloh leaned closer. Even with a swollen, bruised face, along with the plastic shield the doctor had taped over his nose, he was so handsome it almost took my breath away.
His lips were almost touching mine when he whispered, “Not until you’re begging me for a break.
But as soon as you catch your second wind, I’ll be right back at it. ”
“That’s still on the table? Even after what happened last night?”
“It’s definitely on the table, but next time, I think it would be a good idea if I was the one wearing a helmet.”