Chapter 12
Cal had danced with three different women—and he still couldn’t seem to catch the one he wanted. It was a game they’d been playing together all night.
They were both aware of it, too. She’d send him sly little glances and smirks whenever he got too close. She was a wicked, wicked woman.
The woman across from him was close, but it was her older sister he’d been hunting across the community hall dance floor.
And Auggie was sneaky. He’d asked that wicked woman to dance again and Auggie had evaded him with a baby in her arms—and nudged him toward the Junie-devil-creature instead.
Now, somehow, he’d ended up with one September Tyler.
He wasn’t entirely certain how this one had happened, though.
He’d almost had Auggie captured. And then… Em morphed into her place.
Well played, Augusta Dawn. Well, Cal was a determined man when he needed to be. But now…this devil-creature in front of him was definitely upset about something.
Big, extraordinary blue eyes blinked at him. Em, dressed in a slinky green dress she had no real business wearing around unprepared men, had just plunked down right across from them, Clancy at her side.
No surprise, the two were always side-by-side, and always had been. Clancy, tall and skinny and dark haired, Em short and skinny and pale haired. But…they were besties, through and through.
He remembered when Em would show up at his house off the school bus, as a kid.
His father had always driven her home, often hours later.
Now…he knew Bruce Tyler had been gone back then—he’d always wondered if his father had known that.
If they’d just kept Em at their house to feed her, that kind of thing.
Or if his dad had known and just not done a damned thing about it, to help. If his dad had just ignored it, too.
Next time he was at the prison to visit, Cal was going to ask.
Demand answers. Why hadn’t his father done anything to help those girls when they’d needed it?
His father had always told them to help people in need.
That was a lesson Cal wouldn’t ever forget, in spite of what his father had done. Cal would help when he could.
Em had been at his house several times a week back then. Right beside Clancy. As their mother had gotten sicker and sicker—Em had been there.
He half got the impression Em was like a chihuahua protecting her owner, sometimes. Cal was starting to wonder just how bad it had gotten for his sisters after what his father had done. And why those three little brats had hidden it from him and Cadell.
Cal may just have to go thump some people’s heads on his sisters’ behalves or something. No one would challenge him or Cadell to their faces—they were powerful men in the county. But maybe…that hadn’t been so true for the girls.
Cadell shot Em a challenging look. Cadell liked to get Em riled up and always had. Things had gotten worse since everything their father had done, though.
Now it was if Cadell couldn’t stand any Tyler at all. Especially Em. Cal hadn’t yet figured out why—but Cadell needed to stop being a jerk to her. Or Cal was going to have to kick his brother’s ass on principle. This was Clancy’s best friend, after all.
“What’s the matter with you two now?” Cadell asked.
Em just sighed, then leaned forward a bit. Calloway looked away discretely. He didn’t think she realized a man could see straight down her neckline like that. Em should not be wearing skimpy black lace beneath green silk, and Cal definitely should not be able to see it.
His attention caught on his own brother. Who probably had an even better view.
And…who hadn’t looked away. At all. His brother almost seemed frozen right there now. Transfixed—was that a better word?
“Tell us something, why are some men such idiots?” Clancy asked. “You two are men…I think, I mean, single, available, reasonably attractive men, so I’ve heard. We need a reference sample here. And I don’t know who else to ask—except Em’s cousins, and that just is not going to happen.”
“Gee, thanks,” Cadell said. “I haven’t heard any of the women I’ve dated complaining.”
“You just don’t listen very well,” Em shot back at him. Then she turned to Calloway. “You’ll at least tell it to me straight, right?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Ok, so…why don’t I get hit on as much as my older sisters?
Or Claudia, Cloe, and Clancy? Not that I’m really looking for a guy, or anything.
I’m a bit too busy helping my sister right now, but I would at least like to know why guys don’t even seem to notice I’m alive.
Do I have no sex appeal at all, or something?
I really need an objective opinion here. ”
Cadell choked next to him. Calloway didn’t know what to say in response. “Your sisters get hit on a lot? My sisters do? Since when?”
“Since we got here an hour ago, three men have hit on Auggie. Three. I’m not just talking about flirting.
I’m talking about almost propositioning.
Like the whole ‘let me take you outside to stroll around in the moonlight” thing.
And two on Junie. One on Clancy, and I got…
nothing. They were just standing there, and men were asking them things I’m not going to repeat.
Who even does that? I’m still trying to figure it out here.
And what they meant by some of those things, actually. ”
“I’m pretty sure most of them were drunk, Em,” Clancy said. “Considering what they said. And they aren’t the kind of guys we want hitting on us, either.”
“Very, very true, but still…I would like to know.”
“Which guys and what did they say?” He was going to find them and kick their asses. Simple as that. No guy needed to be hitting on these two. They just didn’t. Cal’s blood pressure just couldn’t take it.
“Does that really matter? Guys don’t even seem to see me. Especially when I’m with Auggie and Junie.”
Poor kid. He could see the hurt in her eyes. The insecurity. She came off as bold and confident, but how much of that was an act to hide her fears? Probably a lot, now that he thought about it. The kid had probably bull-shitted her way through life from day one, with a father like Bruce Tyler.
Clancy had her own opinion. “You look like jailbait, Emmie. But you’ll probably look fifty when you’re eighty, so there is that.
And…you have, thirty guard dogs who are always getting in the way?
How can any guy get near you with Mason and the rest of them all around?
And your cousins do tend to hover over you more than they do Aug and Junie.
They ran off Quade Davis. I mean…Quade Davis already danced with you. ”
“Yeah, and he treated me like I was his kid sister or something. Until Mason and Holton ran him off.”
“They are buttheads.”
Well, Clancy had a point with that. There were male Tylers everywhere in the community center tonight. And they were probably watching everything their female cousins did. They had reputations. Overprotective brawlers was a nice way to put it. Cal had had his own brawls with a handful of them.
“My cousins aren’t around all the time,” Em said, glaring at two that waved in her direction at that very moment. And smirked at her, then sent Cal a warning look. How funny.
“Maybe it’s because until recently you were the youngest of your family, and all the guys around here just think you’re still a kid?” Clancy added. “They’ve always been overprotective.”
“I’m twenty-two. I’m not a child. Pan was getting married at my age.”
No. A child, she wasn’t. Calloway tried to look at her objectively.
She was beautiful, attractive, absolutely hilarious when a person talked to her, loyal, and brilliant.
Very brilliant, and a great deal on the intense side—especially for a woman in her early twenties.
It would take a man just as intense as she was to be confident enough with her.
One who could handle her without crushing her spirit. “It’s not that, Em.”
“Then what is it?”
“The intensity. You are just as attractive as your older sisters, just as beautiful. There is no missing that, trust me. You are just as much an evil she-devil creature as Auggie and Junie. You are just too intense for mere mortal men sometimes. At least, the younger guys. They aren’t ready enough yet for a woman like you.
” She’d wanted honesty. But how was he supposed to put it?
Without hurting her—when that was the last thing he intended.
“Mature men who are confident in their own rights will be fine with who you are, though. So…don’t change.
You are fine the way you are. The right guy will come along eventually.
He just probably won’t be twenty-two years old.
Give the guys time to mature and see what happens. ”
She just blinked at him. From those killer eyes of hers that could destroy a man.
“That’s the truth,” Cadell had to add. “Tone down the know-it-all attitude, too, boss, and you might get a date for a Saturday night. But if you seriously want a boy to notice you—"
“Man. I am talking about men, you dork. I thought we’d established that.” Em just glared at Cadell, looking like she wanted to slug him. And Cadell…had his hand on her bare arm there, almost…caressing her elbow. Pulling her closer and everything.
Shit. What was Cadell doing? Trying to pick a fight?
“You want a man to notice you? Get rid of the thirty guard dogs glaring down every guy who gets near a Tyler woman’s side. Toss them off a cliff if you have to. Otherwise, you’re going to be an old maid forever.”
His brother could be a bit of a jackass sometimes. At least where Em was concerned.
Cal waited until Clancy and Em took off before looking at his brother. “You really hurt her.”