And the feeling was entirely mutual.
“How in the he—" Her eyes narrowed.Her hand threatened to tip again.“Worlddid I end up here?”
“We found you passed out in your truck,” one of her sisters said with a sniff of derision.“Junie and I got you inside, with Jan’s help.Thought we were going to have to get a wheelbarrow.You don’t remember?”
She patted him on the head condescendingly.Cal swatted at her hand.He probably shouldn’t move just yet—he was beyond dizzy at the moment.
“Not really.”
September Tyler, his sister Clancy’s closest friend in the world, peered down at him like he was a bug.She’d always been a weird kid.He’d known her since she was a tiny forty-pound pest in overalls.She’d been exasperating back then.She hadn’t grown out of it much.
Come to think of it…Em was stilla tiny pest—though she mightweigh a hundred pounds now, on a good day—and was currently wearing overalls.Some things never did change.
“We heaved you into Junie’s truck and brought you here.The roads are probably out between here and town by now, though.The storm is going to bebad.So you’re kind of stuck with us for tonight, unless you want to go all the way down through Sublette County.You’d better mind your manners, or I’m siccing Clancy on you, by the way.Don’t be a jerk.”
A preschooler in thick glasses ran around the room sayingjerk, jerk, jerkrepeatedly.The redheaded she-devils surrounding him didn’t even blink at the kid’s volume.
They were all uncivilized savages.
His youngest sister didn’t scare him at all.Now, all three of his sisters combined, maybe…
He tried to sit up, dislodging the woman who was sitting next to him on the overstuffed couch.He grabbed for her quickly.He didn’t want to be responsible for the damned devil woman hurting herself.
But she caught herself just fine—and evaded his hands easily enough.
What was he supposed to do now?
He was definitely in enemy territory.And there werenineof them.Each one just glared at him like he was the enemy.Even the baby watched him warily, looking just like Auggie, but with blood red hair sticking out wildly all over her little head.
Well, he supposed he was the enemy around here.
He’d once tried to buy their home out from under them.No denying that.Cal hadn’tknownit wasn’t actually for sale at the time.He’d tried to explain that, but the crazy woman hadn’t listened.He and Auggie had been snapping and snarling at each other ever since.Before that, he’d barely known the woman existed.
She was just another one of the million Tylers floating around the county, causing trouble everywhere they went.Well, one who happened to be besties with his younger sister Cloe for years.That was all.
“Mommy, me hungee,” the preschooler said.She was no more than three or so, tiny, with long strawberry blonde hair the same shade as Em’s.She wore thick glasses on her little face.“Can we eats the peedda now?”
He didn’t know their names.Something to do with the months, he thought.He always got so irritated when his sisters mentioned them.Any of the Tylers, really.But especially…them.This branch.
Well, Em just exasperated him a little.He’d known her since he was nineteen and she’d been in kindergarten or so.She irritated him the same way his youngest sister did.The two together were maddening, confounding female creatures.And Em was athishouse frequently with Clancy now that Clancy was staying with him again.He could deal with Em around.
But the older two Tyler sisters…
Dangerous, dangerous creatures.
They were female devils.Any man could see that with one look.And no man could give Augusta or Juniper Tyler justonelook now that they’d grown up.He’d noticedthatbefore in the past eight or nine months or so.A man looked at one of them—and he didn’t look away for a long, long time.
Just about every man under ninety had to have noticed those two in the diner at one time or another.They were memorable.It was part of their evil charm.
Auggie had called him a greedy land grabber once, no better than his evil father.Right to his face, while she was breathing fire up at him.In the middle of that diner.She’d told him his own mother would be ashamed of him for what he was doing.
That had stung.More than he would ever tell anyone.
A year and a half later and he hadn’t forgotten the sting.
He wasnothinglike his father at all.He never would be again.
Of course, Auggie had been angry at him for him trying to buy her ranch at the time.But how was he to know the mortgage on the place had been obtained by her criminal father and she and her sisters—then only two, as the younger six hadn’t been found yet—would be homeless?He would have let them rent the place, if they had asked.For cheap.He’d mostly wanted the two hundred acres they owned, not the house.He wouldn’t have thrown three women under the age of twenty-two or -three out into the streets.Especially considering how close they were to his own sisters.He adored his sisters.He wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt them.
