“I like her already,” Maude said.
“She’s going to open a spot out on Folly soon,” Ethan said. “Her main restaurant is on the battery, called Promenade.”
They all looked so … settled when they talked about these women. Grounded. Like the idea of being tied to one person, one place, wasn’t a liability, but a strength.
Ethan’s mouth curved. “Point is,” he said, eyes on me, “us Dane men thought we were the un-domesticable ones. Now, look at us.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“The right women showed up,” he said simply.
My throat went hot. I glanced up at Gideon and found him already looking at me, something open and raw and terrifyingly tender in his eyes.
“Don’t start,” he warned his brothers without looking away from me. “We’re not ready for Portia just yet. Give us a little time.”
“Relax,” Lucas said. “We’re just saying she’s very good at what she does. And she loves a challenge.”
“What challenge?” Gideon asked.
“Turning feral, ex-military men into grooms,” Lucas said.
I shouldn’t have enjoyed the mental flash of Gideon in a suit as much as I did. I definitely shouldn’t have followed it with an image of myself in something white that didn’t look like an office blazer.
Nope. Not yet.
“Easy, boys,” Maude said, patting my shoulder. “Let the girl recover from one life-altering revelation at a time.”
“Thank you,” I said fervently.
Gideon dipped his head until our foreheads almost touched, his voice meant only for me. “Ignore them,” he murmured. “They like to hear themselves talk.”
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. “I’m kind of enjoying the mental image of you being forced to pick out a cake flavor.”
His eyes darkened. “Careful, babe. You start talking about cake, I start thinking about frosting and your skin and we’re going to have a different problem.”
Heat shot straight through me, and I blushed.
I laughed then, really laughed, the sound cracking something open in my chest that had been braced too long. For a handful of minutes, I could almost forget the man with my old last name and the wrong eyes and the way he’d said Haze.
Almost.
The crash came quick afterward. One second I was propped against the railing, teasing Gideon about frosting. The next, my limbs felt like wet sandbags and the edges of the world went fuzzier, like someone had dialed the saturation down.
Gideon caught it before I could pretend otherwise. “You’re done,” he said quietly. “You’re running on fumes.”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
He gave me a look that said he’d seen fine bleeding out on concrete and I was not it.
“You don’t have to be,” Ethan said gently. “Shock wears off in waves. Second one’s always worse.”
Maude stepped forward, tea towel still in one hand. “Go lie down, Hazel. Let these boys plan whatever nonsense they’re about to plan without you worrying your way through it. I’ll wake you if anything needs your attention.”
“I don’t want to be rude,” I protested weakly.
Lucas slung an arm around Ethan’s shoulders and gestured grandly. “Go. We’ll try not to knock any walls down.”
“On purpose,” Ethan added.
