"Now behave once they get here. Would hate to have to tell our mother I kicked my brothers out so I could rail my new girl," I tease with a dark chuckle.
"Never been some handyman brute’s girl before," she states with a wicked grin, shaking her dark hair out over her shoulders as I bend to scoop her up. "Does this position come with benefits?"
"It does. I can fix anything you break, I might even do it naked if you ask nicely. I will make you come for days if you ask nice for that too. I am good at protecting what’s mine, good with money if my clients were to have a vote, and I can cook. Oh, also, I was one of True Ridge’s most eligible bachelors, according tothe spring newsletter. No one knows who writes it or who makes the lists up, but I was honored to be on it."
Settling down on the couch, I draw her down on my lap as she laughs. We both admitted there has been someone else before, but as she snuggles down on my chest, I know we were wrong. There has never been someone like this for me before. No one I laughed with this way. No one who held my attention the way she has for days now. Not another woman I have ever felt I fit with. This has been so simple since I showed up at her place earlier
"My brother told me to come back to see you with a gesture," I admit as I recall the forgotten coffee and pastries. "I needed to see you again, Maren. I needed to...know if what was going on in my head was real. When I walked in that office to find you so upset earlier...I was clear to me it was."
Maren smiles at me, nodding her head as she moves to brush her nose over mine. "I was hoping you would come back. Not to talk business. To let me start over. I was awful," she whispers, brushing her fingertips over my face. "I am so used to protecting myself...once I saw you, my armor went up."
"Can’t keep me out, honey," I tell her, bending to kiss her softly just as I hear the back door open. "I am used to tearing things down, it’s what I do."
"Well hello, kids," Ethan calls, amusement flooding his words. "Big brother has some explaining to do, me-thinks," he chortles as he falls into a chair across from us with a thud.
They circle us as if we’re prey for them to pick apart. I get it. Besides never having brought a woman back to my place, I’ve never had a serious relationship before. Not one where I brought her home to meet anyone. I dated a little in college, had one woman I tried to make a go of things with, but nothing even close to this.
It is important to me that they all approve of her. No sooner do I think this, I wonder how true it is. Would I stop pursuing her, chasing what she has brought to life inside of me if no one approved? I can’t be sure. I dove in headfirst the moment I saw her sitting at her desk so soft, so vulnerable. There is no going back for me, so they better all adore her the way I do.
"Is it the ‘in-and-out’ part that’s tripping you up, doll?" Maren teases him with a wicked smile. "I’d have thought you got‘The Talk’years ago. If you need a live tutorial, we were halfway there, we can get there again."
Well, hell, I am absolutely screwed. I am madly in love with this woman. My brothers all send stares my way to tell me if I am not, they will be in line next. I laugh, hiding my face in her shoulder as my brother sputters to come back with something just as clever. He can’t, of course.
"Turn the game on," Dexter suggests, laughing along with Maren as he offers her a beer.
Tanner does turn the game on. I sit there with my brothers, my best friends, and watch our Howlers give it their all. By the second period, Maren is shouting at the screen as if she can convince Bastian to get the goal he has been trying for all night. Ethan gets us all beers, orders a pizza that he agrees with Maren on—extra sausage and black olives—and we have a good time.
They stay for hours, and we talk about building plans, our current sites, even about dream sites we’d love to work on here in True Ridge. I admit how much I hate what I do during the day, while Maren regales us with stories of secret crimes going on in Silver Shores where she grew up.
Before they go, she passes out snuggled up on my chest as we watch last year's Howler playoff game. I am thrilled when she sleepily refuses my offer to take her home. Tanner grabs a blanket, covering us up as they all head out. Watching them go,I see it before I figure out what it means. They seem reluctant to go, to let the night end—but it is more than that.
It is not just me she has caught in her orbit. It looks as if I better be careful—I will have my little brothers to answer to if I don’t measure up.
Chapter Six
Maren
There is a reason I never count my blessings.
Because once I do, once I start noting the good things in my life, I start to fear they will be taken from me. Leaving Silver Shores was not just about getting out of the darkness of that port town. It was also about trying to find some light for myself. A friend, someone to talk to, a new place to call my own, and yeah, somewhere down the line, a man to treat me as if I count.
Over the past few days, all the above have fallen in my lap. I hung the first photo on my walls, put up curtains over the weekend, and am starting to consider my small cottage a home. I spent all weekend flirting it up with Morgan between calls, quick visits to his job site, and another night of hockey with his brothers.
I might even have a new bestie. Each day I have lunch at Embers, an adorable diner across the road from me. Their best waitress is also the best person I have ever met. Evie Merrit is the smartest, sweetest woman and I love going for lunch to chat about her daughter, our shared love of Forensic Files reruns, or to talk about those bewitching Brant brothers.
"Kind of unfair if you ask me," she comments to me as she pours me some sweet tea. "Each one hotter than the next, nice as pie, good at everything. I never knew those sorts of men were real—but there is four of them. Five if you count their daddy who I hear was a catch too."
"Whatever he passed on, I am thankful for," I tease with a laugh. Evie laughs too, leaning a hip against the counter as I go on. "Morgan is just the...I mean, I never thought I would...he just makes me...I never want to...see, see, I am an otherwise articulate woman, I know what I do and do not want, what I willand will not accept but once I start talking about him...I am a mess."
Evie laughs again, hitting me with her hip as she passes behind the counter. "That means he is doing just what he ought to be doing, honey."
"Morgan is...he is literallyeverything," I whisper as she leans in. "He is sweet, he is kind, so good to his little brothers, so damn smart. And I mean...he is the hottest man I have ever met before. I just... I get..."
Evie lets her eyes bounce left to right, then leans in more. "Go on. Girl, I have not had a lick of romance for too long, let me live through you."
I let out a peal of laughter because it feels so good to be gossiping about this good thing in my life. "It is his hands...I mean it is everything about him but...he wears those suits all day, looks so polished, so put together. Then he gets dirty at a site andhis hands...Jesus, they’re just so amazing on my skin. The minute he touches me, even if it’s his hand on my back or his fingertips on my face...it’s as if he switches a switch to on inside of me, and nothing but him touching me will turn it off."
Evie fans herself with a menu, laughing with me. "I would let any of those brothers touch me. Besides yours," she teases, putting her hands up as if warding off an attack. “Not that he looks at anything else but you. I think that is the sweetest thing I have ever seen.”
