BEAU
Crisp air bit at my cheeks.Steam billowed from my mug of tea as I put it down on the wide arm of the chair beside me, my breath coming out in visible puffs.
Hannah had made me the tea before going to put Clara to bed. She used extra honey. She always did.
She’d quietly thanked me for the day—the one when I didn’t kick her brother to the curb. When I’d dutifully let my daughter show him around Jupiter, when I’d even let the fucker have dinner at the restaurant.
Hannah didn’t have to thank me. I would do anything to make my girls happy. Clara was ecstatic at having another member of the family. Of Hannah’s family. Hannah wasn’t exactly convinced of her brother’s newfound need for connection or forgiveness. Yeah, he’d made the right steps in admitting he was wrong, leaving a toxic woman, but she was tentative. As she should’ve been.
He could still hurt her. And although my first instinct was to kick the fucker out in the cold to ensure that Hannah wouldn’t get hurt again, I resisted. It wasn’t my place.
He was leaving tomorrow. First thing. Thank fuck.
Jack had been curt around me. He didn’t trust me.
It pissed me off.
Deeply.
As an older brother, it had been his right to protect his sister, not instantly trusting a new man.
He had lost that fucking right.
He hadn’t done his job of protecting her. He wasn’t there when her fucking husband was laying hands on her. When she had nothing. No one. He’d disappeared from her life because he’d found his own. Because he had let a woman get between him and his family.
Naomi had tried that with me. And even though I’d been wrapped up in her bullshit, I’d never let her get her talons in me deep enough to alienate me from my family. Only weak men did that.
And Hannah’s brother was a weak man, in my estimation. He was making the effort now.AfterHannah had stopped needing him.
I sensed the conversation was coming when I heard the front door open and shut.
“Fuck it’s cold,” he muttered, rubbing his arms over his jacket.
Pussy,I thought in my head, letting out a noncommittal grunt out loud. It was not cold. It was almost spring. The bite to the air only cut through the skin of those with weak blood.
There had been a late dumping of snow that still covered the ground. Not unusual for this time of year, but I was ready for winter to fuck off.
Hannah had worn shorts today.
Shorts with fucking cowboy boots. The restraint it took not to drag her back into our room should’ve been studied. Soon she’d be back in sundresses. And I’d be able to act on my desires to lift up those dresses, tear off her panties, and fuck her into oblivion.
Yes, I was ready for summer.
It would also mean this motherfucker was not in my house, settling in next to me on a chair. It would mean that Hannah was in school, that Clara was in kindergarten, both things I was dreading and looking forward to in equal measure. It meant that our life was starting. That I might just be able to breathe.
But there was still a weight on my chest, a voice in my head that told me I was being selfish. That Hannah had a whole future ahead of her. That she had been tied down by selfish people her whole life and deserved to spread her wings, get to know herself.
I tried to quiet that voice. Some days it was louder than others.
“I know you don’t like me,” Jack said. As much as I didn’t like the guy, I was glad he jerked me out of the thoughts that had been harder and harder to silence.
“I don’t really know you,” I replied. “But from what I do know of you, from what I’ve seen, yeah, I don’t like you.”
It probably wasn’t fair to Hannah, speaking to her brother like that. Surely it went against whatever etiquette rules there were for conversing with your woman’s family.
I wasn’t practiced in that regard. Naomi didn’t have much family, and none who spoke to her or were worth speaking to, according to her. And there had been no girlfriends after Naomi. Before her, there were some high school girls, but interactions with their fathers were just being as polite and saying as few words as possible.
“You don’t mince words,” he remarked.
