TAYLOR STOOD IN THE DOORWAY of her mother’s kitchen and watched her bossy cousins and even more controlling brothers hammer out what kind of security they wanted in place for her wedding in a couple of days. She loved her family, including every one of her arrogant male relatives. She was still blown away that her cousins had driven up from North Carolina to attend her opening.
WithoutThorin its place at the center of the show, her opening at the Taubman felt bittersweet. She loved seeing her work hanging in the museum she’d gone on field trips to as a kid, but she felt acutely the hole left by the destruction of her painting of Matt. Every time she walked through the doorway leading to the show, she fought the urge to look back over her shoulder for a missing loved one. She’d get used to it, and then she’d paint something else, but for now she had a hard time feeling whole.
In the handful of days they’d been working the case, the police hadn’t found any solid leads and she knew Matt and Adam made the decision to call her cousins because they were worried about her. She also knew without him saying that it galled her detective brother to ask for help from Emerson and Gabe’s private security firm.
On the surface, the teasing between Adam and Southerland Security had always been good-natured. But when push came to shove, there was an inside the brotherhood/outside of the brotherhood thing buried just underneath the surface. The fact that Adam asked for their help showed exactly how worried he was. That or her over-protective fiancé refused to take any chances. Most likely, it was some combination of both. Sweet, but it didn’t make the testosterone fest going on in her mother’s kitchen any more palatable.
“Are you doing okay?” asked her cousin Amanda, coming to stand beside her in the doorway.
“I’m fine.”
“Liar.”
Taylor didn’t bother to hold back her laugh. Her cousins had always been able to see through her bullshit—as clearly as any of her brothers and sisters.
“They are a lot to handle all together like this,” said Amanda. “The way Matt’s scowling like he can control the world with his resting bitch face...he’s as bad as the rest of them. He obviously fits right in.”
Taylor snorted, and Amanda grinned.
“I’m glad you guys are finally getting around to making things official.”
Amanda and her sister Becca had been the first people to realize how she felt about Matt. And for the brief period she and Matt had been apart, she’d been able to count on the sisters for margarita therapy. On more than one occasion, they saved her from drunk dialing her way across the country, looking for him. She owed them.
“I’ve got to get in there. Left to their own devices, they’ll have me locked away in a tower somewhere before this is over.”
Taylor crossed to the kitchen island and wedged herself between Matt and her cousin Emerson. Dressed in black slacks and a black dress shirt, he looked like a bad ass with a very good tailor. No wonder she’d never seen her cousins with the same woman more than once. Both Emerson and Gabe were as handsome as any of her brothers and except for Matt, who made his living beating metal into shape, they were stronger. The dress clothes didn’t begin to hide their broad backs and lean muscles.
“I know,” said Amanda, catching the direction of her gaze and rolling her eyes. “It makes them impossible to live with.”
Gabe glanced up from the file folder spread open in front of him and grinned. “You love us. Admit it.”
“Of course I do, you butthead. What does that have to do with anything?” said Amanda.
Her brother ignored her, turning his attention back to the other men.
“We’ve got the gallery covered,” said Emerson. “Unless he comes out in the open, that’s probably our best chance of catching the guy. We’ll keep it covered until Saturday on the off chance he comes back to try again, and then we’ll up the coverage for the wedding.”
Taylor sucked in a breath and Matt pulled her onto his lap. Considering everything that had happened, it was stupid, but it hadn’t occurred to her that the vandal might come back to destroy more of her work. She couldn’t bear the idea.
“Don’t worry, baby. They’ll take care of it,” said Matt, his voice part plea, part promise.
She nodded, not trusting her voice and not willing to give the overbearing men any more ammunition in theTaylor’s a poor helpless lambextravaganza.
“We’ll pull our whole alpha team in for the day of the wedding,” said Gabe, tracing a finger over the gallery floor plan. Instead of holding the wedding at her family church, she and Matt decided to get married at the Taubman. With its glass ceiling and main atrium flooded with crisp, clear light, it was the perfect place for them to start their life together.
“You’re not going to have a bunch of guys standing around the wedding party looking like out-of-work ninjas,” she said, already regretting the direction their plan was taking.
“Not out of work,” said Gabe. “We’re never out of work.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ignoring her, he flipped through another couple pages of the folder and behind her, she felt Matt stiffen. When she glanced over to see what caught his attention, she saw her cousin holding what looked like a police report, complete with a photograph of a much younger Matt. Gabe glanced over at them, arching an eyebrow, and Matt shifted so quickly in his seat he almost dumped her onto the floor.
“Do you think this has any bearing on who we’re looking for?” asked Gabe, scanning the sheet in front of him.
“I already answered those questions from the police.” Matt’s voice sounded clipped, as if he was pushing the words past his clenched jaw. “No, I don’t have any reason to believe what happened to Taylor’s painting had anything to do with my past.”
She wrapped an arm around his neck, running her fingers through the soft, brown hair curling over the collar of his crisp white shirt. Seeing Matt in dress clothes made it hard for her to keep her hands off him. She couldn’t imagine what he’d look like in a tux. Actually, she could imagine it and she couldn’t wait to see if the reality exceeded the picture she had in her head. But for now, she’d settle for helping her future husband calm down before he popped a vein.
