Eli nodded. It was a legitimate concern and one he understood. Their father had liked to use their siblings to keep the older boys in line.
If they had someone of their own, she’d have to be protected.
“We can keep her safe,” he said confidently.
Kellan eyed him for a long moment. “You want her.”
“I do,” Eli replied. “And so do you.”
Kellan didn’t say anything which was an answer in itself.
“So we work on winning her over,” Eli said. “That shouldn’t take long. She wants us.”
“She kicked us out and we haven’t spoken to her in days,” Kellan said.
Eli waved his hand through the air dismissively. “We can fix that. She clearly wants us. We’ll get her past whatever was going on.”
Kellan grunted. Clearly he wasn’t feeling as positive. But that was okay, Eli was used to Kellan taking a while to come onboard with his plans.
“Then once she’s willing, we become her guardians. And then she’s ours. Perfect. Done.”
What could go wrong?
20
“Hi, Arabella. Everything all right? You look tired.”
“So do you,” she said dryly as Jake stood and gestured to a chair in front of his desk.
But she couldn’t sit. She was too full of nerves.
Jake let out a huff of laughter. “Touché.”
She felt a stab of guilt. Was it a good idea to come to him with a complaint like this? It was clear that he had a lot on his plate and it wasn’t like she’d been harmed.
You still get a bad vibe off this guy.
Yeah, but she got a bad vibe off most people.
Except Eli and Kellan . . . shit. She had to stop thinking about them. Nothing was going to happen between them. She’d pushed them away.
They wouldn’t want anything to do with her after that. And she should be glad about that.
Although it seemed like they hadn’t wanted to leave just now.
“Hey, it’s all right. Tell me what you came in here to say. It must be important and I’m here to help you.”
“You look like you’ve got a lot on your plate, though. And what happened . . . it’s not that big of a deal?—”
“Arabella, sit down,” Jake told her firmly.
Sheesh.
She sat before she even realized what she planned to do.
“How did you do that?” she asked. “I didn’t want to sit.”
“Comes with the territory,” he replied dryly. “What’s going on?”
