“Move. We need to get into the—”
“You’re angry,” Dorrie said, cutting off his words.
“I’m not angry, and don’t start with the sister thing. I know how you four work. Single out one of your brothers and henpeck them until they yield or spill whatever secret they foolishly thought they could keep from you all.”
“So, you do have a secret then?” Somer asked.
He was subjected to three green-eyed and one grey-eyed stares. They were his sisters, and he loved them, that was never in doubt. However, they could also be bloody irritating and nosey. Being the youngest, he’d been mothered by the eldest two and constantly heckled by the youngest. It was a wonder he was sane, really.
“Do you know what I think?” Eden said.
“No one wants to know what you think, Eden,” Warwick replied.
“I do,” Essie said.
“And us,” the twins added in unison, like they did most things.
“I think something happened when you went away or on the return journey because you seem different in some way. I’m just not sure as yet what that is. But I have a hunch, and my hunches are good.”
“Like the time you had a hunch I wanted a book on knot tying and in fact I wanted one on velocipede bicycles?”
Eden frowned. “It was an excellent book. You should have loved it.”
“I certainly did,” Somer added.
“I wanted the velocipede bicycle book, to be fair,” Dorrie said.
“It would have been a good book,” Warwick said, knowing he was annoying Eden.
“Be quiet,” she snapped.
“And the time—”
“Yes, yes, there is no need to elaborate. I’ve gotten a few things wrong in my lifetime, as have we all.” Eden waved his words away.
“I beg your pardon. Did you just say you were wrong?” Warwick clutched his chest.
Eden’s lips thinned. “The point here is something is off with you, and we, your sisters who love you, want to know what it is.”
“There is noit,” he gritted out. “Now move. We are the last here, and the show will start if we do not make haste.”
“Oh yes, we must not miss the mermaid from Peckham after all,” Dorrie said.
“Hello, what’s this then?” Cam said from behind his sisters. “What’s he done to be subjected to the dreaded four-sister inquisition?”
“Nothing,” Warwick said.
“He’s hiding something from us,” Eden said. “As yet I’m not sure what.”
“I want to check Cam’s pockets,” Warwick said, ignoring his sister. “I’m sure he’s got more sweets in there than the rest of us.”
Cam tried and failed to look outraged. “As if I would do such a thing.”
No one was fooled.
“What are you hiding from us, little brother?” Eden continued with the dogged determination that had her voted the Sinclair most likely to succeed in most things that involved persistence.
“Well now, we could hold him down and get it out of him. He is devilishly ticklish,” Cam said.
