“Place the order. I’ll run and pick it up. I need about twenty minutes.”
“What for?” she asked.
“For you to mind your own damn business,” he called back.
“But I’m starvin’,” she whined, disappearing into the bathroom again.
“And I’m busy!”
Stone laughed. Not much had changed around here. “Somethin’ I can help with?”
Donovan grabbed one of the boxes with Tate’s name on it and stacked it on another. “Mom’s got a landscaper comin’ by. She asked me to meet with him.”
“Ain’t it a little cold to be worryin’ about plants?” Stone asked, following Donovan when he hefted the two boxes and carried them outside.
“Yeah. But he’s booked solid most of the year. She’s hopin’ to get on his calendar for March. This was the only time he had free to meet.”
It figured. Especially since their folks took a quick trip to Dallas to see Chelsea and Paul.
“What’re they lookin’ to do?” Stone asked.
Donovan nodded toward the house. “Walk with me.”
Because it gave him a break from moving furniture and boxes, Stone followed his brother toward the house. They reached the fence surrounding the backyard just as a white Dodge truck with a black and gold landscaper logo on the side pulled into the driveway.
“Perfect timin’,” Donovan said with a grin that seemed a little too gleeful in Stone’s opinion.
A few minutes later, he realized why.
***
Nico Daugherty parked his truck in frontof Owen and Deborah Jameson’s house, smiling to himself as he got out.
It’d been years since he’d been here. About fifteen, in fact. Not since his senior year of high school. More specifically, the night Chelsea Jameson broke up with him, accusing him of hitting on her best friend. Which, okay, fine. Maybe he had. But not because he was truly interested in Julie … or was it Jenny? Something with a J, he was sure. Regardless, he hadn’t been interested, just bored.
God, he remembered how pissed off Chelsea’d been. Ranting and throwing shit, cursing a blue streak. She’d put a ship full of sailors to shame that night.
Funny thing was, he was pretty sure Chelsea hadn’t cared. She merely had a flair for the dramatic back then. After all, his behavior had given her the excuse she needed to end things. She never did own up to it, but before he’d come up with the grand plan to piss her off enough to break up with him, he’d caught a rumor that she had no intention of being in a relationship when she left for college. By doing it that way, Nico made it easier for her.
Not that it’d been a benevolent move on his part. Oh, no. He’d been far too self-serving back in high school.
But the most memorable part about the last time he’d been here had nothing to do with that fight and everything to do with—
“Hey, Nico!” Donovan Jameson called as he came around from the side of the house with another man walking beside him.
Not justanyman. That was Stone Jameson. What the hell was he doing here? He was supposed to be in Houston. Forever.
Fuck.
This was so not good.
As Nico watched them approach, he realized something. Turned out thatstunned speechlesswasn’t merely a figure of speech. It was real. And he knew because that was exactly what he was as the man who’d altered his world in the span of only a few hours quickly closed the gap that was separating them.
Both men were walking with their heads held high, backs straight. Every Jameson Nico had ever met was like that, proud of who they were, what they’d made of themselves. Another trait that held true was their dark hair, which these two showed off with thick stubble lining their jaws. Donovan, the oldest of Owen and Deborah’s five kids, was a massive man. Six feet four inches and built like a Mack truck, the guy could intimidate with just a look.
Then there was Stone, the second oldest, who, at one point, Nico had thought was the best-looking of all of them. Eh. Maybe he still thought that.
Back in the day, Stone had been smaller than his brother, not quite as intimidating. That wasn’t the case anymore. He was about an inch shorter than Donovan and just as broad. If the thick muscles that connected his neck to his shoulders—trapezius, he thought they were called—were any indication, the guy wasn’t lacking in the muscle department. In fact, he looked as though he spent every waking hour doing biceps curls.
