Chapter 3

People who dry swallow pills scare me.

-Reagan’s secret thoughts

Reagan

“I’m not falling for that again,” I told Kayla, who’d been the one to ask me if I wanted to go out for dinner. “Last time y’all sprung that entire freakin’ party—dinner—whatever on me. I don’t like crowds and y’all know that. You’re lucky I stayed as long as I did.”

Janie, who was working on her computer next to me, snorted.

I looked over at her with a glare to see her daughter soundly asleep on her chest while Janie typed away on her computer.

“What?” I asked.

“Your vagina’s skills are going to disappear if you don’t use it,” Janie offered, not taking her eyes off the computer screen.

“Fuck you,” I said. “And my vagina’s never had the chance to learn ‘skills’ as you say. It’s only been used once and whatever it learned that day was not to a skill worth developing.”

Kayla snickered. “I’m so glad that you left that weirdo.”

I was, too.

Though, at the time I hadn’t realized he was a weirdo.

When I met my now ex-boyfriend, I was thinking, holy shit! Someone likes me! Someone who knows what it’s like to not want to talk to anyone while still wanting someone around, you know, in case you needed them, or they needed you. But, as it turned out, I didn’t actually know Dusty as well as I thought I did.

When I tried to pursue my dreams, instead of supporting me in chasing them, he ruined my chance of ever going for them because I didn’t choose him.

Although, he claimed the accident was just that—an accident.

I knew better.

I’d seen his eyes right before the crash. I saw the way he’d narrowed them and tightened his hands on the steering wheel before he’d supposedly lost control.

I wasn’t stupid.

But it was kind of up for deliberation.

If I’d been smarter, I would’ve told everyone my suspicions.

Instead, everyone just thought we grew apart.

We hadn’t.

I didn’t want to be anywhere near him, so I broke up with him hours after our accident.

He’d been determined and hung around for a lot longer than I wanted him to, but eventually he got the message.

Kind of.

He might’ve gone away, but it was never for long.

He’d become slightly obsessed with me and turned into a stalker.

Luckily, I was now an hour away from him in a town that was just a tad too country for him to survive in—at least happily.

Dusty, despite his country name, was a city boy. He hated the rural towns and couldn’t stand there not being a Starbucks a few blocks away at all times.

He may be scholarly, so smart it wasn’t even funny, but he was also a stuck-up snob who refused to lower his standards by going to a town like Hostel.

I tried to get him to visit the antique stores in the smaller towns around Kilgore and the moment we parked, his expression took on the permanent lip curl that was a sure sign of his disgust until we left.

“God, I saw him the other day when I went home. He looked almost good. He’s grown out a beard and he looks so much less nerdy than what he used to,” Janie said, interrupting my thoughts.

“You can grow a beard, but that doesn’t magically grow you a set of balls,” I pointed out. “I’m sure he still wears perfectly starched blue jeans and wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of work boots.”

Nope, not Dusty. He was allergic to work—at least the physical variety that required him getting his hands dirty.

He was perfectly fine with going to the gym—one that barely anyone could afford because they charged its members an arm and a leg—but going outside and getting those hands involved in a little manual labor? Yeah, that was a big fat no.

Just another reason I’d started hating him toward the end of our relationship.

Though softball was a big part of my life, so were plants. I’ve had a love for them since I was old enough to help my Dad pick the garden plantings and landscaping foliage. From there, that love had turned into an inquisitiveness that had led me down the path of choosing botany as my career.

The fastest way to get Dusty upset was to show up for a date with dirt under my fingernails—which happened a lot. I loved to plant, garden, and grow all things. It wasn’t unheard of for me to lose myself for hours outside just working in the garden or my flower beds.

Therefore, showing up late for a date with dirt under my fingernails…yeah, that was a big no-no for him.

Apparently, it’d been a huge deal to Dusty…and one of the biggest fights we had was over my inability to clean myself properly for dates.

“Such a douche,” Janie confirmed. “I’m so glad that you got rid of him.”

I shrugged, unwilling to talk about that man any longer. “Anyway, I have a date already. We’re going to see the new Avengers movie.”

Janie rolled her eyes. “You and those Avengers. You do know that Thor isn’t real, right?”

I gave her a crestfallen look. “You’re lying.”

Janie rolled her eyes and snorted out a laugh, causing the baby on her chest to momentarily lift her head. Luckily, she just twisted and repositioned her face on the other side and went back to sleep.

“Shew,” Janie said. “I need her to take another solid hour nap, otherwise she’ll be cranky tonight.”

I picked up my keys at that comment and started walking toward the door.

“You’re not even going to say goodbye?” Kayla asked.

Janie hummed in agreement.

“Bye.”

***

The next night, I was at my movie with a massive bowl of popcorn and a Dr. Pepper the size of a two liter. I’d just found my spot, leaned down in my chair while putting my feet up onto the bars in front of me and started munching away while watching the previews when I felt the seat beside mine pull down.

Now, the theater was fairly crowded, but I’d purposefully chosen a seat that was in the middle of the theater, in the middle of two chairs, with people on either side of those chairs. That way, no one would sit beside me.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Someone did sit beside me.

Someone that I really, really didn’t want sitting there.

Tyler.

Police Chief Tyler Cree, according to Janie and Kayla.

I narrowed my eyes at the man while giving him a sideways glance and then decided to ignore him.

I’d have done a damn fine job of it, too, had he not tried to take over the freakin’ armrest. I gritted my teeth and leaned toward the other armrest while also shoving a handful of popcorn into my mouth.

Normally the armrest that your drink rests in is ‘yours.’ That’s just common movie theater etiquette. It was more than apparent that this man had none.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sat there in the first place.

The theater lights dimmed and I shifted in my seat, trying to find a more comfortable spot so that my ass didn’t hurt.

Apparently, during my fall yesterday in the mud, I’d royally bruised my ass and I was now paying the consequences for my clumsiness.

“Are you okay?” he asked, seemingly worried about me.

That had to be some sort of a trick question. The man couldn’t actually be concerned about little old me, could he?

Was it really even concern I heard in the asshole’s deep, sexy voice?

I shouldn’t have fallen for it.

I really shouldn’t have.

“When I fell yesterday, I must’ve done it on a rock or something in the mud. My asscheek is tender,” I told him.

I got up to use the restroom before anything good happened, intent on ignoring any more of his questions.

The only problem was that he followed me outside and caught me before I could so much as make it two steps out of the theater.

“Wait,” he ordered.

I sighed and waited, not surprised in the least when he made his move.

He circled around my body and I instantly regretted wearing the shorts.

“Hmm,” he said. “Looks just fine to me.”

I stiffened at his words.

“If you didn’t trespass on people’s land, then you wouldn’t get hurt,” he suggested.

I felt my hands clench in anger and when I turned around to confront his rude self, he was already walking away.

***

The next couple of hours were torture.

He sat beside me, eating my popcorn whenever he could sneak a handful during the action scenes while I wasn’t paying attention and succeeded in making me feel incredibly annoyed.

It was when we were walking out, him at my side, that I’d had enough.

“You’re a jerk,” I told him.

Tyler shrugged. “I’m honest. If that makes me a jerk? Oh fuckin’ well.”

He’d made it to his car at this point and I decided that we weren’t done.

Stomping toward him, I stopped about a foot from his car and said, “A police chief shouldn’t talk like that in public.”

He snorted and got into his truck—which was, of course, my dream truck and that made it even worse to be standing next to him and his vehicle.

Why did he have to have what I wanted? I couldn’t even admire the truck because that would give him an even bigger head than he had already.

And if he knew that I liked it, I had no doubt in my mind that he would taunt me with it.

He’d drive it past me, windows down, making me want to smack him. Or throw a rock at it, which would just get me in trouble with the law—as well as him.

I looked away from the beautiful truck—the 1969 GMC ¾ ton single cab lifted with thirty-two-inch tires.

I’d first seen the truck in my favorite movie, Sweet Home Alabama. From then on, I promised everyone who would listen that it would one day be mine.

Not the actual truck from the movie, but one similar to it.

“If you’re done, I gotta go. I have to go meet my sisters, nieces, and nephew for lunch.” He broke me out of my contemplation of his truck.

I smiled at him, which came out more like a grimace and turned and walked away without another word.

All the while, I wondered what it would take to get that cocky smile off his face.

I could probably punch it off…

***

Tyler

She was going to punch me.

I saw the contemplation and her desire to do it.

Not that she would ever be able to or anything.

Alana, my sister, and Autumn, my sister’s daughter, met me at the door. Autumn was now two and a half years old, but she looked like Alana’s mini-me and nothing like her father at all.

“Where’s the rest of the crew?” I asked.

Alana pointed at the parking lot where my other sister, Henley, was rolling in with her children.

She looked comical, to say the least.

She had three infants, all at different ages—kind of. It was a complicated story.

Henley and her husband Rhys Rivera, the 3^rd baseman for the professional baseball team, the Longview Lumberjacks, had gotten married. Shortly after the ceremony, they’d decided that they wanted children and they didn’t do it the normal way—which was naturally—at least not at first. They decided to get a surrogate and get in-vitro fertilization done.

Fast forward seven months and the twins were born early. Then, amidst all of the worrying about the twin’s health, Henley found out that she was expecting—as in she was already six months pregnant herself. Which meant that she had two four-month-olds and an infant who was less than three weeks old.

She looked tired, but she looked happy.

I left Alana and Autumn and headed to Henley, meeting her in the parking lot at her car.

“Thank you,” she groaned. “She may not look heavy, but she is.”

The youngest one that was barely three weeks old and looked just like her daddy and nothing like Henley. All dark eyes, dark hair, and tanned complexion, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that this baby belonged to Rhys Rivera—baseball’s sexiest player of the year.

The other two seemed to be a mix between Rhys and Henley, but Rhys’ traits still seemed to dominate where it was most obvious—in the twins’ eyes and their hair.

Though all three had dark curly hair in common, making their parentage undeniable.

“She’s like a cloud of squishy,” I teased, looking down at the baby girl. “Why didn’t you just bring the stroller in?”

She shrugged and looked as if she was sorry she hadn’t done that now. “I would have, but there’s no room in any restaurant for a stroller that big. Plus, I knew y’all would be here, so I saw no reason not to just bring them this way.

‘This way’ being one in a carrier, another in a car seat, and the other in her arm.

I rolled my eyes. “And where is your husband? I thought he was supposed to join us for dinner.”

Henley smiled. “He was, but then he got a call from the Make a Wish Foundation. A little boy’s final wish was to meet Rhys. This was supposed to be set up for next week, but then they found out that the little boy didn’t have a good prognosis. They didn’t expect him to be coherent enough next week to even realize who Rhys was, so he flew out to Indiana this morning around nine.”

I felt my gut clench.

“That’s nice of him,” I murmured. “And really sad.”

Henley smiled sweetly. “I think if you gave Rhys a chance, you might realize that he’s actually a really good guy.”

There were still some things that I wasn’t quite sure about when it came to my sister and her husband.

I wasn’t a dumb person.

Nobody, not even one with money, got married and started having kids—even the normal way—without taking at least a little bit of time for themselves. Henley and Rhys hadn’t. Not even a little bit of time to breathe.

Then there were all the rumors that I’d heard when it’d come to my sister’s husband and what I’d heard wasn’t good.

But, I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I was going to be the good big brother and watch out for her, but I was also going to let her live her own life.

If she ever needed me, I’d be there.

And she knew that.

“We’ll see,” I teased. “You ready to eat?”

Henley narrowed her eyes on me for a few short seconds and then shrugged. “Ravenous. This breastfeeding thing for three babies is a never-ending revolving door. I consume like three thousand calories a day and I’m still losing weight.”

“You’re losing weight because you weren’t fat to begin with and your hubby makes you go on walks every day because he can’t stand to sit still for more than an hour at a time,” Alana said. “Did you know that he was up at four this morning making the rounds around the ranch? Swear to God, I think he never sleeps.”

Henley snorted. “He was up making the rounds, as you say, because he knew he couldn’t do it at the normal time and the animals need to be fed. He remembered that you were off and he didn’t want me to have to do it again since it should have been your turn today.”

I walked up to the hostess stand and smiled at her. “We need a table for like fifteen.”

“Tyler,” Alana smacked me. “We need a table big enough for the three of us and these babies. I need three high chairs, one of which needs to be capable of holding a car seat.”

Henley handed me the diaper bag that she’d had crossed over her chest and I hefted that up, too, shifting the baby in my arms to the side to balance out the weight.

Henley was right. The more I held the little girl, the heavier she got.

Though…she still felt tiny, just a little awkward since she was so small that she had to be cradled to my chest.

I’ve gotten a lot of baby experience since Autumn, my eldest niece, was born.

But I’ve gotten a lot more since Henley’s three were born.

I’ve become a part of their life again and I was regretting ever leaving it.

I was also pissed that I’d allowed two people to dictate how I’d lived it. Allowed the hurt I’d felt to keep me from my hometown and my sisters.

Because if I’d been here, I would’ve known a whole lot more about what was going on with Rhys and Henley’s relationship and I wouldn’t be totally in the dark about their marriage when my gut was telling me something was off about their interactions concerning the children.

The baby in my arms started to whimper and I turned my attention to her as we weaved through the tables and chairs, not paying any attention to the occupants of those chairs.

If I had been paying attention, I would’ve seen the two people that I did not want to see—despite my promise to myself and others that I was over what had happened.

“Is this good?” the hostess asked as she pointed at a table.

I looked at it and laughed. It was a table for ten.

“Yeah,” I murmured between laughs. “This will be perfect.”

“Okay, great,” she said as she set our menus down. “Have y’all been here before?”

All of us looked at her like she was crazy.

Texas Roadhouse was one of the oldest restaurants in Longview—everyone who lived in the area had been here at some point.

“Uh, yes,” Henley answered. “We have.”

Alana and I were too busy rolling our eyes.

“Okay, good. I like to hear that y’all have been here before, because then you know what to expect,” she said.

“Well, usually y’all bring rolls out when you seat us…” Alana pointed out.

The hostess flushed. “Oh, yeah. I forgot to get those.”

She looked at me once and then both of my sisters looked at me accusingly.

“What?” I asked.

The hostess set our silverware down and gestured with her finger that she’d just be a minute before hurrying away.

“She forgot our rolls because she was too busy looking at you. Honestly, I’m surprised that she was able to weave her way through those tables without falling flat on her face with the way she kept her eye on you,” Alana pointed out the moment that the hostess was gone.

I shrugged and gestured toward the seat. “Sit your ass down.”

“She forgot the highchairs, too,” Alana groaned.

I took a quick glance around and spied them in the corner two tables over.

Moving in that direction, I had my hand on one of them when a woman came barreling out of the bathroom at the same time that I bent over, running straight into me.

I didn’t move.

But the woman did.

“Oh, I’m so so…” Reagan’s eyes met mine. “You.”

I stood up to my full height and raised my brows at the woman. “Are you following me or something? Because I’m forty-five minutes away from the town we live in and this is mighty convenient.”

I had a huge smile on my face, despite the weirdness of seeing her there.

I liked this woman—even if she did have an attitude.

Reagan rolled her eyes and then looked down at the baby in my arms. Her eyes softened. “Oh, so small.”

I grunted, remembering why I was in the corner and reached for two high chairs.

“I got one,” Reagan said. “If you take two, you’re going to end up whacking that poor man in the head. He looks kind of beat up already.”

I had one in my hand when I instinctively turned to see what ‘beat up man’ she was talking about, only to see Rome seated in a booth one down from our own table.

And I didn’t have to see the woman’s face to know that the person sitting across the booth from him was Tara. I knew her based solely on the color and texture of her hair.

Always so smooth and sleek and straight, it’d been down to her mid-back when I’d met her—and was left by her. Now, it was a little shorter, but not by much.

I tightened my hand around the high chair and started walking, knowing I had no choice but to pass by them.

Rome had probably seen me the moment that I’d sat down, though.

He’d always had a sixth sense when it’d come to me—as I had him. Though that was long gone now, but when we were kids and we were growing up together—he’d been my best friend in the whole wide world.

Through high school and then the marines…he was there for me. He was the one person I could always count on.

Now, not so much.

“Rome.” I nodded my head at him.

Rome, eyes wide, said, “Tyler.”

His eyes went to the woman I could feel at my back, the baby in my arms and then me.

I knew what he was assuming—that this was our family.

You couldn’t tell that she was Henley’s—mostly because her kids were at different ages. It was easy to assume.

I kept walking and set the high chair down next to an open spot where Alana had made room for it and Reagan had done the same over by Henley.

My sisters didn’t waste time and didn’t care that Reagan was there, they started right in.

“Oh my God. Did you see that look that Tara gave you?” Henley whispered wide-eyed. “And I thought Rome was going to cry. By the way, Rome is a professional football player. That’s probably why he looks so beat up.”

That was true. I’d seen the deep-seated sorrow in Rome’s eyes.

He didn’t want to be where he was. He regretted it.

Well, I wasn’t the one who left—who did what he did. That was all him.

And I had no control over his thoughts and actions.

I shrugged and took a seat, all the while Henley and Alana spoke, not caring that likely Tara and Rome could hear them, or that Reagan was still right there.

Shit.

“I mean, he was the one who cheated with your girlfriend. The least he could do is not talk to you. But, every time I see him in town, he asks about you, wants to know how you’re doing. Acting like he didn’t commit the ultimate betrayal as a friend.” Alana shook her head. “I saw them at the bank last week. He did not look happy to be standing next to her and when he got a couple thousand dollars cash out and handed it over to her, he looked like he wanted to throttle her.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Instead, I studied the woman that was still standing there, looking at me like she was trying to figure me out.

Good luck.

Even I couldn’t figure me out.

Noisily, Reagan pulled out a chair that was guaranteed to draw every single eye in the entire restaurant due to how much racket she made and took a seat at my side.

Then she leaned forward, placing her mouth near my ear.

“Don’t think that this makes me like you anymore,” Reagan hissed. “I hate you, but I’m doing this because you look pathetic.”

I felt my lips twitch as I turned to look at Reagan. Our faces were within inches of each other’s and if I moved forward even a little bit, our lips would be touching.

Momentarily, I forgot that Rome and Tara were even in the room. Instead, I focused on the woman that was sitting there, all piss and vinegar, looking like she was ready to fight me.

Her five-foot-three-inch, one-hundred-twenty-pound self thought she could best me?

That was almost comical.

And I say almost because she honestly looked like she’d try to take me. She wouldn’t win, of course…but she’d give it her best shot.

“What makes you think that I want—or even need—your help?” I questioned. “I’ve been doing just fine for thirty-five years, darlin’. I can keep living my life without your haughty input or your glares.”

Then I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers.

She let me and I felt something inside of me zing to life. Something I hadn’t felt since Tara.

We both pulled back—the lip touch so small and sweet that it might’ve barely registered if I hadn’t felt that spark—and stared at each other.

She was narrowing her eyes at me and I was grinning like a fool.

I heard a glass break somewhere in the vicinity of Tara and Rome’s table and I knew that something we’d done had gotten to one or the other—maybe both.

I didn’t care one goddamn bit about the two of them, though.

I just wanted my lips back on hers.

Then the baby in my arms started to squirm and I leaned away from her.

“That was epic,” Henley breathed. “I can’t believe you did that. Who are you again?”

I rolled my eyes. “Henley, Alana, this is my trespasser, Reagan. Trespasser, these are my sisters, Henley on your left, with the eighteen children and Alana, right. The little girl in the high chair is Alana’s daughter, Autumn.”

“And who is this one?” Reagan gestured toward the baby in my arms, ignoring the jab of her being a trespasser.

“This one is Mellie. The one my sister is holding is Marshall and the one in the car seat is Maddie.” I pointed at each kid.

I could practically see the wheels in Reagan’s mind turning.

She wanted to know how all these kids were my sister’s when they were obviously not only close in age but also different ages.

Maybe if she was nice, I’d tell her later.

“Well, that’s a handful,” Reagan said. “All those M names will get confusing. My stepmother and dad already get confused and none of our names start with the same letter.”

I snorted. “I think that’s every parent, though. Our mother still calls us “Alana-Tyler-Henley” until she gets whichever one of us she wanted to answer.”

Reagan’s lips twitched and she looked up to see if Tara and Rome were still watching. They were. I could see them out of the corner of my eye and Rome was actually turned in his seat, smiling.

Tara was actually glaring.

Nice.

“I was going to just say hi, but now she’s glaring and I feel like I need to prove a point and join y’all…but I don’t really like talking. So, if I could just sit here and y’all ignore me, that’d be cool,” Reagan asked hopefully.

Henley snickered. “Oh, Tyler. I like her.”

“That sucks for you,” I said. “Because she hates me. Oh, and you forgot the part about her trespassing. Let’s not forget stealing.”

Reagan’s gaze burned into the side of my face. “I was looking at moss. I took moss. I don’t think you give a shit about the moss, loser. You care about the fact that I was on your property…which I’m not going to apologize for. It was all in the name of research.”

My sisters rolled their eyes in unison.

“Tyler has a thing,” Alana offered. “He doesn’t like people in his space. He’s OCD like that. He also probably will look at that patch of moss you scraped off his tree and feel moved to go scrape the rest off just because of the chunk missing.”

The hostess came back with the rolls and set them down quickly before leaving, not saying a word.

Reagan gasped. “You can’t!”

Already did.

Oops.

“Why not?” I countered.

I mean, it didn’t matter what she thought because it was already done, but I still wouldn’t mind hearing her opinions on why I shouldn’t.

What I didn’t expect was for her to go into clinical detail on why moss was good for the environment, what ate the moss, where it grew…and honestly, I was surprised that I actually listened to it all.

“Wow, I never knew,” Henley said as she reached for a roll.

I did the same, then tried to figure out how I was going to get butter on it while holding a baby.

Henley and Alana snickered at my predicament, but neither of those bitches stopped to help me figure out how to make it work.

Then Reagan snatched the roll out of my hand, slathered it with an insane amount of butter—just how I liked it—and handed it back to me.

I winked at her. “Keep doing nice things and I’m going to think that you actually like me…”

She surreptitiously flipped me off.

I winked at her to let her know I wasn’t offended in the least.

“Well…” Henley said. “These rolls aren’t going to last very long with all of us eating them.”

“That’s because they’re God’s gift to mankind…and this butter. MMMM.” Reagan moaned.

I looked away from her in the throes of a buttergasm and turned to survey the wall, trying to count to ten without allowing my dick to get hard at the sight of her.

“So…why are you here?” I asked. “Did you come to eat? Are you here with anyone?”

Reagan shook her head. “I was going to surprise my dad and bring him lunch at work, but then he got a call—he’s a SWAT officer with the Kilgore Police Department—and I decided to use the restroom in hopes that it would be a bogus call. Since he hasn’t called back, I’m assuming it wasn’t one.”

I pulled out my phone and looked at my messages.

“It wasn’t. An old lady decided she was going to hold her nurse hostage because she kept stealing her pain meds,” I read the text from a friend.

Her brows rose.

“How do you know that?” she questioned.

I wiggled my phone. “Got a lot of buddies on the force. I’m ex-military and I was on the SWAT team for a few years before I moved to Hostel.”

Her brows went up even farther.

Much farther and they’d disappear into her hairline.

“Who’s your father?” I asked, taking one last bite of roll.

It was so fuckin’ good.

“Bennett…”

“Alvarez?” I confirmed.

She nodded.

I moaned. “Shit.”

Bennett Alvarez was a buddy. A buddy who was a good enough one that I had no right in the world to find his daughter attractive.

Son of a bitch.

“I knew that he had his daughter young…”

“Sixteen,” she confirmed, smiling.

“But I didn’t realize that you were this old,” I mentioned.

“Twenty-five.”

I felt my stomach clench.

Twenty-five. I’m nearly ten years older than her! I also know her father quite well. This age difference feels huge to me, although it really isn’t.

Holy balls.

The baby in my arm started to fuss and I expertly moved her up on my shoulder and started to pat her little bottom.

My eyes traveled across the table to my sisters who were clearly enraptured by the scene playing out in front of them—the Tyler and Reagan show.

“What?” I asked them both.

Alana’s eyes were wide and excited. “I’ve never seen you fight with a woman before,” she murmured. “It’s just surprising to me because you’re always this sweet little Tyler with everyone…and then there’s this girl.”

Henley added her two cents, too. “Tyler has everyone fooled. See, he puts on this happy face, smiles and acts like everything is perfect. Then BAM! He hits them with the mean. They never see it coming. He plays the good cop really, really well and honestly, I think you’re the first person in a long time that has not only seen through his act but also calls him out on it.”

Reagan looked over at me, causing me to roll my eyes at my sisters in her direction. “He must’ve been having an off day with me, then. Did I tell you he caused me to fall in the mud?”

Henley and Alana both gasped. “No!” they both exclaim in unison.

“Yeah,” Reagan said, then stood up and turned around. “Look at this bruise on my butt. And now I see a scratch, too.”

It wasn’t exactly on her butt. It was on her thigh.

But it did look worse today than it had yesterday.

Shit.

Now I was trying to ignore how shapely her ass looked and how bad I felt about her falling, even though it wasn’t my fault.

“Ewww,” Henley said.

“That’s gonna probably scar,” Alana said as she leaned over the table to get a better look. “But just this part right here,” she touched the outside edge with the tip of one finger.

It was the part on the curve of her ass cheek and most likely, nobody would ever even see it.

A throat cleared and instinctively I caught Reagan’s hand and pulled her toward me, almost behind me, so that she was behind my back.

Unfortunately, she was also staring at the wall, so she had to do some maneuvering to get herself turned around with the limited amount of space between the wall and my chair.

By the time she situated herself, everyone else was already looking at the two people who were standing in front of our table.

Tara and Rome.

“Tara. Romero.” I nodded my head as carefully as I could, hoping not to give any of my emotions away.

“Rome,” Tara said. “Say what you have to say.”

Then Tara walked away, leaving Rome standing there, not watching her go.

Instead, he was staring at me like I was the one who stabbed a knife through his heart and not the other way around.

“You have a baby?” Rome asked, sounding like that question had been ripped from his soul.

We’d always said that our children would always be a part of each other’s lives. We’d been that close.

Now, we were nothing to each other.

“I…”

“What does it matter?” Reagan asked, placing her hand on my shoulder.

I had no idea how much I’d needed her touch until she’d given it. The moment that she laid her hand on me, as innocent as it was, I felt something inside of me settle. Something, somewhere in the vicinity of my heart, my soul, that hadn’t settled in a very long time.

Rome’s eyes went from me and the baby to Reagan. “Are you his wife?”

Reagan shook her head. “Girlfriend,” she lied.

Rome swallowed thickly, then turned his eyes back to me. “Promises are made to be broken.”

Then he turned on the heel of his boots, ignored the people staring at the local celebrity in awe, and forged his way out of the crowd of people that were milling about at the door waiting to get in only like a linebacker for a professional football team could.

“Well, that wasn’t awkward or anything,” Henley said, breaking the silence. “I can see why he thought one of these babies was yours, Tyler. One day, these kids are all going to be the same size and I’m going to be able to tell people that they’re all mine without having to explain away the situation I’m in.”

I snorted. “Good luck with that, sister. You should’ve thought about that before you went and had three babies so close together.”

Reagan sat down in her seat. “It’d be really nice to know what happened…because from a bystander’s point of view, it does look quite odd. Sometimes it’s easier to explain something if you make your own assumptions. Kind of why everyone thinks she’s yours.”

That was true. The human mind often finds the easiest explanation for everything. That was why most of the population didn’t believe in ghosts, because they explained away any instance of paranormal activity as something else—something tangible, something real.

My smile grew.

Mostly because I liked that Reagan was spouting off one of my most favorite lines in the world. Making your own assumptions about things is the way of the world. Unless they have concrete facts—like research—they’re not believing it.

I also noticed that she hadn’t made a move to leave, even though the threat to my person was gone.

“So, do you believe in ghosts?” I asked, a smile on my face.

“Oh, Lord,” Alana moaned. “Please don’t.”

Reagan turned to me. “What do you mean? Actual ghosts? Or unexplainable things happening like objects moving of their own accord? What kinds of ghosts?”

I grinned. “Anything. Everything.”

“I believe that there is such a thing as a ghost,” she nodded. “I had this friend and whenever she’d walk into her house, the reception on her cell phone went out. Clocks didn’t work in her house, either. The baby monitor didn’t work and if it did happen to work, it picked up the neighbor’s monitor. It was the strangest thing. But…that was it. It did make me wonder, though and I researched it a little bit when I was seventeen or eighteen. From there, my curiosity grew.”

I grinned. “If you weren’t such a pain in the ass, I’d ask you out on a date.”

Henley snorted. “Tyler here is a paranormal freak. He likes to blame things that shouldn’t happen on ghosts.”

I shrugged unrepentantly.

There had to be an explanation for the unexplainable. There had to. There was a reason for everything.

The baby in my hands started to cry and I did what any man would do…I gave her to her mother.

The moment my hands were free, I reached for the last roll, dipped it deep into the butter and moved it to my mouth.

My eyes closed as the deliciousness hit my tongue.

I didn’t eat like this often…but when I did, I did it up.

I’m talking like eighteen rolls, a huge, forty-ounce steak, some macaroni and cheese, a big ol’ glass of sweet tea—oh and dessert—a big slice of apple pie.

By the time I’d finished my meal a half an hour later, I was well and truly stuffed—and Reagan was looking at me like I’d just done the impossible.

“Where do you put it all?” she asked, letting her eyes roam up and down my body.

I grinned.

My sister, however, answered for me.

“Tyler is a health nut ninety-eight percent of the time. The other two percent he reserves for Texas Roadhouse and Mom’s lasagna. Good luck trying to get him to eat like this with you any other time,” Henley said as she stood up.

I handed the waitress my card and she took it.

By the time Henley and Alana had all their children ready to go, the waitress was back with my card and the bill. I signed it and left a huge tip.

“Wow,” Reagan said when she saw the fifty-dollar tip. “Big spender,” she teased.

I shrugged. “She’s pregnant.”

“And Tyler is a sucker for pregnant women. Any other time, he would’ve left a normal tip, but he sees someone pregnant? He’s going to go out of his way to help her,” Alana butted in.

I rolled my eyes.

“Why?” she asked. “Pregnant women are just as capable as regular women and even some men. What’s the difference?”

Henley handed the baby over to me again and I cradled her in my arms.

“Mainly because our mom was pregnant with Tyler when she was in nursing school, alone and struggling. She was pregnant when Alana’s father left her. She had to do it all on her own while she was pregnant and that left a big impression on a young Tyler’s mind,” Henley said as she hefted the car seat.

Alana took the car seat from her hands and then reached for Autumn’s hand. Autumn took it from where she was standing next to her mother’s side and started to walk as Alana spoke over her shoulder.

“Tyler’s not as bad as he seems,” Alana explained as she weaved her way through the tables. “But…you have to get past the crusty outer shell to get to the nice guy underneath.”

Reagan gave me a look that clearly said she didn’t think there was a nice guy underneath my layers.

She was right. There wasn’t.

It was just that sometimes my conscience got the better of me and I stepped over the line of mean and into nice territory.

Needless to say, I tried not to do that very often.

Being nice led you to doing things for people who didn’t appreciate it.

“I’ll have to remember that,” Reagan said dryly. “Y’all have a good day.”

With that, she left, not once looking back.

“Oh, I like her,” Henley said.

“Me, too,” Alana concurred.

I snorted. “As long as you don’t expect me and her to be together, I don’t care what you think.”

Both of my sisters snorted.

Apparently, they thought they knew something that I didn’t.

But they were wrong.

There was not one single thing that I’d do with that girl.

No. Nope. Nuh-uh.