Rafe watched the three women for the longest time as he stood in the Becks’ kitchen. He’d ridden back to his place with his cousin. Chance had to watch the baby while his wife worked with her sister and sister-in-law to flesh out the next saga in their video game. He’d ridden back with his cousin and somehow found his way back to the neighbors’.

He wasn’t quite sure how it happened.

Rafe appreciated Chance’s help, even though he hadn’t gotten a definitive answer.

Travis came up behind him and watched as well. Rafe looked at him, not surprised to see the love his younger brother felt for Lacy McGareth right there on Travis’ face for everyone to see.

Rafe envied his brother.

Envied his ability to embrace how he felt about anything, especially that girl. Envied that Travis had a woman to love him like that.

Envy that Travis wasn’t afraid to love her. “You’re lucky, you know that?”

“Every minute since that damned Lanning touched her. Look at her, Rafe. Who would have thought a woman like that would love me?”

“You got lucky Lanning didn’t kill her. Bastards like that win more than they lose. Those three pretty women over there, perfect targets for them. And they don’t even know it. Right there next to you one moment, then their lights are gone in the next. Just boom. Dead. And there’s nothing you can do about it.” His words came out harsher than he’d intended. It was the way Jillian looked that hit him like a two-by-four. She was paler than usual, and it was obvious her friends were hovering. Worried. He never wanted to worry about someone like that again. Even Travis, Marcus, and the kids were too much. And now, thanks to Travis, Lacy. Lacy felt like the straw that broke this camel’s back at the moment. “Except hold them as they die.”

“What happened to you over there?” Travis asked softly.

“Don’t ask, Trav. It’s not something I’m going to talk about. Just know that men like you, like Chance and Elliot, half the time I think you’re fools. Other times...” He looked back at the women when Ariella laughed. Rafe studied her for a moment. She reminded him of Nadal when she laughed like that. Big brown eyes, so slender and sweet.

The sweet naiveté, the innocence she couldn’t hide. The vulnerability that was written all over her. Lacy, for all her spirit and fire, wasn’t any less vulnerable. Nowhere near healed. She still looked so achingly fragile. She had proven that, too.

As had the fiery little redhead between them.

His brother was silent for a long moment, as the denizens of the Beck house went just about everywhere around them. Rafe wasn’t used to so much of his family in one place.

“Who was she, Rafe? And did you love her?”

He had two brothers, a niece and nephew, and a sister right there. It was hard to miss that she was just that.

Damn it.

He looked at one of the most perceptive men he knew. Whether Rafe wanted to talk about it or not, Travis would push until he understood. His brother was relentless. “Yes. But not like that. Like I loved Carissa. And Nadal died, too. Victim of a bomb at the building we were using as a mobile hospital for vaccinating kids. She was a nurse and so damned beautiful. She and her husband were killed, along with forty-two others. Hospital staff and patients. I was lucky to get out. Less than a dozen of us did that day.” Rafe figured the scar on his forehead. Rubble had knocked him for a loop. He’d wakened just in time to watch Nadal and her husband fall as the floors above him had collapsed.

They’d held each other the entire way down.

He’d been trapped under stairs for hours. With them beside him, trapped and dying. He’d been helpless. Useless.

If they had jumped a few moments earlier, they might have survived. But they’d trusted emergency crews to save them. In Djibouti, Africa.

He hadn’t felt so lucky six months ago. He’d just been off of crutches himself when he’d gotten the news that Travis was stuck in a Japanese hospital. He’d been terrified there would be more wrong with his brother than the simple broken leg Marcus had promised him it was. Rafe had panicked. He’d hopped the first plane he could get to Tokyo, and rushed to his brother’s side. Travis had been fine. He hadn’t needed Rafe that much.

But Rafe had needed him. He’d broken down and cried outside the hospital two hours before he’d checked his younger brother out. Grieved for the ones he’d lost that day.

Those forty-two lost souls would always weigh on him.

He’d never understood why he had lived and they hadn’t. He probably never would.

“Shit. I sure am glad you did. I’d miss your ugly face. You know that, right? Guy can never have too many older brothers around to give him a hard time.” Travis smiled when Lacy looked over at him and grinned her 2000-watt smile back. “I’m sorry about your friends. You should have told us. Marc and I could have helped you.”

“It was too soon. After Carissa. Nadal was a lot like her, with that same sense of humor—but a lot like Ariella, too. That same damned naiveté. So damned like her I can’t get it out of my head. I see Nadal when I look at her sometimes. Women that vulnerable bring problems.”

Just like the three of those women right there in front of him. He couldn’t think of a bundle of problems more terrifying than those three right there.

Jillian leaned against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. Rafe fought every damned urge he had telling him to go scoop her up and put her back in bed where she belonged.

It wasn’t his place. She wasn’t his problem. She never would be.

“That why you’re so reserved with her? It’s kind of hard to miss.” Travis lifted the beagle puppy that now accompanied him and Lacy just about everywhere off the Becks’ dining room table. Horace had pitiful manners. “You scare her. And everyone’s noticed. I think Marc is taking it personally.”

Rafe searched out their older brother, and sure enough, he was right there next to Ariella’s end of the couch. Rafe hadn’t even noticed his older brother being there.

Marcus was laughing at something Lacy had said, but no one was overly exuberant. Mostly out of respect for Jillian’s obvious headache. She was being an idiot. She didn’t need to be entertaining people. She needed to be tucked up in her bed resting.

He took half a step forward, ready to tell her just that, when he stopped himself.

Jillian was not his problem. Period.

He was not responsible for that woman at all.

It was too late, anyway. Jillian was out.

Ariella grabbed a hand-knit throw off the back of the couch and covered the now sleeping redhead gently.

She and Lacy moved off the couch, then leaned down and rearranged Jillian so she’d be more comfortable.

Rafe felt some of the tension slip out, as he watched Lacy check Jillian’s pulse almost instinctively, watched Ariella tuck the blanket tighter around Jillian’s legs. She’d be well taken care of. She didn’t need him hovering.

She didn’t need him.

“You know she’ll just kick it off, right?” Chance’s wife asked. “If she doesn’t fall off of there. Jillian kicks like crazy. It’s why we never let her have the top bunk ever.”

“You’re not one to talk, babe. I’ve got the bruises to prove it.” Chance looked at Lacy. “She ok?”

“Stubborn. Of course. I don’t know a Beck yet who’s not.”

“Hey, we resemble that remark,” Barratt’s wife said from the kitchen where she was dictating to her minions to make lunch for everyone again. “It’s a Beck staple. And it’s gotten us this far. Even you add-on Becks and the men who followed you home, McGareth.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. He and his dog are kind of cute. His brothers followed Elliot home first, though.” Rafe’s future sister-in-law had a snarky wit that pissed him off sometimes, Rafe had to admit. But it also amused.

Until a man realized she used it to keep people at a distance when she was feeling insecure. Or when someone said something that made her uncomfortable.

He suspected that while she adored the Becks, it still disconcerted her how welcomed they’d actually made her. How they’d accepted her and made her a part of their family, made her belong.

Lacy had been alone in the world for a long time. For all the shit he’d dealt with, at least he’d had his brothers.

Rafe looked at Travis and Marcus. Travis was practically barnacling himself around Lacy, obviously trying to cuddle her into comfort again, the goofy puppy now on her lap, too. The two were pitiful.

The biggest thorn in Rafe’s side—next to Jillian—at FCGH had been Lacy McGareth. Odds of her and his own brother falling so hard for each other were just ridiculous. Yet they had. He was half suspecting Lacy was good for the needing-to-pamper-someone type that Travis was, at least.

Marcus was watching Travis and Lacy with a pensive look on his own face. The memories were right there in his eyes. Rafe felt a short, sharp stab of grief for the woman Marcus had loved. His brother was a great man, a great leader, a great father, but he was doing it all alone.

Why hadn’t he ever realized how alone Marcus was? Rafe knew exactly how that loneliness felt now.

Ariella said something quietly that Rafe missed. But Marcus didn’t. Rafe’s brother leaned down where he could hear what she was saying. Marcus’ hand landed on her back. Rafe’s brows went up when she side-stepped Marcus quickly—and easily. Practiced.

How often had she avoided men just like that?

Marcus just watched her step into the kitchen, a strange look on his face. What was that all about? Rafe was going to ask Marcus just that later. A man like his brother would terrify Ariella, didn’t Marcus see that?

She was so sweet and shy and awkward at times. Marcus would completely overwhelm her, even as a friend.

Rafe pushed aside the irritation. Why the hell was he pissed at his brother for what he didn’t even know was happening? Most likely Marcus was just being kind to their future sister-in-law’s best friend. Or Rafe’s sister. That’s all it was.

He certainly didn’t have to protect Ariella from Marcus.

Rafe wasn’t about to let himself care about Ariella. It was hard enough to wrap his head around the idea that Lacy McGareth was going to be a part of his family. That, heaven help him, he’d have to let her in. Let himself care about her because Travis did. Because she was becoming his family.

Damn it. Rafe didn’t want those connections.

He looked toward the door, a vague thought of escaping hitting him. He was going to do it, too.

Until the bane of his very existence twisted on the couch and nearly rolled right into the floor. Rafe cursed quietly and reached out a hand. When had he moved so damned close?

He caught Jillian before she tumbled off and nudged her back over. She sighed and snuggled the soft gray couch far too sweetly for his own peace of mind. He straightened the blanket, then stepped away as if his hand had been burned.

And nearly tripped over the coffee table. He scooted it back in case she fell again. Then left her right there where she was.

Jillian Beck was not going to be his problem.

Period.