Page 8 of Irresistibly Wicked

“Don’t look at me. Your father makes the schedules.” She arched a brow at Preacher, sending a silent message Zander couldn’t read, as she sat down behind her desk.

“Come on, Preach. You’ve been making up menial shit for me to do for two weeks, sending me to Hyannis to pick up drawings, organizing the workshop, painting.”

“I’m not making anything up,” he said sternly. “We got a call, and I need to handle it.”

“Then give it to Zeke or Tobias,” Zander challenged.

His father’s jaw ticked, but when he spoke, his tone was softer. “Zan, we nearly lost you. You had a brain bleed.”

“Yeah, three months ago. The doctor cleared me to go back to work, and I’m going to lose my damn mind if you don’t give me some real work to do. Are you afraid I can’t do the job anymore?”

“Of course not,” his father said sharply. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. What if you’re up on a ladder or using a power tool and you get dizzy and fall or hurt yourself? I don’t want you landing back in the hospital.”

“I haven’t been dizzy in months. I’m recovered and clear-headed.” Sometimes it took him a few extra seconds to remember the name of a tool or something else, but it wasn’t often, and he didn’t forget important things, like how to do his job. But he wasn’t about to add that fuel to Preacher’s fire. “This isn’t about me not being fit to work, is it?” He gritted his teeth as Zeke and Tobias came into the office, eyeing them cautiously.

Zeke positioned himself closer to Zander than their father. He and Zander were near mirror images of each other, but Zeke had shorter, darker hair and less ink. Tobias, a former fighter with long light brown hair, dwarfed them both by a couple of inches and about thirty pounds of pure muscle, and stood at an equal distance between Zander and Preacher.

“Everything okay?” Zeke, always the mediator, asked.

“No,” Zander gritted out. “Preacher thinks I’m not ready to go back to real work.”

“You’re so damn stubborn,” Preacher seethed.

“I wonder where I learned that from,” Zander countered.

“Stop it.” Zeke lifted his chin in Preacher’s direction. “I’ve got Zan. I won’t let anything happen to him.”

“Jesus Christ,” Zander fumed. “Dude, I don’t need you watching out for me like a motherfucking hen.”

“I’m not being a mother hen,” Zeke insisted.

“You camped out at my place for three weeks after I got out of the hospital. That’s more than Mom was there. I’m not injured anymore. I can take care of myself.”

Zeke threw his shoulders back. “I never said you couldn’t.”

“You didn’t have to say it—”

“There are worse things in life than being too loved,” Tobias said evenly, his deep voice silencing them.

Zander gritted his teeth, Tobias’s point giving him pause. Tobias had lost his mother when he was young, he’d had a falling-out with his father, and had accidentally killed his sister’s fiancé, which severed his relationship with her at the same time he’d gone to prison. He and his family had since mended those broken fences, but he had a fucking point.

Before Zander could get a word out, his mother was on her feet, planting all five feet three inches of herself in the middle of them. She looked right at him and said, “Tobias is right. There’s more than enough to be angry at in this world, and being cared for too much shouldn’t be on that list.” She turned to Preacher. “But my sweet, stubborn husband, Zander is right, too. Yes, we almost lost him, and Lord knows that affected all of us.” Her attention shifted to Zeke as she said, “Deeply.”

Zeke glanced at Zander with an expression that made Zander’s chest constrict.

“But we didn’t lose him,” she said, her gaze softening as it moved over them. “I want to wrap each and every one of you in Bubble Wrap every time y’all walk out the door. That’s what love is, but there’s a fine line between protecting and suffocating. Preacher, you will push our son away if you try to cage him in. Haven’t we suffered enough loss?”

All their expressions turned serious with the painful reminder. They’d lost their cousin Ashley years ago, and not a day passed that Zander didn’t think about her. More recently, their cousin Tank’s wife, Leah, had lost her brother, River. They hadn’t known River, but through Leah, they’d come to know him, and since Tank and Leah were raising River’s two young daughters, they’d grieved with them, too. All of which underscored the reason Zander wanted to change his ways. His family had grieved enough. He didn’t need them worrying about him.

“You’re absolutely right, darlin’.” Preacher looked at Zander and said, “I need you on that job in Eastham, but after that, you’ll join the guys at the Martels’. But you have to promise me, if you feel off in any way, you’ll stop what you’re doing immediately and tell one of us.”

Zander gave a curt nod. “Understood.” Preacher turned his attention to Zeke, and Zander said, “Don’t even think about telling him to keep an eye on me.”

Preacher held his hands up in surrender. “I was just going to ask what he and Tobias needed.”

“We don’t need anything,” Zeke said. “Zan sounded angry, so we were seeing what was up.”

“See? You are a mother hen,” Zander said.