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“I’m so sorry I didn’t come to you first. I owed you both that. And that was a misstep that I don’t expect to be forgiven.”
“Broderick Allen,” Juniper scolded—her tone almost… insulted?—as a truck engine roared to life out front.
“Son, I say this with all the love in the world, but you’re an idiot,” Milo said, shaking his head. Leighton, Brex and Finn burst out laughing while I tried to numb the hit to my ego. “Do you think a father could watch a man defend his daughter’s honor, have her back when she went rogue, and then boldly declare his intentions in the face of a house full of pissed-off, fully grown men who brawl for fun… and not be grateful for him?” When I raised my eyes, he smiled in that fatherly way of his. The same one he used when we messed up as kids. Kind, but firm. “You’ve always been a son to me, Broderick. If you want to make it legal by marrying the most bullheaded of our daughters…I couldn’t think of a better fit.”
I would not cry in front of Milo Rhodes. The lump in my throat begged to differ, but I reached for the whiskey glass closest to me on the table and knocked it back, just in case.
“That’s uh…a hell of an endorsement, sir.”
“You’re a hell of a man, Mr. Allen.”
The front door banged open, and Jameson took two long strides before huffing a harsh breath. “Let’s go.”
“What?” I asked before he leveled me with a glare.
“Come on. Get in the truck.”
“If you’re going to bury me in a swamp, the one at the back of the lot will do.”
Jameson dead panned, the sigh sagging his shoulders speaking to years of exhaustion. “Get in the fucking truck, Brod.”
“Now, James,” Milo started, but Jameson rolled his eyes, pointing an aggressive arm out the door.
“I’m not gonna kill him,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes before looking at me with expectation on his face. “We’re gonna go catch his fucking girl.”
THIRTY-ONE
BRODERICK
Jameson took the last turn into the airport like his hair was on fire, rubber squealing across the rain-slicked asphalt. Never had an ‘oh shit’ handle been squeezed as tightly as mine while he mobbed through the city in a classic Florida rainstorm.
“Maybe the weather delayed it,” he said hopefully.
“They’re supposed to be boarding right now,” I pointed out as my stomach turned in one last somersault.
“Still not picking up?” Noel asked from her precarious spot sitting between us. I just shook my head. I’d called Elora half a dozen times since we tore out of the driveway, but she hadn’t answered once.
“We’ll catch her,” James said, frustration still seeping off him as he tapped Paxton’s face on the touch screen again.
“I still don’t understand why you’re helping me,” I admitted.
“Because I love you, asshole.”
“You seem mad,” Noel pointed out.
“I am mad.”
Grimacing, I said, “I couldn’t help but fall for her, man.”
“I’m not mad you fell for Elora,” he ground out as we caught air over a speed bump.
“You’re not?”
“No, dumbass. I’m mad you fucking hid it. That you didn’t do what would make you happy for seventeen goddamn-fucking years and I’m to blame.”
“I don’t blame you,” I countered.
“We made that cocksucker of a pact when I couldn’t escape Mindy because Hads kept bringing her around the house. It is my fault. You’ve always been too damn good for me.”
