Page 34 of Newly Tied

She gave me a grunt of agreement.

“I will murder you both,” Lang told me and Stowe. “That’s my sister you’re talking about.”

“No,” Stowe responded, “McCabe and I were talking about my naive cousin who is now married to an accountant she adores and who worships her in return, so that worked out fine.”

“I refuse to let that man date my sister.”

We all watched as Talia and Sharpe got out their cell phones to exchange numbers.

“I think that ship has sailed,” Stowe told Lang, then squinted. “Also, you could never kill me, Ross. You come at me with homicidal intent, you’re a dead man.”

“What?”

“You said, ‘I will murder you both,’” I reminded him. “And while I feel you would most likely be overwhelmed by sentiment where I’m concerned, I think in Stowe’s case, she’s not sweatin’ your threat.”

“Not at all,” she confirmed.

“We both still find your attempt at intimidation wildly inappropriate.”

“Wildly,” one of the SOG guys repeated. “And I agree with McCabe—Stowe would gut you like a fish.”

“Aw, Matt,” she said, smiling at her colleague. “That’s so sweet.”

“Can we go?” another guy asked.

“No,” Lang snapped at him. “My sister needs to come with⁠—”

“Oh, she’s waving goodbye,” Stowe noted.

“He’s too old for her,” he muttered, bolting away from us toward Sharpe and Talia.

“She’s gotta be what, late twenties?” Stowe asked me.

“Actually, she’ll be thirty-one later this year.”

“Well, then that’s fine. Sharpe is either forty or forty-one, so basically, she’ll always be older than him mentally and emotionally anyway.”

I nodded.

Lang didn’t even reach them because Talia made a sweeping motion with her hand that basically told him to be gone. He stopped walking as Sharpe took her arm and called back something to Lang. Seconds later, I lost sight of them in the crowd milling outside.

When Lang turned around, I waved in case he forgot where we were, and Stowe did too. The way he charged over, I could tell he was fuming.

“Did it ever occur to you,” I began, “that the reason Sharpe has been lookin’ for love for so long is because he’s a romantic at heart and doesn’t wanna settle?”

“That’s very idealistic of you to even suggest that,” Stowe apprised me. “And while I think you’re being naive, you never know.”

“We’re melting here, people,” the guy who wanted to go earlier pointed out. “The only one of us who will live is McCabe.”

I did a slow turn for him with a sweeping gesture at my shorts and T-shirt. “This is what all the tactical response teams will be wearin’ this summer,” I told him.

“It’s one in the morning. Why is it still hot?” Matt complained, standing beside Stowe now.

“Can we go, Ross, or do you want to talk about your sister some more?”

Lang shook his head, grabbed my bicep, and tugged so I was walking right beside him on the way to the BearCat.

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