Page 26 of Tiger Betrayal

Stunned, she automatically looked over at the service window. Stellan was pulling a tire off the machine, with a faraway look in his dull eyes.

“Your mom wasn’t nice?”

Dame shook his head. “She was as close to the devil as I’ve ever seen. Mars and I gave up by age ten, but Stellan hung on. He wanted her to care.”

Oof. Her heart ached as she remembered the picture in his hallway of the aloof woman and Stellan as a boy smiling so brightly as he clung to her.

“Why are you telling me this?” she whispered.

“Because Stellan feels like shit for what happened the other day,” Mars told her. “He’s replayed it to us a few times. He never talks about stuff like that. He keeps reworking it in his mind. There’s regret. He doesn’t know how to do the emotional talks to make things better though.” He gestured to the vase. “The blue flowers are the only tool he’s got.”

The brothers pushed off the counter and turned just as Stellan came through the service door. He cast her a quick glance and then averted his gaze and followed his brothers to the front door.

“Stellan?” she asked before he walked out.

He turned, eyes blazing gold.

“Did you give me these flowers?”

He dipped his chin once.

“They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

He scratched the back of his neck and then parted his lips like he wanted to say something. He had this helpless look in his eyes like the words in his mind didn’t make sense, or like he didn’t know how to get them out.

“I hope you have a good lunch with your brothers,” she told him, her heart in her throat.

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple dipping low in his muscular throat. “Do you want to come?”

Laramie was shocked to her bones. “You…you want me to come to a lunch with you? And your brothers?”

“Yes.”

“Ummm…” She thought about it. “There’s one rule,” she said softly.

“I’ll be nice,” he promised quickly.

A smile confiscated her lips, and she ducked her gaze to hide the heat that was creeping into her cheeks. She turned to Murph. “I’m taking my lunch after all.”

“You’ve got an hour today,” her boss said without looking up from whatever he was inputting onto his computer.

“Really?”

“Get out of here before I change my mind.”

“Okay,” she said, excitement trilling up her spine as she grabbed her purse.

Stellan was waiting for her, holding the door open. Outside, Stellan’s brothers were climbing into the big black truck she recognized from Monday.

“Laramie is coming with us,” Stellan told them.

“Good,” Mars said without hesitation. “We’ll meet you there. You know the place, right?”

“It’s three blocks away, dick bag. I think I can find it.”

Mars and Dame headed out, and Stellan held open the door of his truck for her.

“You don’t have to do that stuff for me,” she told him. “I know we’re just friends, so it feels a little strange.”