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Saloon? Gracious.
The woman pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “I haven’t stepped foot in a saloon in a year.”
Knox turned to me, held up his hands to help me down.
“That’s because you’re not allowed.”
Jed spoke to her from behind my back. I was too focused on Knox’s big, warm hands on my waist than the banter between siblings. There was no question this woman was their sister.
“Enough about me. Aren’t you going to introduce us?” she asked, although I was staring at Knox, not at her.
I held his pale blue gaze a little longer, then he released me and turned away.
“Miss Jamison… I mean, Mrs. Thomkins, may I introduce you to our sister, Piper?”
She was a little taller than I and a little slimmer; however, she had a full bosom. Her hair was as red as her brothers, her skin fair. She was strikingly pretty. I just had to wonder why she needed to be forbidden from going to a saloon.
“Mrs. Thomkins?” she asked.
“This is Melvin’s mail order bride.”
“Eve, please,” I said. “I do not feel like a Mrs. Thomkins and I am no longer Miss Jamison.”
Piper’s smile slipped and she came down the steps. “I’m sorry to hear of his untimely death.”
“She’s going to stay with you, if that’s all right,” Jed said. “The other Mr. Thomkins will want to make her acquaintance, but we thought it best if she was among friends.”
“My… Melvin had a brother?” I wondered, based on Jed’s comment.
“Two,” Knox said.
I hadn’t considered my husband to have family. I hadn’t thought past the man himself. “Shouldn’t I perhaps stay with them?”
“No.” All three of them spoke at once.
I was about to ask as to why they were so adamantly against meeting and staying with Melvin’s family, but was diverted by two men approaching, one holding a small baby in his arms. One man was fair-haired, the other dark with a beard. That one held the baby, a little girl based on the pale pink dress. There was no question to the child’s heritage, for she had her mother’s fiery red hair. The same as my escorts.
Piper greeted the two men, stroked the baby’s head. Leaning down, the dark one kissed Piper on the lips. It was chaste, but not something I was used to seeing in public. Well, that meant I wasn’t used to seeing it at all because I’d never seen a couple kiss in private either.
Neither Jed nor Knox seemed bothered by the action.
“Did you rest at all?” he asked.
Piper rolled her eyes at him and the other man reached out his hand and swatted her on the bottom. My mouth fell open.
“You were to nap while we kept Lillian entertained,” the fair one said, then pulled Piper in for a kiss of his own.
Surreptitiously, I glanced up at Jed and Knox. Neither man looked thrilled with the public display, but they also weren’t clobbering them either.
“Stop pawing our sister,” Knox growled.
“You Dare boys need a wife of your own, then perhaps you’ll leave us alone,” the fair-haired one countered.
Piper rolled her eyes again. Clearly, she didn’t follow the stricter dictates of society. I felt like I was staring at a unicorn for the way the trio was behaving. “Mrs. Thomkins, Eve, may I introduce Spur an
d Lane? Spur’s holding baby Lillian and Lane’s the brute who likes to spank.”
I stood there, hands folded in front of me, all wide-eyed and prim. I straightened my back even further and offered them a neutral smile. “How do you do?”
