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Brothers and Lovers
WhenMaggiemadeit back to her house, she found Zane’s things in her room. She smiled at the sight. She couldn’t wait for him to be there permanently. She wondered if he would want to live here with her. It might be awkward given the history with JT. She thought they might want to start fresh with a place of their own, but she dreaded the conversation with her brother. It had been them against the world for so long now and she didn't want to think about leaving him alone. I’ll have to think about all that later. Too much to do still today.
Zane was out on an errand picking up the twinkle lights she had ordered for Dani’s barn the following night. She’d been scrambling for another idea if they didn’t show up on time due to all the shipping backlogs, but she had gotten the call this morning that they had come in. Zane had even offered to go help Levi put them up for her so she could get some rest in before she had to get ready for tonight’s party. She smiled as she thought about how thoughtful he was and how glad she was for the break. She was exceptionally tired in the afternoons lately. That bump on the head must have been a bigger deal than I thought.
She ran into JT in the kitchen. He was dressed in a button down and his good jeans. He smelled really good too, and his hair was pulled back into a tight tail at his neck.
“You’re not already on the way to the party, are you?” she asked suspiciously. He looked too nice to be going to help their mama set up and Tricia wasn’t supposed to have them helping with set up today at all since they were doing most of the work for the reception tomorrow.
“Nope,” he said shortly.
Maggie huffed in exasperation. “Well, where are you going?”
“To pick up my date,” JT said, not looking at her.
“You have a date for the party?”
“Yep,” he answered.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Joshua Trent, could you not make me pull it out of you word by word? Who is it?”
“You don’t know her. She’s one of Cece’s cousins. I met her at that silly wedding shower. She lives just outside of Dallas.”
“Oh, well. Why haven’t you said anything about her before?” Maggie asked.
“If you hadn’t noticed, there’s been a lot of shit going on. It just never came up. I’ve only been out with her once or twice.”
She gave him a stink eye for his language but kept the admonishment to herself.
“I look forward to meeting her,” Maggie said to his back as he stepped into the garage.
“See you later,” JT said over his shoulder.
She hoped his terseness wasn’t a portent of things to come. She was already missing her brother.
Zane was surprised, but pleased, to find Maggie asleep when he got back to the house, He had spent the last couple of hours with Levi putting up at least a million tiny white lights in Dani and Levi’s barn. They’d been thankful they had Maggie’s detailed layout of how they should be put up because they would have been clueless otherwise. They’d actually had a good time working together and Zane decided he liked the man after all. Levi had been pretty hostile to him at first because of Zane’s close friendship with Dani. Once Levi and Dani had finally gotten back together and Levi realized Zane was serious about Maggie, however, he had thawed. He thought they could even become friends in time, especially now that he was going to be moving to Gladewater.
He softly brushed a lock of hair from Maggie’s face and kissed her cheek. “Sweetheart, time to wake up. We’ve got a party to get to.”
“Mmmm?” Maggie hummed, her eyes fluttering open at Zane’s touch. “Is it time already? I feel like I just lay down.” She gave a huge yawn and stretched, smiling sleepily at him. “I never sleep during the day. Is that common with concussions?” she asked.
“It can be,” he assured her. “Your brain wants to rest and restore itself. But for now, we’ve got to be to Tyler by 6 for your mom’s blowout, so we’d better get ready.”
As they were dressing, Maggie quizzed him on the light placement and how the barn looked while they got ready. “All I can say,” Zane answered, “is that we were thanking out lucky stars that you are so organized. If we hadn’t had that diagram, we’d have botched it for sure! For now, it looks like the sky fell and the entire Milky Way is on display in the barn rafters. You should have seen us trying to get all those strings up there. It was quite a spectacle. I have a feeling, Levi and Dani are going to have the fanciest lit barn in the state for a long time to come because I can’t see Levi climbing up there to take them all down.”
Maggie giggled. “Good! That’s exactly what it’s supposed to look like. Maybe I can talk Dani into letting me use the barn for other events now that it’s all dressed up.”
“That sounds like a plan thought that road out there is still pretty treacherous in places. I never would have guessed a barn could make such a pretty wedding venue. Everyone’s going to love it,” he assured her.
Zane made her laugh more telling her stories of his and Levi’s antics from the afternoon trying to get things just like she wanted them. As he was zipping up her short, navy blue cocktail dress, she told him about JT leaving to pick up a date.
“He’s never been secretive like this before,” she admitted, slipping into her nude pumps. “Usually, I know way more than I care to know about the women he’s dating. He hasn’t mentioned this one at all.”
“Maybe it’s like he said,” Zane said. “There has been a lot of other stuff going on the last couple of weeks. He’s probably just not thought about it.”
“I hope you’re right and he’s not avoiding talking to me.” Zane didn’t like the sad look in her eyes. He knew their relationship had been hard for JT and he knew he was going to have to work hard to gain the other man’s trust. He’d do whatever he had to do to keep that sadness out of Maggie’s eyes.
“Well, he’s bringing her tonight so you can check her out and see whether she gets the sister seal of approval,” Zane said with a smile in his voice, trying to lighten her mood.
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Like that has ever mattered to him. JT doesn’t date debutantes. From what I can tell, he likes them pretty and stupid most of the time, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, they're usually very sweet but no one that he could be with long term. He's never seen himself as smart, because of his dyslexia, but he is. Probably smarter than me if you want to know the truth but he's never accepted that about himself. I keep hoping he’ll find someone that’s his equal. A partner that can knows he's more than just a good looking guy that can cook. Someone he can get serious about.” She stepped into Zane and wrapped her arms around him. “Someone who he can love as much as I love you.”
“If he finds that, he will be one of the luckiest men on the planet. Next to me, of course.” Zane kissed her lips tenderly, but Maggie nipped his bottom lip in the way that drove him wild. “You’re playing with fire, baby,” he said, taking another, deeper taste of her mouth, then pulling back. “Remember who’s running this party tonight. What will your mother think of me if we show up late?”
Maggie growled and he laughed. “Why did you have to remind me?” Maggie said, taking one more taste of his lips. “Ok, raincheck, this time.” She sighed. “I promised Mama I’d help watch over the caterers, so I apologize in advance that I’m not going to be able to stay with you all night.”
“No worries, baby. You do what you have to do. There will be plenty of people there that I’ll need to meet and get to know if I’m going to be a new doctor in town,” Zane said breezily.
“How did I get so lucky to find someone like you?” Maggie asked, smiling sweetly at him.
Zane wanted to carry that smile with him forever.
