Page 9 of His Brown-Eyed Girl

“Fine. I’ll bathe her. You clean up your dog’s pee. Use the steam cleaner.” Lucas turned on his boot and started back to the bathroom.

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll bathe the flea.” Equal parts disgust and resignation in Michael’s voice.

Good. Lucas didn’t want to bathe Charlotte again. The first night she’d sang songs about spaghetti at the top of her lungs and insisted on using something called Elsa shampoo… which he could not find. He’d also thought she’d bathe herself, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Seems he was supposed to bathe her. And it felt weird because he’d never washed a little girl before. Big girls and a bottle of bath gel? Sign him up. A little girl with bubblegum soap and a Mardi Gras party cup to rinse her hair? Not so much.

He’d take dog pee any day of the week.

Chris quickly changed the channel when he came back into the room so Lucas tossed him anotherFather Knows Beststern look and went in search of the paper towels stored in the half bath under the stairs.

Fifteen minutes later, he stood in the kitchen looking at the retriever who sat innocently at the back door, tongue lolled out, happiness pouring out of sweet brown eyes. He sort of wanted to kick it… and he sort of wanted to take it for a walk. Or maybe fishing. He’d always wanted a dog to take fishing and have it sleep at the end of his bed.

“Out, Kermit. And don’t piss in the house again.”

The dog struggled to its feet and lumbered out the back door into the fenced yard. And the Wicked Cat of the West darted in.

Mittens.

Meaner than a two-headed snake.

Lucas sighed and leaned his head against the smooth painted wood of the back door.

He needed help.

He didn’t know what in the hell he was doing as evidenced by being yelled at in the carpool line. Sister “Wegina Mawia” had actually scared him… and she was barely five feet tall.

Why did he tell Courtney he would come to New Orleans and watch the kids?

Of course, he knew the answer.

But it was complicated… and tied around the fact the brother he’d once loved, and now hated, was teetering on the precipice of death.

Nutshell.

But all the other shit he felt cluttered around that reason made it harder than he’d ever thought to be back here, back in the world he’d left behind.

Courtney’s voice. “Please, Lucas. I know you hate me, but please. I don’t know what else to do. I have to be with Ben. Have to. Please, he’s your brother. This is me begging you.”

Words he’d once longed to hear, but never in such regard.

He’d wanted to punish Courtney. Wanted her to grovel. To regret. To know what she’d given up.

But her words hadn’t been filled with regret.

They’d been desperate for her children, the ones she’d had with his brother. The family she loved more than her pride. So she’d begged him to help her. Begged the man she’d betrayed so she could go to the man she’d cheated on him with—his own brother.

Lucas banged his forehead against the door.

“Uncle Wucas?”

Charlotte stood in the doorway clad in a little nightgown with ponies on it. Her wet hair hung nearly to her waist, but he knew now from experience it would curl up to her shoulders when it dried. Her blue-green eyes looked so much like Courtney’s—big and ready to be filled with laughter. Yet this little one still looked frightened of him. How could he make her understand that he wouldn’t hurt her? He tried to smile.

She took a step back.

O-kay. That didn’t work. “Um, you want some cereal?”

“’kay.”

He walked to the fridge and opened it. No milk. Damn it.

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