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Chapter 1
Chapter One
Christmasfouryearsago…
“I’m not so drunk I can’t do the alphabet backward, but I really shouldn’t be driving,” Rayma said, throwing on a lazy smile as she held her sleeping infant niece against her chest and closed her eyes. “Plus, I’m also fine just staying right like this for the rest of my life.”
“Eve might have some say in that,” Heath, Eve’s father, and Rayma’s brother-in-law said with a chuckle deep and raspy enough it had Rayma opening her eyes and suppressing the groan in her chest. Her sister’s husband had a seriously sexy voice to go along with his seriously sexy body and even though Heath was obviously off-limits, Rayma couldn’t control what his voice did to her lady parts. “Gets mighty hungry every forty minutes or so.” He draped his arm around his wife’s shoulder, Rayma’s oldest sister.
Pasha sighed and nodded, appearing sleepy herself. “That she does.”
“Well, just pump them titties and hand me a bottle. Me and Miss Eve are perfectly happy right here.” She kissed the top of Eve’s head. “Until she shits of course, then you can have her back.”
“Of course,” Pasha said dryly.
“Where abouts in town do you live?”
Rayma glanced toward the voice. Officer Jordan Lassiter. A newbie cop with the WestShore RCMP. He worked with Krista—Pasha’s sister-in-law—who was a staff sergeant. Since he was new to Victoria and had no family around Krista took pity on him and invited him to Christmas dinner with their loud, wild, heavily laden with testosterone and alpha males family.
Joy, of course, Rayma’s surrogate grandmother or mother, but basically her fairy godmother and guardian angel, kept bobbing her eyebrows at Rayma, then angling them toward Jordan.
Rayma knew the moment she sat down at the Christmas dinner table tonight and her seat was next to Jordan’s that this was a setup.
Nana Joy had good taste. Jordan wasfine. But he’d also been pretty damn quiet all night, and when he did speak, he was crazy-polite and gave off serious goody-goody vibes.
Not her type. Though maybe it should be.
She kept picking duds.
“You gonna answer the man?” Joy asked from where she sat next to her boyfriend, Grant—another very handsome man, even if he was sixty years old.
“Sorry,” Rayma said with a yawn. “Didn’t mean to be rude. I live near the University of Victoria. Gordon Head area. Close to that sexy silver fox over there.” She pointed to Grant.
Grant took her teasing in stride, smirked, and shook his head. “Not heading home tonight, I’m afraid.”
Rayma pinned her gaze on Joy. “Yeah, Nana. Get yours.”
Brock, the oldest of Joy’s four sons and the one with the hardest head grunted.
Rayma rolled her eyes.
“I live in Cadboro Bay so I don’t mind driving you home,” Jordan said. “It’s on my way.”
Joy’s dark blue eyes glimmered.
Rayma rolled her eyes at her fairy godmother then smiled before turning back to Jordan. “That’d be great, thank you.”
“We can bring your car to you tomorrow, honey,” Joy said. “Just leave us your keys.”
“Love you, Nana,” Rayma said sleepily.
Eve started to grunt and aggressively bob her head on Rayma’s chest.
“I know what that means,” Pasha said, getting up from her spot on the couch and coming to retrieve her offspring. “She starts rooting before she even fully wakes up.”
“I love that stage,” Joy crooned. “They’re such primitive little beasts when they’re babies.” She cast her gaze around the room at her sons. “Some of them never really lose that primitive side, however. They just learn to speak—though still mostly in grunts—and wipe their own asses.”
“I think we’re supposed to be offended by this,” Heath said, bouncing his seventeen-month-old son Raze, Eve’s older brother, on his knee.
