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“Where’s my niece?”
“In the house doing her assignment.”
Sawyer grunted his approval. He’d be checking up on that kid.
“You need a haircut, and your beard needs shaping.”
“So J.D. told me.”
“That boy knows how to put himself together, so you listen to what he suggests. And if you take this off, I won’t be upset.” His mother tugged the hair on his chin.
“J.D. has a full beard.”
“And looks after it with beard oil.”
“What’s with you people and beard oil?”
“Grooming products, honey, you should give them a go.”
“I do, and I’m not removing the facial hair. Later, Mom.” He raised a hand and drove away.
What the hell was she on about thinking Birdie would be good for him? They were so different they could be another species of human. He was an asshole who didn’t like people and kept himself to himself, and she was all smiles and light. She loved people and was always helping Lyntacks.With a dark side that no one knew about.
What else was Birdie McAllister hiding?
Sawyer’s place was the last on the road. He passed the house they’d built for Brody and Ally and then veered right. Up ahead was his sanctuary.
When he’d come home from LA, Sawyer had wanted to live near his family but not with them. Unlike the other houses, he’d used shipping containers. It had taken him months, but eventually, he and his brothers had finished what he’d designed.
His corner of Lyntacky was thick with trees that opened onto an area he’d cleared for his home. Two containers were on the base. Sawyer had placed them side by side on the ground, and one the other way on top. He glassed the end and put windows on each side. A large deck gave him views of the lake.
Ally called it the hashtag house.
Home, Sawyer called it, getting out of his Jeep. It had straightened his head and given him something to focus on, like the Firebird, when he’d needed it after leaving the hell behind in LA.
Sawyer opened the huge dog run he’d built. His girl, Sylvie, reached him first, with Ted seconds later. Both Australian cattle dogs, Ted was a blue heeler and Sylvie red. He’d met dogs like them when he traveled and decided when he got home, he was getting one. Sawyer had found a breeder and bought two.
He scratched heads as they circled him, walking to the house and in through his front door. The silence wrapped around him. A kitchen ran down one wall with an island he ate at. Huge sofas and two reclining chairs faced a big flat-screen TV. His mother had forced rugs on him and some blinds and pieces of artwork. He’d refused more than two sofa pillows. Ally had taken over one of his bedrooms. The third was a spare.
After grabbing a beer from the fridge, Sawyer toed off his boots. Then, turning on his favorite soundtrack, he headed out onto the deck. He’d taken two mouthfuls when he heard a car.
“You two need to run whoever that is off,” he said to his dogs, who lay sprawled at his feet.
The thud of boots outside his door told him his uninvited guest was male and likely his brothers, as no one else usually came here. The pounding on his front door had him getting out of his chair.
It was an unwritten rule you didn’t enter a brother’s house without knowing who was in there.
Opening the door, he found Dan and Ryder.
“What?”
“Why are you taking Birdie to the wedding? What the fuck happened to your face?” Ryder said.
“She offered. I accepted, end of story.” Since returning to Lyntacky, Sawyer had stepped back from stuff that made him regret anything. But he was regretting his impulse to invite Birdie McAllister to the wedding. The only positive in a whole list of negatives was he’d get her alone and could talk to her about what was going on in her life. Then he’d help, because a gambling, dirty-talking Birdie McAllister didn’t sit well with him.
“Dude. Birdie McAllister has never even left Lyntacky. She’ll be like a songbird chick,” Dan said.
The youngest Duke brother had more nicknames than Sawyer could keep track of, but his favorite was Double D. Tall with a laid-back attitude, he’d followed in Uncle Asher’s footsteps and become a cop. He’d also inherited another nickname: D1 and D2 was what the locals called Uncle Asher and Dan. He was more like their mom to look at, with brown hair and blue eyes. He’d been tough when he was little. That hadn’t changed since he’d grown up with three brothers.
