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He’d spent most of his childhood wishing he’d been born into this family, a brother, a cousin, a son.
Landon adored his mother, but without a father or siblings of his own, he’d reached out and grabbed hold of Finn and Aaron, Darcy…and Sunnie.
Tonight, Aaron had called him son. And Finn, brother.
Those words felt like a dream come true.
Until he considered Sunnie…and that kiss.
Chapter Five
Sunnie trudged down the hallway toward the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. They felt gritty and dry from too little sleep. She’d heard Yvonne get up about an hour earlier, knew her cousin had peeked into Sunnie’s room to check on her, but she’d pretended to still be asleep, unwilling to deal with everyone giving her hell for last night. At the moment, Landon appeared to be the only one who’d forgiven her stupidity. Which only left seven hundred and thirty-seven Collins family members to go.
When she entered the kitchen, it was close to noon. She was surprised to find not only Yvonne and Finn there, but her sister, Darcy, as well. Typically when there were three or more of her family members in a room, the noise rose to ungodly levels. Hell, even their whispers were loud.
This morning, they were silent, and until she saw all of them there, she’d thought everyone had headed out for the day and she was alone in the apartment.
They turned to look at her, and she prepared for the onslaught.
“Wow,” she said sardonically. “Sort of disappointed by the turnout. Only three of you here to lecture me?” she asked. “Couldn’t get Fergus home from overseas? Fiona over from California?”
Yvonne laughed. “We thought we’d take it in shifts. Landon’s grabbing a quick shower and there are quite a few others waiting downstairs in the pub.”
“Landon spent the night,” Finn said. “He was worried about you.”
She waited for him to say more, wondering if Landon had confessed about the kiss. When Finn didn’t say anything about it, she knew Landon had kept that tidbit to himself.
“Okay,” she replied, shrugging one shoulder casually. Landon stayed over two or three nights a month. Given everything that had happened last night, she wasn’t surprised he’d wanted to stay close. His cop instincts had been working overtime.
If she was being completely honest, she was glad he was still there. She wasn’t sure why, but with him around, she felt…
She felt horny.
Which was the completely wrong emotion—was horniness an emotion?—for this situation.
Finn still looked miffed, and she knew he had every reason to be angry. She had put herself in danger. However, she had to admit she was a bit surprised by the level of his anger at the moment. Finn, like Landon, was usually very good at letting things slide off his back.
“Landon told me why you were on that street alone. Please stop dating shitheads, Sunnie.”
Then she realized Finn was in bulldog mode and not ready to settle down over Derek dropping her off in a sketchy area.
In truth, she’d already forgotten about Derek, too distracted by Landon’s kiss to give a shit about the ex-boyfriend.
She took a deep breath, smiling at Darcy. “I guess Dad’s probably losing his shit. I’d promised to go in this morning and make a statement.” She was in her pajamas and dreading the thought of going to the precinct. As if she didn’t have enough overprotective males in her family, she figured that number was easily doubled when she added in her dad’s fellow cops, a lot of whom she’d known for most of her life.
Maybe she could talk Darcy into going with her. Darcy was bubbly, sweet and adorable. They could stop off for a couple dozen doughnuts, then go in and try to buy their dad’s forgiveness with sweets.
Darcy shook her head. “No need to bother. Dad called a little while ago. Said Landon could just take your statement here.”
Finn poured a glass of orange juice and handed it to her, then poured one for himself.
“Cool,” she said. At least Landon had calmed down, unlike her brother. It would be easy to talk to him about what had happened because he’d seen most of it.
As if summoned, Landon appeared in the kitchen, his hair wet from the shower. He’d borrowed jeans and a T-shirt from Finn. Sunnie recognized Finn’s beloved retro Van Halen shirt.
“Hey, Sunshine. You slept late.”
“Yeah, I did.”
