AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the ugliest of them all?
Her hair was coming out from her ponytail everywhere, except from the very front where sweat had slicked little wisps against her forehead.
She pulled in front of the ranch house and parked. She angled the mirror to take a better look at herself.
Oh God. No wonder Hunter was so eager to rehash last night. Ugh.
She slammed the visor back up and squeezed her eyes shut. She and mirrors had a bad track record and she knew better than to look.
“Enough.” She gritted her teeth, then grabbed her purse and headed inside.
She was looking forward to a long bath and some time to decompress, but the first thing she heard after she walked in the door was her name being called out.
“Isobel!”
Startled, she looked over toward the open room and saw one of the twins jogging toward her. He was the one with the dreadlocks. What was his name again?
“You’re just in time for dinner.”
“Oh.” She glanced around at the meatloaf and mashed potatoes heaped on everyone’s plates. “That’s okay, I’m not—”
“It’s Reece,” he said, pointing at himself. “I don’t know about you, but I always mix up people’s names when I first meet them.” He smiled warmly. “Come on, you can meet everyone properly.” He put his hand to her upper back and started herding her toward the table where they were all sitting.
He was being nice and she didn’t want to come off as a bitch, just running away to her room the first night. She took a deep breath and pasted on a smile. Even though she felt like scuttling and hiding behind the curtains at the way all the eyes in the room were zeroed in on her.
Liam was seated beside Reece’s twin Jeremiah. He gave her a blatant once over and then grinned unabashedly. She tried not to wince when she remembered that she looked like death warmed over. Mack just glanced over his shoulder at her then went back to his food while Nicholas gave her a welcoming head nod.
“Mel and Xavier have already gone up for the night,” Reece explained. “I usually put the boys down before dinner. Bossman likes having the wife to himself in the evenings.”
“To think, they actually need a break from our fabulous and magnanimous company,” Liam shook his head.
“Hi again, everyone.” Isobel gave a short, awkward wave.
Reece urged her toward the side table where the food sat steaming in heated chafing dishes. “What’s your pleasure? We’ve got meatloaf tonight. Green beans, along with a vegetable medley over here to the right. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Biscuits. A little bit of everything?”
Isobel’s eyes widened as she took it all in.
Calories.
Fat.
CARBS.
“Um,” she swallowed, glancing from the food to everyone still staring at her. “No, thanks,” she tried again. “That’s okay. I’ll just—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Reece laughed. “There’s plenty.” Then he started heaping food on her plate.
She made a strangled coughing noise but Reece just kept on shoveling food until Jeremiah jumped up from the end of the table.
“Enough already.” He took the plate from his twin. “Sorry for my brother’s enthusiasm,” he apologized to Isobel, offering a warm smile with dimples identical to his Reece’s. Apart from their hair and the way they dressed, they looked exactly alike. “He equates hospitality with feeding people. It’s a Southern thing.”
Isobel couldn’t help but smile gratefully at Jeremiah as he scooped half of what Reece had put on her plate back into the trays.
Nicholas looked up from his food. “Texas barely counts as the South.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Reece said, waving a hand.
“I’ll take more of the vegetables,” she said as Jeremiah reached them.
