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Remi’s right eyebrow rose as if she were already silently disputing his facade and then her grip melted off him as his sister turned to Alana. Remi pulled her into a hug as well.
“It’s so good to see you,” Remi greeted. “How are you?” However, before Alana could answer, she added, “Hope I didn’t give you a jolt.”
Maybe Remi was referring to just the surprise of her grand entrance. But she could have also meant the uniform. There was an image in Egan’s head of a photo taken when Remi had finished her long grueling CRO training, one of the first women to accomplish it, and Jack and Egan had flown in to celebrate her achievement, with Jack wearing his own CRO uniform. Jack had had the honors of putting on Remi’s maroon beret and giving her the first official welcome into the elite group.
“I’m fine,” Alana assured her. “No jolt other than a moment when I thought maybe we were about to get hit by a falling hay bale.” She checked the time on her phone. “I just remembered I had a recipe book in my car that I wanted to give Maybell. I should do that before the rain starts and give you two a chance to catch up.”
Egan suspected that there could, indeed, be a recipe book, but it was just as likely that Alana wanted to skip out before Remi could quiz her about the near kiss that his sister had almost certainly witnessed. Added to that, Alana would know how good it was for him to see Remi and do thatcatching up.
“Yeah, I heard you were helping Dad with a new diet,” Remi remarked. “How’s that going?”
“Good. Really good, actually. He’s not cheating one bit. Now, we just need to convince people to stop bringing over food with names like...” Alana stopped, obviously deciding not to mention the Yummy Tummy Ball and Better than Sex cake. Probably because she’d learned her lesson with him. “...cheese-a-plooza pasta.”
“Yum,” Remi joked. “I hope you saved some of that for me.”
“There’s plenty,” Alana assured her.
Alana gave Remi a parting hug, and then she glanced at Egan as if she might have automatically done the same to him. Which clearly would have been a mistake, what with the near kiss thing, because there was still some heat—yes, even now—waffling back and forth between them. Instead, she settled for a wave, a muttered goodbye, and headed out of the barn.
“How long have you been home?” Egan immediately asked Remi, hoping to dodge questions about Alana and him. “Have you seen Dad yet?”
“Less than fifteen minutes, and no, I haven’t seen Dad yet. He’s in the bedroom with Audrey, helping her pack.” Remi put those last three words in air quotes.
Egan frowned. “Please don’t tell me they’re having sex.”
Remi rolled her eyes. “Sex, sex, sex. Is that all you can think about?” she teased. “I have no idea what they’re doing, but I’m going to embrace Maybell’s comment that packing is the only thing going on in that bedroom right now. I figured I’d give Audrey and him some goodbye time and then let him know I was here.”
Egan had been doing his own version of giving Audrey and his dad alone time when he’d taken one of the new Andalusian mares for a ride. Of course, he hadn’t expected the ride to end the way it had in the barn with Alana.
“Maybell told me you were likely in the front pasture riding or in the barn,” Remi went on with her explanation. “So, I came out here, heard Alana and you talking and decided to use the exterior ladder to climb up to the loft and show off my rope swinging skillset.”
“It’s a useful skillset,” he joked right back. “Might come in handy if you ever have to rescue someone in a barn with a hayloft and an available rope.”
“You never know.” When Egan took a brush and started to groom the horse he’d ridden, Remi grabbed a second brush and began to help. “So,” Remi continued, stretching out the word a bit, “what exactly was going on between Alana and you when I swooped in?”
He hadn’t expected to dodge this particular bullet, but he also had no intentions whatsoever of pouring out his heart about Alana to Remi. That was mainly because he didn’t know what exactly was in his heart when it came to Alana. Right now, his feelings for her were all hot lust and worry that he’d screw up her life big-time if he didn’t manage to get the lust under control.
“Alana was Jack’s wife,” he settled for saying.
“And I was once a teenager with braces, acne and a quarter-sized freckle on my right butt cheek,” she countered with her usual sass. “Okay, the freckle is still there and the occasional acne, but the braces are off.” She grinned to show him her teeth. “Want me to tell you what I saw?”
“No,” Egan quickly answered.
But Remi just rolled over him. “I saw two people this close to kissing.” She lifted her thumb and index fingers and closed the already narrow gap between them until the distance was miniscule. “I saw two people who would have almost certainly kissed if one of them hadn’t gotten an unexpected visit from a ‘pain in the ass’ sister. Sorry,” she muttered, “but in hindsight, I should have given Alana and you sometime to pack.” Again, she put air quotes on those last three words.
“No,” he repeated, but this time there was no urgency or bite to it. “The interruption was good.”
“Good?” she repeated in a tone to indicate otherwise. “Are either of you involved with someone else?”
Egan gave her a flat look since Remi already knew they weren’t. If they had been, she would have heard some gossip about it from Effie’s emails.
“No, because Alana and I wouldn’t ever be able to be together in a romantic kind of way and not think about Jack,” he spelled out for her.
No way would he admit, though, that Jack hadn’t been on his mind when he’d been within a breath of kissing Alana. Nope. The only thing he’d been thinking about was the kiss and sex.
“Oh, really?” Remi stretched that out, too, and she slipped her arm around his waist. “Want some advice?”
“No,” he repeated before she even finished.
