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“Really? How did he find out?” Calliope asked, buttering the toast with a much gentler hand.
“When he asked about this. He put two and two together.” She pointed at her eye. “I told him yes, I did punch her in the face.”
“What did he say?” Jane asked.
“That he wished he could have seen me kick her ass.”
“How did he put two and two together?” Calliope frowned.
“This morning when I got out of the shower, he saw it and asked who did it. I told him Charlotte. Then, remembering Charlotte came back out to the truck yesterday morning with a bloody nose, he figured it out. There was no point in denying it, so I confirmed his suspicions.”
Calliope and Jane exchanged another look. They were having some wordless conversation Bellamy could not decipher. Needing a distraction before Race came looking for her, if he came looking for her, she asked, “Okay. Enough about me. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Sure.” Jane placed a huge carton of eggs in front of her, along with a gallon of milk, and a rather large mixing bowl. “If you could crack all these eggs in here, we’ll have scrambled eggs this morning.” She bent and pulled out a mixer from under the island. “Here. This will help get all those eggs beaten.”
“Okay. You got it.” Bellamy set about cracking eggs and dumping them into the bowl. She was about halfway through when the door opened and Race entered. He looked around, took in who all was working, then focused his attention on Bellamy. He stopped next to her.
“You took off before we could finish our discussion.”
“I’m sorry. I had a craving for coffee and came looking for it since you were on the phone.” Looking at him now, it looked like he also took a shower after she left. He smelled good, too. Damn it. “Then I got in here and volunteered to help the ladies out.”
“That’s fine.” He looked around the room to find all the women unusually focused on the task before them. “We’ll talk later. After breakfast we’re going to head out to Dagger’s house. A tree fell on the back half of his house and we need to do what we can to patch it up until we can fix it completely.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Was anyone hurt?” Bellamy couldn’t imagine how awful a mess Dagger’s family had on their hands. “Is there anything we can do?”
“No. Not right now. The tree will have to be dealt with and then we’ll figure something out for the roof.” He reached over and snatched a piece of buttered toast off the stack Calliope had been buttering. He took a huge bite, chewed and swallowed, then took a drink of her coffee.
“How much longer on breakfast do you think?” He addressed the group of women.
“Maybe thirty minutes if you let Bellamy get back to cracking eggs.” Jane laughed.
“All right. I’ll get out of your way, ladies.” He leaned down and to Bellamy’s utter shock, he placed a quick kiss on her lips. Having rocked her world with the unexpected show of affection, he winked, smiled and sauntered away, finishing off the toast.
Jane snorted. “Annoying tenant my ass.”
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?” Bellamy asked, still trying to figure out what Race was up to.
“You’ll figure it out.” Jane patted her shoulder as she walked by to get the two huge skillets ready to cook the eggs.
Bellamy was confused. Why would Race kiss her in front of these women? Was he making fun of her? Did he do that with all the women he had sex with? He’d just told her she wasn’t old lady material, so what was his game?
11
Before anyone could get to Dagger’s house to assess the damage, their vehicles were going to have to be unburied. Thanks to Trick and Jackson’s forethought, they’d helped Jed attach the plow to his truck last night. Seeing how much of the white stuff had fallen, it was a good call. As soon as the sun came up, Jed had been out on the parking lot trying to plow as much snow off the lot as possible. Of course, despite his best efforts, it was hard to get everything and he couldn’t get too close to the vehicles, so the rest of them grabbed shovels and started digging vehicles the rest of the way out.
With so many brothers available to help, it didn’t take nearly as long as they had thought. Once they’d finished, they’d gone inside and enjoyed a hot breakfast thanks to the old ladies. Now they were on their way to Dagger’s.
Jed took the time to make a few trips up and down Dagger’s street to make the journey easier since the city plows hadn’t made it his street yet. They pulled up to find Dagger already had his snow blower out and was clearing the driveway and sidewalk.
Jed backed his truck in so they could unload chainsaws, ladders and another snow blower. They were going to need to clear the snow around the fallen tree as much as possible in order to start cutting it down to size. Race backed his truck in next to Jed’s.
“Did you see the power on in the east side of town as we drove through?” Tulsa asked.
“Yeah. Looks like Home Depot is open.”
Dagger came over to greet them all with handshakes and thanks for coming. “Took the Mrs. and the kids to her mom’s. She has power and she’s not been feeling very well lately.” He and his family had opted to weather the storm out at home because they had a generator.
“When did this happen?” Tuck asked.
