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“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m just sad my brothers are so stupid,” she said, rubbing her eyes fiercely as she began to clatter pans around. Then she dropped the jokes—and a saucepan—and grabbed me to hug me again. “I thought we’d lost you and Dylan forever, and then when Cole brought him back, I was afraid you were never coming home.”
Home.The word rocked me almost as much as the intensity of Karissa’s hug.
I hugged her back. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” Her voice came out choked, but then she was pulling away, bustling around to make dinner. “There’s too much testosterone in this house! You’ve been a welcome reprieve from all their bullshit.”
“I come with my own bullshit,” I reminded her. “And I have my brother and sister with me, by the way.”
“I got them set up in one of the pack cottages,” Shaw said as he came in the backdoor. “I don’t think Stone will want them in the house.”
“I’m touched that he allows me in here,” I said dryly. “I guess I was just too valuable a prisoner.”
“Well, that,” Karissa admitted, “but you’re also family. Stone only likes for family to come into the house.”
“Karissa…” I hesitated. I didn’t want her to think I was staying forever. I didn’t want to hurt her.
“Go get them for dinner tonight,” Karissa said. “If they’re your family, they’re our family too. Stone will get over it.”
“Oh, so is Stone allowed in the house now?” Shaw asked, obviously amused.
Karissa dove at him as if she were going to smack him with a spatula, but Shaw successfully leapt over the counter to the other side, landing lightly on his feet. She just shook the spatula at him. “Stop savoring your brother’s misery.”
“But he’s the cause of so much of my own.” Shaw turned to me and added, “Karissa didn’t let Stone sleep in the house. She chose you over him—”
I couldn’t quite imagine the King siblings without me, so it was hard to picture the fight between Karissa and Stone.
Of course, I also found it hard now to imagine myself without the King siblings, and I felt a dangerous lurch in my heart.
Karissa pushed chopped garlic around aggressively in her pan. The scent of butter, olive oil and garlic rose in the air as she muttered, “All day.”
“If Stone weren’t already sorry, she would’ve made him sorry,” Shaw added.
I tried to imagine a regretful version of Stone, a version that wasn’t maddeningly self-assured and intractable. Even after his attempt at an apology, I couldn’t see him ever truly doubting himself.
Karissa pointed the spatula at him. “You’re on my last nerve. Go with Amelia and invite Rose and Aiden up for dinner.”
Shaw flashed her that beaming smile most women found oh-so-charming and that didn’t have any impact on Karissa. She just rolled her eyes.
I wanted to pretend that smile didn’t impact me, but it made my heart flipflop. Shaw was handsome and funny, and his ability to disarm situations reminded me of my own need to soothe everyone’s feelings. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone.
As Shaw and I walked down the path to the row of small cottages, Shaw told me, “I lived in one of the cabins for a year. Then Stone made me move back.”
“Trying to protect the ladies of the pack from themselves, hm?” I knew Stone had felt protective of his brothers after losing Brennan.
“It didn’t stop me.”
“Lucky them.”
Shaw’s lips curled. “You know my man-whoring days are behind me, so maybe we could leave them thoroughly in the past? Instead of mocking me about my reputation?”
His tone was as light as mine, but there was something weighty behind his statement.
“But it’s fun to mock you,” I said, as if my heart weren’t hammering at that hint of a confession.
Shaw pointed at a little rustic cabin with a front porch swing and lilacs framing the walkway. “It’s this one. Number twelve.”
