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Fletcher would never forgive Bruce for what he had been a part of—Fletcher’s own brother had been shot because of Bruce. Gil was still a little wobbly on his feet. His oldest brother wasn’t about to let that show—Gil was a bit old-fashioned like that. He wouldn’t show weakness if he could help it.
Fletcher checked the crowd for his brother’s distinctive red hair. Only Gil and their cousins Monroe and Junie, and their uncle Nick’s seven-year-old Nova had hair that red.
Well, besides Bruce’s baby daughter, Maeha.
Auggie’sbaby now.
Gil was right there. Next to a gorgeous brown-eyed, brown-haired goddess of his very own. Fletcher envied his brother, the way Sage looked at him. Those two had practically taken one look at each other after Gil had rescued her from a mudslide and just caught fire.
Just like that, Gil and Sage had found each other. After Morris Preston had his goons—including Fletcher’s uncle—almost kill Sage along Wreck Curve Road in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Movement from near the supply closet caught Fletcher’s attention next.
Ben. Carrying something for Dusty.
Fletcher watched Dusty again. She definitely was one of the most beautiful women he knew. Hard to reconcile that with the little girl he had known, and taken care of, for almost as long as he could remember. He’d felt half-responsible for her forever since the day she’d collapsed practically at his feet from a damned heart attack when she’d been a teenager. He loved her, just as much as he did Nikki.
Nothing was ever going to change that.
But was there something different about the way Ben was looking at her now? Even moredifferentthan Ben looked at her before? He hoped so.
Fletcher liked to think he knew both his brothers almost as well as he knew himself. And, yes, he knew when one of his brothers was hot for a woman. Seriously hot for her and everything.
Ben was staring down at Dusty like she washispersonal goddess, just like Gil was looking at Sage a few feet away. Well. Damn. It was about time.
Fletcher had thought Ben would never figure it out.
Those two? They were just as made for each other as Gil and Sage.
Fletcher had known it for a long time. Maybe someday…maybe he’d find a woman like Dusty for himself too. There were a few more just like her running around, after all. But for tonight, he had family around him. That was what truly mattered.
The people he loved. No matter what.
30
Dylan had laidin her bed, for hours. Just thinking. She’d even skipped dinner. She just hadn’t been hungry. She hadn’t really been hungry in days. Not since her parents had told thetruth.
“You need to eat something.”
Dylan rolled over in the bed, in the bedroom where she’d spent every night for the last three years of her life. From the time she had been nineteen. She had wanted to go to college, live in the dorm. Be aroundpeople.But she’d let her parents convince her not to. That it made more sense for her to live at home, and let her parents help her pay for her degree. Online. Save herself the debt. It had made sense. But, it hadn’t been what she really wanted at all.
Well, the debt she hadn’t wanted, but…the rest of it? She’d wanted to get out. Away. If only for a little while. “I’m not really hungry, Dev.”
She’d been ready to try life on her own. To be out there, making connections with people who weren’t her family. Or the handful of neighbors on either side. Instead, she still slept in the double bed she’d had since she was fifteen.
They each had their own rooms. In this house that they’d lived in for three years. They’d had to double up a time or two before. They’d moved…a lot. Now she understood why.
Looking back, Dylan understood the truth. Her parents had kept them isolated. Trapped. And she and her sisters hadn’t even known it. It was going to take her a while to accept and forgive that. She didn’t know if she believed in their story. It was too wild. Definitely too farfetched. Dylan didn’t believe in wild crazy stories.
She’d always been more practical than that. Corrupt small-town cops, a family of hotheaded criminals always causing trouble—all with red hair and hateful attitudes, so farfetched—her father…innocent in everything. Of course he was.
And four siblings she had never gotten a chance to know.
It was just too farfetched.
“I know. But we need to come up with a battle plan. You up for it yet?” Devaney asked. Devaney was theirplanner.Dylan preferred to just wing it. To go where her instincts told her to go.
Dylan pushed the blanket back and sat up. “Yes. Can’t say I’m going to be sleeping all that well for a while.”
