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Sean had always been conflicted. Especially aboutFred.
He had never delved too deeply into the why of Fred Brown.
The man just infuriated him too much. But now? Maybe now was time. For those four girls, if nothing else. Those four young women deserveda better life than they had.
They deserved so much better than Fred Arnold Brown as a father.
But that wasn’t Sean’s job. Even if that man angered him to new heights.
Sean turned his car around, reminding himself that he was a professional. He had a duty to make sure the entire Brown family was safe from the men who had threatened to kill their mother so many years ago, and that was it.
That he personally felt LaDonna Brown and her four daughters deserved better, well, that was an opinion Sean was just going to keep to himself.
7
Ben was acting even weirderthan usual, Dusty decided a few hours into her shift. Jumpy, whenever she got near him. He pulled away every time she accidentally touched him, too. He normally didn’t do that. He was just as likely to pester her, to touch her, as he was his sister—in the same oftentimes annoying ways.
Not tonight, though. Tonight was just weird all around. He was watching her. More than he normally did. In that particularly broody way he had, like something heavy was on that complicated man mind of his. Some women—her baby sister Daisy included—insisted it was very sexy.
They saidBenwas very sexy, too. Well, that was just crazy.
Daisy always had been a bit off her rocker.
Nikki had said he pouted. Dusty believed that was a far more accurate description. Still…Ben had that whole broody poet thing going on that some women—Dusty excluded, of course—found fascinating. Dusty shot him a look. His head was down and he was typing furiously. There was a frown line on his brow.
She studied him for a moment, trying to decide.
Sexy—or pouting?
She’d never really thought about Nikki’s brothers as beingsexyin any way. Not really. She squinted, tried to pretend she didn’t knowthe man sitting there as well as she did.
But maybe? Just a little. Maybe. He was definitely tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular. But that described everyTyler guy she had ever seen. There was that.
Maybe there had been that tinycrush she’d had on Ben’s older brother Gil when she’d been eighteen and Gil had been around twenty-seven or so. But that had fizzled pretty quickly.
Gil had always just been more of that big brother type for her. Ben’s younger brother Fletcher had been involved with her cousin Charlotte for a while—and he had always been the one to drive Dusty and Nikki around. To be all big brotherish for longer than Dusty could remember. Fletcher definitely had ‘big brother’ down to a science.
Ben was the one she’d interacted with the least because he’d avoided her and Nikki the most when they’d been younger. As soon as he’d been eighteen, he’d enlisted in the army. She and Nikki had been around nine or ten then. He hadn’t been back much until the last two years.
Her path crossed his more now than it ever had before. Everywhere. Ben lived in town—just a few blocks over. He was all over town now. Everywhere. He was the kind of guy who was hard to miss, too.
Every Tyler man in existence was. It was just a given.
No, Dusty wouldn’t say she knew him nearly as well as she did Gil and Fletcher. Or that she even wanted to. Not after the way he’d butted in to Nikki’s life over the last few years—and Dusty’s, by association. He’d ruined at least a half-dozen dates for Dusty in the last eighteen months alone. So much so the guy she’d had dinner with two months ago had asked if he had to watch out for Guard Dog Ben if he just wanted to hold her hand.
She finished with her final table of the evening. The odd pair of businessmen had left hours earlier. Taking herfearwith them.
She just skirted Ben where he was, leaving him mostly alone. He didn’t even seem aware of the world around him tonight. He just kept typing away. She studied him for another moment. She had never had the opportunity to watch him work before.
The diner seemed to be the place people were coming lately to get away.They were slow enough tonight, Dusty felt more than comfortable sending Meyra home an hour early when her uncle Gerald stopped by to grab dinner for himself and his wife. He took Meyra home on his way. Her cousin didn’t protest—whatever was on her mind had had Meyra quieter than usual all night long.
Dusty went back to rolling more silverware, trying to keep her hands busy. While she rolled, she watched Ben and tried to figure him out until the last customers wound up their conversation and left.
He was far prettier than either of his brothers. They were all around the same size, tall, broad-shouldered, strong, muscled, and beautiful. Ben was the prettiest,of the three, she decided. Ben looked like a Greek statue. Every inch of him was physical perfection. Gil and Fletcher had that whole cowboy rugged thing going on, but Ben…
The man was seriously buff to be a writer nerd, like Nikki called him.
Dusty hadn’t noticed that before. But now, it was rather hard to miss.
