Page 18 of Dust Storm

The sound of giggling girls echoed upward into the tall-pitched ceiling. Christian hung his hat on a hat rack, careful not to knock the other ones down.

“Hey,” Becks said from a recliner in the open living room. She looked miserably happy.

I never understood the baby thing. Why would a woman voluntarily put herself through nine months of hell and eighteen years of parental prison?

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was not a baby person. Or a kid person. Or a teenager person. Or a young adult person.

I mostly tolerated the twenty-six and up population.

“Did you get settled in?” she asked, taking a bite from a bowl of mashed potatoes that rested on top of her enormous baby bump.

I brushed my hair over my shoulder and lifted my chin. “Not exactly.”

“Whoever sees Jackson next, tell him I need to have a conversation with him,” Christian said, cool as a cucumber.

The room froze.

Becks’s mouth dropped open. “Holy crap.”

“What?”

When Christian turned his back and delved into a conversation with someone who looked almost exactly like him, Becks spoke quietly. “I’ve never seen him that angry before.”

“That’s angry?”

Becks smirked and shoveled in a spoonful of potatoes. “Oh yeah. Chris is as even-tempered as they come. I’ve never heard him so much as raise his voice.” She pointed across the room at him. “That’sfury.”

Once, I had thrown a crystal vase across my office because I was pissed off at a client.

At least I didn’t throw it at the client.

Such was the life of a publicist.

Well … an ex-publicist.

“It makes me wonder how he gets out all his stress,” Becks whispered.

But she didn’t elaborate. Christian and his look-alike headed for us.

From the back, they were the same height and build, but from the front, the differences were easy to spot.

Christian had a brown man bun, beard, and heavy dad bod with a curved belly. The other guy was more of a dirty blond with hair buzzed short in a military cut. His face was mostly clean-shaven, except for a light layer of sandy stubble. He was built like G.I. Joe.

“Cass, this is my brother, Nate,” Christian said.

“Cassandra,” I clipped under my breath.

Christian just smirked.

“That Griffith brother belongs to me,” Becks said, pointing the potato spoon at Christian’s brother.

Nate extended his hand. “Nice to meet you. Becks has told me a lot about you.”

He didn’t strike me as the cowboy type. His posture and presence screamedmilitary.

“Well done,” I said out of the corner of my mouth when Christian’s girls tackled Nate.

Becks grinned and gently smoothed a hand over her bump as it moved like an alien was inside of her.

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