Page 43 of Tulips and Lost Time

“My daughter is eleven days old and already knows seventeen different cuss words because of you. Wanna cool it?”

Thoughtful, he pulls back and looks down to study my sleepy baby. Then he chuckles and brings her in again. “I think she’s gonna be okay. Her cousins will teach her whatever we don’t. And when the time comes, I bet none of them will care about your opinion on whoever she’s dating.”

“She doesn’t get to date.” I push up from my chair, the legs scraping on the floor until the baby startles in Kane’s arms. But she settles again. Closing her eyes and snuggling into his chest.

I could leave them alone. I could allow her to rest on her uncle where she’s completely safe and unequivocally loved.

But it’s my turn now. It’s my time. And it’s still the middle of the damn night.

So I move closer and take the tiny bundle from his arms. Unphased by his scowl of disapproval. Unbothered by the danger he represents.

It’s funny. Kane Bishop might literally be the deadliest motherfucker I have ever, or will ever, meet. His military training is so rarely acknowledged verbally, and yet, unavoidable when simply looking at him. The weapons he carries daily, never mentioned. But the threat he poses, and the protection he promises, is absolute.

He, himself, is a weapon created and set free by the US Government, yet somehow, he calls our tiny town home, and my sister, his reason for everything.

But it’s Marcus whose opinion always mattered the most.

Even now, all these years later, his approval helps me sleep at night.

“She wanted to sneak around and have this torrid affair, Bish. The rest of the world saw this quiet, mousy, and shy Kari Macchio. But the woman she showed me…” I continue patting Billy’s rump, wandering across my kitchen with a gentle shake of my head. “The woman she was beneath all that was not the same.”

“Probably not something you wanna tell Marcus,” Kane sniggers. “I don’t have a sister, but I bet if I did, I wouldn’t wanna know who she is behind closed doors. Even Twink?—”

“Laine?”

He nods. “She’s your sister, but I have this sense of kinship, too. I trust Angelo with my life. He and I are blood in. But he doesn’t give me the details of what they do in private.”

My nose wrinkles with disgust. “Yeah, we don’t need that information.”

“That’s what I’m saying. So Kari’s a viper behind closed doors?” He flashes a wicked grin. “Not that I couldn’t tell. She’s stitched me up a time or two now. I know she’s no simp.”

“She was rebelling,” I sigh. “Eighteen years of being under Marcus’ reign. She had spent her whole life doing what he wanted, when he wanted. Previously, she would go out of her way to make sure he was comfortable. She refused to be the source of his stress. So by the time she was eighteen, she was ready to fuck some shit up.”

“My favorite way of handling things,” he smirks. “And just in case we’re keeping tally, you just said fuck in front of an eleven-day-old baby. So don’t come for me when she’s talking in a couple of years and saying some things that kinda sound like they came from Uncle Bish’s mouth.”

I roll my eyes, but I close them, too, so the action is invisible to everyone except me. Then I tuck my face into the crook of Billy’s neck and inhale. She smells like baby. Like hospital. She even smells a bit like sour milk. Though beneath all that is the faint scent of flowers.

She got that from her momma.

“She didn’t even want a relationship that everyone else could know about. It would bring stress to Marcus, she said. It would complicate everything. So she was completely and hopelessly okay with sneaking around.”

“Luca?”

Kari wanders into Marcus’ living room, the wood paneling an overwhelming feature in the old A-frame home Marc bought not so long ago. It’s a loft-studio set up, with one bedroom exposed to anyone sitting downstairs. A kitchen. A teeny, tiny little laundry off the side of the house, and a giant barn out back.

We’re not the only people here: Angelo takes up the single recliner, and Scotch sits on the floor in front of the three-seater couch. His shaggy hair dangles in his eyes. His entire body, bowed over a guitar, and his mind, swirling in a depression he’s yet to escape from.

Because Sammy, that girl he swore he would marry and love forever… left.

She got the wedding certificate. She got his heart. But she skipped town the second she could and stomped on his soul on the way out.

Jess and Laine lounge on the couch, and Marcus sits on the end, his feet on the cushions and his hand wrapped around a PlayStation controller. Because this is what we do on the rare, rare nights where the band isn’t playing at the club, Marcus isn’t bussing tables, I’m not on night-shift, and the rest of us have nothing else to do.

We come to Marc’s house and chill the fuck out.

In fact, this is so completely normal, no one even looks up at Kari’s seductive summons.

Though, of course, I doubt anyone else considers it seductive.

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