Page 5 of Clap Back (Carter Brothers)

Though, that was likely because she looked like she was fuming.

I could practically see the steam coming out of her ears.

Her arms were crossed over her ample chest.

Today she was wearing black skinny jeans, red Converses, a light blue tank top and a hot pink bra underneath it.

She had her hair in a ponytail, but the mass of wild blond curls couldn’t be contained, and still waved wildly around her face with her sporadic movements as she yelled at someone on the phone.

Her employee, I believe her name was Pepper, was standing next to her looking no less upset, staring at her boss.

We walked up in time to hear the ending of Maven’s phone call.

“You do that, and I’ll sue you so fast and hard that you’ll wish you never fucked with me.” Maven hissed into the phone. “You have until tomorrow to fix this, and don’t think my lawyer won’t find out that you’re harassing me again. A suit will be filed in court by Monday if you don’t fix this.”

She hung up and dropped her hands to her sides, phone still clutched so hard in her right one that her knuckles were white.

I tried not to look at the way her breaths were coming in pants, making her breasts jiggle.

I also tried not to pay attention to the way her eyes instantly came to me.

“Officers, as you can see, we’re closed today.”

“Well, I can see that, darlin’. We just stopped by for some baked treats,” Atlas teased, putting his good ol’ boy charm to use.

The lying bastard.

We may have been born and raised in Texas, but none of us had any charm.

And why did his words make me want to pound him into the dirt beneath my boots? Why the hell did I react like this at all to her?

Pepper said something under her breath that caused Atlas to glare at her.

That one single interaction had me tilting my head, really getting a good look at my brother.

He was standing closer to Pepper than he was Maven. And his body, that was also turned slightly toward Pepper, as if he gravitated to her without realizing it.

Which only made me more confused because before this particular visit when I saw Pepper and him in the same area so close together, I would’ve thought he felt nothing for her.

Was I wrong?

Was the reason he was coming here not because of the owner, but because of the employee?

I wasn’t the most experienced person in the world, but I could see that there was something between them. Something intense.

What little I knew about Pepper—what she allowed me to know about her—was that she was very, very independent. She worked multiple jobs, and she didn’t get along with her sister.

A sister who Atlas just so happened to save from a serial killer a few years ago.

Sage, the woman he’d saved, was Pepper’s little sister. According to Sage—who now worked at DPD—she didn’t talk to any of her family. They were all assholes.

Yet, Pepper never gave me that feeling. She was in a perpetual bad mood, yes. But from what I could see, she was a hard worker—always showing up on time for Maven. Not to mention her second job at a fancy smancy hotel off the interstate meant I saw her quite a bit due to the location of it and the calls that came out of it being in my particular beat.

Just because a hotel was labeled as five stars didn’t mean that it didn’t come with plenty of issues. From calls about vagrants, to guests who were no longer wanted, I was there quite a bit.

I also saw Pepper there, every single time.

Anyway, the things we’d heard about Pepper from Sage never fit, and I wondered if Atlas was aware of that. He and Sage were pretty damn close considering.

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