Page 52 of Taken By Storm

Sam shrugged. “Don’t need to, but it’s funnier if I do.”

Given the chuckles of his other brothers, obviously Sam was right.

“Assholes,” Levi muttered good-naturedly. He didn’t take offense because razzing each other was the norm in this household.

“Seriously, though,” Everett piped in. “You dating Kasi?”

Levi shook his head. “No.”

Given the six dubious expressions fired in his direction, Levi hurried to explain.

“Dating is too mild a word for what Kasi and I have. Dating makes it sound like we’re taking a test drive to see where things go. I already know where we’re going. She’s it for me. The one. The end game. Forever.”

Grayson whistled, long and low. “Damn. Never thought I’d hear you say those words.”

“I swear it happened just like it did for Mom and Dad. One minute, I’m standing there minding my own business, the next, the blinders fell off and I just knew.”

“They just fell off, huh?” Jace, like Theo, was laid-back and capable of taking most things in life in stride. Levi wasn’t sure he’d ever seen his youngest brother riled up, so he wasn’t surprised when Jace gave him a grin and added, “Wicked.”

For seven boys all raised by the same parents, Levi was constantly amazed by how different he and his brothers were. As the oldest, he’d always been a bit more serious, trying to set what he hoped was a good example for his brothers.

After him came Sam, who was just one year younger. Granddaddy always referred to them as Irish twins. Sam was a lot like Levi, though softer spoken and a hell of a lot more introspective, which was saying something because it wasn’t like Levi was a big talker. Sam was also creative, something that had served him well as brewmaster at Rain or Shine Brewery.

The mild-mannered mold Levi and Sam shared was broken when Theo arrived two years after Sam. Theo never met a party he wasn’t the life of, and his loud laughter was the permanent white noise in their house, which was why he was the perfect brother to serve as “the face” of the brewery, training the servers, hiring entertainment, and schmoozing their patrons as they indulged in tastings. Sometimes, Levi thought people came to the brewery to hang out with Theo as much as they did to drink the beer.

Maverick, their resident playboy, came next. The man had been blessed with a face made for Hollywood, and he loved women—all of them—a lot. Levi was starting to suspect their expert-winemaker brother was perilously close to working his way through every eligible lady in Gracemont, as well as the neighboring towns. God only knew what Maverick would do once he’d run out of women to charm and seduce.

After Maverick was Everett, their book-smart, computer-geek brother. As a kid, Everett had made a career of getting out of doing work on the farm, coming up with some ingenious excuses for why he couldn’t go outside. His outright aversion to manual labor was something none of the rest of them could begin to understand, but they’d stopped bitching about it when Everett declared himself the farm’s marketing and IT guru. He’dput both Rain or Shine Brewery and Lightning in a Bottle winery on the map in the last decade, drawing in countless visitors as well as widening their distribution circles.

Levi’s youngest brothers, Grayson and Jace, were polar opposites despite their kid brother statuses. Where Jace was all smiles and laid-back, Grayson was a grumpy, no-nonsense perfectionist, who preferred order and control above all else.

Jace had recently started training to become a brewmaster under Sam, filling the void left when their cousin Lucy found true love with not one man but two. It had taken a little getting used to, but it was clear Miles and Joey were both head over heels for Lucy, and they were great guys to boot.

So when Lucy followed them to Philadelphia, it was Jace who’d stepped in to fill her shoes. Prior to that, he was a jack-of-all-trades, taking on the countless, endless jobs that always popped up on a farm of this size. He was a master mechanic, so he was instrumental in keeping the equipment at both the brewery and winery running smoothly.

Grayson, on the other hand, worked with Maverick in the winery, and despite their vastly different personalities—Maverick with his suave nature and appealing smile, and Grayson’s permanent resting bitch face—Levi suspected of all the brothers, those two were the closest, the best of friends.

“You saying this was love at first sight?” Grayson asked.

“Dad always said that was how it was for him and Mom,” Sam pointed out.

“Can’t be love at first sight,” Everett countered. “He’s known her forever andseenher a million times.”

His brother was right. Levi leaned his head back against the couch cushion. “You’re right. I have. So maybe it’s more accurate to say it was love at first touch. When she passed out in that fruit stand, I reached out to catch her and…” Levi raked a hand through his hair. “Something came alive inside me. About anhour after that, I was hugging her in her kitchen, and a future I never imagined started playing in my mind. One that included a wife to care for and babies.”

“She’s a lot younger than you,” Jace pointed out, though his grin told Levi that his kid brother was just saying it to give him shit.

“I’m aware of that,” Levi grumbled, unwilling to let anyone toss that in his lap as an excuse as to why he and Kasi shouldn’t be together. “And it doesn’t fucking matter.”

Jace laughed. “You’re right. It doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean some people around town aren’t going to say it.”

“Don’t give a shit.”

“I like the idea of love at first touch,” Maverick said. “Even though, I think part of you must have known she was yours even before that. Because, dude…how many years have you been driving by that stand to buy one of her pies?”

“At least three,” Levi confessed. Had he known she was his? He hadn’t thought so at first, but there was no denying she’d always been the bright spot in his day. While they’d never talked much, he looked forward to their silly song and dance about the change and seeing her had never failed to make him feel…happy. Of course, he’d chalked that up to her sunny disposition and delicious pies. Now his brother’s comment left him wondering if his daily trips to the stand had been less about pie and more about…keeping an eye on her.

Grayson, clearly uncomfortable with all this talk about love, changed the subject. “What’s going on with her dad?”

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