Page 69 of Burn the Wild

“You hired her?” Davis asks, scraping leftovers into the trash. Keena hovers, hoping for a stray crumb.

Annoyance rises in my throat. “Look, y’all told me to keep her close. Keep her out of trouble. That’s what I’m doing.”

He passes the plate to Charlie. “That include shopping?”

I glare at my mouthy little brother, who’s suddenly interested in the bubbles in the kitchen sink.

“You spent the day with her,” Davis presses.

To be a contrary fuck, I drawl, “I did,Dad.”

“Okay, no dad-speak,” Dakota interjects, holding up her wine glass like she’s ready to splash the next instigator. “We all know where that gets you two.”

Fallon cackles in delight. “Shopping, Ford? That’s like third base already.”

I tear a hand through my hair, squeeze the back of my neck. Reese was right about the family interrogation. Since when has everything become a family affair?

“There is no first, second, or third base,” I snap, my temper waking up. I’m already annoyed Reese barely touched her dinner. “She’s too young for me, anyway.”

Fallon and Dakota exchange smirks.

Not my type, I remind myself. Too high maintenance. We come from different worlds.

“Ain’t she some big-shot country singer?” Wyatt says, dunking a wad of napkins in the garbage. “Where’s her money?”

“For some reason, she’s broke,” Charlie says. “From what Ruby told me, she was in The Corner Store picking out change just to buy an energy drink.”

Fallon shoots me a withering glare and mutters, “Bet it was a man. It’s always a man.”

All three of my brothers stare at me. I clench my fist, grit my teeth.

Only your siblings can make you mad in seconds. And it’s a specific kind of mad, too. No one else can make you rage so suddenly.

I swing a finger around the kitchen. “I seem to remember y’all laying this trouble on me. She’s my problem, so I’m going to make her my fucking problem.”

“I don’t want her to giveyouproblems.” Brotherly concern and annoyance war in Davis’s voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He crosses his arms. “You know what it means.”

They think I’m combustible since last year, but they don’t know I’ve been working on it.

“I don’t know what it means,” Fallon says slyly.

Davis turns to her. “Ford doesn’t attract what’s good for him.”

“Again,” I say through clenched teeth. “I’m right fucking here.”

“She’s a train wreck,” Davis argues. “I heard about her dancing on the bar at Nowhere, seen those videos. She went to rehab when she was sixteen.”

I suck in a breath. Rehab or not, Reese doesn’t deserve to have her past thrown in her face. “Hell, who hasn’t fucked up when they were sixteen?”

Davis leans in, lowering his voice. “What I’m saying is, you don’t need that shit in your life, Ford. You have it together. After Savannah—”

“Savannah almost killed him,” Wyatt snarls in a rare show of sibling loyalty. When it comes to my ex, all my brothers have my back.

“She’s Savannah.” Anger clouds Davis’s features. “Times two.”

---