Page 53 of The Love Destroyers

“This was a ruse, wasn’t it?” I ask, amused. “I’m telling Mom.”

“You wouldn’t,” he says. “I just wanted to check on you. You’ve been acting a little…” He rubs his beard. “I don’t know. There’s something different about you.”

“Is this because I’m still walking my cat on a leash?”

Shadow scratches at my leg in displeasure, so I scoop her up into my arms.

“Yes, the cat’s definitely part of it,” he says. “But it feels like this whole situation is getting out of hand. Are you sure you want to go this route? We can take care of Jeffrey another way.”

“Thank you for saying we,” I tell him.

“Whatever happens, wewilltake care of him,” he says gruffly, and my heart warms. My father had driven a wedge between Anthony and me, and I’d widened it when I’d told my brother exactly what I thought about his ex-fiancée. It felt likesomething had shifted between us, though, and here was the proof. My big brother wanted to protect me.

My throat got tight with emotion. “Thanks. I think I needed to hear that.”

He smiles at me. “Any time you want platitudes, I’m your guy. I mean it, though. I’m not going to let him get away with this.”

“I know you mean it,” I say, bringing Shadow up so she’s just beneath my chin, warm and soft.

Being here, it’s impossible not to think of Seamus pulling Shadow out of that wall as if she were a baby being born. It was one of those moments I’ll think about for the rest of my life.

Smiling at my brother, I find myself saying, “But it feels like everything is happening the way it’s supposed to, don’t you think?”

He glances at the gaping hole in the wall and then at my little cat, a leash still latched to her collar. “If you say so. You’re walking around with a leashed cat, and my wife wants to hear all the details about our mother’s quest to get laid by our brother-in-law’s soon-to-be father-in-law.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EMMA

Plunk. Plunk. Plunk.

What the fuck?

Something is hitting my closed bedroom window repeatedly, disturbing my insomnia. But what is it? I’m on the second floor, and after I snuck out for the fortieth or perhaps fiftieth time, my mother cut down the tree I used to use to sneak out, so the sound isn’t the tapping of a friendly oak branch.

I open the window, and am immediately pelted in the face with an acorn.

I glower down at Seamus, standing inside of the gate. He still has a bandage over his wound—a pop of white in the darkness.

He looks like he’s about to shout, so I press a finger to my lips and give him a furious look. He mimes zipping his lips, then points to the front porch.

I’m wearing the same oversized T-shirt I had on last night, so I pull on a pair of pants and a sweatshirt. Shadow, whom I’ve freed from her leash in the captivity of my room, watches me skeptically, then meows a complaint when I squeeze out of the bedroom door before shutting it behind me. I slip on a pair of fuzzy Uggs before turning off the alarm system and heading outside.

He’s waiting for me by the door, grinning. His hair is rumpled, probably from scaling the wall. He’s in his leather jacket over a dark shirt and jeans. Boots.A tall drink of water, my mother used to say to describe men like him, tall and lanky but toned. But he wouldn’t be water. He’d be a Dark and Stormy, or something else a woman could get drunk on.

My body hums with awareness, and a few stupid butterflies flap their wings in my stomach.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” I ask, not totally sure whether I’m asking him or me. After all, according to Rosie, he ignored me all day because he was at lunch with an unidentified group of women.

“Can you be more specific?” he asks, hitching his hand around the top of the door and leaning in a little. It’s sexy, and I have no doubt he knows it. “There’s the mild concussion, obviously, but there are probably half a dozen underlying issues.”

I try not to laugh, but half of the sound escapes.

“Was that a laugh?” he asks, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Atyou, not with you,” I say firmly, planting a hand on my hip. “Now, tell me why you thought it was a good idea to climb a fence when you have a mild concussion? You could have fallen and given yourself a major concussion. And does this mean youdrove?”

I try not to watch his bicep as he continues to do the sexy lean. I fail miserably. He says, “I took an Uber. And of course I didn’t respond, you insisted I shouldn’t use my phone.”

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