Page 137 of Beware of Dog

Cass took a breath, intending to respond…and burst into tears instead.

“Oh, shit,” Axelle said.

“Her mascara’s waterproof,” Raven said, softly, “it’s fine.”

And the thing was? Itwasfine. With her face pressed to Phillip’s soft shirt, all that queasy tension Cass had been carrying this morning burst like a soap bubble popping. She hadn’t known what she’d needed until right this moment, but she knew now: her whole family together, supportive and happy for her. She couldn’t remember when all of them had been in the same place last, but they were here today, for her, and she didn’t quite feel worthy of such a gathering.

She drew back sniffling, and dabbed carefully at the corners of her eyes, glad not to see any mascara transfer on her fingers. “I thought you weren’t coming.” Her voice wobbled dreadfully, but Phillip had once kissed her skinned knee better when she was five, so she figured there was no one better to cry and wobble in front of.

“I’m flying back first thing in the morning. You didn’t think I wouldn’t steal away to see my baby sister get married, did you?”

She closed her eyes against a fresh wave of tears, willing them away. The mascara was good, but it had to have an upper limit.

The door clicked softly open, and Cass heard Emily say, “Oh, Phillip! You made it.”

He turned to greet her, but not before chucking Cass under the chin like he’d done when she was little; he waited until she opened her eyes, and then offered her another of his endlessly kind smiles.

“Did you meet Shep yet?” she asked.

He nodded, and said, “You did well, Cassandra.”

It was all she could do, then, not to fling herself out the door, sprint down the stairs, and go flying across the grass toward her wedding.

~*~

Shep dragged the razor down his jaw and tried to ignore the two idiots who’d pressed in on either side of him, their faces younger, less lined, and far more amused than his own in the downstairs bathroom mirror.

“How do his feet look?” Tenny asked, pulling an over-the-top inquisitor face.

Tommy made a show of looking, and tsked. “A little cold. Hm.”

“Hm,” Tenny echoed.

Fifteen minutes ago, he’d shaken Phillip Calloway’s hand for the very first time, and now he was shaving, and then he’d brush his teeth, and change clothes, and go out in the yard where the guys had set up a little wooden arbor covered in flowers that morning.

“I got a question,” he said, rinsing his razor under the tap. “Have I finally met the last of all you fuckers? Or is somebody gonna pop outta that laundry basket in a second?”

Tommy pressed in so close he got a daub of shaving cream on his cheek, and when Shep tried to lean away, he knocked temples with Tenny, who’d done the same on the other side. “What in the damn hell—”

“You two,” Walsh snapped from out in the bedroom. “Get out here.”

“Sod off,” Tenny said, but they both at least pulled back from Shep’sgoddamn face. Little assholes.

Walsh appeared in the mirror, surly-faced back at the threshold. “I put one of you up rent free,” he said, “and I used to take you to parking lot fairs and buy you shit food and clean you up after you puked on yourself. Soget outof the bathroom, both of you.”

They did get out. Tenny reached over and tried to pinch Tommy’s cheek. “Aw, did you go on little play dates with big brother?”

“Shut up.”

Walsh turned and clouted them both in the ear, simultaneously, as they left the bathroom, to the sound of loud vocal protests. Over his shoulder, he said, “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

Shep heeled the door shut and finished shaving in blessed silence, his new family nothing but a tumble of voices on the other side.

His morning had started out peaceful. It had started outgood. Cass was clingy in her sleep; hell, so was he. They’d awakened twisted together like pretzels, skin sticking with sweat; he’d spat out a mouthful of her hair and nuzzled down through it to find her throat; had woken her up with a string of wet, nipping kisses that left her purring.

But they’d been separated after breakfast, Cass swept upstairs with the women, and Shep left in the downstairs masterbedroom with all of her brothers. Each of them was tolerable, quiet, even, in a one-on-one scenario. But all together? Chaos.

As an only child, Shep found it fascinating. He’d gone from the Army to the club, and so he’d thought he understood what it meant to have siblings. But the Army had been siblings of circumstance, and the club was siblings of choice, more or less. But you couldn’t choose blood. Devin’s brood bickered constantly; they insulted and cursed and harassed one another. And they loved one another. They chose to do so, even if they claimed to hate each other, and he wondered, idly, if they would choose to love him in time.

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