Page 64 of One Night Bride
Esme giggled like I knew she would.
Then she sat straight up. “Oh. You might want to stay away from Dad for a while.”
“Why? What did you tell him?”
She winced and my gut tightened. “Just be glad Oakley got him to give up the plan to put an APB out on your head.”
Jesus. What a fucking mess. “Sounds like your dad and my dad would get along just fine.”
27
Remington
“Is there a reason we’re meeting way over here?”
I approached the fire pit with a moderate amount of caution. Titus had invited me that morning to share a beer with him and Wyatt, and while I wholeheartedly agreed to come, I hadn’t guessed they wanted to kill me. Now, I wasn’t so sure. The beach here was secluded, with all the tourists partying it up around the other side of the huge rock jutting out into the ocean. It was dark since the sun had already set and it was just us three.
“Easier to bury the body out here,” Titus replied, then ruined the effect with a huge grin.
Wyatt leaned around the fire ring to shake my hand. “Welcome to the Waldo sisters club.”
“Do we get a secret handshake or something?” I asked, gripping his hand and taking one of the chairs set out for me.
Titus tossed me a longneck bottle of beer. “Are you kidding me? More like a first aid kit. These girls are little hellions wrapped up in beautiful women’s bodies.”
I took a long sip of the beer. “I’m starting to see that. Then again, I wouldn’t want to marry a woman if she wasn’t built with a steel spine. Got any advice for a newbie?”
Wyatt tossed another log on the fire and the embers flew up into the night sky. “In my very short experience with a Waldo sister, I tend to pull out the handcuffs on a regular basis. Sometimes for playtime, and other times for when I can’t get her to sit down and listen to me.”
I rubbed my chin. I didn’t have handcuffs, and I wasn’t certain Esme wouldn’t just punch me right in the nose if I tried to restrain her in the middle of an argument.
“Or in your case, saddle up and hold on tight,” Titus said with a wink and a tip of an imaginary cowboy hat. “I’ve learned you can’t control them. You just have to gird your loins and hope for the best.”
“Definitely don’t work for one of them.” Wyatt flopped back in his chair like he didn’t have the strength to sit upright just from thinking about it. “Oakley was my boss for a while there and that was both heaven and hell.”
I shook my head and took another sip of beer. “I don’t intend to get in Esme’s way professionally. She’s got that dialed in already.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got two of them under your roof right now.” Titus reached down to the small cooler by his chair to grab another beer. “Twins, no less.”
Wyatt whooped. “That’s downright scary right there.”
I swallowed hard, getting nervous for the first time about marrying into the Waldo family. Everything had been such a whirlwind, I hadn’t given her family much thought. “Izzy seems pretty sweet. I don’t think she’ll get up to much trouble.”
Titus threw his head back and laughed, a couple of nearby seagulls taking flight to avoid the noise. “That’s cute.”
Wyatt gave Titus a knowing smile and my stomach dropped.
“Should I ask Izzy to move out?”
Wyatt nearly sprayed beer out of his mouth. “No! Jesus. Don’t do that.”
Titus leaned forward with his forearms on his knees. “You ever run into a bear?”
I thought about it. “Not a bear, but I have come across a mountain lion more than once.”
He snapped his fingers. “It’s like that. You approach with caution, run away if you can, but if that’s not possible, you just stand there real still-like until they pass by.” Titus shrugged and sat back. “That’s how you handle the Waldo ladies.”
“Like a mountain lion?”
