Page 191 of The Maxwell Brothers
"No. Your dad and I were just going to have a light dinner," Lena said.
"I can treat everyone to takeout," I exclaimed, coming down from my bar seat. "If you like that."
"We sure do," Luke replied.
There was a chorus of yeses, and for some reason, I felt less intimidated when they started to fight over whether to order pizza or sushi.
“We can order both,” I said in a slightly raised tone to make myself heard.
Luke grinned at me. “No, no. The whole fun is to get to agree on something.”
“It seems like it might never happen,” I replied.
Travis came up next to me. “I’m with you on this one. We never agree on food, but we always try. I don’t know why. But they better hurry up, or I’ll eat up everything Mom’s got in the fridge. I haven’t eaten anything today.”
“Thanks again for coming and helping me."
"No problem. I have lots of free time anyway, so I can help out with anything my family needs." He spoke like this was a common occurrence.
"How come you have so much free time?" I asked.
"I just sold my company, and I'm in no rush to start something else. I've been working on it for years, so now I'm just catching up on everything I missed. It's a bit weird, honestly, but it did come in handy when Tyler needed company."
Gran came up next to us with her glass of wine.
"Ma'am, your grandsons are true gentlemen. And Reese is… whatever the female equivalent is."
"Oh, call me Beatrice or Gran. 'Ma'am' makes me feel like I'm a hundred years old, and I still have eighteen years to reach that milestone."
I laughed. "Okay, Beatrice."
"I'm glad to meet you, Kendra. I've heard a bit about you through the grapevine."
"Oh?" I raised a brow.
"Yes, yes. I was most curious about you.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you too. I’m happy to meet you, though I’m feeling a bit guilty that the reason we’re meeting is that I’ve roped the entire family into helping me.”
She patted my arm. “That’s what we do, child. No need to feel guilty.”
“Exactly,” Reese exclaimed, coming up to us with Lexi. “Girls, the three of us should plan something. I need new friends. My sister's still in Paris, and since I suck at picking both guys and friends, I don't trust anyone I'm not related to right now—or someone who my cousins didn't choose."
Tyler choseme.
I smiled from ear to ear, deciding not to worry about how I would pay for the catastrophe today. Instead I would just enjoy this day and this fantastic group of people.
CHAPTER 22
KENDRA
I never quite understood thesaying “floating on a cloud” until I met Tyler. Scratch that. Until he became a part of my life, along with the rest of the Maxwells.
In the three weeks after the basement fiasco, my sexy goalie was busy getting back in shape and training. Somehow, he still found time to make me swoon. Case in point: he seemed to have put his whole family on task.
The contractor Luke had put me in contact with gave me a quote that wasn’t at all in my range, so I didn’t hire him. After a feeble attempt to do some of the work at the house on my own, I realized it was truly beyond my skill level, though. Luke suggested I could pay in installments, so we were meeting today in the afternoon to discuss that. Declan was coming too. The restoration company had written up a report on the pump, and it turned out to be faulty after all. Declan insisted I could sue the previous owners for withholding information.
They’d both taken their advising me so seriously, you would have thought it was their job. Last Thursday they even asked me to join them for Thanksgiving dinner, but I politely refused. Tyler was away with the team that day, and it felt weird to have dinner with his family on my own.
