Page 40 of Nanny for the SEALs

18

Rick

It was creepy.

No, kinda weird.

I got home from the club in the early hours of the morning, and I saw Pete creep around. First, he was walking outside Katie’s room, just about to knock, then he left, and then he did the same thing. I wanted to ask him what was going down, but between trying not to worry about one brother who was missing in action. I kinda gave up on the idea of playing papa to not only the twins, but my brothers, too.

“You going to knock on her door already?” I barked as I passed him in the hallway.

“Oh!” I saw his red eyes and thought maybe he had just as much sleep as I did, but he was acting like a nervous teen—something Pete never did. He was the confident one of the three of us, but for some reason, he was acting like a little kid.

“Just I can’t make her out. We’re all good one minute, and the next, it’s as if I’m…” he said as he followed me.

After my long stint at the club, all I wanted to do was come home, put my feet up, have some hot cocoa, and I would be out till the afternoon, especially with no kids to think about for one day. No, instead, I come home to a brother who’s missing and the other who’s sulking, all over the same woman.

What the fuck?

Has she put a spell on everyone in this penthouse, and I was the only one able to resist her temptation? Maybe because she was too busy poisoning my brothers.

“Pete, just chill. When did you ever let a woman get to you like this?” I sighed as I patted him on the back and hoped he would reflect and move in the opposite direction.

“She’s not just any woman, and you know it.”

Fuck! Lecture time was on. She’d really gotten under his skin.

“She’s naive, but not so naive. If you see what I mean?”

I raised an eyebrow. I was thinking I could sum it up in one word. “Young!”

“Yeah, she’s young, but that’s not what I’m talking about or even implying .” He sat on the stool as if he was trying to gather his thoughts and share them with me, but struggled to get the words out. “Shit, I just think she was abused.”

My heart skipped a beat, the idea of anyone causing harm to her made me feel sick.

“Ben?”

He nodded. “Uh-huh. I mean, I tried to get it out of her. But, you know me… I’m not the most sensitive guy. I just couldn’t come out and ask her directly, and when I did—”

“The shit hit the fan!”

“Exactly!”

A vein was popping out of my neck as I started to get all tensed up and shit. Thinking about Ben striking her or beating her… Sweet, delicate Katie; now I knew why my brother was a mess, and I had a feeling if he told me more, I would jump in my Jeep, track down this piece of shit, and let him know what it felt like to be on the other side of a fist.

“Before you get all wound up, maybe I just jumped to conclusions, but something wasn’t right. She was tense at times when I was with her, but whenever she talked about him, it was as if she went into zombie mode.”

I shook my head. “Hold up. You’re with her and you’re talking about her ex. I know you’re kinky, but that’s a new all time low.”

“Not kinky. I mean it’s like, I’ll say something like, what did you do on the weekends back home. She’ll reply like, Ben and I would go to the local diner or catch a movie on his iPad, and I would cook or … But everything was in relation to Ben, as if she didn’t have any interest at all.”

I slumped on the workbench opposite him, not sure what he was saying. He was my brother and I loved him, but I couldn’t say he was the kinda guy that would be observant on hidden meanings.

“You think I’m nuts, right?”

I didn’t say anything, really I didn’t know what to say. He was telling me there was a possibility that she was abused because she spent a lot of time with her ex. Yeah, it made no fucking sense, but I didn’t want to burst his bubble and say that I thought he was crazy.

“Shit, I sound crazy. I think I need to go lay down. Don’t worry about it. I need to go and meet this guy about the contract, then we’ll meet later.”

He didn’t give me a chance to reply as he jumped off the stool and headed to his room. I didn’t get what he was talking about. I could lie, pretend like I did, but it made no sense to me. It didn’t matter. I would make the cocoa that I planned on making with a shot of Taylor Fladgate to help get rid of the edge.

I checked my cell, there was no message from Aunt Elizabeth, which meant everything was fine. I didn’t have to worry about the twins. I just had my brothers to worry about, but they would have to wait, because for now, I needed to sleep.

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