Page 3 of Their Best Friends' Bratty Little Sister

But he and both his brothers, Lawson and Cameron, had had a funny feeling riding up their spines when Eric had called and asked them to take in their sister for a while. She had “been acting up”—those were the words Eric had used.

They had seen Sienna once or twice when she was much younger. And then they had seen her six months after she had turned eighteen when she had made them all colossally uncomfortable to the point where they didn’t stick around long enough that they became obligated to talk to her. She didn’t even know they had been there that day at the Gallagher house, the last time they had seen her all grown up.

She was their best friends’ little sister.

That made her completely hands-off. It wasn’t even a discussion they needed to have. They just understood what seeing her had done to them at that point in time, eradicated the feeling from their minds and bodies, and moved on. That was six years ago and they had done an excellent job forgetting her. She was a nonissue.

And now she was here.

Handcuffed to a seat of the Gallagher brothers’ private jet, no less. Still, the status quo would remain the same and continue to be a nonissue as far as they were concerned.

They looked past her dazzling green eyes, rimmed with curiosity now, her glossy pink lips, and her long, satiny blonde hair.

What the fuck was she wearing though?

The loose vest she wore over a tank top didn’t do enough to conceal her perfectly tanned and gleaming skin. And were those yoga pants?

Rowan heard the collective groans of his brothers in his head as they came to the same deduction about her attire. Every fucking curve she had would be in full view. They would rather punch themselves in the eye than look at her now.

The last time they had seen her, she sparkled from head to toe in full heiress gear, her dress so short it barely covered her ass, and heels so high, she put them on high alert to catch her if she fell over. She, of course, didn’t even look their way. Didn’t even know they were there, in the Gallagher house, in the brothers’ study when she strolled by, popped her head in, and said bye, her attention never leaving her phone.

At that moment, too, they realized the vast differences in their lives even though it never came up with Eric, Blake, and Grayson.

The Carters were private, rough around the edges, and didn’t care for trendsetters. She was stunning, young, too fucking rich, and carefree. She dated pretty preppy boys who wore shoes with no socks and used as many hair products as their female counterparts.

Rowan and his brothers weren’t made from money, unlike the Gallaghers, although that had never been a topic of discussion that had come up among them, ever. Apart from the difference in the amount of money they had, the Gallaghers were exactly like them in every other regard. But the Carters did make their own money, and it wasn’t something they flaunted. Running their parents' cattle ranch was a good way to kill the time and keep their memory alive.

While the Gallaghers had retired from the marines, they still undertook clandestine missions that made them millions of dollars all for the sake of the safety of their country every now and again.

Now Eric had asked them to take her in for a while, and it was safe to assume Blake and Grayson had agreed because, just like the Gallaghers, Rowan and his brothers worked as one unit.

Put her to work, they had said. Although one look at her perfect nails and entire pampered existence, Rowan knew that was going to be a mission. But her brothers thought she needed a change of scenery to clear her head.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her chin raised. Even seated and handcuffed, she still came off haughty as fuck. That he and his brothers swapped a glance with each other at her question said she had no idea who they were, and somehow he didn’t like the way that felt.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking of doing, you should know, I have a lot of money. Just name your price and—”

He stopped listening to her.

Well, hell, it’s not like they had the chance to go back to the house and put on their Sunday best for her. It was Saturday anyway.

By the expression in her stunning emerald eyes, as she flicked her gaze over their dusty boots and sweaty T-shirts that clung to their bodies, she certainly thought they should have cleaned up first. No. That wasn’t it. She had just bribed them with money in exchange for not hurting her. She thought they were thugs. There to rob her on her private jet.

A grin spread across Cameron’s face, but then he found most things amusing. Lawson remained expressionless, and Rowan… well, he just hoped she wasn’t going to annoy him any more than she already did, and it started with the way she smelled. Like fucking roses.

She was going to be a handful and a half. That much was clear. He could only hope he had enough patience for the duration of her stay.

There wasn’t much they wouldn’t do for the Gallagher brothers and vice versa. It was just the nature of their relationship, solidified when their lives depended on each other in situations where they were at risk of having their brains shot out by crime lords and politicians alike, or their legs blown off as they traipsed through terrain rigged with land mines in long-forgotten areas of the world.

But taking in their sister, who they described as out of control, was not something Rowan and his brothers ever expected they would be asked to do. Refusing was not a trait of their relationship. Neither was asking questions when they were asked to take care of something. It went both ways.

But Eric, Blake, and Grayson knew she was in some kind of trouble. Something they’d been having a hard time getting to the bottom of even with all their resources. Not only did they want her safe; and there was no safer place for her than here in Montana with them as her shadows, but they had given the Carters free rein to get whatever they could out of her any way they saw fit.

But fuck.

What was once a nonissue was now scaling a very precarious fence in a matter of minutes, in her company.

Sienna Gallagher was something else altogether and reacquainting their gaze with her immediately told them taking a bullet for the Gallaghers would have been easier.

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