Part 30 (1/2)

”Uh... yeah. He would,” Levi stated then he looked to Brock. ”She cook like this all the time?”

”Man, she owns a bakery,” Brock answered.

Levi looked at me. ”I'm stayin'.”

”Good,” I muttered and pulled away from Brock, ordering, ”Honey, go wake the boys. I'll start breakfast. The Christmas trees aren't going to march in our houses by themselves and we need to get there early. There's always a rush the weekend after Thanksgiving and we need two good trees.”

”She always bossy?” Levi asked as I turned to the coffeepot.

”No, she's usually always sweet but Christmas does s.h.i.+t to people,” Brock's departing voice replied.

I yanked out the coffeepot, turned to Levi and rolled my eyes.

He took that in and, sounding just like his brother and nearly as beautiful as when Brock did it, he burst out laughing.

Chapter Fourteen.

You're with Me

Nearly two weeks later...

I parked behind Brock's brand new, huge, dark blue GMC, turned off the ignition, exited my car and headed to the trunk, s.h.i.+vering the minute my body left my warm vehicle and hit the arctic air.

It was Denver. Tomorrow, it could be sixty degrees even in December. But that night it was freezing and the air felt like snow, not to mention the forecast said we were going to get a dump.

Good for the mountains and ski resorts, bad for Tessa O'Hara.

I loved snow, playing in it, looking at it, making hot cocoa and reading a book while it was falling outside.

Driving through it... not so much.

I opened the trunk and grabbed the handles of the plethora of parcels in the back, carefully arranging the bags in my grip, bags made awkward due to the copious rolls of Christmas wrap poking out.

I had a weakness for Christmas wrap. In fact, I had a weakness for any kind of wrap including bows and ribbons. I gave into this weakness often so I had an entire closet at my house dedicated to wrapping paper and all its accoutrement.

No joke.

Juggling bags while avoiding poking myself with rolls of paper, I slammed the trunk using my elbow and headed to Brock's patio.

When my eyes went there, my brows drew together.

There was a Harley outside the gate. It wasn't Brock's. It was a Dyna Glide. And anyway, when not in use, Brock kept his Fat Boy on the patio under a st.u.r.dy, custom-made cover.

Hmm. It appeared Brock had company.

Still juggling bags, I maneuvered myself through the high, wood patio gate then through the storm door and front door.

Before I could call a word of greeting, I heard Brock say low, ”Tess.”

I knew instantly he wasn't greeting me. It was a warning to halt conversation.

Oh man.

”Hey!” I called, shut the door and walked into the living room, eyes to the right.

Then I saw them. A Hispanic man and a Native American man on the stools in front of Brock's bar, Brock standing in the kitchen behind the bar.

My first thought, seeing as I was female and these thoughts usually took precedence above all others, was these guys were hot. Not hot, per say, if you were talking the average sense of the word. Hot in the Brock sense of the word which was to say mouth-watering, off-the-scales hot.

My second thought was they not only shared hotness quotients with Brock, but both of them in different ways also had the wild man, dangerous man aura.

For some reason, Brock was communing with his brethren and the serious vibe pulsing in the room said it wasn't over beers, war stories and nostalgically reminiscing about the b.i.t.c.hes they'd tagged.

This was something else.

”Hey babe,” Brock rumbled. ”This is Hector Chavez and Vance Crowe, friends of mine.”

”Hey guys,” I greeted.

To this I got a, ”Yo,” from Vance Crowe, the Native American man but the Hispanic man just gave me a chin lift.

Definitely Brock Brethren.

I hefted the bags up over the back of the couch and dumped them on the seat then turned to Brock, pulling off my knit cap and immediately running my fingers through my hair in an effort to fix or hide any possible hat head. ”You need me to find something to do in the bedroom?”

”No,” he shook his head and then said softly, ”Come up here, darlin'.”

d.a.m.n.

Just as I thought, that something else had to do with me and/or it was not good news.

My eyes did a sweep through the male talent in my man's kitchen and I found myself having the curious reaction that not a lot of females would have and that was that I would rather go out, get in my car and track down Martha and Elvira to drink cosmos than take off my coat and join the three best looking men I'd seen in my life in my man's kitchen.

Regardless of that, I nodded, unb.u.t.toned my coat, took it to the hall closet that separated the down stairs to the boys' rooms with the up stairs to the kitchen. I hung it up and headed into the kitchen.

The moment I got near, as usual, Brock claimed me with an arm around my waist, pulling my front to his side and I noted all the boys had bottles of Bud.

”You want a beer?” Brock asked and I looked from the counter to him.

”I was thinking hot cocoa.”

He grinned but he didn't commit to it and I knew this because it didn't reach his eyes and because it didn't hit the room.

d.a.m.n again.