Busted (Barnes Brothers #3) (22 page)

“But she—” Clayton started, a scowl forming on his face as Neeci surfaced, her hair dripping, a look promising retribution on her little face.

“Did you hear me?”

Clayton’s face folded into mutinous lines, but he nodded and then turned to the steps. “I don’t want to play no more.”

“Anymore,” Trey corrected.

“That either!” Clay shouted. That was the last thing he got out before Neeci took him under.

“Neeci!” Ressa snapped.

“He did it to me first, Ressie!”

“Oh, boy.” Ressa shoved past Trey. “That line doesn’t fly for me. You know that. Out of the pool.”

Neeci’s eyes widened. “What . . . you—” She gulped. “You’re not making us leave, are you?”

Clayton came rushing to her defense. “I did it to her first. I don’t want her to go. It’s my fault.”

“I think both of you need to get out for a while,” Trey said, moving to Ressa’s side. “Maybe it’s time for them to eat. You think?”

“Yeah.” A smile quivered at the corner of her mouth, but she kept her face straight as they all but slumped in relief—not exactly the best thing to do in the pool. “Both of you can settle down a little while. Besides, I’m getting hungry. Come on out, guys.”

“I’ll help them dry off and get them moving inside.”

At Travis’s voice, Trey looked up. His brother had left the far side of the pool and approached without him even noticing. He looked a little less haggard and he’d torn through more than half the food Trey had made that morning. He still looked like he needed to put on a good ten or fifteen pounds, but maybe in another week or two, he wouldn’t look like he was getting ready to put in for a casting call for
The Walking Dead
.

Trey glanced at Ressa. She shrugged in response. “We’ll be in in a few minutes.”

After the door had closed, she looked over at him, that familiar, teasing smile curving her lips up. “I don’t think she’s ever been so worried about consequences before.”

Trey backed her up against the low-lying brick wall, his hands coming up on either side of her hips to cage her in.
“Sometimes the consequences are a bitch.” Then he leaned in and nuzzled her neck. “And then sometimes, the ride’s worth it.”

“Trey . . .” She curled her hands around his waist, her fingers stroking the feathers of the raven that just barely reached his side. “I get the feeling you’re talking about something entirely different.”

“Am I?” he asked, moving to rub his mouth against hers. He could taste her and it went straight to his head.

Before he had a chance to deepen the kiss, though, she pulled away. “Even on the drive back, I already missed you. It’s crazy. I watched you, wanted you for months before I even knew your name,” she said, staring up at him. “Then we had a weekend. One night, really . . . crazy, amazing sex and a few hours together where it was just us. Not much in the scheme of things, but it felt like I was missing some vital part of me when it ended.”

His heart did the weirdest little spin inside his chest—it couldn’t be healthy for a body organ to do that, Trey was almost certain of it. But it felt so right, staring into her eyes. Cupping her face in his hands, he bent his head, pressed his brow to hers. “It didn’t end, though. Just a time-out. Now we just gotta figure out where this is going. Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She closed her hands around his wrists and smiled. “Yeah.”

*   *   *

They talked her into the pool.

She did it only after they promised not to splash her, and that held for all of ten minutes and then Clayton and Neeci gleefully pounced on her and she gamely let them take her under.

Since she was already soaked, she took off after both of them as they swam away and she caught Neeci, tossing her into the air and watching as she landed with a giant splash. Neeci came back out of the water, laughing and squealing for her to do it again. Clayton took a wide-eyed look at her and then swam for his dad.

“Don’t expect me to save you,” Trey said, laughing and moving out the way. “She told you not to splash her. I think you’re in for it.”

From the side of the pool, his legs in the water from the knees down, Travis watched all of it, an amused look on his face.

Realizing he wasn’t going to find any help from his dad, Clayton took off for the next best bet. He climbed out of the pool and ran around the brick surface to hide behind Travis. “Don’t let her get me,” he begged.

Travis snorted. “You trying to put me in the middle of this?” He sighed and shook his head. “Clay, kid.”

“You’re stronger than she is! Besides, you don’t want to kiss her and Dad does.”

Travis shot Trey an amused look. “I’m pretty sure your dad and kissing has nothing to do with any of this. But . . . here. I’ll make it easy, cuz your dad doesn’t want to kiss me.” He hooked his arm around Clayton’s waist and flipped him in.

Clayton hit the water with a giant splash and surfaced with a dark glare for Travis. “That’s not fair!” There was a grin on his face as he started to swim for his dad. “I’ll make Dad dunk you. You’re too big for me.”

“I’ll dunk him later, Clay. Your uncle looks like a puppy could kick his butt right now.” Trey slid him a look across the pool. “Makes it too easy. He’s not dressed for the pool anyway.”

For some reason, the idea of a puppy beating up his uncle Travis struck Clayton as hilarious and he went into a fit of giggles—which made him oblivious to the fact that Ressa had slid under the water and swam up behind him. She caught him around the waist and came up out of the water, twisting and plunging them both under. Clayton’s screech of delight was cut short and he came up sputtering.

“That was sneaky,” he said, swiping the water out of his eyes.

“Next time a woman tells you she doesn’t want to get wet,” she advised. “Listen.”

Then she winked at him and swam over to the far side, hoisting herself out and sitting on the edge to watch.

Losing one of his playmates had Clayton swimming back to Travis.

Looking down into a pair of blue eyes that were almost a
mirror of his own, Travis lifted a brow. The kid was up to something, he knew it.

“You gotta come in now.” Clayton propped his arms on the brick and gazed at him soulfully.

Yeah, that’s not going to happen
. Travis gave him a game smile, but shook his head. “Your dad’s right, kid. I’m dragging so bad a puppy
could
kick my tail. I’ve been sick. Don’t think I’m up to a swim.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw his twin’s gaze narrow on him, and he felt the intensity of Trey’s gaze as well.
Oooohhh
, yeah. He was going to get it. If it wasn’t for the stitches, he would have just gone in.

But he couldn’t get them wet and he wasn’t going to explain them either. No way to hide the injury if he took off his shirt, and that was a talk that just couldn’t happen right now—or ever, if he had his way.

“Oh, come on.” Clayton pouted.

“Leave him alone, Clay,” Trey advised. “Look, you two can tag up on me. We’ll do sharks and minnows.”

Clayton stared at Travis for another few seconds and then turned away, his shoulders drooping. “You gotta be the shark. The whole time. It’s only fair cuz you’re so big, Dad.”

*   *   *

It only took thirty minutes of that to wipe them out.

Ressa had to give them credit.

She helped Neeci change out of her suit in the cute little outbuilding Trey had offered them, and then, after dodging behind the door her cousin had left wide open, she rolled her eyes and changed into her clothes, a pair of denim capris and a shirt with cutout sleeves that left most of her arms bare and dipped down low on her back.

Her hair had moved into disaster territory and there wasn’t much hope for it right now. She’d have to wash it tonight. For now, she tidied up the braid she’d twisted it into—she’d figured she’d end up getting wet anyway—and then she gathered up the clothes.

Heading out the door, she promptly crashed into Trey, hitting him with an
oomph
.

His hands came up to steady her.

“Sorry,” she said, grinning. “I think I left my grace at home today.”

His arm banded around her waist, pressing their lower bodies together. “Sorry . . . for what?”

“Pervert.” She wrinkled her nose at him and glanced around for the kids, but they weren’t outside.

“They went inside, hounding Travis to get them a snack since he didn’t have to change. Might as well make himself useful since he’s going to be a layabout for a while.” He glanced down at the bag of wet swimsuits and towels she held. “They might even be distracted for five minutes.”

“Not long enough,” she said loftily. Twisting out of his reach, she started up the brick walkway. “So . . . is he on vacation or something?”

“Or something.” Trey sounded resigned and took up pace next to her. “He’s got a weird job. Travels a lot. Lately, it’s wearing him out.”

Stay out of it
. That was what her common sense said. Well,
mostly
. But in her gut, she knew that man wasn’t an accountant. Running her tongue across her teeth, she gave him what she hoped was a casual look. “So he’s an accountant, huh?”

“A forensic accountant.” Something that might have been pride crept into his voice. “We all razz him about it, but he does important work. It’s mostly white-collar stuff—he doesn’t talk about it, but I’ve researched that kind of thing. He always had a megabrain. He went and put it to use—has something to do with white-collar crime and that kind of thing.”

White-collar, huh?
She thought of the grim look she’d caught on the other twin’s face a time or two, the knowledge. She didn’t think he’d caught that from doing a lot of white-collar shit. He looked like a man who’d carried some weight.

But she wasn’t going to point any of that out.

“I have to tell you this, I don’t really see you as wasting your brain.” She caught his hand, laced their fingers. “The books you write, what you do . . . it makes a difference. Books made a big impact on my life. You have to know that you do something important.”

“Well, I’m not saying it’s nothing. I went into it because
books made a difference to me, too.” A faint grin curved his lips as he lifted her fingers to his lips. “Seems like the two of us have a lot in common there.”

“Don’t we just?”

*   *   *

Travis had a bad feeling.

He tried to ignore it, told himself it was because he was still on edge because of the fight with Trey last night.

But it wasn’t and he knew it.

It was the way Ressa watched him.

When he managed to pin her alone in the library, her hands behind her back as she studied the books lining Trey’s shelves, that feeling only intensified. He hadn’t made any noise but within seconds, she grew aware of him and her body went tense. Slowly, she turned her head and although she had a smile set firmly in place, her eyes were guarded.

“Hello.”

He inclined his head, kept his expression easy. “You should have seen this place before Mom got her hands on it in the spring. It was kind of scary.”

She just arched a brow.

“Trey’s a pack rat,” he offered helpfully.

“Is he now?”

“Yeah.” He came inside and paused in front of a shelf that held Trey’s favorites. He’d been sitting in the window seat with a beer when Mom came in here, armed with boxes and bags and a feather duster. Trey had been grim and accepting, until she’d turned on that shelf. It was the one time he’d ever seen his brother refuse Mom anything.

She wasn’t allowed to touch that shelf, and no, it did
not
matter that half the copies on that shelf were held together with tape.

But she’d cleared out a box that held duplicate copies—Trey hadn’t realized he’d bought that many doubles. She’d also found probably a thousand dollars in receipts he’d forgotten to turn over to his accountant, three checks he hadn’t cashed, and Travis had forgotten the rest of it.

She’d also convinced Trey to turn one of his empty rooms
upstairs into a storage area for business stuff. Instead of author copies lining the floor in here, and bookmarks spilling out of boxes, they were neatly organized in that spare room.

“It used to look like a disaster zone.”

“I can imagine it did.” She shrugged and went back to studying the shelves. “He’s got interesting taste.”

As she pulled down a romantic suspense, a grin lit her face.

“Well, he overheard Mom talking to her friends about all the
s-e-x
in those. We were in high school . . . naturally, we weren’t
allowed
to read them. There wasn’t more you had to say to get him curious.” Travis shrugged.

“I see.” She glanced at him. “Did you read it?”

“Only the good parts.” He studied his nails. “I was too cool for the mushy shit, you know.”

“I bet.” Amusement lurked in her voice as she put the book back on the shelf. “So . . . you’re an accountant.”

He heard it in her voice.

Looking up at her, he saw it in her eyes, too.

“Forensic accountant,” he corrected. “It’s not exactly the same thing. So don’t go asking me to help on your taxes.”

“I figure I can handle them on my own.” She picked up another book. Poetry, this time. “Seems like you’re the black sheep in your family.”

“Seems that way.”

She didn’t say anything else as she flipped through a book. Keats, Travis noticed. He’d never been one for poetry.

She looked up at him for a long moment and then back down at the book.

Travis had the weirdest urge to just tell her. Which was insane, because he was used to keeping quiet. But . . .

“I know all about being the black sheep,” she said, cutting through his thoughts, her gaze still on the pages. “Had some . . . trouble, I guess you could say, when I was a kid. It would have been worse if it wasn’t for my aunt. And then of course I had to go and end up on my ass again, figure things out the hard way. Both my cousin and I, we probably broke my aunt’s heart. I straightened up. My cousin? Not so much. Some of us, I guess we can only learn things the hard way.”

She watched him now with a message in her eyes.

And she was all but challenging him.