Dylan (16 page)

Dylan's back smacked against the porch railing hard enough to feel the imprint of the wood grain. The lid shifted and some of his anger seeped out. He gave as good as he got and shoved his brother.

Jesse stumbled and landed on the swing. The impact forced it backwards against the opposite railing, the resounding crack echoed in the night a heartbeat before Jesse ended up on his backside with the swing splintered all around him.

“Shit for brains! Dad built that for mom right before he shipped out to Beirut.”

Dylan's anger erupted. He dove for Jesse as his brother was gaining his feet. The two hit the railing like bulls at ramming speed. The rail broke, dumping the brothers over the side and into the flowerbed on the other side.

Jesse fought like a wild man, but Dylan was more than ready to meet his brother's fists with his own. The night echoed with the sound of fists meeting flesh and bone grinding against bone. Jesse got in a sucker punch that drove the air from Dylan's lungs. As he struggled to draw in a breath, the back porch light flicked on and bathed the scene in a soft golden glow.

“What the hell is wrong with you two?” Tyler was loaded and ready for bear. The sharply indrawn breath coming from behind him had Dylan shaking his head to clear it.

Damn, they'd woken Tyler and Emily up. Struggling to his feet, he reached out a hand to help Jesse up out of the trampled garden. He looked at Jesse, then Tyler, and answered, “Nothing.”

Jesse nodded at him and turned to Tyler. “Now.”

The oldest Garahan was visibly vibrating. Dylan and Jesse looked at one another and grinned. Dylan said, “Bring it on, Bro!”

The touch of a hand to Tyler's back stopped what would have been one hellacious brawl. They hadn't gotten into one in a couple of years. Dylan was sorry his brother stopped. “Could've gone another round,” he grumbled.

“What's gotten into you two?” Tyler demanded.

He and Jesse looked at each other again and shrugged simultaneously.

Emily was standing next to Tyler with her arms crossed beneath her seriously stellar breasts. “Well, are you going to answer your brother?”

Dylan closed his eyes and cleared his throat. When he had his horns hidden again, he answered as politely as possible. “We did.”

Tyler eyed him like he was something scraped off the bottom of his brother's boot. Dylan looked over at Jesse and noticed the youngest was having trouble keeping his horns from showing.

Needing to diffuse the situation before it ended in an all out brawl that would have Tyler's girlfriend reading them all the riot act, he grinned. “A shrug's the Garahan way of communicating.”

Her hands were now on her hips. Lord, she was pretty when she was riled. No wonder Tyler agreed to let her hog-tie him. “A shrug could mean yes, no, or I don't know.”

“See?” he said nodding at Jesse and then Tyler. “She's figured us out already.”

Instead of the tongue-lashing he expected her to follow up with, she started to laugh—a rich, throaty sound. Add that to the fact that she'd stood by Tyler when the odds and his ex-girlfriend were against him, and Dylan knew why the oldest brother would leg-shackle himself to the woman. She was definitely a keeper.

“Are you two 'bout done?”

Jesse shoved him. Dylan shoved back. They nodded to one another and turned to face Tyler and shrugged again.

Emily laughed harder. Dylan enjoyed the view. When she laughed, the strap holding up that excuse for a nightgown slid off her shoulder and threatened to expose what he knew would be perfection.

His brother's eyes narrowed. He said a silent thank you to God and braced himself, knowing they were a second away from a good old-fashioned family donnybrook. “Bring it on, Bro.”

Tyler leaned forward about to leap off the porch, but Emily held him back with the strength of her words. “If you want to sleep downstairs on the sofa tonight,
darlin'
, you go right ahead and beat your brothers' brains out.”

She turned on her heel, giving the brothers a view of her first-class legs.

The urge to fight left with Emily. Dylan cuffed Jesse on the back of the head. “Tomorrow I'll fix mom's swing.”

Jesse looked at the pile of wood and nodded. “I'd apologize, but I'm not sorry for pounding on you.”

Dylan grinned and swore; his fat lip split and started to bleed. He touched it with the tips of his fingers. “Lucky punch.”

“Accurate punch.”

Tyler smacked them both in the back of the head simultaneously. “We'll all help put mom's swing back together tomorrow.”

They agreed and he added, “Next time, wake me up so I can get in on the fight.”

The brothers were laughing as they walked inside and turned out the lights. “I've got to fix a few slats in Wildfire's stall tomorrow and patch where that shingle broke off before I head in to work at Ronnie's shop.”

Jesse was halfway up the stairs. He called out over his shoulder, “I'll check your stash of wood and see if I can come up with a couple that are the right length or close to it for mom's swing.”

Tyler put out his hand to stop Dylan from following too close behind. When their brother was far enough away not to hear, Tyler rasped, “Thanks.”

Dylan nodded. He knew Tyler wasn't thanking him for repairing the gift their dad had given their mother all those years ago; he was thanking him for helping Jesse release some of the emotions bottled up inside of him before he self-destructed.

“Next time, we'll wake you.”

His brother's quiet chuckle eased the rest of the tension still swirling around inside of Dylan. He might need a woman now and again, but his brothers shared a much closer tie; they were blood kin. You could get mad as hell at them, but when the chips were down and the bank was breathing down the back of your neck, just waiting to snatch one hundred fifty years' worth of Garahan sweat, blood, and tears out from under you, you could count on your brothers to help you through and guard your back. Well… once they pounded on each other, they'd be ready to take on the world.

Tyler took the stairs two at a time to catch up with Emily, who waited at the top. Dylan watched as Tyler scooped the laughing woman into his arms and carried his prize into his room, closing the door with his foot. Their muffled laughter eased the ache in his heart. Tyler deserved happiness as much as the rest of them, and had fought just as hard to hang on to Emily as she had to him.

It was hard not to be jealous of his older brother. A feminine squeal of surprised pleasure was punctuated by the slamming of his younger brother's bedroom door. Dylan shook his head. He knew it would take time for Jesse to get over Lori's leaving, but tomorrow, after they'd all done their part to repair the swing, he'd be more than ready to meet Jesse head-on again.

Still tangled up inside from wanting a woman who wasn't quite ready to trust him, Dylan knew he'd relish the idea of beating on his little brother until Ronnie was ready to let him ease his frustration inside of her amazingly responsive body.

And he just knew she would be. Hell, if her lips, mouth, and hands responded to his stealing a few explosive kisses, just imagine what the rest of her would do when he licked his way toward her sweetest spot.

“Man, I don't know how much longer I can wait to sample more of my East Coast woman.” His heart echoed that he wanted way more than a taste of the woman. He wanted her heart, body, and soul… and not necessarily in that order.

Closing his door, he sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots and socks. It was tricky unzipping his jeans with his johnson locked and loaded—from just thinking about Ronnie.

His sigh was long and low. “It's gonna be a long night.”

Shucking his jeans, he stripped off his shirt and hit the sheets, amazed that he could close his eyes and drift off to sleep with a raging hard-on.

His last coherent thought was about her and whether or not she'd taste like wild honey or caramel cream.

***

Ronnie woke to brilliant sunshine streaming in through her bedroom window. She tried to close her eyes and ignore the fact that it was morning. She'd spent more time tossing and turning than sleeping after the pep talk Nonni had given her. But the sunlight on her eyelids was warm and welcoming. Giving in, she sighed, opened her eyes, and sat up.

“I feel like something the cat dragged in.” She stumbled out of bed, dragging her sorry behind down the hall to the bathroom. “Well, crap.” The image looking back at her
looked
like something the cat had mauled.

With an empty bladder, she headed toward the kitchen. “Coffee.” That would fix everything; after two or three cups, she'd be awake and able to do something about her lack of sleep.

“That man's got me tied up in knots.” And if that image didn't just add to the tension screaming through her body this morning, her neck had a crick in it from trying to get comfortable enough to sleep last night.

“Coffee first, yoga second.” With her morning planned, she rinsed out the coffeepot and filled it with cold water. Finding the innards to the percolator proved to be difficult. The basket for the grinds wasn't in the dish drainer. After putting everything in the drainer away, she realized that the stand for the basket wasn't either. They weren't buried beneath the pots, pans, and bowls she'd used last night.

Scouting for parts to her percolator first thing in the morning without caffeine surging through her system was not how she envisioned starting her day. “Crap, crap… crap!” She opened and closed cabinets, but didn't find the essential parts to her glass percolator—the only shower gift she'd kept after severing her ties with her ex, the one from her grandmother who believed there was only one way to make coffee. Irascible as only an old lady could be, she'd been emphatic when she'd told Ronnie that drip didn't count as real coffee.

Ronnie's head started to ache from lack of caffeine, but she ignored it and yanked the refrigerator door open. “May as well have orange juice if I can't have coffee.”

The basket for the coffee grinds was sitting on the shelf next to the orange juice. She pulled both out, poured a glass, and set the basket on the counter next to the stove. Shaking her head, trying to wrack her brains to see if she could remember what she'd been thinking last night, the image of a tall, dark, and handsome cowboy with callused hands filled her. “Dylan.”

A full body shiver accompanied the butterflies in her belly, a reaction she was becoming used to where he was concerned. She opened the fridge to put the orange juice back and found the rest of the coffeepot's innards. The stand for the basket was nestled in with the eggs, and the basket lid was on the shelf by the bread.

“Lord, I really need this coffee,” she mumbled aloud. “Where did I put the top to the pot?” She put the stand in the pot, added the basket, and counted out rounded spoonfuls of coffee. The scent permeated her bad mood and started to smooth out the rough edges waking up cranky had given her.

“Can't brew coffee without the damned top to the pot.” Resigned, she reached for her purse to dig out her keys and money to buy a cup of coffee and found the missing top.

She pulled it out of her purse and stared at it. “I've got to do something about that man before he drives me crazy.”
Short
trip
.

Once the thought took hold, she started to laugh, a quiet chuckle that gave way to an all out belly laugh. She was wiping her eyes and putting the top on the pot before she stopped. It took the edge off the tension and had almost the same effect as a good cry. Who knew?

Now that coffee was at the end of her morning rainbow, she could cope. She made breakfast—no point in enjoying her morning cup without something to line her empty belly. Her grandmother always insisted that the morning meal was the most important and set the tone for the way a person's day would unfold. She wondered when it would be her turn to be right about something. Nonni couldn't always be right, could she? Thinking of a certain dark-eyed Irishman with a smoldering look that turned her insides to jelly, she knew she'd have to give the man a chance and stop thinking about the curse so damned much.

Maybe she was making it come true by trying so hard to avoid it, in some perverse inversion of the law of attraction or something. Maybe she should try to make the curse come true and then it wouldn't. The circular thinking was making her head spin.

The scent of frying bacon and percolating coffee filled her tiny kitchen, lightening her heart and soothing her frayed nerves. Scrambling eggs in the pan, she asked herself, “What am I going to do about that man?”

Without warning, the image of his broad and beautiful chest, sculpted pectoral muscles, sprinkling of dark hair between those amazing muscles, and emerald green shamrock tattoo filled her mind. She stopped and knew what she wanted to do with and to the man… it was how to get her brain to shut off long enough to follow where her heart wanted to lead her that she didn't know.

“I've followed my heart before and look where it got me.”

She'd told her grandmother that same thing last night and Nonni had reminded her that she'd followed her head. Ronnie sighed and admitted that Nonni had been right once again: she had married Anthony Faustino because he'd convinced her he would always be able to provide for her. At the time, being able to have things and beating the DelVecchio Curse had been more important than finding what she suspected she'd discovered with Dylan—the promise of a love that grabbed you by the heart and made you dizzy with it while you waited to see if the lust that tied you up in knots would fulfill that promise or simply burn itself out.

As she sat down to eat, her brain kicked into high gear. There were times in life when you realized you'd been telling yourself something for so long that you'd come to accept and believe it to be the way things really happened. In that moment, Ronnie realized that she'd worked so hard to convince herself that she'd followed her heart where her first husband was concerned that she believed it. But the truth was that she let him convince her that she should marry him; his promise that he'd be faithful to her had been what she wanted him to say. In her heart, she hadn't really worried about it because she didn't really love him—but she had wanted to. It had become habit to think of him as the man she would marry and spend the rest of her life with. Her heart had willingly followed her head and disaster had followed in its wake.