Page 56

She smiled up at me and for a moment my breath caught. I couldn’t imagine anyone ever saying a bad word to her. Her smile was so innocent and sweet, a show of her heart. She was good and she deserved to be cherished. I swallowed the wave of emotion and brushed my thumb over her lips.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She tried to duck her head but I held her steady.
“I love you, Maxine.”
Her lips popped open as she gasped. Hell, I was as shocked as she was. I hadn’t meant to say the words, no matter how much I knew them to be true. It wasn’t the time or place but I couldn’t regret telling her, not when I meant it with everything I was and would ever be.
Before she had a chance to say anything Mills’ truck slid to a stop and he was out, coming at me. His face was red with anger as he kicked up dirt with every stomp.
“Surrogacy?! I held my tongue and okayed the three of you going after my little sister and you want her to be yoursurrogate? You think you can just use her like that?”
He swung and I let it happen, sensing he needed a win. The man had been ripped raw by Maxie not that long before. Still, his hit made me stumble back a few steps and it hurt like hell. I rubbed my jaw and spit out a pool of blood from a split in my lip.
Maxie screamed and didn’t hesitate to jump on her brother’s back, tightening her arms around his neck.
“Don’t hit him!”
Mills didn’t even seem to notice her attempts at choking him.
“She isn’t some tool you can use to have your fucking kid! She deserves a hell of a lot more than that from you three and if you can’t give her that, I’m going to beat the hell out of you until you change your mind!”
Rhett plucked Maxie off of Mills’ back and easily held her to his chest while grinning.
“You’ve got things a little mixed up, buddy. Although I’m interested in how you heard about your sister’s plan.”
Mills stilled.
“What?”
I wiped blood from my mouth and raised my eyebrows at him.
“Yeah. The surrogacy is your sister’s shitty plan. A plan we’re refusing, by the way. We’re not accepting anything but everything from her but she’s stubborn as hell.”
Swinging around on his sister, Mills threw his arms out to the side.
“What the hell, Maxie? Why would you want to be a surrogate? And what the fuck happened to your hair?”
I let out a low growl.
“Careful. She’s beautiful and you’ll do yourself a favor by not acting like she’s anything but.”
“It’s none of your business, Mills.” Maxie had the nerve to act haughty while being held like a child. She tipped that stubborn chin up in the air and crossed her arms. “And I like my hair.”
“I think it is my business. Especially since I got no less than five calls this morning about you being a surrogate. Apparently, people are horrified, thinking these guys wanted it. There’s a group preparing pitchforks over the idea of someone possibly hurting you by not promising you forever.”
I grinned at her.
“Look what you did, baby. You’ve incited a crowd to violence against us.”
She huffed and finally pushed at Rhett’s hands so he’d put her down.
“I mentioned it in passing last night to the girls. We were drinking and I was… Yeah, I mentioned it but I thought I’d made clear that it was my idea. I’ll fix it.”
“Why do you want this, Maxie? I might not love the idea of these three sharing you but they’re good men. You could do worse.” Turning on me, Mills blew out a rough breath. “Hit me back.”
I shook my head.
“No, for once we’re on the same page. If you can talk some sense into her, I welcome it. She’s convinced she’ll be your mother and she doesn’t want to put a kid through it.”