Page 25 of Hideaway Whirlwind (Big Boys of Berenson Trucking #4)

Teagan

Davis and Marigold had taken the kids’ car seats from Elliott’s Bronco, and as I sit squeezed into the third row beside Dustin during the drive to their house, I don’t see the passing landscape—only Elliott’s grief-stricken face when he was forced to let go of each of my children.

I don’t hear what Marigold says as she tries to be chipper for the kids—only the way Elliott begged me to stay with him.

I fell for him, a fifty-five-year-old convicted murderer, in only twelve days.

We all did. That has to be some kind of rock-bottom trauma-bonding record.

Which is why it’s even more important that I extricate us from Elliott’s life.

Maybe with enough luck, it will only take twelve days to forget him.

To forget about his skin flush with mine.

His teeth on my neck and his beard rasping against my cheek.

His steady, strong presence. The comfort and safety he brought to my kids.

The ease I found in just being near him.

The guilt that crushes my rib cage for making him believe I never truly wanted him.

“We’re here,” Marigold announces when Davis pulls down a long paved driveway to park behind an old red truck .

The kids don’t respond, and Sydney’s bottom lip still wobbles as we drag our feet to follow Davis and Marigold into the one-story, light-brown brick, ranch-style house set in the middle of a clearing just outside of their small town.

With its wide, covered front porch, it’s nice, but it doesn’t feel like home like the cabin.

Marigold was heavily pregnant when I last saw her, but her red-headed son, Rowan, is all gummy smiles as soon as he sees his mom.

“Oh, thank god. I’m burning up,” the babysitter says, practically throwing the infant at Marigold so she can run outside in just her blue maternity tank top and wide-legged jeans.

She stands with her arms stretched out at her sides, the wind whipping her shiny, curly brown hair around her shoulders.

“Why do you have to keep your house so hot?” she asks over the hum of their gas generator, fanning her face.

“It’s sixty-three degrees in here, Layla,” Davis says, tucking a crochet afghan around his wife when she settles onto the brown leather couch in the living room to nurse Rowan beside her daughter, Lily, who is the same age as Kendall.

“Exactly! It’s hotter than heck.”

“Layla, as in Russell’s Layla?” I ask, lingering at the open door, rocking Kendall side to side when she lays her head on my shoulder, utterly spent of energy after fighting to break out of her car seat and crying for much of the drive.

“That would be me,” Layla says with a smile.

I knew Elliott’s sister-in-law was young, but for some reason, I hadn’t expected her to look so young. I also hadn’t expected her to be so…pregnant, maybe a little further along than I am, since her husband is old enough to be her father and not just the baby’s .

“And you must be Goldie’s Teagan,” Layla says, twisting her hair up and out of the way with a purple claw clip that had been clipped to her tank top strap.

Elliott’s Teagan , I correct in my head, immediately hurling the thought out of my mind. I’m no one’s but my own.

* * *

“So, this is the infamous Teagan. Welcome to our little slice of Texas,” Russell says when he comes to pick up his wife, reaching out to shake my hand.

He’s everything and nothing like what I expected—the same blue eyes as Elliott’s, but with a smaller, tidier beard and dark, peppery-gray hair instead of silver.

The same sense of style with dark blue jeans and a thick flannel, but a little shorter, a little smaller than Elliott’s build.

His smile is broader and faster to come, yet he’s just as intense when he sees Layla, tracking her from across the open-concept living room, kitchen, and dining room while she gathers her book and leather tote bag.

I make a noise of confirmation and wrinkle my nose when I silently question if I would have had the same reaction to him as I did Elliott if Russell had come to Vegas in Elliott’s place.

No , I wouldn’t have. Objectively, Russell is handsome.

In good shape beneath his thick exterior, I’m guessing, if he works out as much as Elliott does.

But there isn’t a speck of romantic attraction—only gratitude that he sent his brother to us…

which is spectacular news, knowing that I haven’t developed some sort of freak attachment or attraction to just any man over twice my age.

And also because his wife, with her sweet face and shy smile, suddenly turns speculative, almost su spicious, the longer I continue to stare at her husband.

To make up for my blunder, I paste on a shy smile to match her own and tell Layla, “Thanks for letting me borrow your clothes. That was really nice of you. I’ll, um, get them for you.”

A whole head taller and thinner than me with perfect makeup, massive wedding ring set, and the expensive cowgirl boots she’s wearing, I’m sickeningly self-conscious when I have to dig through my garbage bag to find her clothes—though I quickly bury the ruined, borrowed nightgowns at the bottom, forcing out the memories of the nights I wore each of them for Elliott.

Layla waves her hand. “Oh, that’s ok. You can keep them.”

“Thanks, but, uh…” It’s harder to keep my smile in place when I say, “They didn’t quite fit.”

Layla’s cheeks turn pink at my embarrassment, so not only is she gorgeous, she’s simultaneously adorable. And now I’m nauseatingly wondering if Elliott had the same reaction to her when they first met as he did to me. He’d better the fuck not.

Oh man, am I jealous? Is that what this is? This fire in my belly as I think of her and Elliott together, if she’d been the one he was sent to rescue?

Fuck , I am.

I quickly look away from her pretty face, unfocusing my eyes toward Davis, who pulls Russell aside for a whispered conversation. Russell’s jaw has hardened when he returns to his wife’s side, casting me a look I can’t decipher, not quite as warm now, before they both leave .

Elliott

My brother has never been able to move as quietly as me, and I track his bootsteps across the yard as soon as he steps out of the trees that separate our properties.

He spins with a boyish squeal when I drop the hood of the midnight blue Bronco with a bang.

Never have I been so motivated to finish up a restoration as when Birdie tried to walk out of my life this morning.

Tried being the keyword, since I’m not letting her go that easily, no matter that she stomped all over my heart with those big ol’ boots of hers.

Russell clears his throat, crossing his arms as he looks me over. “I just picked Layla up from Davis’s place. Heard what happened.”

“Yeah. You and everyone else,” I say gruffly, wiping the grease from my hands with a rag, then hop into the front seat to fire up the Bronco. It’s a squeaker and still needs some work, but it’ll get me where I need to be well enough until I can source and replace a few more parts.

Russell idly kicks the gravel while he waits, and I try to ignore him for the most part as I put away my tools—ones that I hope to one day teach the kids how to use if any of them show an interest in restoration themselves.

“Sooo,” he starts as soon as I finish washing my hands inside the cabin.

He takes a seat on my couch and drapes an arm over the back of it, keeping a cautious eye on Storm while she’s curled on the carpet with her nursing puppies.

“When you said you didn’t mind Teagan and the kids staying with you, what you really meant was you were already falling for her? ”

I don’t like the way his voice lifts at the end, as if in disbelief or censure, and I curl my fists on my lap when I drop my weight on my recliner, my body still stiff and dead tired but my mind sharp. “You got something against her?”

“What? No.” He’s leery, reading the threat in my body language.

It’s a first. We’re not the kind of brothers who fight, especially after all he’s done for me.

“It’s just…” The tips of his ears turn red, and he rubs his forehead.

“She’s so young and an itty-bitty thing, and you’re…

” He doesn’t have to say and you’re an old beast .

I can’t fight the curl of my upper lip. “Don’t be a hypocrite.

She’s the same age Layla was when you fell for her.

And if you’re asking how things work between us, don’t.

” Now both our ears are red, since the height and age difference isn’t as large between him and his wife, so things might work differently in his relationship.

Not that I care to know any of the details.

“No, god, no, I wasn’t. Just…” Russell gives up whatever arguments he has and sighs. “What’s going on with you?”

I lean forward with my elbows on my knees and ask a question instead of answering his. “What was it like when you first saw Layla?” I’d barely glanced at her when we met and thought nothing of her.

“Like everything snapped into place,” he says without having to pause to think about it.

“Like realizing, all this time, I’d been missing half my heart and hadn’t known it until I saw her.

Like everything I’d worked so hard to build was all in preparation for when she would come into my life.

” He rubs his thumb across his wedding band like it’s a good-luck charm and studies me for a long moment before asking, “You think that’s what’s happening with you and Teagan? ”

“I know it is.” Although maybe it wasn’t as…cute…as what Russ ell is describing. More like unnerving and life-altering, wrenching me violently out of my solitary existence.

“You’re absolutely sure? Because I know what it’s like to wait for the woman you’re meant to be with to be ready. The pain.” He swallows after casting his eyes to the kitchen window. “Three years I spent waiting, and it never got any easier.”

Like Russell, I don’t have to pause to think about it after having decades of practice coping, living, and breathing pain. “I’d wait a lifetime for her.” I already have .

He blows out a long breath. “Ain’t got much of that left.” A smile tugs at the corner of his lips with the joke.

I huff, wishing it really was a joke. I don’t need a reminder of my age and how much I’ll miss out on when it’s my time to be put in the ground.

It’s enough to bring tears to my eyes. I wish I had been born in a different decade so I could have more time with Birdie, as ashamed as I am thinking such a thing, tarnishing the memories of my wife and the life and love we shared.

Russell’s smile falls flat as concern takes over. “Not gonna lie, I was worried about what I’d find when I got here.”

I grunt. “Feeling sorry for myself won’t convince Birdie we should be together.”

I did plenty of that for the first hour or so after they’d left, crawling onto the spare bed and hugging their pillows to my face, breathing in their various scents, missing them so much I thought I’d die of a broken heart in that bed.

Then I got my shit together because I refuse to waste another second of my life.

I’m going to go after what I want—the missing half of my heart. My family.

Russell says, “You know what people will say about your age difference once they find out about the two of you if you get her back.”

I raise a brow. “ When ,” I stress. “Not if . And not to my face, they won’t.”

He clicks his tongue, his expression darkening. “Not to yours, but they will to hers. Layla can tell you that.”

“No,” I say, opening my jacket to flash my shotgun that I’ll never let out of my sight again. “They won’t.”

“Alright.” Russell slaps his knees and stands, then rubs his hands together. “So, what’s step one? I assume you have a plan.”

“‘Course, I do.” I stand with a groan as my aching back protests, digging my brown Bronco’s keys out of the front pocket of my jeans to twirl them around my index finger. “I’m not going to let another man drive my family around.”

“Even Davis?”

“Especially Davis.” I crush the keys in my palm when I curl my fist. If Davis hadn’t shown up, I would have had more time to win Birdie over, and my family would still be here.

And there I go again, imagining shooting him for the second time in as many days.

Slamming my walls down in front of that dark, dangerous line of thinking, I tell the best stalker I know, “I need another favor.”