Page 40 of Hideaway Whirlwind (Big Boys of Berenson Trucking #4)

Dustin pauses with his toothbrush in his mouth, his eyes flicking back and forth across his papa’s tattoo that spans the entirety of the front and sides of Elliott’s neck. “Cool picture,” is all he says before spitting out his toothpaste, perhaps not understanding the significance of this moment.

Oh, but I do. Us. We’re an us . A family. One of our choosing and making.

In tune with each other, we don’t have to discuss it after everyone gets changed for bed, and we usher the kids into Elliott’s bedroom—my bedroom, now too, I suppose.

Even Storm leads her puppies inside, curling up with them in the corner of the room on a blanket Elliott shakes out for them.

It’ll be a long time before I’m comfortable with any member of our family sleeping out of my sight.

When I’m snuggled in the bed I never want to leave with the kids in the middle, Kendall sprawled on top of me with her polar bear, Elliott drags the spare mattress and linens into the room, dumping them on the floor, and props a kitchen chair under the doorknob.

I can hardly keep my eyes open when I ask him, “What are you doing?”

He stops mid-fluff of one of the pillows after strangely giving it a long sniff and a satisfied sigh. “I thought, well, I thought you might not want me sharing the bed with y’all.”

“Come here, Big Papa,” I say, reaching for him.

“Yeah?” he asks in a disbelieving but hopeful voice.

With my nod, he props the spare mattress up against the closed drapes of the bedroom window, then circles the end of the bed three times, indecisive.

I pat the empty spot beside me.

“Tell me it’s real,” he says once more into my ear when he slides under the comforter, lying on his side with his arm thrown across all of us.

“It’s real, Elliott,” I whisper, turning my face to his. “I love you.”

Elliott whimpers, and another thing’s for certain: if the kids weren’t in bed with us, no matter how burned-out we are, we would end the night with a lot more than our simple, quiet kiss.

Elliott

“Still no sign of the mom?” Russell asks when he comes by, delivering groceries, since we’re not comfortable leaving the cabin and going out into the real world yet, in case we’re followed back home.

That’s about to change, though, since Birdie has her first prenatal appointment tomorrow, and the kids will be starting school in a few days, now that repairs have been made.

Plus, I’ll eventually have to go back to work since the warehouse is still behind on deliveries.

I grunt, taking everything out of their plastic bags, keeping the noise to a minimum so Birdie and the kids can sleep in for a few more hours. In my home. In my bed. Where I slept beside them all night for the last five nights. The stuff of my dreams. My longing finally fulfilled.

Russell shoves his hands in his front pockets when a few minutes pass without a word. “Think maybe she was scared off for good? Saw that Teagan and the kids aren’t on their own and fled back to Nevada?”

Birdie suddenly says from the hallway, “She wouldn’t have tracked me to Las Vegas and all the way to Texas to get Sydney back just to give up. I know I wouldn’t.”

Russell jumps and spins, clutching his heart. “Jesus, you scared me.”

“Good,” she deadpans, her arms crossed as she leans against the side of the refrigerator, her hair a mess, barefoot, her curves filling out my flannel that comes down to her knees. Fucking stunning and all mine.

I shoulder past Russell to shelve the twelve-pack of ginger ale into the fridge, stopping to tip Birdie’s chin up and kiss her just because I can. In fact, I can’t keep my lips off her, the kids wrinkling their noses or laughing when they see us. It’s adorable.

“Are you ever going to speak to me again?” Russell asks me with a sigh when I shoo him toward the door, intending to take the kiss further once he leaves.

“Sure. Thanks for the groceries. Now leave,” I say without looking at him.

“I said I was sorry, brother.” Russell tries to clap me on the back, his tone sincerely apologetic, but I skirt away from his touch—something I’ve never done before with him.

“To me,” Birdie says, a bite to her voice. “But not to Elliott.”

With her at my side, I can finally look my brother in the eye, my expression blank. Waiting.

“I…I am sorry, Elliott,” Russell says with pain-filled eyes.

“Thanks,” I say. “Get out.”

Instead, Russell drops down on the couch, palms up as if in supplication. “She was screaming at you to stop touching her after you cornered her in the bathroom. You can understand how I got the wrong idea. You’d have done the same if you were in my shoes. I’d want you to.”

“No, I wouldn’t have. I’d have given you the benefit of the doubt, at least long enough to get your side of the story instead of assuming, after fifty years of being brothers, that you’d suddenly flipped a switch and turned into an abuser. You never gave me a chance.”

There’s something about the way he looks off to the side a second too late, and it hits me like a ton of bricks.

“It’s because I’ve been to prison. Doesn’t matter why I was sent there, or that you championed for me to get out early.

Told everyone we knew that I was a good man when they balked at you for giving me a job instead of cutting me out of your life.

Doesn’t matter that I risked my freedom to help you when it came to Layla more times than I can count.

At the end of the day, I’m still a felon with a bad reputation.

” I’d thought as much as soon as Layla threw that in my face. This just confirms it.

A flash of anger has him surging up onto his feet. “It doesn’t help that you murdered this Priscilla woman when you went to Vegas,” he says through gritted teeth, a vein in his forehead starting to bulge as his face turns red. “Brother or not, I won’t stand by a man who would hurt a woman.”

“Except you didn’t find out about her until after that night at Goldie’s.” I cross the room in two strides and jab my finger in the middle of his chest. “And I wasn’t the one who killed her—only buried her.”

Birdie sucks in a strangled breath, and my stomach drops to my feet. She was never meant to find out.

“The chopping board…it was me. I thought I’d just knocked her out.” Birdie brings her fingers to her mouth, chewing her nails that have hardly started to grow out. “Oh shit,” she says, breathing hard. “How many people do you have to kill to be considered a serial killer?”

“Three,” I answer quickly. I’m all too familiar with the term, though all my victims except Curtis were put down in true acts of self-defense.

“And, like, not all at once?” Birdie asks, garnering a sharp nod from me.

My right side aches where I’d been stabbed for the first time within days of starting my prison sentence.

At my size, once my fellow inmates found out what I had been convicted of, I was a threat that had to be neutralized when I wouldn’t join this side or that side.

They found out real quick that the only person whose side I was on was my own, preferring to keep my head down and do my time.

Of course, that was only the beginning, and the scars from the accident that shattered my old life are only half of what I walked out of prison with.

It’s why I still watch my back, two decades since being released, in case anyone still has a score to settle.

Russell rocks back on his heels. “You’re saying Priscilla isn’t the first person you’ve killed?”

I’m back by Birdie’s side in an instant, pushing her hair behind her ears, her face paler than normal. I sweep her up when she sways on her feet and bring her to the recliner, kneeling before her when she starts to hyperventilate.

Blinking fast, Birdie says, “Guxxer and Quincy.” A smile that starts off wobbly grows wider, her eyes going round, a maniacal look to her. “I put ground-up glass in Guxxer’s breakfast every morning.” She giggles. “It took him weeks to die.”

Though I should probably be horrified, or at least a little more leery of her, I find warmth pooling in my chest. Is it pride? Yeah, I think it is. “And Quincy?” I ask.

“The day I found I was pregnant,” she says, resting her palm on her baby bump, “I snuck into his mom’s house and cut his personal stash with something a little stronger.

He overdosed—he’d done it before—so no one suspected me when he died.

” As an afterthought, she adds, “I wish I could have seen it.”

“My Black Widow Birdie,” I coo, grabbing her hips and pulling her to the edge of the recliner, the flannel riding up her gorgeous thighs. What a pair we are. Soulmates.

She grabs my T-shirt and twists it, her lips brushing mine. “If you ever cross me, Elliott Berenson”—she drags her index finger across my still-healing throat with a click of her tongue—“it’s lights out for you. I’ll make it hurt, I can promise you that.”

“Alright,” I say with a shrug, pressing a kiss to her lips. “You know, this is just more proof we belong together. Two murderers in a pod.”

“That’s not how the saying goes, you crazy motherfucker,” she says right back.

“I am, aren’t I, Mama?” I slip a hand under her flannel, patting her belly gently until the baby kicks my hand. No, not the baby. My baby.

“You two give me the creeps.” Russell visibly shivers when we both turn to look at him.

I’d forgotten he was here. What does my brother see when he looks at us?

What would he have done if he’d known the full extent of the crimes I committed while I was incarcerated before he managed to get me released?

If he ever had second thoughts after I came clean to him, he had no choice but to live with his actions.

I think I’ve proven myself to be a better man in the time since I’ve been out. At least I’ve tried to.