Page 19 of The Reluctant Siren (Texas Sirens: Legacy #2)

Harlow felt the weight of the Beretta in her hand as she eased down the hall.

She wished she had on some undies, at least. She might be about to go into a gun fight with a threadbare sheet as her only clothes. Technically it could be a sheath dress, but it was proof of her shame.

Was it shame? She didn’t feel ashamed. She felt…relaxed. Like super relaxed. Muscles that had been stiff for freaking years now felt like jelly. Except for her trigger finger. That was ready to go since they were apparently about to be invaded.

“Who knows we’re here?”

Niall asked in a hushed tone.

“No one should,”

Jensen said from the back.

It wasn’t like the house was big. It was pretty tiny, so they were close together as they moved toward the kitchen. The smell of bacon hit her nose and then she was pissed because she was freaking hungry, and did she get to eat the delicious-smelling food that she did not have to cook herself? No. She had to deal with potential assassins. And he made coffee. Damn it. She worried about coffee, and Niall had made sure she had it and now she might die.

It felt unfair. She kind of wanted more than one night with them. Oh, she told herself she didn’t care and it had been all stress relief, but it had been good. Like spectacular. The absolute best sex she’d ever had, and she wanted more.

It did not feel like she was going to fuck them out of her system. It felt dangerous. Like she was going in the opposite direction and fucking them into her system more.

And last night she’d decided she was going with it. Oh, she was still going to walk away at the end of this, but for the time they were stuck together she was going to play her role and enjoy it.

“We got rid of all the phones,”

Niall whispered as he followed her into the living room. The place was quiet and dark. He’d opened the shades in the kitchen but kept the living room closed up.

“All we have are burners. Is there any way there’s a tracker on my Jeep?”

“I would suspect there would be one on mine, but not yours,”

Jensen replied.

“They didn’t know you existed until last night.”

There was one tracker she hadn’t thought about. Damn it.

“It’s in my upper arm.”

She lowered her gun.

“If that’s my dad, I’m going to live in the fields with the cows.”

“What do you mean it’s in your arm?”

Niall asked.

“You let them chip you?”

Jensen snorted as he snuck a peek out the window.

“Not your dad, but also not anyone we’re going to murder.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Hey, Har. Let us in. We’ve got your shit, and I picked up some donuts. Gigi is worried, and she wouldn’t let me come alone. Neither would your sister.”

Ruby. She flicked the safety back on the gun and opened the door. “How?”

Ruby flashed a grin. She was looking fresh and happy this morning in her jeans and T-shirt and leather jacket, her curly hair in a ponytail.

“I hacked Big Tag’s system, of course. He tried to give me some BS about how if he wasn’t giving your dad your location, he couldn’t give it to anyone. So I took it. See, guys. She is obviously fine.”

Her cousin’s eyes were wide, and her sister stood back slightly.

Greer had a suitcase in her hand that hopefully included underwear and a bra.

“She obviously has joined the club. Like The Club club. Uncle Julian should have named it better. When I heard who Jensen was, I worried you were going to commit murder. I’m glad you didn’t choose violence, sis.”

“Do I want to know how you figured out who Jensen is?”

Harlow stood back and allowed them to enter.

“Oh, Dad ranted for hours,”

Greer explained.

“You should know he’s got a dossier on Jensen now, and he’s pushing Jack to get the FBI involved. When Papa tried to point out that Jensen was doing exactly what you were doing when you got arrested in California, Dad added assault and battery.”

“Jensen didn’t break my arm.”

So her Dad had been having fun in the wake of her flight.

“I did put her in the position where her arm was broken.”

Jensen seemed to realize he wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of boxers.

“I should…go and put clothes on. And then we can talk about the fact that our position is helplessly compromised and start trying to figure out where to go next.”

Greer smiled at him.

“You don’t have to do that on my account. I’m in the lifestyle. I’m used to hot dudes running around with their dicks hanging out.”

“It’s not…”

Jensen looked down where yes, in fact, his dick was slightly poking out. And he ran back toward the bedroom.

“What exactly are you doing here?”

Niall had his Dom voice on. He was all big muscles and broad shoulders and a deep voice that brooked no disobedience.

“Checking on my friend, asshole.”

Ruby didn’t miss a beat.

She could have told Niall that the Dom thing didn’t work on any of her friends outside a club setting.

Greer frowned at Niall.

“You are a rat-fink lying jerk, and I hope you got the least amount of sex.”

Niall frowned as though the morning was not going how he’d planned. Welcome to her world.

“I got a reasonable portion of the sex. And I also apologized and made breakfast.”

Gigi sniffed the air.

“Is that bacon?”

“Yep,”

Niall replied.

Gigi sighed and walked inside.

“Good. My mom has my dad on this low-fat diet because his cholesterol is high. Let me tell you nurses know how to fuck with a diet. I’m starving. They wouldn’t let me have a donut. She said you might need to eat your feelings, and she wasn’t sure how many feelings you would have.”

“Well now I know she fucked her feelings, so we can eat all we like,”

Ruby announced, passing her the box.

“Please tell me there are pancakes.”

Greer held back, allowing Niall to follow their cousin and Ruby into the kitchen, saying something about how he hadn’t planned on this many people.

“I was going to defend those donuts. Carbs are your go-to heartache food.”

“My heart doesn’t ache.”

But she still opened the box and sighed in anticipation of that soft, sugary treat. Bear claws. Her sister knew her well.

“I had a job go wrong, and now I’m stuck in hiding for a while. Jack will figure it out and then everything will be fine. Now explain to me how Dad isn’t riding in on his shiny SUV to rescue me from my own idiocy. He should have a bodyguard on you, and you should be on a plane to Colorado now.”

“Oh, according to Mom he spent most of the night harassing Big Tag and then finally passed out like an overly stimulated Rottweiler. You know how he gets when he’s that way.”

Greer looked around the house.

“Whose place is this?”

“Jensen’s childhood home. From what I can tell they used to own a lot of this land, but the house is what’s left.”

It was odd to see her sister here. She associated Greer with the beautiful places of the world. She looked right at home in their parents’ big house in Highland Park. Greer fit there and with all the prep school girls they’d been around.

Harlow had preferred hanging with the Taggart kids. She loved her sister but was surprised she was here. Greer always followed the rules.

“You met him in LA?”

Greer asked.

Harlow nodded.

“Yeah, when I was on the Gains’ case. We were supposed to work together and he decided it was too dangerous for me and put me in a position where I got arrested. He didn’t realize I wasn’t alone in the building, and the guy who was there figured out the cops were coming and took it out on me. That’s how I ended up in the hospital. Why are you here?”

Greer’s eyes widened in obvious surprise.

“Because you’re my sister and you’re in trouble. I know I’m not some tough chick and I can’t beat the crap out of whoever’s chasing you, but I can at least make sure you’re okay. Why are you surprised I’m here?”

That wasn’t a question she was ready for.

“I don’t know. I guess I thought you would be helping Mom deal with my latest attempt on Dad’s health and happiness. I didn’t mean to freak him out. I was only trying to do my job.”

“Mom can handle Dad. She’s excellent at it. Sometimes I wish she wasn’t so good at it or that they would at least, like, lock the door or keep it to the club,”

Greer replied with a delicate shudder.

“I knew for a fact that there was zero chance Ruby didn’t have a way to contact you so I showed up on her doorstep at six this morning with Gigi in tow because she heard the story from one of the Taggarts. The lawyer with the baby, I think. Let me tell you The Hideout’s gossip grapevine does not stop for sleep.”

Excellent. So everyone knew she’d fucked up.

“I’m still surprised Dad let you out of his sight.”

“Didn’t have a choice,”

Greer replied.

“I knew the minute Gigi told me what was happening that there was probably a bodyguard on his way to my place, so I managed to not be at my place. I went to Gigi’s and we went to yours and got you everything you could need, and then Ruby yelled at us for a long time.”

“Good, because that was dangerous. They could have been watching my place.”

She didn’t say they could have followed Ruby because Ruby would have made damn sure no one was watching.

“Yeah. Ruby mentioned that a couple hundred times,”

Greer admitted.

“She can yell really loud.”

If Ruby was yelling, then she was annoyed, not truly angry. When Ruby got mad she went still and silent and cold as ice.

“What you did was dangerous.”

“Well, I was taking after my little sis,”

Greer replied.

“Though I didn’t consider grabbing some undies and clothes and your makeup to be a walk on the wild side. That’s what you did last night. I thought we were never going to marry two boys. We made a deal and everything.”

They’d been teens and their parents were weird and obnoxiously in love, and two dads seemed like a lot to put on a girl, so they’d pinkie sworn to be normal.

“Yeah, well, we were kids. I suppose we always look for the type of relationship we understand.”

“You understand Dad?”

“No one understands Dad,”

Harlow shot back. She sat down on the couch, taking a bite of the bear claw. It was cinnamony and tasted like comfort. All she needed was a cup of coffee.

“Hey, it’s not your usual brand, but it’ll have to do in a pinch.”

Niall was walking toward her holding a mug.

“Your partner is bossy. I’m going to check and make sure Jensen isn’t suffering the PTSD of having his dick hang out in front of your family.”

He turned and walked away.

The man was heavenly. Even after all the stuff that happened last night Niall was looking freaking fine. And he brought her coffee. Since they started dating, he always got up before she did and made a big pot of coffee and brought it to her and they would sit in bed and talk about the upcoming day.

It was dumb because it had only been a couple of days, and she already missed the ritual.

Greer leaned over as though watching him leave.

“Tell your partner he has nothing to be ashamed of. It was a good way to start the day.”

She frowned back at Harlow.

“He could have brought me one.”

It was petty, but she kind of liked that Niall had only thought of her. Greer was gorgeous and sweet and way more feminine than Harlow, and every single boyfriend she’d ever had flirted with her sister. Greer didn’t flirt back. She would never, but it still rankled that they all took care of Greer.

“I’ll get you one.”

It was totally okay for her to take care of her sister.

Greer reached out, putting a hand on hers to stop her from standing.

“I don’t need coffee. I need to know you’re okay. I’m joking about the whole threesome thing. I’m actually worried about it because up until yesterday, I didn’t know this Jensen guy existed and you were barely dating Niall. It’s not like you to move so fast.”

“What if I told you it’s only sex,”

Harlow tried.

“I had a lot to deal with yesterday and I needed some stress relief.”

Greer’s eyes rolled.

“I would call bullshit. Not because I don’t think sex can be casual. It can, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s not how you work. If you sleep with someone, you care about them. I’m worried you’re going to twist that care into something it’s not.”

“I don’t understand.”

Her sister’s brows rose, her dumbass-said-what expression.

“Tell me you’re not angry with Niall. I don’t know the Jensen situation since you don’t talk to me like that, but I do know you’ve been happy with Niall the last few days. You actually had lunch with me, and it wasn’t a three-martini lunch where you show me how much you don’t fit at the country club.”

Well Greer wasn’t pulling punches today.

“Sorry. I’ll try to keep the drinking down. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.”

Greer sighed, a deeply frustrated sound.

“Not what I meant. And I blame myself because I always invite you out there because it’s close and easy. I should come into your world every now and then. You know the only person who’s worse than you at the country club?”

She did, of course.

“Dad isn’t exactly a country club guy, and you know neither is mom. She goes because of their gym, and she claims they have the only massage therapist worth using in the city. And Papa’s golf. I know Dad was raised in that world, but he doesn’t truly belong. I’m honestly not sure where he belongs. Maybe some university teaching investigation techniques.”

“He would kill all the students,”

Greer said with a laugh and then she sobered.

“I guess the other reason I came was to make sure you don’t, like, decide you’re done with us.”

Harlow put the coffee down.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I know Dad can be a lot, but he loves you. He loves you so much,”

Greer said.

“He worries about you.”

She held a hand up as though staving off the argument she knew was coming.

“It doesn’t excuse him acting like an overprotective asshole, but you need to think about how he… Well, how he thinks. It’s hard for him to know you’re in danger.”

This was well-worn ground.

“I love Dad. But I can’t be someone I’m not.”

Greer nodded.

“He knows that. The truth of the matter is he doesn’t want you to be anyone but you. I know you won’t believe this but he’s proud of you.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe it.”

She kind of wished her sister hadn’t come along now. She could sit and think about how moronic it was to sub for two men she couldn’t allow herself to trust. But no, she now had to think about her relationship with her dad. And her sister.

“He is proud of you. Hell, Harlow, when you’re not around you’re almost all he talks about.”

Harlow knew that wasn’t a good thing.

“Because he thinks I’m going to die and he’s paranoid. You know he used to spend all his time worrying about people sniping him. I don’t know why he didn’t think that the easiest way to stop people from sniping him was to not be a massive asshole, but here we are. Now he’s transferred that problem to me.”

“He goes to therapy, you know,”

Greer said quietly.

That was news to her. “What?”

She figured out what her sister had to mean.

“Uncle Leo doesn’t count.”

Leo Meyer was The Club’s resident therapist. He was also one of her dad’s closest friends.

Greer sighed.

“He’s not seeing Uncle Leo, though you know he’s always been in that group Leo has with a bunch of the men in our circle.”

Harlow waved that off.

“They play basketball. He’s played for as long as I can remember.”

Greer shot her a look that told her she knew something.

“It’s not about the basketball. Think about who those men are. Uncle Leo, Big Tag, Dad, Papa, Uncle Cole, Uncle Mason. Wade Rycroft. Alex McKay. What do they have in common? It’s not a love of basketball.”

She thought for a moment, and then tears pulsed behind her eyes.

“They always play when Mom has her group. I thought…I thought they just wanted to be where she was so she didn’t feel alone.”

The one thing all those men had were wives who had suffered horrible abuse. Either at the hands of former husbands or boyfriends, or complete strangers in her mom’s case.

“From what I know they support each other and have for over twenty years. It’s how Big Tag finally convinced Dad to talk to someone about his problems with anxiety,”

Greer explained.

“He won’t take anything yet, but they’re working on it.”

Guilt swamped her.

“And I’m setting him back.”

“That’s not true, and it’s not my point. My point is he’s trying. I know he wasn’t the easiest parent in the world,”

Greer began.

“No, I got lectures on how I could die while riding a bicycle. Like he used physics and everything.”

She sighed.

“He also never once told me he was too busy to help me with my homework. He would sit and work Legos with me forever.”

“I did puzzles with him,”

Greer said with a wistful smile.

“But it was awful to watch mystery movies with him. Like dude I’m ten. Of course I don’t know Goofy accidently stole Mickey’s sandwich.”

“I did.”

She remembered that cartoon. Her dad was right. The writers had been asleep at the wheel on that one.

Greer nodded like she’d made her point.

“Yes, you were a pain in the ass, too. You and Dad would wreck every murder mystery by figuring it out two minutes in.”

They had been a menace to all who wanted a mystery solved at the end. But was that her fault? Most mysteries were fairly easy to solve since the author—unlike real-life criminals—tended to follow some form of logic. So a person with investigative skills could usually figure out a whodunnit. Oh. That’s where she was going.

“I am not like… Fine. I’m a little like dad, but I can function in the normal world.”

“So can he. Mostly. I want you to think about the differences. You are very much like Dad, and I’m Papa.”

Of course she was.

“I think you’re more like Mom.”

Greer’s head shook.

“I might have gotten her talent, but I’m not as fierce as Mom. I’m more like Papa. I’m content to sit back and let things come my way. I’m not the one everyone notices. I’m not the big personality.”

“No, you’re the one everyone loves.”

“Uh, I’ve been dealing with phone calls all day from our friends and family who are freaked out that you’re in trouble. The twins asked if they should look into it,”

Greer said like she hadn’t told her there was a bomb waiting to go off.

“You tell them the CIA does not work on domestic soil.”

The last thing she needed was to get the twins involved.

“I don’t think they know that. I’m pretty sure they run a ton of ops at The Hideout,”

Greer replied.

“But my point is everyone loves you. You like to pretend you’re the tough chick who doesn’t fit in. The trouble is you got born into a group where tough chicks are kind of the norm, and I’m the one who doesn’t fit.”

“You fit.”

She couldn’t believe she was hearing this from her always-confident big sister.

“With some, and when I say fit, I don’t mean I get left out of things. Our friend group is amazing and diverse, but I always think it’s ridiculous when you pretend like no one understands you. It reminds me of…”

“Dad.”

She felt a flush go through her system.

“Because he often feels like he’s in his own world and no one but Mom and Papa can be there with him.”

“Sometimes he doesn’t even feel like Mom and Papa can understand him,”

Greer continued.

“I know it sounds dumb, but it’s hard to be as smart as he is.”

“And as picky as he is. And as weird as he is about sniper positions and how clean a bathroom has to be before he’ll use it.”

Her dad was a weirdo. And she was a lot like him, which was why they clashed from time to time. It was inevitable, and she probably made it way worse because she wouldn’t sit down and talk to him about it. They went right into arguing. She wasn’t patient with him, and he had been patient with her for so many years.

How hard had it been for her paranoid, obsessive-compulsive, genius dad to deal with kids? To deal with dirty diapers and getting thrown up on. He had a thing about bacteria, and yet she remembered him sitting with her when she was sick.

“I’m sorry. I’ll sit down and talk to him. It’s the chasing me down thing that bugs me, but I will try to give him some grace.”

“I’m not even asking for that,”

her sister said.

“I’m begging you not to go no contact with us.”

Harlow felt her jaw drop.

“I would never do that. I have never once said that to Dad. He’s been reading too many Reddit posts. We need to keep him out of certain parts of the Internet.”

Greer smiled and leaned over to take Harlow’s hand.

“I’m glad to hear that. I know you won’t believe me, but I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve been right here,”

Harlow insisted.

“You’ve been in your own world, and that’s okay. You need to be from time to time. But the last few years it’s felt like you’re pulling away. Not in an ‘I’m all grown up and having a great time’ way. In an ‘I’m leaving you behind’ way.”

She was so self-centered sometimes. All this time she’d assumed Greer was probably happy she didn’t have to dole out big sis advice to her fuck-up younger sister. She wasn’t giving herself enough grace either, and she wasn’t being honest. She never meant to hurt her sister. She’d meant to protect herself, but her family wasn’t something she needed to be protected from.

“I shut down after Jensen dumped me. I was ashamed I let myself be in that position, and I didn’t want any of you to know it. I’m lucky Dad didn’t investigate and get involved in this whole mess.”

“They had a huge fight about it,”

Greer informed her.

“Right after you got back from LA, Dad wanted to do just that. He knew there was a guy involved, and he had talked Papa into going back out and finding him. Mom put her foot down. Like hard down.”

Harlow sniffled.

“I didn’t mean to cause them problems.”

“Mom said you would tell us what happened when you were ready, and if you never were we would love you and help you where we could. You did tell someone, right? Ruby knows.”

It wasn’t really a question.

“I want to make sure you tell someone if you can’t tell me.”

Yep, her sister was making her cry.

“This bacon is excellent,”

Ruby said as she walked in and then stopped.

“Sorry. Is this a sister thing?”

Greer looked up and nodded, but then held out a hand.

“It is, so you should join us. You have been the best thing to happen to my sister in a long time, and I’m happy you’re part of our family.”

“I don’t know how to deal with that. I’m feeling things, Harlow,”

Ruby admitted, a frown on her face.

“Greer does that. It’s the artist thing.”

Harlow leaned over and shouted toward the kitchen.

“Gigi, we’re about to talk shit about the two men I slept with last night.”

There was a gasp and then Gigi was in the room, plate in hand.

“I’m here. Did we start? Should I make mimosas?”

Of course Gigi brought champagne to her safe house. Harlow nodded.

“We’re going to need them.”

She turned to her sister and told her the whole story.