Page 98 of Theirs for the Holidays

My heart races. Sawyer’s good at this, and I’m relieved he backed me up, but I know Isabelle isn’t going to be satisfied until she’s heard from all of them.

“Who reached out first?” she wants to know.

“Violet did,” all three of them answer at the same time.

“She reached out to me first,” Rhett replies. “But I check my messages once a month or less, so I missed it.”

“I had to tell her what I knew about how the others were doing,” Lennox fills in.

“Like I said,” I tell my sister. “I read that article about Lennox’s company and that made me try again to get in contact with them.”

Lennox nods. “I was happy to hear from her. I had gotten so busy with the company and everything that I was basically eating and sleeping work for a while. It was nice to have a break from that to talk to an old friend. And then make her more than a friend.”

“And you don’t mind sharing her?” Isabelle asks, continuing like I didn’t say anything. “I mean, I know you haven’t been on the best of terms lately, so it seems weird to me that you’d be happy to all be dating the same woman.”

“She’s worth it,” Rhett says firmly. “Yeah, we argue about stuff sometimes, and there have been some toes stepped on, but if it means we all get to have time with her, then that’s worth it to us.”

“He’s right,” Lennox agrees. “Just chatting with her online for the couple months we did made us all realize how much we missed her in our lives. And she’s grown up very, very well, so it’s not surprising we all wanted to be more than friends with her.”

Isabelle’s expression sours a bit, but she covers it up before anyone can call her on it. “So Sawyer was super flirty, and what about you two?”

“I’m not good at it,” Rhett admits. “I never really knew what to say. I listened when she talked and told her what she wanted to know, but I didn’t know how to make her see that I wanted more.” He glances at me, and I give a little nod again. “I invited her to my cabin, which is a pretty big deal.”

“Yeah,wedefinitely haven’t been invited,” Sawyer says. “He usually prefers to be alone.”

“I was hoping she’d understand what that meant, and she did.”

I smile at Rhett because even though none of that happened, I can hear the sincerity in his voice.

“I didn’t want to read too much into it,” I say. “So I’m glad I picked up on what you meant.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

When I look over at Isabelle, there’s a disgruntled look on her face, but she schools it back into a smile when she notices me watching her.

“That’s really cute,” she says, pouring on the fake sincerity. “And how did you all decide to come down here and see her?”

My heart skips a beat because we haven’t really talked about this much, but the guys have it under control.

Lennox shrugs. “Andrew’s our brother. We were going to come either way. It just so happened that it meant we got to see Violet at the same time, so it was a win-win. Any issues we might have with each other were worth working out or dealing with to spend time with her in the flesh.”

He shoots a smile my way, and I smile back.

“Well,” Isabelle says. “That’s all really, really nice for Violet. I’m sure she’s grateful you’re all here. I mean, before you came her life was pretty much tinkering with her baking and sitting around at home, so…”

Rhett lifts an eyebrow. “You mean working in her successful bakery and then coming home to rest because she has to get up absurdly early to make sure everything’s done in time?”

Isabelle waves a hand, but she looks a little embarrassed. “Right, that’s what I meant. It’s just nice for her to have something else to focus on for once. She’s always been a bit of a homebody, you know? So you can imagine my surprise about all this.” She laughs brightly, but no one laughs with her.

It makes me feel warm to see the guys all smiling politely at her, but not giving in to her backhanded way of describing me.

“Anyway,” she says, when she sees she’s not going to get her way here. “I’ve got to run. I’m meeting Andrew for dinner, and I don’t want to be late. You know that fancy steakhouse in the city? We’re doing a little dinner there tonight.”

“I thought you were off red meat before the wedding?” I put in.

She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, fixing me with a look as if I’ve said something incredibly stupid. “They have chicken. Anyway, I’m heading out.”

My sister waves at me and flashes a smile at the guys and then leaves in the same gust of impatience she arrived in.