“Thief,” Mark said, snatching it out of Becca’s hand and giving it back to her sister. “You know what we do to thieves around here?” he asked, making his voice low and menacing.
“Not the tickle torture!” she said, backing up, waving her hands at him, eyes wide with terror.
“No. The tickle torture is for minor offenses. You, you rascal, you are getting strung up,” he declared, advancing her.
Her eyes got a little mischievous and she flew past him before he could catch her. Then Shane’s arm left my shoulders, making me feel oddly off-balance for a long minute, and he reached out, snagged the running child who had been watching her other uncle and not looking out for new threats. He tagged her around the waist and swiftly deposited her to her other uncle.
“No fair!” she declared, eyes shooting daggers at Shane. “Two against one!”
“It’s not fair to pick on your little sister either,” Mark declared, turning her suddenly and holding her around her belly and knees, her feet dangling over his shoulder as he walked away.
“You know that phrase about it taking a village?” Fiona asked, hair disheveled, one daughter clinging to her leg, another baby in her arms. The youngest bore no resemblance to the others, having inherited her mother’s light hair, but her father’s (and uncles’ and grandfather’s) blue eyes. “I need a freaking army just for Becca.”
“She’s got spirit,” her grandfather defended as he reached for the three-year old and hauled her up.
“She’s gotten spoiled by the men in this family,” Fiona clarified and not one of said men seemed repentant. “Lea, you look great,” she went on, handing off the last of her children to Helen, who took her happily.
“You’ve met?” Helen asked, eyes moving between us.
“Of course. That’s how she and Shane met. Lea works for me. He came in one day,” she said with a smile that only I knew was a little wicked, “the rest, as they say, is history.”
Beside me, Shane seemed to have stiffened slightly, but I was committed to earning my date money. “So this has been going on for a while?” Helen asked.
If ‘a while’ meant a plan hatched a couple days before, then, “Yes.”
I could tell by the eyes of Ryan that he didn’t buy it for a second.
“Figured it was time to bring her around to meet you,” Shane said, obviously deciding to play along.
“What’d Becca do to get strung up?” Yet another tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, strong, beautiful Mallick brother asked, this one even more covered in tattoos than Shane, as he walked around the deck. “Lea,” he said unexpectedly, leaning down to plant a kiss on my temple and I caught Fiona’s dancing eyes, knowing she dragged her husband in on the whole thing too. “Nice to see you again.”
“How’s things, Hunt?” I asked, silently thanking my good memory for cataloging that one time I heard Fiona say his name.
I could feel Helen’s eyes on me, appraising me, trying to gauge the situation. “Here, hon,” Charlie said, finally handing me my beer, along with one for Shane.
“You’re a piece of work,” Shane mumbled under his breath into his beer.
I cocked my head up to look at him with a small saucy smile and said just as quietly, “You’re welcome.”
“Looks like someone isn’t eating,” Hunt called and everyone turned to see yet another brother walk up, no one on his arm.
“Seriously? You couldn’t even pay some chick to accompany your ugly ass?” Shane called as the longer-haired, more slight of the brothers walked up, looking almost a little sheepish. If I remembered correctly, he was Eli.
“Come on, Ma…” he tried when she gave him a brow raise. “You’re not seriously going to make me sit there and watch you guys eat.”
“I’m not?” she asked, a very motherly smile on her face.
“Come on…”
“Hey, all your brothers managed to bring dates. Granted, at least two of them are flat-out fakes, but they’re here. You got the same call and instructions as the rest of them. You’re not getting special treatment.”
“I’m hungry,” he tried, using a phrase that would have worked on most moms. But I had a feeling that Helen Mallick was not most moms.
“Not a crumb. And you get to help me serve up all the food too,” she added when he groaned.
“Mom runs a bit of a tight ship,” Shane explained, slinging an arm around my waist. “I missed curfew one night and came home to a fucking sleeping bag on the front lawn.” He looked down at me, a boyish smile tugging at his lips. “It was December. But fuck if she didn’t make me stay out there all night.”
“I wasn’t raising boys,” Helen said with an unapologetic shrug. “I was raising men. Men who would become husbands and fathers one day. No woman wants to marry a man who can’t stick to boundaries. And no father can do a good job if he doesn’t learn about laying down the law. Ask him if he ever missed curfew again.”