“I’m telling Brennan. Because we keep no secrets between us. But other than him, not a word from me.” Errin faked zipping her lips and took a step back from the doorway.
Bree nodded at Errin and turned back to Declan. Like her pants were on fire, Errin went past their families who were all stuffed with Thanksgiving food, straight up the stairs to her and Brennan’s apartment.
Because that’s what it was, more or less. She hadn’t moved in officially, but she spent every night there in his ridiculously enormous bed.
“Bren,” she said as she walked into the apartment. He stuck his head from the fridge and said, “Damn. All those leftovers. We’ll be eating cranberries for weeks on end.”
“What’s wrong, filly?” he said as he cocked his head. Okay, how was she going to tell him this news? Her palms were sweaty, and she rubbed them against her deep purple dress.
“I just overheard—”
“You can’t do this every time you hear stuff at the bar, Errin. People need a place to vent, to tell you their story. You can’t tell anyone whats’ been said—”
“Bree and Declan are going to have a baby!” she blurted.
“No way.” Brennan let a dish fall to the ground, those horrific green peas rolling everywhere. Why he even bothered to keep that dish for later was beyond her.
“Yes way. I just overheard them talking in the back alley. Declan got pissed I overheard them, but I just had to tell you. I’m sorry. I won’t tell anybody else, but I needed to tell you,” she said.
“No, it’s okay. Oh, shit,” Brennan said as he took Errin and placed her on his lap and sat down at the kitchen table.
She nestled herself and after a few minutes of silence, she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “The stork is the bird that helps deliver babies. What bird helps prevent pregnancy?”
Brennan groaned but said, “Okay, I’ll bite. What bird?”
“The swallow,” she said, but didn’t laugh at her own joke—for once.
28
Excerpt Declan - book 4
PROLOGUE - BREE
March
Tonight’s the night. No more self-doubting and pussyfooting. Bree checked her lipgloss once more in the vanity mirror of the sun visor, flicking her tongue over her pearly whites. She righted her shoulders, took a deep breath and traced her fingers over the car door panel in search of the handle.
The Texas heat engulfed her rich dark curls right after exiting her beat-up purple sedan. After a few short brushes through her bouncy strands with her fingernails, Bree gave up the effort to tame her hair. She’d parked in her usual spot; behind Dec’s black Chevy on his impeccably clean drive way. How did he find the time to pull out all those weeds and tackle the overgrown mess since he was still renovating inside?
She’d been here almost every day and most nights for the past three months. At first, she’d helped Dec clean out all the junk left behind by the former owner. The house had been a steal, but not without reason. It had been a dump. A smelly, dingy two-story house in southeast Austin.
Never one to shy away from hard work, Bree even assisted the Mills brothers and cousins wherever she could as they helped Dec in remodeling the two-story house. It had been a lot of fun learning some tricks of the trade from Dec’s cousins Keenan and Aiden who worked construction for their father’s construction company.
Bree used her hand, shielding her light blue eyes from the lazy evening sun. She glanced up at the freshly white painted house and smiled. Finally, they were entering the stage of making this place beautiful again. They all had enough of tearing down and throwing away the old, rotten elements of the house.
But hold on, what’s that? The red paint of the small porch pained her eyes. That damn stubborn ass. After all the color-coding and Bree’s efforts in persuading him to go for a more gentle looking pale blue, Declan still went ahead with this God-awful vermillion.
Dec needed his head examined. She righted her little black dress and stomped in her high heels over said ugly red porch when Dec opened the door. “And? What do you think?” he smiled a mile wide and opened his arms, showcasing a job he figured well done.
“You never listen, Dec.”
She shook her head as she walked up to him. Because if he would really listen to her—or take notice, he’d known how her stomach flip-flopped at the mere sight of his dimples. How her heart skipped a beat at his smiling gray eyes. Damn, she was a mess. She would even put up with this hideous porch if it meant she’d live here with him, waking up every day in those muscular tanned arms.
“Squirt...” he said, and Bree winced at his nickname for her. She wasn’t the six-year-old tomboy following him around anymore. In front of Declan stood a twenty-six-year-old who just had an emergency video chat with her sister Gwenn about her outfit tonight.
She was on a mission. The normal ‘one-of-the-guys-Bree’ wouldn’t cut it. Tonight, she wasn’t the girl next door and Dec’s best friend in her favorite sweater and jeans. No. In front of Declan stood a WO-MAN.
Yes. She emphasized it out loud in her head and his smile faltered. He could always read her mind. So, how he didn’t read the signs of her pining and lusting over his Irish ass was the greatest mystery of all times.