“This is where you threaten him to get out of town before you rip off all his limbs and feed them to the bears,” Kylie states flatly, watching him as he studies me.
“I don’t know,” her father says, grinning a little. “Liam is on the official challenge committee. We voted him in this morning.”
That challenge committee is saving me? Thank fuck for Bill helping me sign on.
Kylie’s arms fall to her sides as confusion mars her face.
“I said I’m spending the night with him. In his bed. Where he’ll probably put his hands on me. Lips too. He also has some other body parts you should worry about.”
I cast a glare at her, but she’s too busy staring disbelievingly at her father.
He grins more. “Bill and I have been outnumbered by Chester Perkins and his crew for a long time. With Liam here, we’ll have better odds. The challenges have been weak lately, because those pussies are too afraid to handle the big ones.”
He smirks at me. “You a pussy, Liam?” he asks me.
I shake my head. “No, sir.”
He nods thoughtfully.
“Didn’t think so. Have you told Kylie we’ve met?”
I shake my head again.
“You’ve met?” Kylie asks, her face scrunched adorably in confusion.
Her father smiles, while I keep my mouth shut. Smart men live in silence. Talkers die mysteriously and their bodies never turn up. Now I’m wondering if they end up with the beards. I mean the…bears.
“I was on his land. Didn’t realize anyone had bought the Morris cabin until he showed up at that hunter’s shack in the woods to check out his new property. I was just keeping it up. Hated to see a building that nice run down with no care.”
It’s a total lie he’s telling, but obviously I don’t point that out. He was sure as hell not just keeping the hunter shack up. In fact, I thought he was going to bring it down.
I just didn’t know the identity of the woman he was with, or why he wanted it kept a secret.
Until the wedding.
Now I get it.
And my lips are forever sealed.
Kylie eyes her cousins. “Well? No threats from any of you lot either?” she demands.
They all shrug, unconcerned.
“I think you’d be less likely to try to beat on us if you were getting laid regularly,” one of them says.
My confidence grows a little more when her father laughs at that instead of shooting me with one of those rifles near his head.
In fact, I’m feeling pretty damn good about this whole situation now. I’m not sure why Killian and Hale made it sound like this was going to be difficult. The Malones are far more agreeable than the Vincents were with Benson.
Kylie throws her hands up.
“Not even one threat? The Vincents did worse to Benson when he went for Lilah, and they like him.”
Ha. Apparently she’s thinking the same thing.
She flicks her gaze between all of them as they blink at her innocently.
“He did give up his home and city life to come out here and be with you. Heard all about that,” her father says with a shrug. “Sounds like a good man to me.”
I’m glad her father approves of my stalker tendencies.
Now I can appreciate their level of crazy a little more.
Fully relaxed with an extra dose of confidence, I take a seat on the last vacant recliner near the door. Kylie mutters something about the men in her house being anticlimactic before disappearing into a back bedroom.
As soon as the door closes, all five men look at me, humor vanishing, and they lean forward, eyes narrowing.
All the light air is sucked out and replaced with thick, suffocating tension.
Okay, feeling less confident now.
“My girl went to LA last year, and came back distant, quiet, and then started hiding herself away,” George growls, and I swallow hard.
He gestures to the wall on the far side that is loaded down with canvases, then gestures to the hallway that has paintings lining every single inch of it.
“She only paints like that when she’s hurting. Blues don’t get used unless she’s miserable. I knew it was a boy. Bill said you came here from LA to chase a girl, then you kissed my girl. The way I see it, that boy must have been you.”
Thank fuck she didn’t tell him about Felicia.
“Yesterday, my girl was herself for the first time in a long time. Today, she comes traipsing in here without a speck of blue paint on her. You make sure she stays that way. I see one new painting with blue, and I’ll tear your limbs off one-by-one and feed them to the fucking bears, before I turn the rest of these goons loose on you.”
He gestures to the four cousins who are cracking their knuckles like a bad cliché, and rabidly eyeing me like they don’t want to be held back. Did the one on the left just growl at me?