Showdown!. Laurie Paige

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      Some girl had been lucky to have this room, she thought, fighting the harsh sting of longing as she went to the bathroom and freshened up before facing Zack and his uncle again. That girl had been cherished.

      Inhaling carefully, she dried her face, combed her hair and returned to the middle of the house. Four men were busy putting food on the table.

      She stopped, her mouth dry, feeling like a rabbit who’d stumbled into a den of wolves. Her feet stuck to the floor.

      One of the men spotted her. “Hi. Come on in. We only look dangerous, but no one bites. Uncle Nick lost his teeth years ago, and we’re not allowed to devour pretty women.”

      “I have all my own teeth,” Uncle Nick corrected his nephew balefully, then smiled at her, showing off what appeared to be a perfectly good set of natural teeth.

      She managed a return smile of sorts.

      Zack placed a bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. “Sit,” he said unceremoniously and held a chair for her. “This is Honey Carrington,” he said as if it was perfectly normal to show up with a strange woman in tow.

      She sat and let out another careful breath. Zack took the chair beside her while the older man sat at the end of the table to her immediate right. The twins were opposite.

      “I’m Trevor, the handsome twin,” the first man who’d spoken informed her, his manner friendly and easy. “That’s Travis. He’s the quiet, ugly one.”

      “You look identical,” she said, smiling at his joke.

      Travis chuckled while his twin clutched his chest as if wounded. “I’d hoped you could tell the difference,” Trevor said in complaint, then spoiled it with a grin.

      “We’ll have a blessing,” Uncle Nick said.

      Honey bowed her head when the men did. Uncle Nick thanked the Lord for bringing Honey to them and recounted other blessings. She felt such an impostor. A brief silence ensued, then the uncle said, “Amen.”

      “Potatoes?” Zack asked, handing her the bowl.

      She took a small serving of each dish as it was passed. There were several to go along with the meat loaf, so her plate ended up filled to the edges. She gazed at it in dismay, not sure she could swallow. She choked down a bite of everything.

      “You don’t have to eat it all,” Uncle Nick said kindly.

      “Thank you. It’s more than I realized. But everything is delicious,” she quickly added in case she hurt the uncle’s feelings with her lack of appetite.

      “So, Zack says you may be our long-lost cousin,” Trevor began after a brief silence. “Where did he find you?”

      “In Vegas,” Zack answered before she could. He smiled. “She brought me luck. She found a quarter I dropped. When I put it in the slot machine, I hit the jackpot for six hundred quarters.” He turned to her. “I meant to give you a big tip.”

      Heat rose to her cheeks. “That’s okay.”

      “A hundred and fifty dollars,” Travis, the quiet twin, commented. “You were lucky.”

      “How much did you blow before you won?” the uncle asked shrewdly.

      Zack grinned. “Twenty dollars.”

      “Huh,” Uncle Nick said.

      Honey wasn’t sure if the older man disapproved of the gambling. When he turned his startling blue eyes on her, she felt like a kid called on the carpet.

      “Honey and I are going to talk after we eat,” he said. “Privately.”

      Her chest actually hurt as she thought of the deception she was perpetrating. Although she wasn’t lying about her past, she’d cast enough doubt to leave the question of her origins open. She hadn’t mentioned her brother at all.

      A sigh worked its way out of her. She had to protect Adam. He was her first concern.

      Unexpectedly Uncle Nick patted her hand. His wise gaze seemed to peer right into her soul. Instead of feeling cornered, she felt comforted, as if he knew her troubles.

      “You’re welcome in this house,” he said.

      “Thank you.” Her voice trembled, a fact she couldn’t conceal. Honestly. In another minute she would dissolve into tears and confess all. Would they throw her out? Or would they take her under their wing like some stray kitten?

      “Were you in Vegas on vacation?” Travis wanted to know.

      She glanced at Zack, then said truthfully, “I was working as a cocktail waitress.”

      “Ah,” the other twin said as if that explained a lot. Not a smidgen of condemnation entered his gaze.

      She couldn’t stand it another second. Pushing her chair back, she stood abruptly. Four pairs of pure blue eyes stared up at her. “I…excuse me. I need to…to rest for a while.”

      Coward and liar that she was, she fled to the pretty bedroom, closed and locked the door behind her, then flung herself on the lace coverlet, tears she wouldn’t let fall burning her eyes like hot coals. She’d never felt so miserable.

      Zack shrugged when his brothers stared at him across the table. “Women,” he said in answer to their unvoiced questions. He turned to his uncle. “What do you think?”

      Uncle Nick buttered a roll before glancing his way. “I think she needs to rest just as she said. What time did you make her get on the road this morning?”

      “Early,” he admitted. Since he’d never been able to hide the truth from Uncle Nick, he told about the storm and having to spend the night in the truck.

      “Ahh,” drawled Trevor softly.

      Zack glared at his brother. “She might be our cousin,” he said by way of explaining their sleep had been of the most innocent variety.

      “Maybe. Maybe not,” Trevor said thoughtfully.

      Zack kept his mouth shut and finished his meal. The abundant and simple food was delicious compared to the fast food he’d consumed on the road.

      After he and Honey had made it into a small town that morning, he’d bought doughnuts, milk and coffee for them at the gas-station mart while they filled up. He hadn’t thought to stop later for a more substantial breakfast.

      “You want to talk to Honey now?” he asked Uncle Nick when the older man finished eating.

      His uncle considered, then shook his head. “She might be asleep. I thought she looked tired.”

      “Yeah. We left early yesterday and she didn’t get off work until two that morning. She didn’t sleep much last night, either. Nightmares,” he explained at his brothers’ identical glances.

      “What made you think she was our cousin?” Travis, the quiet twin, asked.

      Zack СКАЧАТЬ