“I see. I respe
ct your ambition but that sounds a little self-serving, son.”
He rolled his eyes. “Dad.”
Lang hits the back of my seat as I turn in the driveway, bringing me back to the present with a jolt. “Dad. I said there’s a weird guy on our porch.”
Yes, there is. A big, hulking guy, peering into the living room window.
I hit the brakes and put the car in park. “You stay here with your brother until I find out who it is. Lock the doors.”
I watch the guy jiggling the window before swearing and moving to pound on the door. When he hears the snow crunching beneath my shoes, he finally turns around.
“Can I help you?” I ask as calmly as I’m able. “Because it looks like you’re trying to break into that house.”
“Do you know who lives here? Where they are?”
His eyes remind me enough of Tani’s that I’m guessing this is one of her brothers. That’s all they have in common as far as I can see. Where’s she’s small and delicate, he’s thicker and closer to five-eleven. And he’s not looking good. Sweating, despite the weather. A little green around the gills.
“Emerson Wayne lives here, and he’s standing right in front of you.”
His grimace tells me this has to be Arush Chahal, the brother who tried to marry my wife to someone else.
“Are your parents with you?” I ask through clenched teeth, restraining my anger. “I thought they were flying out next week.”
He straightens the jacket that looks like it was made more for style than warmth and glares down at me from the porch. “I told them not to come. There’s no reason to waste the tickets. I’m here to bring my sister home.”
“Is that what she wants?” It slips out. Did she call her family? Have I screwed up that much?
“It doesn’t matter what she wants. She’ll do what I say.”
I admit, my laugh is a little on the derisive side. “You should know better than anyone that she won’t. Tanisha makes her own decisions. And she decided that she didn’t want to marry someone she didn’t know just to get you out of debt.”
In an unexpected move, Arush sits down heavily on the porch. “I think I had too much to drink on the flight in.”
“I wish I could feel sorry for you, but you’re talking about taking my wife away from me, so…”
He looks up at me, miserable. “She paid it anyway. My debt? Then she paid off my parents’ mortgage and opened an account for Niraj’s college. All of it. Like it was nothing.”
“Sounds to me like that’s something you should thank her for.”
“And when we didn’t answer her calls,” he continued with a baleful glare. “She got married to a stranger anyway, but this one was on the other side of the country from our parents. A stranger. She didn’t even invite us to the wedding. It’s not right for a woman to act this way.”
He sounds so bewildered I almost feel sorry for him. I know all about pride and what it goeth before. “Women can do all sorts of things now, brother. Vote. Drive a car. Own a company. Marry whoever they want. Maybe you should give up on thinking you have all the answers and move into this century.”
Arush leans against one of the columns I restored with my own hands. It’s clear his liquid courage is wearing off. “I didn’t mean the things I said about her. I’m here to promise her that she never has to marry again, as soon as we get this one annulled. She never wanted to get married anyway. She said it all the time and I should have listened. Then we can go back to movie nights and M’Baku jokes and my mother will stop glaring at me every time I turn around and—areyoucrazy? What the hell are you doing?”
Before I even realize it, I’ve grabbed two fistfuls of his jacket and yanked him up until he’s on his toes in front of me. “Nothing is getting annulled, brother-in-law. Your sister is my wife in every way possible, and the stepmother to my boys. Our boys. You still know nothing about her, and you know less than nothing about me if you think I’ll let the woman I’m in love with go without a fight.”
“Dad!” Lang calls out the window, reminding me that we’re not alone and I’ve taught my children violence is the wrong way to settle their differences.
I look from the slack-jawed Arush to see Tanisha and her driver standing a few feet away.
She looks stunning and stunned, but it’s not her brother she’s staring at. It’s me.
“Hey, baby,” I say, attempting innocence. “Looks like it’s our week for confrontations in the front yard. Let’s hope it doesn’t become a habit or the neighbors will talk.”
“Tanisha,” Arush starts, but she holds up a gloved hand, still studying my expression.