“Something or someone,” the woman asked.
Now Caden remembered her from the shower. She’d pinched him on the ass when she thought he was a stripper. Caden cleared his throat. “What’s going on?”
“I decided I needed to move my announcement for today. Everyone else I wanted to come said they could be here today.”
Caden cut his eyes toward Maggie. He raised a brow in question. “Is that so?”
“Yes, Miss Brenda is getting married in New Orleans this Saturday, and understandably there’d be no way for Maggie to come here.” Kit patted Brenda’s hand. “I would have known about the wedding had I been given an invitation.”
Brenda patted Kit’s hand back. “I told you, I did send you one—there are a lot of people not invited because it’s a location wedding.”
“New Orleans is still in the United States, right?” Kit quipped back.
“Well I...”
“We’ll just pretend the invitation got lost in the mail and forget about it,” said Kit. Caden knew that tone and knew no matter what, his mother was going to bring this up again later. “But either way, you all are here now. So go get ready, Caden. I was about to show my friends the garden.”
Kit, pushed by her friend, exited out the front door. Maggie attempted to follow, but Caden pulled her back by her wrists. He let his mother know they’d be right with them, then closed the door. Without thinking, he pressed her against the door and pulled her face to his with his hands.
“You’re here,” he said before kissing her. Caden felt her body melt against his just before she wedged her hands against his chest. He touched his lips to wipe away any trace of lipstick but there was none.
“What are you doing?” Maggie asked him.
Caden raised his brow again. “I believe we were kissing. You were fast asleep when I left you this morning.”
“Are you sure?”
It dawned on him that he’d never stepped foot in her bedroom, just poked his head in and saw her body on the queen-size mattress. How quickly he forgot her coding skills. Wagging his finger at her face, Caden laughed. “You’re cute.”
“This,” she said in return and wagged her hand between them, “stops.”
Confused, Caden shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“We’re not going for a three-peat.”
Getting what she meant, he offered a lazy smile. “Technically it would be more like a four-peat.”
“That’s not what I meant, Caden.”
“Okay, quad-peat? It’s semantics. I’m glad you’re here. Do you know what this means?”
Maggie squared her shoulders. “Yes, it means I’m placing myself in position to be named Kit’s successor.”
If Maggie’s bombshell didn’t irritate him to his core, the collective expletive comment from his eavesdropping brothers would have pissed him off. Caden turned around and, without thinking, placed Maggie behind him, holding her back with one hand. Maggie’s body tensed.
“Jesus,” Chase laughed and elbowed Jason in the ribs, “it’s the redhead.”
Jason closed the gap between them and, with his head cocked to the side, tried to study Maggie. “Wow, you didn’t age at all,” he said to her. “Guess I lost that bet, huh?”
Caden glanced over his shoulder in time to spy the daggers Maggie tossed with her glare. The once hazel-green orbs turned almost a deep hunter’s green, and she set her weapons on his brothers. Obviously there was a history, and he damn well planned on finding out what it was.
“I’m going to warn you three now,” Caden said with an even tone.
“Three?” Heath shook his head and waved his arms back and forth. “I’ve done my share of inappropriate behavior, but I never said anything.”
While Caden held Maggie back with his right arm, his left arm grabbed Heath by the collar of his shirt. “Somebody better start talking. Maggie, you know my brothers?”
“I don’t know them,” Maggie snarled, “and they don’t know me. But that didn’t stop them from trashing me behind my back to the judges.”