Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

“You okay?” Aug asked in my ear.

Not even a little.

But I wasn’t not okay because of the kidnapping.

“Are you?” I asked instead of answering, surveying him for cuts from the glass, and finding none.

“Fine,” he grunted.

“How did you jump through a window and not get cut up?”

He gave me a look and said, “Practice.”

Hmm…

“You don’t have to tie them up,” Saffron said. “We weren’t going to hurt them.”

The garage door started going down again and I pulled at Auggie’s arms to give him the cue to tuck me to his side.

He did this.

And I saw Brett was there.

Oddly (or perhaps not oddly at all), I wasn’t surprised in the slightest about this.

“Hey, Brett,” I called.

“Pepper,” he greeted. Then to Lottie, “Charlotte.”

“Yo,” Lottie replied.

“Hey, Sly,” I greeted Brett’s man, who had also joined us.

“Woman,” Sly rumbled and then looked at Lottie. “Woman.”

Lottie and I turned to each other, and honest to God, I thought we were both going to bust out laughing. Partly hysterics. Partly relief. Partly Sly being Sly.

We didn’t when Brett asked, “Do you want me to handle these two?”

I gave him my attention just as he indicated Hottie Jon and Birch with a nod at either side of his head.

He was asking Auggie.

“Who’s this guy?” Saffron asked after Brett.

“Shit, fuck,” Birch groaned, staring up at Brett.

Uh-oh.

“Have we met?” Brett asked, gazing down at my brother.

“No,” Birch answered too quickly.

“We’ve met,” Brett said softly.

“Uh…” I cut in. “We were just getting to the good part of understanding what was going on. Is there a way, considering there are three of them, but seven of us, they could finish the story without two of them being tied up on the floor?”

“They didn’t offer you that courtesy,” Brett pointed out.

“They did not,” Lots agreed.

True.

However…

“One of them is my brother and the other one, my sister is in love with. So maybe we can be cooler than they are?” I suggested.

All the guys (well, the guys on our side) looked to Auggie.

“Cut the cross rope, keep the hands and feet tied,” Auggie ordered.

Mo moved in to do that, one by one cutting the line between wrists and feet then hauling them with one of his big mitts under their arms to sitting on their ass.

He then stepped back not too far away and crossed his arms on his massive chest.

This, I was seeing, was one of those times it was handy that Mo looked like he’d prefer to break you in half than look at you.

Because both Birch and Hottie Jon were eyeing him in a way neither was going to try anything.

“Give my woman what she wants and then we’ll figure out what to do with you,” Auggie directed Saffron.

“We can go inside, it’s comfortable in there,” Saffron tried.

“I didn’t see you offering your sister a seat on the couch and a glass of wine,” Aug pointed out.

“We—” Saffron began.

“Stop it,” Auggie bit out. “Whatever is up your ass, you’re taking it out on your sister. I get it. I don’t like it. You don’t want me to focus on it, I promise you. So move the fuck on.”

Okay, seemed my guy could be intense outside of sex too.

And somehow, it was even hotter (maybe, I would have to assess this the next time we had sex).

“We’ve been working on this for years. That’s why they’re here. For insurance,” Saffron said. “We’re making some important moves today and tomorrow and we were about to get a message to you to stand down, not get involved, not fuck anything up. I was going to let Pepper call you to tell you she was fine, and you needed to let things play out. I just didn’t get the chance. So now you have to promise you won’t fuck anything up,” Saffron ended on a demand.

“My woman was tied on the floor before I got in here, so I don’t have to do dick. Now, we can move on with this, and by that, I’ll be talking Pepper into pressing charges. Or you can tell her what she wants to know.”

Saffron shot Aug a prolonged dirty look.

I made note of the fact that apparently, Auggie had been vaccinated against dirty looks, because he just stared at her.

“Okay,” she pushed out, exasperated, and looked at me. “Mom’s covered, just so you know.”

“Mom’s covered…for what?” I asked.

She didn’t answer that directly.

She said, “That’s why you had to find Birch for me. We’d heard through some acquaintances that he had skills we needed, but we couldn’t find him. You found him, told him to contact the church, he did, we had a chat, he sorted stuff out and now she’s covered.”

I shook my head. “Saff, you’re not making any sense.”

Brett entered the discussion. “He has a specific skill set, which includes forgeries. Identification, primarily.”

My brother was a forger?