Veronica laughed. “No, that would be too sensible. She just finds a new adventure and goes for it.”
“Sounds like you.” My dad laced his fingers over his slight paunch. “Going off with that Macy girl.”
“Dad, Macy is one of the most successful women in our town right now. And most of it is because of Veronica. You can’t keep your hands off her cookies.”
“That’s what she said,” Penn muttered.
I stomped on his steel-toe boot.
Penn just chuckled. The bastard.
Veronica nudged me with her shoulder. “Thanks, Fortress. You don’t have to stick up for me. I know that my lifestyle isn’t conventional. He’s right to ask questions.”
“Well, if you do have a baby with my son, I just want to know if we will have to chase you down to see our grandchild.”
“Dad.”
“It’s not an outrageous question.”
Veronica patted my hand. “No, it’s not. And while my quest for a baby might be a little unconventional, I’ve found my home here in Crescent Cove. I’ve been looking for a real home for a long time. And I want nothing more than to raise my baby here.”
I wasn’t aware that my entire body had tightened until she said that. I wrapped my arm around her and hauled her close. “Now can you stop with the questions? I don’t want to scare her away.”
She turned her face into my shoulder for a moment and gave me a grateful smile.
“Would someone set the damn table?” My mom’s bellow came from the kitchen.
I rose and tugged her with me. “We’ll do it, Ma.”
“I’ll help!” Carrington came into the dining room with a stack of plastic bowls with napkins inside.
I came up behind her and she immediately climbed onto my boots as we shuffled around the table so she could reach. She rattled off the extent of her day at Kindergarten in excruciating detail, but I didn’t interrupt her. My niece was adorable as hell despite her father’s truly craptastic taste in women.
Speak of the devil. Travis came through the sliding back door with his helmet under his arm.
Carrington wiggled away from me and shrieked her way across the room to him. Travis dropped the helmet and caught her mid leap and hoisted her above his head. “Munchee-chee. How goes it?”
“Travis, wash your hands and help me with the salad.” My mother was a no-nonsense woman. Especially when one of her kids came in late for dinner.
“Right.” He set his daughter on the floor gently, then scooped up his helmet. “Hellooo.” On his way up, his eyes followed the petite lines of my…what? Girlfriend? Possible future mother of my child? I didn’t even have a decent label for her.
We didn’t talk about them. Somehow I wasn’t supposed to toss her over my shoulder and keep her up in my cabin.
The stack of dishes I was shuffling around the table clanked together.
“Veronica, meet my perpetually late brother, Travis.”
He reached up to ruffle his colorful mohawk. “Look, we match, darlin’.”
What the hell was it with my brothers? Didn’t they know how to speak to a woman without an endearment attached?
Veronica grinned. “So we do. What did you use for color?”
Travis shrugged. “They stick me in a chair and put goop on my head. Then I go in front of a camera. That’s all I know.”
“Travis is a model. Ish.” Christian stole Travis’s helmet. “Don’t hold it against him. We don’t. Mostly.”
“You’re just jealous because I get paid to have beautiful women crawl all over me.”