Swear (Landry Family 4)

Ford

BLIND DATES WOULD WORK OUT so much better if you were actually blind. And deaf. And maybe a hundred miles away.

My head pounds with the remnants of Blind Date, and final date, Number Three’s ridiculous giggle last night.

Each candidate hand-selected by my brother Graham’s secretary-turned-girlfriend-turned-pain-in-my-ass seemed decent at first. All were pretty, fairly intelligent, and each of them were memorable . . . just for the wrong reasons. It is possible that maybe, just maybe, I just hold them to an impossible standard set by a woman a long time ago. Either way, it is what it is.

“Mr. Landry?” My secretary’s voice chirps through the Bluetooth. “Are you there?”

I take the exit for the freeway and sigh, coming back to reality. “Yeah. I’m sorry, Hoda. I got distracted. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that Graham stopped in a little while ago. He said your cell must be dead because you aren’t answering. He asked me to have you call him as soon as possible.”

“It’s a ploy,” I tease. “He’s just seeing if you’re scared of him.”

She laughs. “I’m pretty sure he already knows that, Sir.”

“He’s a big baby. The whole asshole thing he has going on is just a front.” Graham’s name blinks across the dash. “And now he’s calling me.”

“Please answer it.”

Chuckling, I hover my finger over the call button. “I’ll be back in the office in a few. Talk to you then.”

I click over and don’t get a chance to greet him. He just talks.

“Hey, Ford, I was looking over the numbers and—”

“I hear you’ve been terrorizing my employees again. Can you knock it off? I’m not fucking mine. She might quit.”

“I’m not fucking mine either. I fired her and then moved her in with me. Remember?”

“Gee, that’s right. She—”

“Hi, Ford,” Mallory singsongs into the phone, clearly loving catching me off-guard.

“A little warning would’ve been nice, Graham.”

The Georgia sun is hot and high in the sky, blazing through the windshield of my truck. I’ve been out of the office in meetings with potential clients all morning. I’m desperate to get back to my to-do list, a glass of tea, and some uninterrupted hours of work.

Landry Security is my baby and we’re just getting off the ground. After a couple of tours of duty in the military, something I never expected to be a career, this is my first foray into something all my own. Something I’m in charge of, my brainchild. Although Graham, the CEO of our family’s business, Landry Holdings, was instrumental in putting it together, it’s now all mine. And I love it.

“Before you guys go talking shop, how’d the date go last night?” Mallory asks. “Neither of you called me, so I was hoping that meant it went well.”

“She spent fifteen minutes giving me a dissertation on nail polish, Mal. A quarter of an hour discussing the way the light bounces off reds differently than pinks. And although she volunteered to wrap her legs around my face and let me do my own little experimentation, the conversation was mind-numbing.”

“But,” Graham interjects, “did you do the experimenting?”

“Damn right I did.”

“Just stop it, both of you,” Mallory sighs. “Let’s focus on what matters: you didn’t hit it off?”

“No, we didn’t hit it off. I mean, I hit it and got off, but . . .”

“I’m starting to wonder whether you really want to find someone or not,” Mallory groans.

I can’t help but laugh. “I told you from the beginning I don’t. I only went along with this blind date BS because you made it a requirement to borrow your yoga studio to train my security guys. Otherwise, I’d be—”

“Hooking up with women with ‘KARMA’ tattooed across the top of their butt cracks,” she deadpans.

Graham’s laugh booms through the truck speakers, making me wince.

“I’m never telling Lincoln anything again. Our brother has no loyalty,” I say, trying not to laugh too. “And for the record, there were butterflies along with the lettering.”

“Oh, that makes it better,” Mallory says, sarcasm thick in her tone.

Graham’s laugh breaks through our banter again. “Sometimes I listen to you two and wonder if you’re the siblings and I’m the outsider.”

“Oh, no, G. You brought her into this family. That honor is all yours.”

“Damn right it’s an honor,” Mallory teases.

I unscrew a water bottle with one hand and bring it to my lips, keeping my eyes on the road as my brother and his girlfriend banter back and forth.

Moments like this remind me of how different things are from what I expected when I was discharged and moved back to Savannah.

My brothers, all three of them, are settling down. Graham has Mallory. Our oldest brother, Barrett, the newly minted Governor of Georgia, has Alison, and Lincoln, the youngest, walked away from a major league contract to marry Danielle.