T.R. bolted out onto the porch at the death glare brimming in Tyler’s eyes. “Or is this the State of Texas’s land surveyor, Ty?” he called through the door. “Y’all checking each other’s tonsils?”
Tyler grimaced at the laughter in his cousin’s voice, scouring his hands over his face. “Give us a sec.”
His neck was burning. He stood in his kitchen half-naked ramming his tongue down a woman’s throat. Not something he’d ever done in front of his cousin. Snatching his shirt, he dropped the disaster over his head and stretched the pockmarked fabric down his back, realizing his belt buckle was unhooked. Dammit! He fumbled to re-hook it.
Heather cleared her throat, stepping out from behind him, her top in place and a smile on her lips as she untied her hiking shirt and slipped her bare arms into it, then walked to the back door. “Hi. Heart Carvalho.”
She extended a hand, and Thad stepped back through the door, shaking with silent laughter and taking her offered hand. Instead of shaking it, he lifted it to his lips to place a kiss upon it.
Hands off.That primal voice in the back of Tyler’s mind growled as his eyes zeroed in on his cousin’s gesture.
Heather laughed with natural flirt that only prodded his agitation further. “It’s my fault he’s tied up. He cut up his back pretty badly so I insisted on cleaning it.”
What, with her tongue? Because it sure as hell couldn’t have looked like there was much doctoring going on.
T.R. flashed him a concerned rivet to the brow and dropped her hand—thank God—but Tyler shook his head at him. “Howdy, ma’am. Uh, Heart? Shoot, with a name like that—”
“Thad?” Tyler warned.
“What? I just want her friend’s number.”
“I thought you got it last night,” Heather replied with a wink.
Was T.R.’s neck actually reddening? What the hell?
“That what she said?” his cousin fished.
“Thaddeus,” Tyler said.
“Yup, leaving.” T.R. slapped the doorframe as he headed back out and dropped a trucker cap on his head backward. “I’ll be out with the calves. Thought I’d let you know, uh, our guest is gonna need some other accommodations besides the cabin…”
“What’s wrong with it?” Tyler stalked to the kitchen door and gripped the frame behind Heather, realizing how domestic it probably looked, the two of them standing in the doorway to bid Thad the hell farewell.
He dropped his arm as if the mere image of domesticity with her stung. Here was reality again, crashing down on him. Isabella had him by the balls, even now. His chances for a happy family was a ship already sailed.
“I sent you a bunch of pics, man. You gotta call the insurance adjuster. Whole thing’s busted in on one side. Ain’t habitable.”
T.R. turned and trotted off the back steps, pulling out his phone as he walked away.
“Don’t you dare text my brothers or I’ll fire you, man,” he threatened, cupping his hand around his mouth. An idle threat. Sort of.
Thad flashed a grin before waving his cell over his head. That asshole had just texted them anyway.
Shaking his head, chewing his cheek, he paced away, his hands on his hips. “Sorry about that.”
Toby was always trying to get him to start dating. Travis had hinted before that his boys might want a momma someday, but asking a woman to “inherit someone else’s children and by the way, he couldn’t tell them about his boys’ birth mother until they tied the knot” was a helluva sales pitch. T.R. was the only one who knew about his occasional hookups when the loneliness got to be too much, usually when his boys had summer camp.
Heather was laughing, and redness burned his neck. She was so laissez-faire about these things, when most women would be mortified. Still he grinned at the absurdity of being walked in on with his hands up a girl’s shirt like he was sneaking a chick up to his room in high school.
She brushed a finger over his brow, tucking his messy brown hair off to one side as if brushing locks over his ears. “Are you embarrassed, Tyler Dixon?”
He shook his head, huffing a laugh. “I don’t bring women home, so, yeah, a little.”
“Because of your kids?” she asked thoughtfully, her eyes traveling over the details of his face.
His beating pulse slowed. He nodded once. “Yeah.”
“So then, what are we doing?” She turned to face him squarely.