Shaking my head, I walked around the arguing brothers and the woman who was silently fuming, and stood in front of them. “Both of you release her on three,” I ordered. Not giving them a chance to argue about it, I started counting. “One… two…three.”
As they let go, I slid the baby into her aunt’s arms, trying not to laugh when they tripped over each other as they ran out the door, leaving Parker alone in the room with us.
“Ari…” he began, but she wasn’t in the mood to hear whatever he had to say.
Keeping her eyes on Rebel, she said in a cute tone, “I really wouldn’t if I was you. I know where all of you live, and you’ve got to fall asleep at some point, so don’t give me a reason to focus all of my anger on causing you pain instead of spreading it equally across the three of you.” Then she added, “I’ll have to see how I feel later.”
And, not looking at him once, she turned and walked out, stopping only to pick up the set of car keys on the floor.
Looking over my shoulder at Parker, I was surprised to see him smiling at the empty doorway. “Damn, she’s a firecracker, isn’t she?”
He sounded almost proud when he said it, which confused me. “You could say that. And that’s a good thing?”
Looking at me now, he grinned widely. “Yes, it is. Can you imagine living with someone who was boring? No, she’s absolutely perfect.” Not knowing what to say, I just nodded in agreement with him, hoping that he survived whatever it was he had planned for the two of them.
As he walked toward the doorway, he said over his shoulder, “And those were the keys to Levi’s truck. With the mood she’s in, I can’t wait to see what she does to it.”
Now that snapped me out of my funk!Chapter FourLeviSo it would be an understatement to say that the trip to the hospital to see Charlotte hadn’t gone as I’d expected. I hadn’t gotten to speak to her, I hadn’t been able to make sure we were ok, my sister was pissed off at us now, my truck was missing, and I had a sinking feeling that it was my pissed off sister who had the vehicle.
“Do we call the police?” Archer asked, looking at the compact car which was now parked in the space my truck had been in.
Scratching my chin – and making a mental note to put some beard oil on my beard after my shower tonight – I mulled it over. “Probably best not to piss her off even more by getting her arrested,” I muttered. “We’ll have to call Mom or Dad and see if they can come get us.”
He was silent for a second, and then mumbled, “I’m not sure I want to go home. She’s mean when she’s pissed.”
“Who’s pissed,” a voice asked behind us, making us both jump until we realized who it was. Actually, that was until Archer realized who it was, and turned quickly to look at her.
“Hey, Bonnie,” he said softly. Smooth!
“Hey,” she replied, and then looked at me. “Who’s pissed at you?”
Here’s the thing about Townsend men – we have a knack of pissing women off without meaning to. In fact, most of the time we don’t even know how we did it, which is where it becomes a problem.
And standing in front of us, ignoring Archer, was the perfect example. Mind you, there was another perfect example inside the hospital right now, but I think I knew what I’d done to her, so that might not count.
“Ariana,” I explained, shoving my hands in my pockets and rocking back on the heels of my boots. “We held her so that Parker could give her a tetanus shot, and now she’s got my truck.”
Her wince didn’t put my mind at ease. Ariana had been terrified of needles since she was a baby. Every time she needed a vaccination, we’d all had to go to help hold her down for it. On the occasions when she’d needed stitches, the doctors had tried to get us to leave, and had then begged us to come back when they’d gotten a taste of her phobia.
I remembered her running past us one time, with her gown open at the back showing everyone her booty. We had to chase her around the ER for thirty-five minutes just to get five stitches above her right butt cheek.
I can’t remember how she’d injured herself to begin with, but I remembered having to run with my hands over my eyes because I didn’t want to see her ass again.
I’d ended up almost knocking myself out on a pillar, Tate had sprained his wrist, Archer bruised his shin on a table, Noah ended up knocking over a magazine rack and almost breaking his neck when his foot got stuck in the wire frame, and Dad went home with bruises all over his arms where she’d bitten him. Stories like that traveled, and Bonnie had obviously heard them.