Lila's Loves (Haven, Texas 1)

Well, she was going to pay for that little lie. But not right now. She was in shock and there was no way he wanted to scare her off before they got her home.

“Trace, really, I can walk,” she complained as Trace carried her back into the main room and placed her on the mattress. She immediately tried to stand, but Trace held her down, wagging his finger at her.

“Stay.”

Colin’s lips twitched as he opened the fridge. God, she didn’t even have any milk. As a child, Lila had always gotten tummy aches and they’d discovered that warm milk helped settle her. It was obvious she hadn’t been taking care of herself.

Well, no more. It was time for her to come home and let them look after her.

“Stay? Trace I am not Snippet,” she said, referring to Trace’s dog, a part-collie, part-lab mix.

A sad look flashed over Trace’s face, almost too quickly to be seen. But Lila must have noticed because she stiffened.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” she asked

“Snippet died a few months ago, baby,” Trace said gently as Colin moved towards them.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at them from large, grief-stricken blue eyes. Not really grief over Snippet, Colin knew, although she had loved Trace’s dog. Sobs racked her body as both men kneeled beside her, sandwiching her between them.

“What’s wrong with him?” she cried. Colin frowned, hadn’t Trace just told her that Snippet had died?

“Pancreatic cancer, baby. They caught it too late,” Trace told her.

Ahh, she’d been asking about Clay. Sadness filled him.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” she wailed, shaking hard. They held her tight, supporting her.

“He didn’t tell any of us until things got really bad about a week ago,” Trace replied.

She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hands, a childish movement that almost made him smile.

“Why didn’t you guys tell me?” she sniffled.

“Gavin tried calling you,” Colin said. “You never answered your phone or called us back.”

She seemed to cry harder with those words. Colin rose and grabbed another glass of water as well as some toilet paper. He then wiped her face and held the toilet paper up to her nose.

“Blow,” he demanded.

She gaped at him, unable to reach for the toilet paper herself because Trace held onto her tightly, keeping her arms trapped against her body.

“Lila,” Colin warned.

Blushing, she blew her nose and Colin wiped her up, helping her take a drink of water. When she was finished, she slumped against Trace, obviously exhausted.

“How much longer does he have?” she asked in a raspy voice.

Colin brushed her hair off her face. She’d let it grow longer so it almost reached her shoulders now. “They can’t tell us for sure, but not long.”

“I need to see him.”

“We know, Lila,” Colin said, kissing her forehead, breathing in her clean, pure scent. “We’ll get you there. Just lie here and let us do the work.”

Lila slumped back on the mattress when he let her go, her eyes closing, her small body curling in on itself, as though cold. He glanced down at her too-pale face. She sported large, dark bruises under her eyes, as though she hadn’t been sleeping.

When Clay had first brought her home, Colin had thought him crazy. Not that Colin had wanted to leave her there, but he hadn’t expected Clay to adopt her either. None of them had any experience with children, and suddenly, their all-male household had been invaded by a tiny seven-year-old with huge eyes that seemed to see way too much.

At thirteen he’d been a bit selfish and hadn’t wanted to share Clay with anyone but his brothers. He’d liked life the way it was in their testosterone-filled house and he’d figured a kid would just annoy him and get in his way. Plus there was the fact that she was a girl and he couldn’t even teach her cool stuff like how to hunt and fish.