They didn’t look too damned happy with him either. Especially Dawg. Brogan was guessing Eve had gone to her brother for advice while he was gone. Not that he could blame her. It wasn’t as though Brogan had been there for her, or had given her reason to believe he would return.
Pulling the Harley in behind the expensive little Roadster, he inhaled for strength. For a man who prided himself on never asking anyone for a damned thing personally, he was about to ask the Mackays for a hell of a favor.
Stepping from the bike, he moved the slight distance to the three men and stared back at them without so much as a hint of the nervousness he could feel in his gut. His nerves were on edge, a sense of foreboding that made no sense filling his gut.
As he stepped to them, the three men watched him with narrow-eyed suspicion.
“Dawg, Natches, Rowdy.” He nodded in an attempt at politenes
s. “Before we take care of business, I need to ask a favor.”
Dawg’s gaze sparked with anger as the other two watched him with cool suspicion.
“Seen Eve since you got back?” Dawg actually showed his teeth.
Brogan turned his gaze to Rowdy, usually the tolerant one of the group. There would be no hope there.
“Dawg, could you stop . . .” being an ass, he wanted to say.
“Have you stopped breaking her heart? Because once was too damned many times to hold my sister while she cried over your worthless ass.”
“I still say, get the papers we need, then tie his feet to cement blocks and dump him in the middle of the lake,” Natches grunted.
Brogan forcibly controlled his grin as he turned back to Dawg. As he started to speak, the door to the marina offices opened and Ray Mackay stood in the doorway. Dawg might be Eve’s brother, but Ray was the acknowledged patriarch of the clan.
“Brogan, son, is Dawg giving you problems?” Ray shot Dawg a warning look.
“Sir, I’ve been trying to ask Dawg to accept my request to marry his sister Eve, but he doesn’t seem too inclined to let me get the words out.”
Even Ray appeared completely shocked by the request.
“You’re joking,” Dawg said, the look in his eyes nearly dazed as he stared back at Brogan.
“And you’re trying to piss me off,” Brogan decided. “Now, while I’m away from her, I’d like to go to the bank and take my grandmother’s ring out of the safe-deposit box I have there. But it will do no damned good if you refuse the request.”
“Why?” Dawg was still staring at Brogan as though uncertain whether he should believe him.
Brogan shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans to keep them away from Dawg’s throat.
It would be simpler, easier to explain what he wanted, further, he decided.
“My grandmother left me her engagement ring and her and my grandfather’s wedding bands,” he gritted out in irritation. “But I can give them to my fiancée only if a male relative gives permission for her to marry me.”
Dawg frowned. “She won’t like wearing a ring your first fiancée wore.”
Yeah, Dawg was just trying to piss him off; that was all it could be.
“Candy never wore my grandmother’s ring,” he snapped. “No other woman has even seen it since my grandmother’s death. Candy had no male relatives to ask, so I couldn’t have done it even if she had known about it.”
“There are ways around that.” Natches grinned. “You could still have given it to her.”
“Dammit, I didn’t want to give it to her,” Brogan snapped furiously before turning back to Dawg. “Yes or no, dammit. And if you say no, I’ll show her the rings and tell her you’re the reason she can’t have them.”
Dawg’s eyes widened in mocking innocence. “I never said such a thing as no, Brogan.”
“You didn’t say yes, either.”
Dawg grinned. “Hell, I didn’t. Did I?”