He watched T.J. and Ryder glance at each other for a moment before their gazes swung back to him. “Okay, what is it that you aren’t telling us?” Ryder asked. “And don’t try saying there isn’t something, because we know you better than that. A seasoned housekeeper would be able to juggle grocery shopping and making supper with her eyes closed.”
Jaron had wanted to wait until he and his brothers were all together to tell them that he had hired Mariah to be his housekeeper. He knew they were all going to needle him to death for details, and if he waited until they were together he would only have to endure their questions and comments once and get it over with. But it didn’t appear that was going to happen.
He took a deep draw on his beer bottle before he set it down and met his brothers’ suspicious gazes head-on. “I hired Mariah.”
T.J. choked on the piece of steak he had just put in his mouth. Reaching over, Ryder pounded on T.J.’s back several times without his piercing gaze wavering from Jaron’s. “How the hell did that happen? And when?”
“About a week ago, I came here for supper and Mariah walked in,” Jaron said. Explaining what had happened with the hapless Roy Lee and about her car breaking down, he finished, “Because it was late and Sam and Bria were down in Houston at the stock show, I took her home with me for the night.”
“Any one of us would have done the same,” Ryder agreed. “But how did you get from helping her with her car troubles to giving her a job?”
“Over breakfast the next morning, I found out that she had lost her position at the real estate management company and she couldn’t afford rent because her roommate moved out.” He carefully omitted the fact that if he hadn’t felt so damned guilty over making love to her and taking her virginity the night before, he might not have even thought of offering her the job.
Recovered from choking on his steak, T.J. shook his head. “You’re playing with fire, bro. Are you sure you can handle it and still keep up your ‘I’m too old for her’ line of bull?”
Ryder nodded. “You know damned good and well that girl has been moon-eyed over you for years and still is. Although for the life of me I’m beginning to wonder why.”
“And you’ve had a thing for her almost as long,” T.J. added. “Have you finally decided that you aren’t Methuselah after all?”
“I’m still too old for her,” Jaron insisted, stubbornly shaking his head.
“I never thought I’d be saying this, but you better not be leading her on, bro,” Ryder warned. “I’d hate to have to kick your ass from here into the next county.”
Jaron glared at this brother. “You know me better than that.”
They might be irritating the hell out of him, but he wasn’t the least bit surprised that T.J. and Ryder were cautioning him about playing with Mariah’s affections. She was their sister-in-law’s younger sister, and that made all of them protective of her. But it also went back to their days of growing up on the Last Chance Ranch. Besides the obvious talk about using protection if their hormones got the better of them, one of the first things their foster father had told them when they all started dating was to respect a woman and not to lead her on if there wasn’t any chance of something working out between them.
But as he sat there staring at his brothers, Jaron couldn’t help but feel guilty. By giving Mariah a job and moving her into his home, was he giving her hope where there was none? When he’d made love to her, he’d known that Mariah had assumed it was the beginning of a shift in their friendship, even though he had told her up front that he wasn’t promising her anything beyond that one night. In trying to help her out with her employment problems, was he only hurting her more than he already had?
“I’d rather drop dead right here and now than ever hurt Mariah in any way,” he said aloud.
“You sound like a man in love,” T.J. observed, as if he was some kind of expert on the subject.
Grinding his teeth, Jaron shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, except maybe you right now.”
He wished whoever was working in the Broken Spoke’s kitchen would get his steaks ready so that he could bid his brothers farewell and leave. He loved all of his brothers, but T.J. and Ryder were reminding him of the war he was waging within himself—a battle that Mariah wasn’t doing a thing to help him win. That kiss she’d given him at lunch had damned near sent him into orbit and left him wanting her more than he ever wanted anything in his entire life.