Picking up on his new mama’s emotions, Duke turned back and rested his chin right on my cookie muffin and stared at me with sad eyes like he was saying sorry.
Scratching behind his ear I sighed. “It’s ok, baby.”
“I feel, like, really bad, too,” the Kline who’d thrown the ball said. “Can I put my head on you to get an ear rub? It’ll make me feel so much…” he broke off as Jarrod smacked him around the head. “Yo, you kill off brain cells every time you do that,” he snapped, rubbing where he’d been hit. “All I’m saying is that the guilt is eating me up inside, and a snuggle and head rub would make it feel better.”
The one who’d been staring at the ceiling shook his head as Jarrod swiped out again. “He’ll keep on about it until she gives in.”
Glaring at his brother over his shoulder, Jarrod growled, “He’s not putting his fucking head in her lap, Bond.”
The world stopped spinning at those words, I swear. One second it was spinning like it always did, deciding sun/moon/stars, and the next it had screeched to a halt as we all got our heads around the name he’d said.
“Your name is Bond?” I breathed, staring at him.
Not realizing the effect this information had on the female occupants of the room, he nodded and walked over with his hand out. “Yeah, Bond Kline. Pleased to meet you, Katy.”
I shook his hand, managing not to pass out, and then looked at his other brothers. “Please tell me that one of you is called Bourne!”
I was always the one who was so quiet she almost mute, but this information was huge.
One by one, the other two brothers came up and introduced themselves to me.
“Afraid not. I’m Canon,” the next one said with a huge smile on his face.
“Reid, and I got all the good genes,” the one who’d thrown the ball told me as he shook my hand. “Now will you rub behind my ear?”
In the space of twenty-four hours, I’d gotten hammered, thrown up, become a horse dog mama, been dragged behind the horse dog in front of four of the best looking men I’d ever seen in my life, almost died of embarrassment, been saved by them, had first aid applied by Jarrod, and only then can I say my world was blown into little tiny pieces and glued back together again by meeting his brothers and learning their kick ass names.
For someone who liked to live in her own world with books and a lot of gaming thrown in, I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.FourKatyLast year I’d bought a second hand, three door Mini Cooper convertible. I loved the car and the fact I didn’t have any issues reaching the pedals, I could parallel park with no problems, in the summer I could lower the roof and sing my heart out, and it was reliable and had hardly had any mileage on it because the lady who’d owned it hadn’t really used it.
Getting Duke in it to drive to work, though, had been problematic. In the end, I’d had to push the passenger seat back so he could sit on the floor in front of it or pop his booty in it and lean forward. The fact he wasn’t strapped in had also meant I’d driven to work like an old woman, so it had taken me twice as long to get here. In the end, I’d lowered his window halfway, and had eventually managed to relax a bit as he enjoyed the ride with his head out of it in the wind.
Parking up at the side of the garage, I got out and waved at Cole who was standing talking to Jarrod beside a car.
“Why didn’t you just put the roof down?” he yelled as Jarrod walked toward me, then opened the passenger door to let my dog out and made a fuss of him. Lucky big bugger!
“Because I couldn’t get the seatbelt around him so I wasn’t sure if he’d jump out while I was driving,” I shouted back and looked at Jarrod who was still focused on Duke. “Thanks, Jarrod.”
Shooting me a smile, he made his way back to Cole as I limped to the entrance with Duke beside me.
“I put a cup of coffee on your desk two minutes ago, Katy, so it’ll still be hot, and you need to use the ice packs on your ankle and wrist,” he ordered, then turned back and resumed talking to Cole, leaving me staring at his back and wondering if the world had started spinning again after his brothers had stopped it with their names.Ok, so Linda Townsend was on a tear about Hurst’s car and the damage he’d caused to it – as in, she wanted photos so she could beat him around the head with them. That meant I had to warn Ren and Cole that their grandma was coming in to take those photos so she could carry out the beating.