During the days, he worked hard. He always made sure Art was set up for eating reasonably good food—his cereal and fruit for breakfast, his sandwiches for lunch and at least a microwavable TV dinner that included vegetables for supper when Luke was absent for the evening.
Almost a week had passed since the bear scare. Luke had since pushed all the furniture into the dining room of his house and was now sanding hardwood floors in the living room. He’d just started thinking about a shower and a refreshing beer at Jack’s with Shelby, hopefully accompanied by a few meaningful kisses, when he heard the blast of a horn. He turned off the sander and went to the porch. His brother Sean pulled right up to the porch and jumped out of his Jeep SUV, all grins and a bright eyes. Luke frowned. This wasn’t at all what he had in mind.
“Hey, buddy,” Sean called. “Wassup?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I snagged a few days out of the squadron and thought I’d pleasure you with my company. Have a look at what you’ve got going on here.”
All Luke could think about was how much longer it would be until he could be alone with Shelby. “Good,” he said without enthusiasm. “That’s good. Why didn’t you call?”
“Since when do I call? You leaving town or something?”
“Nah. Just put in a long day…”
“Get cleaned up. Let’s go over to the coast. Have a couple, see if we can find a couple.”
Code for couple of beers, couple of girls. “Go ahead, buddy. I’m not into that tonight.”
“Since when? Come on.”
“I’m just going into town for a beer. There’s a little bar there. Nice little family place. You can come with me or go to the coast on your own. Or there’s a closer place you can try—a bar in Garberville. I’ve seen girls there.”
“Sounds really exciting. What are you, getting old?” Sean asked.
Luke frowned. This was not great timing. He was getting close to closing the deal with a twenty-five-year-old beauty and who shows up but the younger brother who is all of thirty-two. The hotshot spy-plane pilot. Younger, better-looking, plenty of money, exciting life. An officer. The general would no doubt prefer that. He looked Sean up and down—he was tan, had dark blond hair, a dimpled bad-boy smile and no shortage of lines for picking up women. Good lines; Luke had actually borrowed some of them.
“You are not happy to see me,” Sean said. “What’s going on?”
“You going to work while you’re here?” Luke asked testily.
“In daylight. When the sun goes down, I’d like to enjoy myself a little. I sense that’s going to be a problem around here.”
“Tonight, I’m going to Jack’s. We’ll talk about tomorrow night tomorrow,” he said, heading for the house.
“Shew,” Sean said, annoyed. “This is going to be wonderful.” Just then Art stepped into the doorway of cabin number three with his broom. “Um, who is that?” Sean asked Luke.
“Art, come here, buddy,” Luke called. Art walked down toward the porch. “Art, this is my brother Sean. Sean, this is Art. He’s helping out around here. He’s sleeping in one of the cabins.”
“Hey,” Sean said, putting out a hand.
“Hey. Sean,” Art said, shaking his hand. Then Art turned and went back to the cabin he was sweeping up.
“Luke, what’s going on around here?”
“Just getting the job done, pal. Art turned up looking for a place to stay and he works hard all day long for room and board. But we’re not telling anyone he’s here. He’s going low profile for now. On the run from a bad group home.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Sean said.
Forty minutes later Luke and Sean were in Luke’s truck, on the way down the river to the town. When Luke pulled up in front of Jack’s, he saw General Booth’s Tahoe parked there, and hoped Shelby was inside with him. He put the truck in Park, but before turning off the ignition, he said to his brother, “If you get a whiff of anything in there that has my scent on it, back away. If you touch it, you’re a dead man.”
Sean grinned. “Okay, now I’m catching on. Oh man, this is going to be fun.” He jumped out of the truck and bounded up the stairs, clearly dying of curiosity.
Luke was right behind him, but almost plowed into him. Sean stopped short right inside the door. Walt and Shelby were sitting up at the bar and both turned at the sound of someone entering. Luke put a firm hand, a reminder, on Sean’s shoulder. “Holy shit,” Sean whispered. Luke gave his shoulder a little shake and pushed him forward.
“General Booth,” Luke said. “Shelby McIntyre. Meet my brother Sean.”
“Sir,” Sean said. “Miss.”
Standing behind him as he was, Luke couldn’t see Sean’s dimpled grin, but knew it was huge. It made Luke’s frown a little deeper. God, he thought, why couldn’t I have had sisters?
Jack put up a couple of beers and Sean began to entertain himself at Luke’s expense. “So, I invited my brother to go over to the coast to have a beer, check out the women, and what does he tell me? Not interested in doing that—he wants to go to this little bar in Virgin River. But he doesn’t tell me why. What an incredible coincidence that you happen to be here, Miss McIntyre.”
She laughed at him, finding him darling and playful, two things Luke definitely was not. “Please, it’s just Shelby. He knew I’d be here. It’s almost a standing date.”
“Is it, now? Is there another one of you at home?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said. “But I understand there are more brothers.”
“Aiden, Colin and Paddy. But I’m the richest and most handsome.”
“And the biggest pain in the ass,” Luke inserted.
“Where do you fall in the pack?” Shelby asked.
“Number four. Luke’s the oldest.” He looked over his shoulder at Luke. “He’s very old, you know. And I think my family and your family were at war for thousands of years,” he teased. He sipped his beer. “Yeah, the McIntyre-Riordan wars. Sure am glad that’s over.”
“And none of you married?”
“At last count, two of them tried it and blew it. They insist it wasn’t their fault,” he said, grinning.
Luke was going to take him home and beat the shit out of him.
But Shelby was loving it. The sly grin on the general’s face was unmistakable and the amused crinkle at the corners of Jack’s eyes suggested he was getting too big a kick out of this as well.
And right on cue, the others began to file into the bar. Luke dutifully introduced everyone to Sean. After a few minutes Sean leaned across the bar and said to Jack, “Look at these women, man. What is this place? Stepford?”
“All taken, buddy. Unless you can get this fresh young thing away from your older brother.”
The general and Sean carried on a lengthy conversation about the Riordan boys. “How’d you get an entire military family?” Walt asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” Sean answered. “No imagination, I guess. Luke went first, right out of high school, but he scored a warrant officer promotion, flight school, and made it look fun. Big Irish-Catholic family like ours with a Da who’s an electrician, he wasn’t sending the lot of us to college, so we had to come up with alternate plans. ROTC, military scholarship, active duty—whatever. But it turns out I like the life.”
Then Shelby told Sean about merely being here for a visit, and for the first time Luke had a catastrophic thought—what if he wasn’t quite ready for her to leave when she decided to go? He’d spent so much mental energy on the disaster that would befall him when he was through with her, it hadn’t occurred to him it might just go the opposite way.
If Luke was quieter than usual, it could be explained by the fact that Sean never shut up. That, and the fear he was losing a major chance with Shelby to this upstart who would be gone in a few days. A few long days.
Tables were pushed together as those present collected for dinner, and Sean grabbed the chair next to Shelby’s, entertaining her, making her laugh. Luke didn’t make her laugh so much. He wasn’t the comedian Sean was to start with, plus he was sulking. Sean stole the show. So after the plates were picked up, Luke stepped outside into the cool fall night.
He wasn’t out there long before she joined him. She gave him a little smile and shook her head. “You’re so unhappy,” she said, humor in her voice.
“I hate him,” Luke said miserably.
“Come on,” she said. “You don’t have to be so cranky. I like your brother.” She got a little closer to him. “You’re the jealous type, I guess.”
“I guess,” he grumbled. Truthfully, he was feeling old. Feeling thirty-eight, soon to be thirty-nine. Feeling less educated than Sean, boring and retired.
“Seems a little ridiculous for you to be jealous when you keep telling me I’m making a big mistake flirting with you.”
“I was going to stop saying that pretty soon,” he told her.
“I wasn’t exactly fooled,” she said. “You tell me that and then rattle my bones with a kiss that goes all the way to my belly button. You’re kind of obvious, Luke.” Shelby did something that a year ago, even a month ago, she couldn’t envision. But she’d had a couple of glasses of wine and Sean had made her laugh the night away even if Luke had not. She walked right up to him and put her arms around his waist. His arms went instantly around her. “It’s been a while since you kissed me like that. Couple of days,” she reminded him.
Finally, after all this time, he smiled. “Believe me, I know.”
“And now you’re in a bad mood.”
“It has nothing to do with kissing you. Kissing you is good.”
“Why not try that again? See if it’s still good?”
His arms tightened around her. “What about the general?”
She laughed. “It would probably thrill him. He’s been awful worried about my arrested development. I’m sure he thinks I’m pathetic and manless.”
“You’re not.”
“Pathetic?”
“Or manless,” he said, covering her mouth in a powerful and deep kiss, a possessing kiss. He moved over her mouth and her lips opened for him. It briefly ran through his mind that he had to have her this minute, but first he should remind her, she couldn’t count on him for the long haul. At best, it would be a fling. A fabulous, satisfying fling. Instead of talking to her about that, he received her small tongue into his mouth and moaned his pleasure. He didn’t want it ever to end and he concentrated on making it the longest kiss in history, hoping to get caught, hoping everyone would go on notice—this was his girl. His woman. He could feel her firm breasts pressing against his chest and knew nothing would feel quite so good as to have one in his hand. At length, he released her lips. But didn’t let them get too far.
“Your brother is very cute,” she said against his lips.
“I’m going to take him home and beat the shit out of him.”
It made her giggle to hear that. “Would you two like to go for a ride tomorrow?” she asked. “We have another good riding horse. A beautiful Appaloosa named Shasta. All spotty and gentle.”
“I don’t want him to go anywhere with us.”
“Luke,” she scolded.
“Seriously. I want him out of here. I have things to do with you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Riding and beers and dinner and…stuff.”
“You better be patient,” she said.
“How patient?” he asked.
She gave him a peck on the lips. “How long will Sean be here?”
