“Two boys are being beaten to death by a girl near your steps on the bank,” she answers in fascinated horror.
“Awesome,” my nephew says, his face pressed to the glass as he gawks.
I rush to the wide, massive window, seeing the scene before me play out. Lilah is in cutoff jean shorts and a “Doc Holiday” T-shirt, as she shoots Hale with a BB, simultaneously kicking Killian in the stomach while he’s on the ground.
Hale screams when she nails in him the nuts with another BB, pumping the Daisy for the next shot she aims at Killian when he tries to get up.
Her combat boots come up to her calves, pink laces made out of survival cords, and she kicks Hale in the kneecap this time, utilizing said boots like this is a war zone.
I idly notice the bat and shovel abandoned by the shore, and groan when I realize Penny did sell me out.
“Who on earth is she?” my mother asks as she looks on in guilty pleasure.
With a deep exhale, I answer, “That is Lilah.”
Chapter 18
Wild Ones Tip #584
To piss off a Wild One, you have to really fuck up. Then learn how to hide.
LILAH
“Stay down,” I bark at my annoying brothers as they whine and pant from the ground.
Yeah, I have an unfair advantage, because they won’t hit me back. And usually I don’t exploit it, but today, lives are at stake. Mainly, Benson’s. He owes me so big.
Now if I can just get us out of here before—
“Any reason why the entire town thinks we broke up?”
I close my eyes at the sound of the voice too close to my back. Damn it.
Until this moment, I saw no real reason for him to be ashamed of me. But now, I totally get it. I’d hide me too if my family was…not like my family.
I turn around as my brothers continue to groan on the ground, and drop the Daisy by my side as I look up at a very amused Benson.
“Sorry. Just help me get them into the boat, and we’ll be out of your hair. I get it now. Really. I do. It might have taken this—” I gesture to the family I had to wrangle into submission. “—to make me see it, but now I see it.”
His amusement dies, and his brow furrows. “See what?”
“Why you were too embarrassed to introduce me to your ritzy family.”
A little humiliated, I turn around, kicking Hale when he glares at Benson. He grunts, crawling toward the shore.
“We’ll get him later,” Killian mutters petulantly.
They bump fists while continuing to crawl, but before we can make it to the dock, a hand clamps down on my arm, and my breath gets sucked out of me as Benson spins me back to face him.
He looks angry. I don’t know if he’s ever looked angry with me. At least not this angry.
“You think I’m too embarrassed to introduce you to my family?” he asks incredulously, and I shift uncomfortably.
“Well, yeah. Isn’t that why you essentially told me to stay on my side of the lake while they’re here?”
“Dead. He’s dead,” Killian groans, still trying to stand up.
Benson shakes his head, grunting something under his breath that sounds like unbelievable.
“No, Lilah. I’m not at all embarrassed about being with you. And I guess I should have elaborated, or at least tried to, but my family is a little more complicated than I explained. I just wanted to get this week over with, keep you out of the drama, and then it’d be just us again. In our motherfucking perfect bubble. I’m not embarrassed about you. I’m embarrassed about them.”
A small smile tugs at my lips, and something suspiciously like tears fills my eyes. Maybe this was bothering me more than I care to admit. His look softens as he strokes my cheeks with such sweet affection.
“I can handle crazy,” I assure him.
“Not crazy,” he says on a sigh. “Complicated. There’s a difference.”
“So we don’t have to kill him?” Killian asks disappointedly.
“You don’t have to try to kill me,” Benson tells him dryly.
“So we got our asses kicked for nothing?” Hale asks through strain.
“Looks like it,” Killian grumbles.
I’m smiling up at Benson, slowly melting against his body as he tucks a wayward strand of dark hair behind my ear, when I notice movement. My eyes dart up to the porch on the hill, where four people are looking down at us.
Okay, now I’m really embarrassed. And that’s hella hard to do.
An older woman and man are grinning down at us, while another man is studying us with an unreadable expression. Then the last one, the girl I don’t know about, is stone-faced as she stares down.
“We have an audience,” I whisper, feeling the red rise to my cheeks.
Benson freezes for a second before peering over his shoulder, seeing his family looking down on mine—oh, the irony—from the top of the hill where his house is.
“Hello, Lilah! We’ve just heard so much about you!” the older woman calls, waving at me with a lot of enthusiasm.
I suck in a breath and force a smile while waving back.
“Hello, Lilah’s brothers!” she calls down.
“Hello, ma’am,” they both manage to say in unison, still exhausted as they lie flat on their backs and pant for air.
“This is my husband, John,” she says, gesturing to the older man beside her who gives me a thumb’s up and a grin.
Okay…they’re really accepting, obviously. They don’t seem the least bit deterred by our little fiasco. I expected snooty people. And they also seem nice? What was Benson’s problem with us meeting?
“And this is our son, Deacon,” she says. I scowl before I can stop myself, and his lips twitch.
Benson’s grip gets a little tighter on me too.
I notice a fifth face I hadn’t seen, and my stomach gets a little tighter.
“Our grandson, Ryder,” she goes on.
Grandson? I thought it wasn’t Benson’s kid. Or his brother’s…
Did his brother have a child with someone else?
His mother hesitates her introductions on the girl who is still regarding me with no expression at all.
“And this is John’s daughter, Sadie.”
Sadie.
It’s highly unlikely there are two Sadies in his life. He just forgot to mention that his ex is also his stepsister. And that she’s going to be here for a week. And that’s why it is complicated.
That’s why I couldn’t be here.
That’s why he didn’t tell me the whole story.
Just like that, the air is stolen from my lungs, and I cut my eyes toward Benson. It hurts to know he was going to spend the week with her, while shoving me to my side of the lake.
The only complications here were for him.
Unbelievable.
Benson’s hand tightens on me, but I shrug him off. Sadie makes an expression for the first time, and it’s a smile.
She knows.
I know.
And Benson knows.
We all know I’m an idiot.
Life is grand.
“As soon as you can move again, you can kill him,” I tell my brothers, walking toward the dock.
“Lilah!” Benson growls, following behind me.
“Don’t,” I say, blowing out a breath as I look at him. My eyes flick over his shoulder as he continues to stalk toward me. “Don’t embarrass me even more than I’ve already been embarrassed,” I add.