Ruffling his brother’s hair, the texture a little rougher than Sailor’s own but the color the same inky black, Sailor took one bottle while Gabe took the other. “Thanks, Danny.” He bumped fists with his brother.
Danny then exchanged an extremely complicated set of handshakes with Gabriel. At age twelve, he’d spent an entire weekend teaching Sailor, Gabriel, and Jake that handshake. As his youngest brother talked his eldest one into passing around a rugby ball, Sailor stood with his back to the repaired fence and got a start on his brooding. If he caught up with his cute redhead a third time around, no way was he letting her slip away again.
A rugby ball plowed into his stomach.
Catching it reflexively without dropping his beer, he narrowed his eyes at a grinning Gabriel. “Dude, you’re the captain of the national team.” The most decorated and internationally recognized player in the squad. “Show a little dignity.”
“Hey!” Jake’s dark-haired head popped out from the upstairs room he’d shared with Danny until Sailor moved out several years back. “Are you guys playing without me?” Scowling, he pulled his head back in, and Sailor knew he was running down the stairs to join them.
Putting his beer down by the fence, not far from where Gabe had left his, he spun the ball in a spiral to Danny. His little brother caught it, then did a run straight at Gabe as if intending to go through his muscled bulk. Instead, he found himself picked up and swung upside down.
Rather than giving up the ball, Danny reached out his arm and plonked it on the ground behind Gabe, then did a victory dance while still upside down. Sailor grinned. If everything went according to plan, he’d have even less free time in the coming months. He’d miss these nights just hanging out with his family, but he had dreams that haunted him and demons that howled.
He had to quiet those demons, had to become a man like the one who’d raised him. A man who provided for those who were his own instead of taking and taking and taking until there was nothing left. A man who built something. A man who was nothing like the one who’d sired Gabriel and Sailor.
A man with ambitions like that, he had no time for distractions.
Especially not distractions in the form of cute redheads who kissed and ran.
6
Stubble Burn Is Hard to Hide from the Dragon
íSA TURNED THE SHOWER TO ICE-COLD after racing home from Nayna’s office, yelped after getting in; that had done nothing to quiet her libido or her racing heart, though it had successfully frozen her blood. Turning up the heat, she washed off the scent of sin and temptation and blue, blue eyes and lips that devoured her own. Afterward, she rubbed herself down with clinical precision in an effort to hide all evidence of her shower.
If her mother commented on it regardless, ísa would tell Jacqueline that she’d been exercising. The best thing was, it wasn’t even a lie—she and the gardener had surely burned a few red-hot calories. And Jacqueline would be happy to hear of ísa’s sudden enthusiasm for after-work sessions. She’d never understood how she’d birthed a child who was so much more into curling up with a cup of tea and falling into poetry than in going for a “head-clearing” run.
The one thing Jacqueline had never done was disparage ísa for her size. “Curves can be useful,” she’d said more than once. “But you need strength and endurance to back it up.”
ísa had taken the advice, but in ways she found interesting. Running, Jacqueline’s choice of exercise, didn’t qualify. Team sports would’ve been good if she’d had the coordination. Since she didn’t, she focused on things like aerobics classes where she and Nayna could hide out at the back, far from the sleek gym bunnies who could twist themselves into pretzels without breaking a sweat.
The regular back-line students often sent each other into hysterics. Last session, Nayna had ended up facing the opposite direction from the rest of the class. The session before that, ísa had almost smacked another back-liner in the face with her outflung hand.
Too bad this evening wouldn’t be filled with laughter and camaraderie.
After pulling on a simple gray dress with a fitted bodice and full skirt, the outfit topped off with a thin but businesslike black belt, she twisted her hair up into a bun, then reached for her makeup.
With skin as pale as hers, powder was a moot point unless she wanted to imitate a Kabuki dancer. ísa tended to stick with mascara and a touch of eyeshadow, maybe a slick of gloss on her lips. Anything more and she felt as if she resembled a clown. Like that orange-haired one associated with burgers and nuggets and fries.
Suzanne had enjoyed pointing out the resemblance.
“Ronald. Hey Ronald, how’s it going, Ronald?”
And now the poster girl for mean girls of high school was getting married and having a baby.
Realizing she’d forgotten to tell Nayna that infuriating piece of news, she quickly messaged her friend as she ran down to the car. She was on the road when a ping told her Nayna had replied, but she didn’t look at the message until she’d pulled into the parking lot of her mother’s base of operations in the glossy downtown district.
Her parking spot was an assigned one.
And it boasted a shiny gold-on-black sign: ísalind Rain, Vice President.
Argh! That hadn’t been there the last time.
Getting out, she checked Nayna’s message:
Life sucks. But don’t worry—I’m Hindu; I believe in reincarnation and karma. She’ll come back as a lice-infested cockroach in her next life, with Slimeball Schumer as a rat. A one-eyed rat. Finally their exteriors will match their interiors.
Meanwhile, you and I will return as supermodel brain surgeons and seduce every smoking-hot gardener in sight.
ísa grinned as she made her way through the front doors of Crafty Corners HQ and into a color-filled lobby that was a cheerful assault on the senses. Waving at the sole receptionist currently on duty at the main welcome desk, she ran up the steps rather than using the elevator.
The upstairs reception area was another pop of color, the sofas a mix of fresh orange, lime green, and sunburst yellow, the walls warm and creamy. Her mother’s junior assistant sat not at a traditional desk but behind a seat-height counter on which crafting and work supplies were stacked in neat groupings.
The slender brunette was currently involved in putting together an intricate jewelry box.
“How many of those have you made now, Ginny?”