Into the Tide (Cottonwood Cove #1)(2)

“Please. This fucker doesn’t have a humble bone in his body.” Brax smirked. “Still not sure why Shay agreed to marry you and carry your moody-ass spawn… but I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“You and me both, brother,” Travis said.

“She’s the best. Don’t fuck it up.” I reached for my glass and took a sip. They’d just found out recently that Shay was pregnant, and he was still processing the fact that he was going to be a father soon. “Anyway, Snow was in here last night with Delilah, Sloane, and Rina. Are you still pissed about her being back here?”

Travis’s shoulders stiffened at the mention of his little sister’s decision to come back home for a few months. I wouldn’t bring up the fact that my dick had also stiffened at the sight of her last night. She’d always been gorgeous and sweet, but hell, when she left Cottonwood Cove four years ago, I’d looked at her more like a kid. But Lila fucking James wasn’t a kid anymore. She’d just graduated from college and returned home. I’d always called her Snow for as long as I could remember, because the girl had watched Snow White more times than any one kid should, and her dark hair and all that sweetness made it an easy nickname to hold on to.

Travis loved the shit out of his wife, Shay, but anyone that knew him well knew that his kryptonite was Lila. They’d been through a shit ton at a young age, and he’d been looking out for her our entire lives. The number of dudes the three of us had threatened on her behalf over the years was countless. And when she’d left for Northwestern in Chicago on a full cross-country scholarship, he’d been proud as hell. But I knew that it was tough for him having her so far away, as it had always been the two of them against the world.

“She’s refusing to stay with me and Shay because she says we’re newlyweds and are expecting our first baby, so she thinks we deserve some kind of bullshit privacy. My dad is a fucking train wreck, but that doesn’t stop Lila from wanting to fix him. She’s too fucking loyal. Too fucking stubborn. And too fucking good to be dealing with his shit. I’m sure it’s a big adjustment, as she’s been racing and competing for so long, and now that part of her life is over. And as much as I want her to come back home, I don’t want her to get sucked into my dad’s bullshit. She deserves better. She deserves more.” He shook his head.

“Fuck, Trav. You’ve got to chill out. She’s a grown-ass woman. I say this because I also ran into her last night when I stopped by to have a beer with this fucker,” Brax said, raising a brow at me as if I didn’t remember. “She was just leaving, and damn, your baby sister has grown up into a fine woman.” He whistled, knowing it would get under Travis’s skin. We’d seen her over the years since she’d gone away to school, and we’d always given him a hard time about how pretty she was.

“Fuck you. Don’t be looking at Lila like that. She’s still young. Far from a grown woman.” Travis shot Brax a warning look. “She got offered a job at that big, fancy company she interned with this past year. She’s so damn smart. They agreed to hold the position for her until the beginning of September so she could come home for a while and make sure Dad’s okay. The man isn’t going to change, so I don’t know why she’s insisting on putting her life on hold.”

I understood his need to protect her, because I had two sisters that my brothers and I were protective over. But this was different. My siblings and I had two parents who worried about all of us plenty. But Travis was all Lila had unless you counted their father, who had checked out years ago.

“Let her come back for a little bit, spend some time with you and Shay. Maybe your dad will clean up his act while she’s here, and then she’ll head back to Chicago. She said the job is waiting for her, so let her take a few months and just relax.”

“Jeez, man. I agree. The girl has worked her ass off. When we were younger, I can’t remember a time that I saw her when she wasn’t out on a run or training. It took her to college, where she spent four years going to class and racing. Let her have a break.” Brax shook his head, and I chuckled because the dude was rarely logical, but this was the wisest thing he’d said in a while.

“She seems happy to be home. She’s probably exhausted,” I said.

“That’s true. But I don’t like her living at Dad’s house. He runs with some shitty people, per usual. I don’t want her around all that, you know?” Travis balled up the paper that had been wrapped around his sandwich and set it on the bar.

I understood his concern. We’d always looked out for her. There was a few years between us in age, and, at times, I knew she resented the way Travis, Brax, and I treated her like she was a little kid. And if I were being honest, I didn’t particularly like the idea of her staying at her father’s house either.

“You know I’ve got the casita at my place, so I’ll offer it to her when she comes in this week to talk about the job and what she’ll be doing. Georgia plans on moving in there after she graduates, but that won’t be until after Snow heads back to Chicago.” Georgia was my baby sister, the youngest of us Reynolds kids. We were close, and she had already called dibs on the private guest suite, after I bought the run-down cabin two years ago and completely renovated it.

He was nodding around a mouthful of food. His shoulders had completely relaxed.