The Promise (Neighbor from Hell #10)(67)

“Fine,” Trevor said evenly, “Then you can be the one to tell Zoey.”

Garrett noted the look of pure panic on his Uncle’s face before he shifted his attention to his cousins, the James brothers, Sean, Craig, Bryce, Brian, and Johnny. They were all wearing matching Rerum Highland Construction shirts and standing near their trucks glaring as their little sister and boss, Rory, sat on the hood of her truck enjoying another hot cocoa. Her husband Connor read through the information they had on the decrepit old house behind them while he absently caressed the large swell of her stomach. Rerum Construction had more than enough work to keep them busy up in New Hampshire, but when they’d heard that one of their great-grandfather Noah’s houses was coming on the market, they’d decided to come take a look.

That of course, had led to Uncle Jared panicking and dropping everything to get here two weeks early so that he could get his hands on this property before anyone else had a chance to buy it before he could. When he went to grab Reese, he’d discovered that Trevor had grabbed him first and had an hour on him. That’s when Uncle Jared decided that he needed Garrett for his legal skills and showed up at his apartment early this morning just when he’d finally decided to call it a night.

“I can’t see,” Mikey, his new niece said, drawing his attention to the house that was going to take a fortune and a miracle to fix to find his brother Reese doing another walk around, making note of everything that needed to be fixed, replaced, or torn down while Mikey, wearing an old Red Sox baseball cap that Garrett had been meaning to destroy, took it upon herself to climb onto Sebastian’s back.

Sebastian, Trevor’s son and a kid who was too fucking serious for his age, merely tossed the small rock that he’d been examining aside and helped his best friend up. Once Mikey was settled on Sebastian’s back, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, started rolling the baseball that she was always carrying between her hands, and said, “You may now carry me.”

“You’re too good to me,” Sebastian drawled, shifting the small bundle on his back and went to follow Reese when a small black SUV pulled into the driveway.

“The house is mine,” Trevor bit out evenly.

“We’ll see,” Uncle Jared snapped back.

“The house is ours,” Craig said with one last glare before turning his attention to the SUV as they watched as the small group that they’d been waiting for climbed out.

“That’s going to leave a mark,” came the softly mumbled words that had his cousin Matt turning around and-

“Ow! You mean bastard!”

Jumping out of the way as Reed leaned down and picked up the small little thing that had tripped over a root and helped her to her feet.

“Stupid boobs,” she mumbled with a sad little sigh as she reached up and dusted off her shirt, drawing Garrett’s attention to a large pair of breasts with, “Never Trust an Atom. They Make Up Everything,” written across her black tee-shirt, making his lips twitch as he took in the rest of her, noting the adorable expression on her face, followed up with a second glance at those breasts and—

Felt the appreciative grin on his lips slowly die as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and had him looking over to find Reed, who was one of the kindest men that he’d ever met and who always wore an easy smile on his face, glaring at him. Garrett glanced from Reed, who looked ready to tear him apart back to the small woman beside him and felt his lips pull up into a shit-eating grin that quickly disappeared when he looked back at his cousin.

“Holy-”

“Don’t,” Garrett said quietly when his cousin Bryce started to say something that was going to get them both killed.

Bryce quickly shut his mouth when he caught the murderous expression on Reed’s face and as one, they averted their gazes to the right only to find Jackson, Reed’s best friend and a hardened Marine that they’d quickly learned not to fuck with when they were kids, standing there, giving them a look that had them clearing their throats and deciding that tormenting their cousin would be a very bad idea.

Deciding that it would be in everyone’s best interest to get this over with, Garrett turned his attention to the reason that he was here, pasted the smile that he’d perfected for his clients on his face, and—

Found himself drawn to the small woman standing in the middle of the street, wearing baggie flannel pajamas and the oversized pink bunny slippers that he’d bought her for Christmas when they were fifteen and felt the smile slip from his face. It had been five years since he last saw her, but Garrett would recognize her anywhere, he thought as the simmering rage that he’d once thought was gone surfaced. Keeping his eyes locked on the woman that had played him so damn well, he found himself shoving Bryce aside and deciding that it was time to end this once and for all.

---

“You promised that you wouldn’t do this again,” Kristen said, shaking her head in disgust as she crossed her arms over her chest and pointedly looked away, refusing to give him a chance to do this to her again.

She should have known better, she told herself only to shake her head in disgust, because she had known better than to trust him. But one look at those brown eyes and she’d melted. She was pathetic.

Correction.

She was beyond pathetic, because not only had she fallen for this again, but now she was stuck standing out here in her pajamas acting like a crazy woman and it was all because of the lying jerk that she’d let sleep in her bed last night. When he’d showed up at her door a month ago, she should have ignored him, but he’d been persistent, and she’d been helpless to do anything but let him in. If only she’d known then what she knew now, she thought, sighing heavily only to throw her hands up in disgust when he gave her that look that always broke her.