Razed (Barnes Brothers #2)(26)

“Annie, shut the f*ck up! I’m tired—”

Curling her hand into a fist, she turned her head, stared at the neighbor’s house.

A few months ago, a young married couple, Tara and Nolan, had moved in.

They had two little girls. Annie and Megan. Megan was barely over a year, toddling around on sturdy little legs, too often in dirty clothes with a diaper that needed changing desperately. Annie was two years older, with long, tangled curls and she was more prone to hide than anything else.

And right now, she was crying.

As another angry shout rose from the house, Keelie checked the driveway.

Then she breathed out a sigh of relief. The busted-up green Chevy truck was there. So Nolan was home.

A moment later, she heard him, his voice a low murmur compared to his wife’s angry shout.

“Don’t you tell me to shut up!” Tara raged.

More words from Nolan, too quiet to be heard, and then their door busted open. “Why don’t you go f*ck yourself, Nolan? You think it’s so easy? Why don’t you stay here with them then?”

Tara came stumbling out in a pair of fleece pajama pants and a tank top, her feet bare. Her eyes shot to Keelie and then away as she headed off to the car.

She was inside a moment later, gone before Keelie could manage to loosen the fist she’d made.

She looked back at the apartment, saw Nolan standing there.

He held Annie in one arm, rocking her.

But he wouldn’t look at Keelie.

He’d stopped being able to look people in the face a long time ago.


*

It wasn’t really weird that Zane got to the coffee shop a good thirty minutes early. Not really. Not in his opinion.

He had things to do while he was in town, after all, and later this evening, he was meeting up with Zach to check out a few places. No reason why he couldn’t start scoping out some sites on his own, right?

Nope.

No reason at all.

Of course, all of that would be more plausible if he actually spent a little more time bent over the classified ads instead of staring out the window toward Steel Ink.

He didn’t let any of that get in the way.

He had an obsession.

He knew it.

He worked with it.

He and this obsession, they’d settled into a comfortable fit. It had been three years, after all. He was more comfortable with his obsession over Keelie than Zach had been with Abby, after all. That was what he told himself.

He hadn’t even spent the past decade-plus dealing with it, letting a million chances slide by.

Never let it be said that the competitive thing was something that brothers outgrew.

As a truck drove by, cutting off his view of the tattoo studio, he blew out a breath and focused once more on the paper in front of him. He actually had managed to skim a column or two, nixing everything he saw with the exception of one.

He knew from experience how much room he was going to need and he’d already drawn up a business plan. Most of the ads were for properties either way too big, way too small, or way out of his price range. But there was one that had the right amount of floor space and the price wasn’t too bad. Now the question was how did it look and where was it?

He circled that one ad, moved to the next column, glanced up at the street.

Get a grip, he told himself, forcing his gaze back down to the paper.

Then he looked to his watch. Eight ’til. He still had twenty-three minutes. He needed more than a grip. He needed to punch himself.

It took every last bit of his mental focus, but he managed to plow through another column and he found a second location to check out. It was on the high end of what he could afford, but he’d look. Just in case.

The bell over the door jangled, but he set his jaw. He’d just checked his watch. It was only three minutes after. Still had a few more—

“You’re already drinking your coffee.”

He lowered the pen. Slowly, he looked up, and he managed not to swallow his tongue as his gaze caught, then hung, on a pair of striped tights that curved over endless legs. The skirt probably wasn’t indecent—not really. It was just those legs of hers, so damn long.

And if he kept staring, he was likely to start this off wrong.

Instead of letting himself drool over the black lace, the pale skin he could see gleaming through, he met Keelie’s eyes.

“I have a confession to make,” he said as she dropped into the seat across from his. “I’m compulsively early for almost everything and I can’t smell coffee without bolting back a cup almost immediately.”

“Hmmm.” She lifted a brow and then leaned in, eying his cup. “You’re not done bolting.”

“Yeah, well.” He took the cup, drained it, and put it down. “That’s not my first cup, either.”

“Really?” Now she smiled and he wanted to die a little. She’d slicked her mouth with a color that hovered between red and purple and he wanted to cover that wide, mobile mouth, taste her, kiss her until she couldn’t breathe and then start all over again. “So just how early did you get here?”

He made a show of checking his watch, calculating the time. “Maybe a little before ten thirty.” An hour early.

“That compulsive, huh?”

He shrugged. “I’ve got business in town anyway and I needed to read the paper.” He tapped his hand on the one spread out in front of him. “I had to leave the loft to find a paper.”