“How did Joseph talk you into this?” Hudson asked.

  “You know Uncle Joseph. The man’s good. He can get you to agree to something before you actually realize you’ve agreed,” Crew said.

  Hudson laughed hard. “If any of us could outsmart him, it would be you. It seems that even the psychologist in our family can’t escape Joseph’s meddling ways.”

  “I know,” Crew said. “I was highly irritated with myself for a while, but then I realized he’s done it to all of us, and now I actually like the dang horses.”

  A mewing sound came from one of the empty stalls. Hudson turned and stared at the wall before looking back at Crew. “What was that?”

  “Don’t say anything when we go to the house. I just brought them home. Darla’s going to be excited,” Crew said as he moved over to the stall with his brother. They peeked over the rail where an orange cat was lying comfortably in what could only be described as a cat castle. Her five tiny kittens were nursing. She looked up, her body relaxed, her eyes half open.

  “Where did you find her?” Hudson asked.

  “I went to a shelter to find some barn cats that Darla said I needed to keep mice away, and they had an event going on. They needed foster care for several animals. I ended up adopting the mother and her kittens. They obviously can’t be separated for at least seven more weeks, and I have plenty of space,” he told his brother.

  “Do you really think Darla will let them stay down here instead of in the house?” Hudson questioned.

  “This is better than the house,” Crew pointed out. I practically bought out the store in cat supplies, giving them a miniature house, toys, food, and medicine. It will be weeks before the kittens can climb the wall. The mama has already jumped up to peer at me before going back to her babies, so she can come and go as she pleases.

  “They are pretty damn cute,” Hudson admitted.

  “Yeah, when the mama cat looked at me from her small cage at the event, I was instantly screwed. Her pleading eyes drew me in. I walked around looking for some raggedy old cats, but when I passed by her again, she meowed right at me. I leaned down and reached through the holes of the cage and she instantly rubbed her head against my finger and purred. It was over and done with that easily.”

  “Damn, Crew, you’ve gotten completely soft on me,” Hudson said with a laugh. “I think I like it.”

  “I’m so glad I’m entertaining you. While you stand there and laugh, I’m analyzing myself trying to figure out what in the hell’s going on. I’ve never wanted to commit to anything long term, and now here I am buying kittens.”

  “It happens to the best of us,” Hudson told him. “It always starts with, I’ve met a woman.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “Yeah, I miss the days I was sitting back laughing at all of the torture you, Finn, Noah, and Brandon were going through as women entered your lives. But then something shifted. I watched, noticing that it’s not always easy for any of you, but you’re so much happier, so much more at peace. I’ve advised clients for years that they must love themselves before they’re going to be able to be in healthy relationships. The thing I hadn’t realized until watching your journeys was how important it is to have someone by your side who knows you, loves you, and will walk next to you. I know that you’re all healthy on your own. But I also realize you thrive with the women you’ve chosen by your sides.”

  “I couldn’t have said it any better. I was happy on my own. I didn’t know something was missing from my life. But now that Daisy’s a part of me, it would be like losing myself to lose her. I know I could survive, but I wouldn’t want to. I want us to be there for each other.”

  “I have a whole new understanding of people who lose their spouses after thirty, forty, or fifty years of marriage. I’ve wondered how some are so peaceful while others are a complete mess,” Crew said.

  “The ones who are peaceful are that way because they know they’ll be together again soon. The ones who are a mess are that way not because they can’t do it on their own but because they don’t want to. There’s a big difference between needing someone and wanting someone. I might joke and say I need Daisy, and I do. But more than that, I want her. I want her as my partner, as my equal, and as my challenger. I want her in my life. I need her because I love how she makes me feel about myself and life in general.”

  “What does Darla think of all of this?” Hudson asked. “You know if this thing between you fails, it’s going to suck because she and Daisy are tighter than siblings.”

  “That’s run through my mind a lot, but even if we fail romantically, I don’t see us being bitter enemies. We haven’t lied to one another, and we began as friends,” Crew said.

  “Yeah, a lot of people say that, and even believe it when things are great. But break-ups tend to bring out the beast in all of us.”

  Crew laughed. “I can’t imagine being bitter or angry over a break-up. I’ve never understood it when I’ve listened to clients,” he said.

  “That’s because you’ve never held on to someone who truly mattered,” Hudson pointed out.

  Those words seemed to stop Crew cold. He thought about his past relationships, and Hudson was a hundred percent correct. He’d never been upset or even disappointed when a relationship had come to its foregone conclusion.

  “I don’t know what to tell you. There’s no way of stopping this now. I don’t want her to leave,” Crew said honestly.

  “Is she living here?” Hudson asked.

  “No, but she’s been here for four nights,” Crew said. “We went on a run to her place to get some clothes. It’s far too early to move in together, but we get to use the animals as an excuse for her being here. She’s helping me.”

  “Do you need an excuse?” Hudson asked.

  Crew shrugged. “Kind of. It helps my rational brain process all of it. But again, we were even honest about that,” he admitted.

  “Damn, Darla seems like a wild and free child on the outside, but on the inside she’s truly as nerdy and rational as you are,” Hudson said.

  The kittens finished nursing and were moving around their mother, their eyes still not quite open, their tiny bodies unsure of their movements.

  “They are damn cute,” Crew said. “I’ve never been a cat person, like never. But these little things completely own me.”

  “I love the awe in your voice. You seem as if your entire world has been flipped upside down,” Hudson said.

  “It has,” Crew said. “The strangest thing about it is that I don’t care.”

  “That’s pretty awesome,” Hudson said.

  “It’s so weird how we’ve all evolved. I know we change a lot as we grow up, but I’ve been a professional for over fifteen years. I’m not supposed to change this much in a few months at my age. I’d tell my clients to slow down and make sure they’re not having a midlife crisis.”

  “It could be that. If you go buy a sleek sports car and find a twenty-year-old bimbo, I’ll worry. But this looks like you’ve found an incredible woman and you’re wanting to settle down. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “I think we’ve given the women long enough to gossip,” Crew said. He was missing Darla, which was crazy. But he’d already decided he wasn’t going to analyze everything he was feeling or doing. He was simply going to let it be what it was. “I want to tell her about the kittens.”

  “You think you’re going to get an extra thank you from her later, don’t you?” Hudson said with a hearty laugh.

  “Hell yes,” Crew said. “I think she’ll say thank you again and again,” he smugly said.

  “Damn, maybe I’ll go find my own kittens,” Hudson said. “Not that I need to. Daisy is quite thankful on a regular basis.”

  The two of them left the barn, still too hot to put on their shirts. They moved down the path and entered the front of the house. They could hear the women laughing over something on the back deck, the door open so a breeze could blow through the home.

  “I have to admit, I show my thanks just as much,” Crew said after they grabbed a beer from the fridge.

  Hudson laughed again, making both women turn as they moved toward the door. “Oh, brother, so do I,” Hudson told him.

  Crew wasn’t going to deny he enjoyed sex with Darla. It was honestly the best sex he’d ever had. He got as much pleasure from pleasing her as he got from being pleased. But if their relationship was only about sex, he wouldn’t be consumed with thoughts of her throughout the entire day. If it was only about sex he wouldn’t be trying to figure out ways to make her laugh.

  Crew knew what they had was unique. He just didn’t know how long it would last. He didn’t want to think in those terms and set himself up for failure. And if he set himself up that way, he was also setting Darla up to fail. That was unacceptable.

  “Hello boys,” Darla said, glancing briefly at Hudson before she drank in Crew. His body felt the burn of her gaze as if her fingers had just trailed their way down his entire torso. They’d made love only a few hours earlier, and he had the urge to haul her back over his shoulder and cart her off to his bedroom again. The only thing stopping him was their guests.

  “Hello, my sexy fiancé,” Daisy said with a little giggle. His brother was wearing the same light in his eyes that Crew was sure was shining in his own.

  Before either of them could say a word, Darla laughed and turned to Daisy. “Fine, I’ll agree to a tie,” Darla said. The girls started giggling harder and Crew and Hudson looked at each other in confusion.

  “What do you agree to a tie about?” Crew asked.

  “It’s a girl thing,” Daisy said. Then she looked at Darla. “I’ll agree to a tie too.”

  Crew and Hudson looked at each other and shrugged, knowing the girls would only tell them what they wanted to, and they wouldn’t be invited into their private jokes. That was okay with both of them.

  “Want to take a walk?” Crew asked. “I have something to show you.”

  “A walk sounds wonderful,” she said with a wink. Oh, she was killing him.

  “I’m coming,” Daisy said with a laugh. “I know you’re trying to get alone, and I wouldn’t mind some alone time myself, but torturing you is quite fun.”

  Daisy rose to her feet and walked to Hudson, giving him a quick kiss before wrapping her arm around his waist. “Where are we going?”

  “To the barn,” Crew said, laughing as he helped Darla up. She might be a little buzzed with two empty champagne bottles sitting on the table, but she was in a great mood and steady on her feet.

  “Great idea. You’ll love the baby horses,” she told Daisy.

  They made their way to the barn, and stepped inside, still laughing and talking. Mama cat jumped onto the top of the stall and the kittens instantly mewed. All talking stopped as Darla’s eyes widened and she let go of Crew to run over to the stall. Mama cat had already jumped back down. Darla stared inside for several seconds before she turned, tears in her eyes, and a big smile on her face.

  “Are they ours?” she asked with so much hope in her voice he’d have given her the entire farm if she asked for it right then. He really loved the tingles that shot through his body at the word ours.

  “Yep, I adopted them today. You told me we needed barn cats here,” he said, wondering at the tightness in his chest. He wanted to surprise her every single day for the rest of his life.

  “Oh, Crew, they’re beautiful,” she said. She rushed back to him, threw her arms around his neck, then kissed him hard. He was definitely wishing they were alone now. He’d haul her to the nearest clean stall and ravish her.

  But she let him go just as quickly as she’d grabbed him, then took Daisy’s hand and the two women went into the stall and sat before the kittens. They petted the mama, both women seeming in total heaven.

  “I think they’ll be here a while,” Hudson said as he and Crew leaned against the stall and looked at the pleasure on the women’s faces.

  “Yep, let’s leave them and order food,” Crew said.

  He smiled all the way back to the house. He’d never felt so happy in his life — and it was all because of a bold, beautiful, crazy, confidant woman he wanted to hand the world to.

  Chapter Twelve

  The girls took an hour to return from the barn, both of them wearing huge grins. Crew and Hudson had been enjoying the beautiful sunset while they sipped on a beer and waited.

  “We have dinner coming,” Hudson said as he pulled Daisy onto his lap. “Dinner and a view. It doesn’t get better.” She leaned in and kissed him.

  “Nope, we want to go out,” Daisy told him. “We decided the day’s been too fun to stop now.”

  “But I already ordered,” Crew said.

  “Then have them donate it to the fire department. They’ll be thrilled. We want to go to town,” Daisy said again.

  Hudson laughed. “My girl is always feeding the policemen and fire department. The good news is that if anything ever happens at our home, we’re going to have a slew of first responders there in seconds. She also takes them all sorts of baked goods.”

  Crew laughed as he lifted his phone and told the restaurant they had a change of plans and to triple the order and take it to the local fire station.

  “You just became a lot sexier,” Darla said as she moved to him, and copied her friend, sitting on his lap. “I’m very impressed.”

  He wanted to call the restaurant and tell them to cook up the entire menu and deliver to every first responder in a fifty-mile radius. He loved pleasing this woman.

  “Where do you want to go for dinner?” he asked.

  “We still want Italian, we just want to sit in the restaurant,” Darla said. Then she smiled again. “You do realize you and I still haven’t had an official first date, don’t you?”

  Crew was confused for a second, then he sat back and laughed. “It feels as if we’ve been together for a year, but you’re right, I need to wine and dine you. I’m slacking.”

  She scowled. “A year? Are you saying I’m an old habit now?”

  “Baby, you could never be an old habit,” he assured her, before grabbing the back of her head and pulling her in for a deeper kiss.

  “If you two don’t stop that right now, this date night’s getting cancelled,” Hudson warned.

  “Not going to happen,” Daisy said as she beamed at the two of them. “Darla and I have never been out on a double date. It’s about dang time.”

  “You two have never gone out on a double date?” Crew questioned.

  “Nope. We didn’t manage to find two decent men at the same time to make that happen,” Darla answered.

  “I guess I haven’t had a double date with any of my brothers either,” he said, surprised by that fact. He hadn’t dated a woman he’d wanted his brothers to know more about. With Darla, it had just happened naturally.

  The women rushed off to freshen up for their night out while Crew and Hudson went to take quick showers and change. It was a good thing Crew had clothes that would fit his brother because they’d ruined their other outfits out in the barn. Within a half hour they all met in the kitchen.

  Damn, Darla truly did take his breath away. She was naturally beautiful and didn’t need to put effort into her appearance, but with her hair curled and a shiny pink lip stain on her luscious lips, he was getting all sorts of ideas of what would happen when they made it back home.

  Their drive to the restaurant took about twenty minutes with light traffic. He’d chosen his home away from the city for that reason and moved his practice to the small town. Every year the small cities surrounding Seattle grew, yet he didn’t feel closed in where he was living.

  They were seated right away and the girls seemed as if this was the greatest night of their life.

  “Good evening, I’m Jason,” the waiter said as he handed out menus. “Tim’s bringing out water and bread. Can I get you something else to drink?”

  “Wine. We want lots and lots of wine,” Daisy said with a giggle.

  “We have some excellent wines,” Jason said, seeming a little besotted by the giggling women at his table. Crew could see why. Though Jason was college-aged, the girls’ charm was infectious and naturally drew others to them.

  “Umm, you pick a good red one then,” Darla told him. “We trust you.”

  Crew wanted to argue with her. He’d never had a waiter pick out a wine before, but Darla was having so much fun he wasn’t going to take it away from her.

  “We have a variety of wines,” Jason said, thrown off by the request.

  “Then choose the best,” Crew easily said. “Don’t worry, we’ll trust your selection. Bring out two different reds to start with.”

  “Do you want our most popular or the most expensive?” Jason asked. He was quickly regaining his composure.

  “The most popular for flavor not because it’s cheap,” Daisy told him. “Trust me I’ve had a lot of boxed wine, and some of it’s actually very good. But tonight, we want flavors to burst on our tongues.” Crew hardened at her words. There were some things he wouldn’t mind bursting on her tongue.

  Jason smiled at her, probably halfway in love already. “I know exactly what to get you,” he assured her. He turned just as Tim arrived with water and bread that smelled so good it made Crew’s stomach rumble.

  “I’m not sure we should’ve taken the girls out. They look like they’re on a mission to cause trouble,” Hudson said with a laugh. But it was clear to all of them that Daisy could do no wrong in his eyes. His brother was completely in love and whatever Daisy wanted, she’d get.

  “We are trouble. Don’t forget it,” Darla said as she sent an air kiss at Crew.

  Hudson chuckled. “Darla, I liked you from the minute I met you,” he told her.

  Crew had been curious about Darla from the way his brother had spoken about her — and though she’d blown in like a tornado, his brother had been right — she was absolutely fantastic. He’d first met her the night of the barbeque at his home a few months earlier. They’d shared one hell of a kiss that night, and then he’d let her go.