LITMIR.BIZ

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and ragged denim shorts. “I wouldn’t say that, either.”

      Sam’s knowing laugh rumbled beneath the shrieks of the children. After all, he’d married one of Didi’s friends. “Tell me about this chick. Whatever she’s got, you obviously want.”

      “Nah. All she’s got is our room reservation for Painter’s Cove.”

      “What’s her name?” Gabe chimed in, walking over from where he’d been playing with his toddler in a bouncy swing. He was the second brother, an ex-minor leaguer turned college baseball coach, father of two, married to a Southern redhead named Lula.

      Tuck opened then closed his mouth. “Not telling. You’ll spill the beans to your wife and next thing I know, the whole crew of them will be slow-cooking me into a relationship.”

      “True.” Gabe laughed from the perch he’d taken on top of their parents’ ancient cedar picnic table. “Lula has her ways of getting me to talk.”

      “So does Karen,” Sam said. “But her ways involve a meat fork planted in my skull.”

      Tuck chuckled. The banter was a familiar refrain. In reality, he saw how devoted his brothers were to their families, day in, day out. And he admired that—from a distance. “You’re encouraging me to settle down because…?”

      “My wife makes me,” Sam said.

      They laughed.

      “What’s the big deal, anyway?” Gabe asked. “Take the vacation. You don’t have to marry the girl because you’ve shared a room.”

      “Right,” Tucker said, unconvinced.

      Logically he should have had no hesitation since Rory wasn’t his type. Okay, so she was a little less not his type than he’d first thought, but still…

      “I’ll be sure she understands we’re going as friends,” he told his brothers.

      Sam’s forehead wrinkled. “Yeah, that’ll work.”

      “Do I detect a note of skepticism?”

      “Proceed with a healthy caution, my pal. Watch your step around her and you’ll be fine.”

      “It’s his hands he’s got to watch,” Gabe put in.

      Sam grinned. “Tuck was always good with his hands.”

      “On the job. Strictly on the job,” Tucker protested, knowing it was no use even though he had calluses on his fingertips from wrapping wire, not squeezing female behinds.

      “Yeah, sure.” Gabe looked at Sam. “Remember the time we caught him with his hands up Mary-Anne Shanahan’s shirt on the living room couch? He looked like he was calibrating the engine of a Maserati.”

      “And when we threw on the lights—”

      “He jumped up—”

      “With a boner capable of parting the Red Sea.”

      “And he said—”

      “‘I was only measuring her for a T-shirt.’”

      “And Mary-Anne said…”

      Sam and Gabe synchronized for the big finish, “‘They’re 34C.’”

      “Shut it,” Tuck commanded through their booming laughter, even though he had no real hope of quelling them. As the youngest of five, he’d been the subject of their merciless teasing all his life. He’d learned to roll with it by keeping a sense of humor and always being alert for revenge opportunities. Like the surprise male strip-o-gram he’d arranged for Gabe and Lula’s honeymoon.

      Didi came into the backyard, banging the screen door behind her. “Quit torturing my baby brother,” she said, and began issuing orders like a drill sergeant. Sam’s trigger finger twitched on the hose nozzle, but one narrow look from Didi and he ambled off, compliantly reeling up the hose.

      Gabe was dispatched to round up the hooligans. “Fried chicken,” he yelled across the yard. “First one at the dining table gets a drumstick.”

      Tuck took cover from the rush, ducking to sit at the picnic table.

      Didi plopped beside him. “How many brothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

      “More than three?” he guessed.

      “Nope. No one knows how many, because they’re too busy screwing with each other’s heads.”

      Tuck moaned. “Like you don’t want to do the same.”

      “Of course I don’t.” Didi draped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m only interested in your future happiness.”

      “I’m doing just fine in the present, thanks.” And he was. He’d dropped out of college with the idea that he’d try pro surfing, but had wound up making a living in the construction trade instead. After going through a period of feeling his oats and drifting from job to job, he’d been working steadily as a licensed electrician for seven years now. Recently he’d bought into the four-plex with Didi and Sam, even agreeing to serve as the on-site landlord and handyman. How much more settling did she want out of him?

      As if he had to ask.

      “You’re doing it again.” He made a motion to grab her by the head.

      She jerked away and dusted mussed hair off her face. “What? I haven’t even begun.” The last time they’d had this conversation she’d conceded that her bossiness was annoying and had promised that all he had to do was to put her into one of the Schulz brothers’ dreaded headlocks to remind her to shut the hell up.

      “I saw the look in your eye,” he said. “You were going to mention Charla again.”

      “I’m looking at the Andersons’ yard. Their phlox is blooming.” Didi could never pull off the innocent act. She was too sharp to play dumb.

      “And I think your nose is growing.” The boys had always teased her that, unlike Pinocchio, her nose didn’t grow with a lie, but only when she was about to stick it up in somebody’s business.

      She touched it. Snub, with freckles, the only feature about her that wasn’t strong, square or firm. “All right. I won’t tell you what you should do. But in my version of your life—”

      He coughed a “Bossy wench” under his breath.

      She went on, always good at talking over resistance. “You should still be dating Charla, not a barfly from Clementine’s. You’ll never find anyone good at one of those clubs.”

      “Ah, but you didn’t get to see the miniskirts and butt cleavage tattoos.”

      “I didn’t say good-looking. I said good. You need a good woman, Tuck. Like Charla.” Charla was one of Didi’s girlfriends, a high-powered executive who’d finally broken the snooze alarm on her biological clock. She was on a five-year plan to gain a husband and child.

      “Look, Deeds. When we went out, Charla made it clear that a mere electrician wasn’t good enough for her. She wanted me to become a contractor and builder, then a developer—the kind with an expensive office suite and a hard hat for show only. I don’t want to date a woman who has ambitions for me.”

      “I know Charla can be pushy, but I thought you two might be a good match. She needs a little lightheartedness and you need the discipline.”

      “Are we talking S and M here?”

      “Quit kidding around, Tuck.” Didi frowned. “What’s wrong with a little ambition?”

      Tucker couldn’t think up a flip response. “Nothing. When I’m ready for it, I’ll get my own.”

      “Lazy boy,” she chided. “You always did get away with murder, skipping chores to go surfing and the like. Comes with being the youngest, I suppose.”

      He

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