“Tate,” I said to dead air, he was gone.

I took the phone from my ear and stared at it. It slid from my fingers, my head came up and I watched Wood flip it closed.

“Go to bed, Laurie,” he said quietly, his eyes soft on me.

I swallowed. He was really handsome, almost as beautiful as Tate but in a different way. There was an edge to both men but I got the sense that Tate’s was sharper and closer to the surface. Wood’s was just a sharp but it ran deeper.

“Okay,” I replied then I pulled in breath. “You… today… what you did, looking out for me.” I paused. “It was really kind, Wood,” I finished on a whisper.

His body moved slightly toward me but he locked it down and I saw his jaw tense.

Then he repeated, “Go to bed, baby.”

I nodded, thinking exiting his presence immediately was probably a good idea. I walked by him and headed down the hall.

“Lauren,” he called and I stopped and turned back to him. He was leaning into a fist on the kitchen counter and his eyes were on me. “Once we were brothers,” he told me and I held my breath. “I’d do anything for him.”

I didn’t know what this meant and I stayed frozen, staring at him, waiting for him to go on.

When he didn’t, I chanced my guess on a whisper. “You miss him.”

Wood held my eyes and didn’t speak. Then he turned away, walked across the kitchen and hit the light switch. The kitchen went dark but I watched Wood in the light coming from the living room walk back to the couch. He dropped down to lounge there, his eyes on the TV, his face blank.

I had known whatever had happened, the history and bad blood between Tate and Wood was big.

Now I knew it wasn’t big. Whatever it was was colossal.

I wanted to go to him, stretch out beside him, hold him close in my arms and watch television, not in a loverly way, in a way I sensed he needed.

But that would be bad.

So I turned and walked to Tate’s room.

Chapter Seventeen

What Do You See?

My body jolted awake when I heard the loud bang on the window, a sound like the strong, angry crack of knuckles.

“Bitch! Get out here!”

After the shrieking female’s words, the bang came again and I sat up in Tate’s bed, holding the covers to my na**d chest, looking toward the window and staring in shock at a ghostly face framed with a mass of dark hair staring into the window.

She lifted a fist and banged again, so hard it was a wonder her hand didn’t go through the glass. My body jumped with the sound.

“I said, get the f**k out here!” she screeched.

The outside light went on and she was illuminated.

I’d never seen her up close and her face was twisted with fury, making her not at all attractive. Even so, I knew when it untwisted, she’d be a knockout.

“Yeah,” she shouted, “I see you, bitch!”

It dawned on me Tate needed curtains. Badly.

“Jesus Christ, Neeta, what the f**k?” I heard Wood’s angry clip.

Neeta’s head twisted to the side, it jolted with surprise and then she glared.

Then she screamed, “Traitor!”

“Get away from Laurie’s goddamned window,” Wood ordered.

“Fuck you!” Neeta shouted back.

I sat there immobile, shocked at what was happening and unable to move considering she could see me and, as Tate had demanded, I was buck na**d between his new, high thread count sheets.

“What’s the matter with you?” Wood asked loudly, with anger and frustration clear in his tone. “Honest to God, Neeta, I wanna know.”

“And what’s the matter with you?” she shot back. “Honest to God, Wood, I wanna know,” she mocked, threw out an arm and her knuckles cracked alarmingly against the window also making equally alarming clinking noises because she was wearing rings. “I thought she was yours.”

“Get away from her goddamned window!” Wood shouted.

“Just like you,” she snarled. “got no f**kin’ balls. Never had any f**kin’ balls. Word is, Tate nailed her right under your nose.”

This wasn’t exactly true. This also pissed me off.

Not thinking, I left the bed, dragging the sheet with me. I wrapped it around me, rushed to the dresser, pulled open the second drawer down, grabbed the first t-shirt of Tate’s on top (one I’d laundered, folded and replaced just that day), yanked it out and then pulled it over my head at the same time I clutched the sheet to me. Once I got it on, I dropped the sheet, hurried to the closet, pawed through my open suitcase on the floor, grabbed some panties and yanked them on. Then I dashed out of the room.

Buster was close at my heels. She’d been sleeping with me and now she was sticking with me. This was probably because there was more shouting, more hurling of abuse and a fair amount of obscenities coming from outside and I guessed Buster probably had met Neeta but I figured Buster wasn’t a big fan of shouting and obscenities and I knew she wasn’t a big fan of having her sleep disturbed.

I hit the sliding glass door, which was open, slid through it and tugged it closed, using my foot gentle on Buster to keep her back so she wouldn’t get out. I turned to the left and saw Wood was dragging a fighting, hissing Neeta by her upper arm down the deck toward the end where her convertible was parked, top down.

Of course. Neeta drove through the night with the top down.

Neeta saw me, jerked free of Wood and came at me, launching herself my way with such velocity, she nearly bent double when Wood’s arm wrapped around her stomach, halting her progress.

She yanked up her torso, her eyes slashed the length of me and she threatened, “I’ll rip that shirt off you, you f**kin’ bitch.”

My eyes went the length of her too. Another very short mini-skirt. Another tight tank. A pair of flip flops. Full makeup even though it was the wee hours of the morning, dawn only a promise.

Taking her in, standing on Tate’s deck, facing off against the Dread Neeta, for some reason I was completely composed. I’d never been in a catfight and would have been glad never to get in one in my life. But at that moment I didn’t care. It was likely she could kick my ass but maybe I could get a few licks in and I was kind of looking forward to it.

“What did I do to you?” I asked her.

She struggled against her brother’s hold, eyes fixed to me. “Take it off right now or I’ll rip it off,” she hissed.

“I don’t even know you,” I informed her.

“Laurie, get inside,” Wood ordered, his other arm wrapping around Neeta’s chest and he was dragging her back.