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.While Tyler tried to overlook his sister’s ghastly taste in husbands, ignoring Leo was hard.And for damn good reasons, too—or suspected reasons.“Did you and Lisa want to have a baby?” Anna asked.Tyler swallowed, searching for words.“We.we weren’t married.”She made another funny face.“I’m not getting married.”“Me either,” he told her honestly.After living with the result of his parents’ dysfunctional relationship, he’d always had reservations.Lisa had made him throw caution to the wind.Unfortunately that wind blew up a hell of a lot of heartache.“I liked Lisa,” Anna said.“She was pretty.She told me I was going to get to be the flower girl in her wedding.Why are you and her not getting married anymore? Is it because you think making babies is gross, too?”He nearly swallowed his tongue.“Lisa married someone else.”“Maybe if you told her you were sorry, she would get a divorce like Mama did with my daddy.Then Lisa could marry you.”Sorry for what? For being framed for a crime he didn’t commit? “I don’t think so.”“Saying you’re sorry works.It worked on Mom when Leo hit her.And she was mad.”Tyler felt like his blood pressure shot up a good twenty points.He hadn’t needed another reason to dislike Leo, but damn if he didn’t have one.“Leo hit your mom?”“Yeah, but he said he was sorry.So if you apologize to Lisa—”“Excuse me, Anna, but I need to.I have to do something.” He passed Anna her cat and gave the girl’s pigtail a teasing yank, hoping his rage didn’t show through his painted clown face.“Okay.” The innocence on her face was the opposite of everything Tyler felt.He stood up and looked around for Samantha.When he spotted his twin sister setting food out on a table, he realized her large sunglasses meant something other than protection from the glare.It meant protecting her son-of-bitch husband.Moving in, Tyler caught her by the arm.“We need to talk.”“I’m getting the food out,” she protested.Her long black hair shifted around her shoulders.While they shared their light olive skin and dark hair—both inherited from their Hispanic mother—Anna had also taken her mom’s petite build.Tyler’s six foot frame came directly from his father.He hoped to God it was the only trait he’d inherited from the SOB.“Food can wait.” He pulled off his multi-colored wig, and his red ball nose, and walked her inside the house, guided her past the kitchen and didn’t stop until they stood in the enclosed laundry room that smelled like clean clothes.“What the hell is up with you?” She snapped her hands on her hips.The action reminded him of their mom that if this wasn’t so damn serious, he might have been distracted.While his mother had been dead for four years, he still missed her.“Take your sunglasses off, Sis.”“What?”“You heard me.”She frowned.Carefully, he removed the shades.He held his breath, afraid of how bad it was.Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as he feared.As an ex-cop, he’d seen women so battered that he’d puked.But it was his childhood memories that were the worst.Sam hadn’t just inherited their mother’s build and coloring; she’d inherited their mother’s knack for choosing losers.Staring into his twin’s face, there was no mistaking the light bruise under her left eye.Then he remembered she’d missed the family’s mandatory Sunday breakfast last week.The bruise had had time to fade, which meant it must have been nasty when it was fresh.He touched his sister’s cheek under the evidence.“Leo do this?”“No,” she snapped, proving her daughter wrong.Sam did lie.She just wasn’t good at it.But holy hell, why did she put up with this crap? The answer rolled over him like an overloaded concrete truck.Because their no-good father had treated their mom the same way.Tyler had studied it in college.Statistically, the odds of her choosing men just like dear ol’ Dad were great.The odds of him becoming his dad were greater.And considering the rage he felt now for Leo, the odds might be right.He turned to leave and Sam caught his arm.“Don’t do it, Tyler.I beg you.”He gently cupped her face in his palm.“If you knew someone was hurting me, would you stand by and let it happen?”“No but…” Tears filled her eyes.“He was drunk.”“Isn’t that what they said about dear ol’ Dad?”“Please,” she muttered.“I love you, Sam.I know you’re going to be pissed at me, but he needs to know he can’t do this.”He didn’t stay around long enough to hear her pleas.That would have broken his heart, and Tyler wasn’t sure his heart could take any more breaking.So, he plopped his wig and rubber nose back on, and shuffled his clown ass out to teach his brother-in-law a lesson about hitting girls.~Hesitating in the kitchen for a minute to collect himself, Tyler stepped outside.He went to the cooler, figuring Leo wouldn’t be too far from the alcohol.He pulled out two beers, uncapped one and drank half of it in one swig, then looked around for Leo.He spotted him chatting with Tyler’s oldest brother’s wife.And damn if he didn’t see the man eye his sister-in-law’s breasts, when she wasn’t looking.“Leo?” Tyler held up the two beers as if to say, “Come join me.” When Tyler saw the man coming, he stepped through the backyard gate and moved between Sam’s house and the neighbor’s.He heard the gate shift behind him.“What’s up?” Leo asked.Setting the two beers on top of an air conditioner that hummed as it cooled his sister’s house, Tyler faced Leo, who stood so close that the man’s beer-laden breath filled Tyler’s airspace.He didn’t waste any time getting to the point.“You hit her.”Leo stepped back or he started to.“It was just a tap.” Before his left foot landed, Tyler’s fist landed on the man’s nose and knocked him flat on his ass.“Christ!” Leo reached for his nose.“It was just a tap,” Tyler growled but knew Leo’s nose had to be hurting like hell, because Tyler’s fist did.And he saw his knuckles bleeding where he’d obviously loosened a couple of teeth.“You fucking jailbird clown! You broke my nose!”The jailbird word that almost did Tyler in.Leo started to get up, no doubt to give what he’d gotten, and Tyler almost let him.Almost chose to let go and enjoy this.But taking a deep breath, he pulled his emotions back and moved in to tower over his slimeball of a brother-in-law.“Don’t do it, Leo.If you get up, I’m going to hit you again.I know you think you want to hit me back.It’s only fair, right? But it wasn’t fair when you hit Sam.And I’m not planning on fighting fair now.”He rubbed his fist in his other hand and continued, “If you get up, and if you even get one punch in, I’m going to yell for my four brothers and when I tell them what you did, every one of them will help me beat your ass to a pulp.Consider yourself lucky you faced only me this time.”Leo wiped his bloody nose and stared up with hatred in his eyes.But the man was smarter than Tyler gave him credit for.He didn’t get up.A damn shame, too.Tyler ached to get in a few more punches, and he would if he ever proved that Leo had something to do with Tyler’s prints showing up at the staged crime scene [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]