Tangled: A Moreno Brothers novella (20 page)

“Sure are,” he said, still staring down at the baby. “Isn’t he
perfect?”

“Yes,” she agreed with a smile. “Hard to believe such a perfect
little angel could be such a handful.”

“He’s not so bad,” Romero said immediately as she knew he would.

Ever since Almanzo had been born, she’d noticed they both had
avoided the topic of making any permanent decisions about closing out this
chapter of their lives. Having another baby in the house had made Isabel remember
how much she missed it—all the exciting firsts—and it really wasn’t as much
work as she imagined having three would be. The other two were actually a big
help when it came to playing with him and keeping an eye out for him. When
Amanda had been the baby’s age just starting to walk around, there was no way
Isabel could even use the restroom or take a shower if no one else was home. This
time was different.

Amanda was such a little mother herself. She’d been helpful with
Romeo, but now that she was a little older, she was an enormous help when it
came to keeping an eye on both her brothers for short periods of time while
Isabel used the restroom or took a speed shower.

“It’s gonna get tougher before it gets easier,” she reminded
Romero. “He just started walking on his own. You know how boys are. Amanda took
her time and eased into it, but Romeo was running before he fully learned to
walk. Remember all the bumps and bruises on my poor baby?”

“Remember?” Romero laughed. “He just got another one today.”

Isabel turned to look at her husband, whose smile quickly flat lined.
“It wasn’t so bad,” he said. “He hardly cried.”

She elbowed him playfully. “You’re supposed to call me when that
happens so I can make it all better.”

“And that’s
exactly
why half the time I don’t,” he said
immediately. “When I tell him to shake it off and that’s it nothing, he gets
over it just like that. He sees Mommy coming at him with her pouty face, and he’s
crying for a half hour.”

“Well, that’s what mommies are for,” she insisted with a pout. “Was
it bad?”

“No, not at all.” He laughed, kissing her neck. “I’m just glad he
has a brother now, who he can rough house with. He really needs that, babe. And
he loves it. It just would’ve been cool if they were closer in age like when he
and Amanda were little. I can tell already this one is going to be the tag
along. He gets bored halfway through the movies the other two are into.” Romero
laughed. “So he starts bugging them.”

“Yeah, it’s easier when they have a sibling closer in age, I
guess,” she agreed. “Maybe if he had a younger one that was closer in age? That’s
how it was when I was growing up. Pat and Art were always closer because they
were closer in age while Gina and I, the younger two, were always closer.”

Romero didn’t say anything for a moment then seemed to take a
deep breath. “So are you saying you wanna try for another one?”

“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying.”

He exhaled a bit exaggeratedly, and she turned to look at him. “Why?
Did that scare you?”

“No.” He kissed her. “It excited me, actually.”

“Really?” She could feel her eyes well up and the emotion begin
to suffocate her.

The concern in his eyes was instant, and he turned her around all
the way to face him. “What’s wrong?”

She smiled, not sure how to say it. She’d only known for sure for
a couple of hours, but this time she had no intention of keeping it from him.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked again, still searching her eyes.

“Nothing’s wrong.” She smiled then glanced down at her belly and
back up at him.

A laugh escaped her the moment she saw it in his eyes. The moment
she knew
he
knew and his eyes grew wider. “You’re pregnant?” he
whispered, and the moment she nodded, he pulled her to him and hugged her hard.
He pulled back and looked at her. “And you’re sure about this?”

Suddenly the expression in his eyes went a little hard and she
knew why. After the last time, even though the plan was Almanzo was the last
one, he’d made her promise that if by any chance she ever got pregnant again,
she’d tell him immediately. He’d been absolutely adamant.

No
surprises.

“I just found out today,” she said quickly, “a few hours ago,
actually. I was waiting for the kids to go to bed. I haven’t told anybody else.”

The beautiful smile was back, and she wrapped her arms around his
neck. She’d been so scared all week when she’d begun to suspect. As much as he
loved the kids and insisted he could more than handle the three of them even
when she took off to the market and left him with all of them, she knew how
exhausting it could be sometimes. She wasn’t sure if maybe he’d changed his
mind and would freak out about another one.

Pulling back to look at her again, he smiled. “Another one,” he
said simply.

She nodded a bit apprehensively. “Another one. Call me Fertile
Myrtle.”

He laughed, cradling her face in his hands. “No, I’d rather call
you perfect because you are.” He kissed her softly then looked in her eyes. “Thank
you, baby,” he whispered. “Thank you for making
my
life so perfect.”

Note to my Wonderful Readers

To all my wonderful readers, I hope you enjoyed reading
Tangled
.
Please take a moment to leave a review on Amazon.

Tangled is a Moreno Brother’s Holiday novella. Romero is
the full-length novel of how Romero and Isabel met and fell in love. It is
temporarily free for the holidays, so grab it now if you haven't read it
already! For a list of all the other Moreno books and the rest of my available
titles, visit my website. You can click on each individual book for purchase
links to all retailers and excerpts of each title.

Books | Elizabeth
Reyes

Excerpt from
Felix

With every
movement she made, Felix noticed something new about her, like now. Hector was
right. Nothing about her popped out at you. She probably wouldn’t make your
head turn at first glance, but he’d hardly call her plain. She had the kind of
delicate features you had to study closely to appreciate. Like her lashes. They
weren’t big and thick like the ones on the models and television personalities
he was used to dating. But they
were
long and curved and appeared to be
all natural, nothing fake. Everything about her was like that. But Hector was
right about one thing. She wasn’t the type of girl he’d normally date. Ella was
something else and then it hit him. That’s what it was. She was what he’d heard
so much about and had never gotten it. Ella had natural beauty.

Felix stared at
her for a moment, a little stunned. That’s exactly what she had. He’d noticed
her flawless complexion earlier when Nellie had first introduced them. Ella
tilting her head the way she did now had his eyes immediately on her neck. They
followed her delicate neckline all the way down. It was just as soft, just as
flawless, perfect for—

“But surely your
worldly lifestyle made up for missing out on prom and homecoming, right?”

Ella’s comment
pulled him out of his thoughts and thankfully so. Felix straightened out and
focused on what she’d just said like he should’ve been doing the whole time.

“Yeah, but most
of the stuff I’ve done I can do over and over or anytime. You only get to do
prom once.” He stopped just before taking another sip of his beer, suddenly
curious. “Did you go to prom?”

“Twice,” she
said, smiling so playfully her eyes shined.

Felix couldn’t
tell if she was teasing or being honest, but his insides were doing that thing
again. “Did you really?”

“Um huh.” She
nodded and sipped her beer again. “I was asked to go my sophomore year, and
then I went again my senior year.”

“Touché,” he said
with a smile. Of course she’d be asked more than once. To think if things had
gone differently she might’ve gone with him. “You have a very sweet smile.”
Once again, the words flew out before he even had a chance to think about them.

Not that he
wanted it to but he sort of expected her smile to flat line in reaction to the
compliment. It was what most girls did when he said something like that to
them. But he was pleasantly surprised to see how poised she remained, simply
raising an eyebrow and taking another sip of her beer. She never once broke eye
contact—eye contact that Felix knew had gotten heavier and heavier each time.
Yet he’d been powerless to back the hell off.

“Thank you,” she
said when she was done swallowing the sip of beer. She glanced at Carmen, who
was in the middle of telling Charlee and Drew something they were laughing
about. “I need to go to the ladies’ room. Do you have to go?”

Carmen nodded,
immediately standing up. Ella got up too and they excused themselves. It was
only then that Felix saw Hector smirking and peering at him as he chewed on
some cheesy bread.

“What?” Felix
asked, reaching for a piece of bread.

“You hitting on
Ella?”

“
No
,”
Felix said, sounding more annoyed than he cared to admit that implication made
him. “Can’t I say she has a nice smile without it having to mean anything
else?”

Hector chuckled
as the servers brought out the pizzas they’d ordered. He shook his head,
reaching for a slice of pizza. “I don’t care if you are, you know. That’s Abel,
not me, and I won’t say shit to him either if you don’t want me to.” He
shrugged. “It’s none of my business if you’re planning on taking her back to
your place or anything.”

“Yeah, well, I’m
not,” Felix said, feeling a little panicked that Hector would just put it out
there like that.

Had it been just
the smile comment Hector had overheard, or had Felix really been that obvious?
So she’d impressed him. She wouldn’t be the first girl to have done so. And
this was a different kind of impressed. This was business, serious business
because of the nature of
why
Ella was working at the gym: her brother’s
girl being raped and the cancer thing in homage of her dead mother. This was
nothing to be taken lightly and certainly not anything he’d undermine by using
it as a means to get in her pants.

“I was gonna say
you’ve been hogging her while I’m supposed to be interviewing her.” Drew
smirked as she chewed her pizza happily.

“I know,” Charlee
added with a playful smile. “And they were talking all low almost as if they
didn’t want us to hear what they were saying.”

Hector smiled
big. “
I
heard.”

His smug friend
stuck the rest of his pizza slice in his mouth, grinning big, and Felix felt
like shoving another one or two in that mouth to shut him up.

“I wasn’t”—he
turned again to make sure Ella and Carmen weren’t on their way back—“
hogging
her okay?”

Charlee laughed.
“Are we embarrassing you, Felix?”

“No!”

Hector laughed
now too. “How
cute
,” he said in the most annoying coddling voice. “I
don’t think I’ve ever seen your face get all red.”

“Shut up.” Felix
refilled his beer mug. “I don’t get red.”

“Okay, your face
is pink. Your ears . . .” Hector laughed again as Felix looked up at him. “Now
those are red.”

Excerpt from
Desert Heat

“. . . I’m working,” Bethany's voice either lowered or she walked
away farther, because the rest of what she said was a mumble.

Damian started toward the door. Sleeping with her had definitely
heightened what he felt for Bethany, or maybe his feelings of entitlement,
because the unease he’d felt yesterday when he’d heard her tone down her
relationship with him was a slow-boiling annoyance now. Had she really just
told someone she was working instead of admitting where and with whom she was?

“. . . not now I can’t, but tonight for sure.”

Instead of standing there eavesdropping as he was tempted to,
Damian decided to walk out into the front room, where her voice seemed to be
coming from. As soon as he opened the door, he was surprised to see she wasn’t
even inside. She’d stepped out onto the patio.

Even though Bethany smiled as soon as she saw him, Damian hadn’t
missed how her head had jerked in his direction when he opened the door. He
managed to smile back, but just barely, as he walked toward her. As much as he
had every intention of not jumping to conclusions and giving her the benefit of
the doubt, it was already pissing him off that she turned away and lowered her
voice.

He opened the patio door, and she turned, lifting her hand for
him to give her a second, then turned her back on him again. “I gotta go now,
okay. Yes, tonight.”

He’d give her a second or longer if she needed it, but he wasn’t
leaving, if that’s what she thought. Wrapping his arms around her waist from
behind, he noticed how she stiffened.

As much as that, too, made him wonder what the hell her sister
was asking about now that she couldn’t talk about until tonight, he still tried
to shake the unease and leaned in to kiss her neck. This time he was asking her
straight out the second she was off the phone. No more dicking around. This
close, he heard the other person on the phone, and it wasn’t her sister. It was
a guy.

“Okay, tonight then. I’m really looking forward to it, Bethany.”

Damian yanked his head back.

“I am, too. Bye.” She turned to him as soon as she was off the
phone.