Sympathy for the Devil (International Bad Boys Book 4) (10 page)

Caleb watched Zoey
drag Bree upstairs with equal parts apprehension and relief before turning to face his brothers. He spared a glance for Eli, who’d abandoned his seat in front of the computer in favor of standing midway between him and Cutter.

Like that was ever going to work.

“So are there o-rings in that box?” Eli asked, and Cutter laughed grimly.

“Stow it, Eli. Maybe I’m beginning to understand why you didn’t want a bar of Bree Tucker. How long have you known?”

“That Caleb likes kissing pretty girls? Since I was five and he was seven. Nina Cooper behind the surf club shed.”

Cutter’s gaze grew even bleaker. “Don’t bullshit me, Eli. How long have you known that Caleb was the one she was with all those years ago?”

Too long probably wasn’t a soothing answer. Eli had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.

“Eli’s not the problem here,” Caleb offered bluntly. “I am. Yes, I’m the one she was with all those years ago. I made a play for her.”

Eli held out his hands as if to placate them both. “How about we just—

“Back off, Eli.”

Cutter’s growled warning matched Caleb’s outstretched arm, pushing his little brother out of harm’s way.

Eli took a step back, folded his arms across his chest and glowered a clear warning at the both of them. “If this gets ugly I
will
be stepping in to separate you. And I’ll be using two-by-four.”

“You let Bree Tucker go all those years ago.” Caleb started out on the offence. Not that it was smart, but he needed to ram home Cutter’s lack of interest in Bree back then, and, more importantly, in the here and now. “And you don’t want her now. There’s nothing going on there. You said that two days ago.” He took a deep breath and said it plain. “I want her. I always have. And this time I’m going after her.”

Cutter heard him out—at least there was that. But he didn’t let it go. “I’m pleased for you, brother. I really am. Always a pleasure to see the mighty fall.” When Cutter’s voice got deadly quiet, things usually went to hell in a hand-basket. “There’s just one thing.
You betrayed me
.”

Caleb knew the fist was coming, he knew his brother’s moves inside out, but he didn’t try to stop the hit.

He figured he deserved one.

*     *     *

“So,” said Zoey
as she switched on the jug and set two coffee mugs on the kitchen counter of the bright and airy upstairs apartment. “You and Caleb?”

“Guess so.”

“Don’t think anyone’s guessing anymore.”

A crashing noise sounded below them, as if something—or someone—had gone down hard. Bree glanced towards the stairs. “Did you hear that?”

“Probably Caleb. Or Cutter. I’m vaguely hopeful that Eli has enough sense to stay out of it. He usually does. Then again, I’m not sure how long he’s known.”

“Known what?”

“That Caleb was the one you were with all those years ago. I can’t believe I never saw it coming, what with Eli acting all strange whenever your name got mentioned and Caleb being all quiet and moody.”

“You don’t actually
know
that’s what happened.”

“Sweet pea, Caleb stripped you bare down there, and himself while he was at it. Call it instinct or maybe just an eye for pent up longing, but this thing between you . . . it’s not new.”

Another crash sounded from below, followed by a pained grunt.

“Would you like me to put some music on?” offered Zoey. “Or would you rather hear the carnage?”

Suddenly, Bree felt close to tears.

“Hey.” Zoey’s voice gentled and Bree felt the touch of the other woman’s hand on her arm. “Cutter’s all fire and fury but he’d cut off his hands before he’d really hurt his brother. As for Caleb . . . he’s a little harder to read, I’ll give you that, but maybe he needs this too. It’s a clearing of the air. A way of letting everyone know that Caleb’s well and truly serious about you without actually saying it. They’ll sort it out. They’re sorting it out now.”

This time the crash was followed by a series of sickening thumps.

“Enough!” It was wrong, this pitting of brother against brother. “I’m sorry. I can’t listen to that and not
do
anything. Especially when it’s all my fault.” She picked up her computer, shoved it in her camera bag, slung it over her shoulder and ran for the stairs.

The sight that greeted her involved Eli looking worried, Caleb looking bruised and Cutter looking in no way satisfied as he pinned his brother to the wall with a broad forearm across his chest.

“
Fight
me,” Cutter growled.

But Caleb just looked at him.

Fury gave her wings as she barreled into them, forcing them apart. Caleb had the wall behind him and couldn’t step back, so she concentrated on his glowering brother.

“So I made out with your brother all those years ago. It happened
one time
, and it was
my
doing. He kept telling me to go find
you
.” She dug a pointed forefinger into Cutter’s chest as she spoke and knocked him back a step. “
I
was the one who cornered him.” Poke. “
I
made the first move.” Poke. “Hell, I made
all
the moves.”

“Bull,” Caleb rasped from behind her.

One last poke for the chest right in front of her nose, as she brought Cutter’s attention front and center. “So if you want to blame someone, blame me. If you want to whale on someone, whale on me.”

“Touch her and I’ll gut you,” Caleb said.

But Cutter already had his hands held high in surrender. “Easy there, Mata Hari.” He glanced at his brother, his expression ever so slightly pleading. “Call her off.”

“Why?”

“Call her off,
please
?”

But that wasn’t the way this was going to go, thought Bree, as she turned back to face the other idiot man who thought that her decisions weren’t her responsibility. “And
you
. Since when have fists solved anything?”

“Well, historically, fists have solved many disputes,” Eli interrupted smoothly. “And, technically, he wasn’t actually fighting.”

“He wasn’t,” offered Cutter. “It was downright disappointing.”

Caleb offered up a lopsided and alarmingly bloody smile. “See? No fighting happening here.”

Bree glared from one two-year-old to the other. “Are you
enjoying
this?”

“Er, no?” Caleb offered, but the devil was in the detail, and in his eyes. “No,” he settled on more firmly. “Not enjoying this at all. Definitely not. It was more . . . something that had to happen. We still on for dinner?”

“Will you be able to walk?”

“’Course I will.” He touched his fingers to his lips and they came away bloody. “Might not be able to kiss.”

Bree let her narrowed gaze speak for her. “You want to kiss me again, Caleb Jackson? You think that just because you asked me out publically and staked your claim and took a beating for me that I’m yours now? Just like that?”

“I would never think that.” He caught on fast.

“Good. Because I’m not looking for an irrepressible ruffian, a charming rake or a reckless brawler. Don’t make me waste my time. I want a good man. An honest, self-aware, dependable, sensitive, understanding, family-minded, utterly romantic and sexually amazing hero of a man. And he’d damn well better deliver.”

A muffled snigger came from Cutter’s direction.

Caleb ignored it. “So, dinner at six?”

“No.”

“Seven?”

“Let’s wait and see how you’re tracking, shall we?” Was that a flash of relief in his eyes? She turned to Cutter. May as well do what she came here to do. “I’m interested in your brother. It could well prove that I’m head over heels gone on your brother, or it may prove otherwise. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Really looking forward to it. Really. Not scared at all,” Cutter said, even as he took another careful step back. “And, no. I don’t mind.”

With Cutter in retreat, Bree turned once more to Caleb. “Are you okay?”

“Never better.”

“You’ve
looked
better.”

“Trust me, I’ve looked worse.”

“All right, so I’m just going to . . . go now. And let you get on with your day.”

“Hey, Bree.” The way Caleb said her name stopped her in her tracks, no amusement in his voice at all now, just quiet, soul-stealing intent. “Thanks for coming round.”

“You’re welcome.” Bree let herself out, fully aware that all eyes were on her and that Caleb hadn’t moved from his slumped position against the wall. More banged up than he let on, she thought grimly.

Men.

*     *     *

Caleb waited until
the door had closed behind her before sliding to the ground, his intestines—or maybe it was a kidney—screaming protest at every movement. There was a distinct possibility that he’d busted something useful, but the specter of Cutter finding out about his betrayal no longer hung over him and Eli no longer had to keep secrets. “We good?”

“Jesus, Caleb, you moron.” Cutter ran a hand across his face. “What the
hell
?” And hot on the heels of that, “Tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m good.” His brother had already forgiven him, and if he hadn’t then he was well on the way. As for Bree . . . “She defended me. Did you see that?”

“See it? I
wore
it.”

Caleb smiled some more.

Cutter eyed him pityingly. “You are so screwed.”

“No ‘m not.” He closed his eyes and slid straight back into the memory of Bree flying across the boat-shed in his defense. Bree wanted him, wanted to be with him. She’d made it open knowledge and worn the consequences and she
still
hadn’t run out on him. “Brother, I am golden.”

T
he man was
a Neanderthal. A stunningly built, angel-faced, congenitally confused pirate who could make a woman starry-eyed with one kiss and incandescently furious with him not five minutes later.

What the hell had he been thinking, kissing her like that in front his family? Bree pushed into her mother’s kitchen and set her bag on the counter with a thud. In front of Cutter! Where was his brain? And then letting Cutter beat on him without fighting back.

Careless fool.

What if he’d really driven a wedge between himself and his brother? What if there was no forgiveness there?

What if he was hurt?

She just wanted to start the day over and redo the Jackson part until she got it right.

“How’d it go?” her father asked from the doorway.

Bree raked a hand through her thoroughly disheveled hair. “Can I just thank you here and now for sparing me the joy of having brothers?”

Her father smiled a little. “Wasn’t for lack of trying, Bree.”

Oh.

Well.

“Anyway—moving on. Cutter now knows everything. He’s not exactly pleased. Is it too early for gin?”

“It’s eleven am.”

“Was that a yes?”

“What happened?”

“Caleb happened. And then Cutter started beating on him. With fists. And then I started in on Cutter. With words.”

“You always did have a way with words. You get that from your mother.”

“Yeah, well.”