Texas Tangle (22 page)

The main course finished, they’d moved on to Mrs. Barnett’s famous apple crumble pie when the discussion drifted to the headlines. Dillon reached over and grabbed the last slice, bobbling his plate when his grandmother changed the direction of the conversation.

“Did you see that story on the news the other night about a woman over in Cleburne who was arrested for marrying two men without them knowin’ about the other?”

Trying not to draw too much attention to herself, Nikki leaned close to Dillon and whispered, “Please tell me you didn’t say anything to her about me dating both of you.”

“I swear I never said a word,” he whispered back.

Gramma Barnett frowned at them and pointedly raised her voice. “Apparently, she travelled a lot for her job, and neither suspected the other existed. From what I saw of the report, she’d been married twenty years to one, then married another half her age over in Austin a couple years back. Both men said they were both as happy as a pig in shit.” An earthy chuckle erupted, starting deep in her belly. “At least until they found out the other existed.”

Nikki chanced a glance sideways at Brett and met his puzzled gaze. He lifted one shoulder a half inch and shook his head. Was it merely a coincidence that Gramma Barnett had mentioned the subject? Or had she picked up on something they’d done—some way they’d looked at each other?

Faith joined her mother-in-law’s laughter. “As long as she didn’t have to do their laundry, good for her.”

Mr. Barnett wasn’t as forgiving. “Mother, Faith! What type of example does that set for Lilly?”

The conversation hitting a little too close to home, Nikki sipped her iced tea in hopes it might cool the blush creeping into her cheeks.

Gramma Barnett stabbed the last bit of pastry on her plate and waved it toward Nikki. “Nothin’ wrong with a woman living with two men, Junior, s’long as everyone’s amenable to the arrangement. Look at this little filly and how she’s keeping your boys so happy.”

A chorus of “Gramma!”s echoed around the table while Nikki choked on her drink.

“What? It’s an honest opinion.” Gramma Barnett thumped on the table. “What woman wouldn’t be tempted by two fellas as good lookin’ as my boys? If she’s not, there’s somethin’ wrong with her.”

Dillon’s father fixed his mother with a glare. “I hardly think this is the appropriate venue for this discussion, Momma.”

“Bah.” She leaned toward Nikki as if she was going to whisper a secret, but didn’t lower her voice. “My grandparents had a permanent threesome all their adult lives. Betcha Dillon never told you that before.”

“No way! Really?” Lilly piped up, though instead of shock, her eyes were wide with interest.

“I could hardly tell her something I didn’t know myself, Gram.” Despite his tan, Dillon’s cheeks bore an unmistakeable hint of a blush.

“Yup.” She dabbed her mouth as delicately as if she were presiding over a state dinner, then realizing she had the attention of the whole table, placed the napkin on her lap. “And I’ll tell you something else—they weren’t the only ones in the county with more than two to their bed.”

She glared around the table as if warning anyone who dared challenge her. “Times were hard back then, and there weren’t as many women around as there are now. According to my daddy, his daddies decided instead of fighting for the hand of the woman they loved, they’d all live together. Musta worked out because they’re even buried side by side by side out in the churchyard.” She pointed at Nikki then waved her bony finger between Brett and Dillon. “You should do the same thing. You’d be a fool to pass up the opportunity to bed down with such fine-looking specimens. And it’ll keep these boys on their toes—make ’em keep you happy both in the bedroom and outta it, in case you decide to kick one o’ ’em out. The good Lord knows young Dillon here needs something to keep him out of his mischief.”

All the eyes that had been staring at Mrs. Barnett trained on Nikki, waiting to see her response. Feeling like a bug under the microscope, Nikki looked to Dillon for help. That was a futile hope, as he was dissecting the remains of his apple crumble. For his part, Brett stared at his plate, his brows drawn together. No help there either. The pie that had been so delicious moments before now lay as heavy as a rock in her stomach. “Um, th-thank you for the advice, Mrs. Barnett. I’ll certainly keep it in mind.”

“You do that.” Mrs. Barnett put down her fork and pushed her plate to the center of the table. “Close your mouth, dear. You’ll attract flies.” She stood with a groan then shuffled to the door. Halfway down the hall, she called, “Jackson, get off that keister of yours and drive me home. Or are you gonna make your poor old momma walk all the way?”

Mr. Barnett’s chair scraped across the floor as he pushed it back. “Coming, Momma.”

No one else moved or said a word until they heard the front door close. Then everyone erupted in laughter at exactly the same moment.

“Oh, my lord, that woman.” Mrs. Barnett placed a hand on either side of her face in mock dismay.

“Well, I think she’s great,” Lilly declared. “I hope I’m as sharp as her when I’m that old.”

“Lord help us,” Dillon muttered.

“Boys, you’re doing the dishes today.” A chorus of masculine groans greeted Mrs. Barnett’s directive, but every one of the men stood up and started gathering dishes.

Facing Nikki, Faith gestured to the other room. “Why don’t you come into the front room with me, hon? Lilly, I believe you had homework this afternoon? Don’t you have that book report?”

“Which means she wants me to get lost while she grills you, Nik,” Lilly said in a stage whisper. But she left the room.

Feeling rather like a horse smelling the nearby glue factory, Nikki followed Mrs. Barnett to the living room.

“Normally I’d ask you to forgive Lilly, but I’m afraid she’s right today. I have been dying to talk to you.” Faith sank onto the couch and patted the back of it in invitation. “I’ve been wondering if Brett’s gotten any leads on your brother’s whereabouts?”

“Oh.” The dread that had been attached to Nikki’s heels like a deadweight dropped away. She sank onto the couch in relief. “Last I heard, the police found Phil’s car. He’d sold it to someone in Temple.” And she’d overheard Brett telling Dillon that the money Phil had transferred from her accounts to his had run out. “Brett doesn’t think they’ll ever be able to get any of my things back.”

“I’m sorry to say that if Brett says they won’t, they probably won’t.” Faith smoothed her skirt and frowned. “I was so worried about him when he said he was going to join the police force. This isn’t Dallas or some of those other nasty places, but still, folks around here can get into trouble. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud as punch of him. But I worry about him as if he were my own flesh-and-blood.”

“I can tell. And he loves you like you were his mother.”

Mrs. Barnett’s cheeks turned red, but Nikki could tell she was pleased to hear it. “You didn’t know Brett when he was a boy, did you?”

“No, I was a sophomore when my family moved here.”

Faith grabbed a photo album from a shelf filled with albums and flipped open a page, as if she knew exactly what picture she wanted. “This is what he looked like shortly after they moved here.”

Nikki ran her finger over the picture of a solemn-faced, twig-thin Brett staring at the camera, a taller and sturdier Dillon grinning broadly, his arm slung around Brett’s shoulders. “He’s so skinny.”

“I don’t think his father worried overmuch about feeding anyone but himself. Do you know when Children’s Services came in to inspect the place, he had over two dozen empty cases of beer in the kitchen? They found dozens more piled up on the back porch. The man must have drunk beer like it was soda pop.”

Faith reached over and flipped the page. “This is a year later, once he’d come to live with us. As you can see, he’s got a bit more flesh on his bones.”

He’d also grown taller and was now the same height as Dillon. What she noticed most was the smile on his face. Not as confident as Dillon’s, but a definite improvement over the previous picture. The haunted look in his eyes had disappeared, the stern lips were now pulled into a mischievous grin. He was happy. Because of the Barnetts.

Her heart ached at seeing the change in him after knowing what he’d survived. He deserved to be happy. If she chose Dillon over him, would she end up driving Brett away from the only real family he’d known? She blinked rapidly, trying to stave off the tears that threatened to fall. She hadn’t asked to end up torn between the two of them, and yet here she was, faced with an impossible decision between two men she respected, cared for…loved.

“He was always a scrapper, though. Course, it got him through a lot. Some of the other boys used to think because he was skinny, that meant he was frail, and others hassled him about his father being an ex-con, but he sure set them straight right quick.”

Nikki flipped through the pages, examining photos of Dillon and Brett as they matured through middle school and into high school, recognizing them as they’d been when she’d moved to town. She stopped at their graduation photos. The smile that had been present in the previous pictures was once again absent. Even more telling was the absence of Dillon’s usually ever-present grin.

“That was the year they fought.” Faith frowned when she saw what page Nikki had stopped on. “That was such a horrible time. Something set Dillon off; I’ve never seen him so upset. They never would tell me what it was about, though.” She huffed. “I’ve never been so angry with any of my children as I was that year. When Brett ran away, I was terrified. I was sure we’d lost him forever.”

Wishing she could disappear into the floor, Nikki closed the book and flattened her hand over the cover. “They were fighting because Brett kissed me, and Dillon was jealous.”

“Is that the way of it, then?” Faith said just as quietly as Nikki had admitted it. “I’d often wondered if there was a girl involved, but they’re both so pigheaded neither would tell me. Even after Brett came back, the two of them didn’t talk. Next thing we knew Brett was going to school in Boston, and we barely saw him at all.”

“I didn’t know they fought until a couple of weeks ago. Please understand, Mrs. Barnett. I wasn’t trying to make trouble between them. Dillon had never said anything to me before Brett kissed me.”

Neither had said anything other than a polite hello or howdy in the halls for the rest of the semester. By the time Brett had come back from his first year at college, she was married.

“And now here you are, all together again.”

Did Faith know that she was sleeping with both of them? She chanced a look up, if only to try to figure out just how much Dillon’s mom knew.

Instead of condemnation, she saw sympathy on her face, heard understanding in her voice. “You care for both my boys, don’t you?”

Miserable, she nodded and stared at her hands still flattened over the album. “They want me to decide between them.”

Faith sighed. “Oh, honey, you’re the baby in Solomon’s Wisdom, aren’t you? Only it’s the two men you love splitting you apart.”

Chapter Thirteen

“All right, let’s get this done.” Brett grabbed his plate and stacked it with Nikki’s. “Matt, you’re washing. Griffin, Ethan, you’re on rinse detail. Dillon and I will dry.”

Solutions often came to him when he was working at mindless tasks. Maybe the dishes would help him sort through the myriad of questions assailing him. Like what the hell had tipped Gramma Barnett to what had happened the night before? As much as he’d wanted to blame someone else, he knew neither Dillon nor Nikki had said anything. Which meant that canny old woman picked up on some vibe resonating from them. How soon before the others clued in?

“Aw, man, why do I have to be the one handling the dirty dishes every Sunday? Why can’t Ethan or Griff do the washing this week?” Matt complained. But he plodded over to the sink and turned on the water, squirting the dishwasher detergent into the stream. “We could at least buy a dishwasher. You’ve got one, Dill. And you live alone.”

“There’s three of them now,” Ethan reminded his youngest brother. He leaned a hip against the counter while they waited for the sink to fill. “Hey, Dill? Did you know about Gramma’s great-grandparents? Was she telling the truth, or was she yanking our chains?”

Good question. If Gram had said something, maybe that’s where Dillon had gotten his idea for the night before. He studied Dillon as he opened the pantry.

Dillon’s face showed only puzzlement when he handed another towel to Brett. “I don’t know. I can’t say I’ve heard those stories before.”

Maybe Dillon’s subconscious had remembered them? Nah. He’d been a cop too long and saw conspiracies where there were none.

After scraping off a plate, Matt plunged it into the water. “So is she right? Are you two doin’ Nikki at the same time?”

Before Brett could react, Griffin popped Matt on the back of his head. “Moron, you don’t ask a question like that. Shee-it.”

“Hey! I was only askin’. ’Sides, Gramma’s the one who brought it up. I didn’t see you objecting to her talkin’ about it.”

“Yeah, like that would go down well,” Griffin snorted.

“Didn’t you see how red Dillon turned?”

Couldn’t have been much redder than he was right now. Only then it had been from embarrassment. Right now, Dill looked like he was ready to take the boy down and pound the words back down his throat. Pretty much the same feelings he himself was fighting.

Not realizing the jeopardy he was in, Matt continued, “I think they are both doing Nikki—”

That did it. Brett lunged. Just as his fingertips grazed Matt’s shirt, Dillon and Ethan grabbed him.

At the same time, Griffin hooked his elbow around Matthew’s head and put him in a headlock. “You wanna get your face smashed in, fuckhead? You better apologize and fast.”

“For what?” Matt grunted as he struggled to free himself.

Griffin rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “For disrespecting Nikki, you frickin’ dipshit. Jesus, Matt, I can’t believe we share the same DNA. You’re such a jerkwad sometimes.”

“All right already. I apologize.” Once released, he brushed a hand through his hair. “I just think it’s cool that they’re both doin’—”