“Why are you staring at that wader?”
Arabella heard her brother’s grunt of laughter and she pulled her attention away from Jay to focus on Tyler’s four-year-old face. Since Brady had been left guardian of his best friend’s twins the year before, she’d become adept at telling the two boys apart. “Was I staring?” she asked innocently.
Tyler nodded earnestly. “At his butt.” His young voice was piping clear. “The wader’s butt.”
“It’s waiter. Not wader,” Brady corrected almost absently. He was busy trying to keep Toby—the more rambunctious of the two children—from unbuttoning his shirt because he was too hot. It wasn’t really too warm inside the hotel restaurant where the party was being held. It was January. Back home in Buffalo, they’d be under a few feet of snow, but here in Rambling Rose, the balcony doors were thrown open and the occasional breeze that flowed in was beautifully balmy. The other two occupants of their table—her brothers Kane and Joshua—obviously felt the same. As soon as they’d finished their entrées, they’d taken refuge from Toby’s and Tyler’s unrelenting chatter at the bar set up near the balcony and they both had their shirtsleeves rolled up.
“Not another button,” Brady warned Toby before looking back at Tyler. “And don’t say butt,” he directed.
“At his bottom,” Tyler revised obediently. But he still had a glint in his eyes. He might be the more sensitive of the two, but like Toby, his genetic makeup seemed to be half mischief.
As the only girl among five protective older brothers, handling the four-year-old variety of male was almost a breeze. She leaned closer to Tyler. “D’you want to go outside for a few minutes?”
He nodded so hard he nearly fell out of his chair.
She looked to his twin brother, placed on her other side between her and Brady in a relatively successful attempt at helping them behave during the family event. “D’you want to go outside for a few minutes, Toby?” The restaurant, Roja, was located in the brand new Hotel Fortune and though she hadn’t had a chance to see much besides her hotel room, she was sure there would be someplace where the kids could work out their wiggles.
Toby was out of his chair before she even finished speaking, and hung on to the back of Brady’s while he bounced on his bare feet.
Brady looked resigned at this latest discovery. “When did you take off your shoes and socks?”
The little boy shrugged innocently.
Arabella hid a laugh and slipped off her seat, prepared to dive under the table to retrieve the items. But she’d forgotten all about the rolls she’d snuck away in her napkin and they bounced onto the carpet like a cascade of ping-pong balls.
Brady gave her a look that, lately, had been reserved for his young charges. “Subtle, Airhead.”
She crossed her eyes at him and ducked under the floor-length tablecloth, dashing the rolls out of sight along with her, and fished out Toby’s shoes and socks then backed out again on hands and knees.
A pair of shining black cowboy boots met her eyes.
She looked up the long legs encased in black pants and felt her face heat at the laughter in Jay’s eyes as he set the fresh bread basket on the table. “Can I help you up?” He extended his long-fingered hand down toward her.
The scarred knuckle hovered near her nose and those fluttering wings inside her took flight all over again.
She placed her palm in his.
Oh, hello. Forget zing. Palm-to-palm meant full-on heart palpitations.
She didn’t even know how she got to her feet without catching her high heels in her maxi-length dress. Maybe she just floated upward, borne on the delight of his hand clasping hers. Regardless, she found herself standing a little closer than was probably appropriate for the moment—her nephew Larkin’s first birthday party. But she just couldn’t make herself put a few more inches between them.
She looked up, then up some more, until her eyes met Jay’s.
She’d already noticed how green they were. But standing so closely now, she could see the circle of yellow around his pupils. The spokes of darker color that radiated out to the deep green edges of his irises.
She realized he was still holding her hand. Was, in fact, grazing his thumb ever so lightly over the back of her hand.
She also realized that both Tyler and Toby were bouncing around her, impatient for the promise of an escape from the party. And that Brady was giving Jay a narrow-eyed stare. As was Brian who’d joined their brothers Kane and Joshua at the bar. Fortunately, Adam—the eldest of her siblings—was busy with Laurel and their little boy across the room or she had no doubt his suspicious glare would be trained her way, too. Instead, he and Laurel were talking animatedly with their folks.
Catherine Fortune was smiling and nodding. Gary Fortune, however, had the same sour look on his face that he wore whenever he was faced with any of the extended members of the Fortune family. One might think discovering you had half-brothers out in the world that you’d never known about would be exciting. Not for Gary, though. Arabella knew for a fact that if not for Larkin—whose very survival had been in question not even six months earlier—her dad would sooner choke than have anything to do with “those” Fortunes.
The ones who had money.
More than they had, anyway.
The ones who had success.
Also more than Gary figured they had.
But Larkin was his first grandchild. And the baby was now thriving. He’d made it to his first birthday. His parents—her brother Adam and Laurel—were together. Finally. Those blessings had provided enough impetus for her dad to put aside his usual animosity, at least long enough to come to Texas for the party.
Brady nudged her from behind. “You going to let the guy get back to his job anytime this century?”
She looked into those green, green eyes again and reluctantly tugged her hand free of Jay’s. “I was just going to try to find a place outside for these two to get some fresh air before the cake is served.”
“I want cake,” Toby and Tyler both said, nearly in unison. “Cake, cake, cake!”
“Run off some energy, you know, before we give them a sugar rush,” she added above their chanting.
Jay’s smile widened. “There’s a perfect place downstairs. I can show you a shortcut.”
Fluttering galore. “That’s so sweet of you.” She ignored the muffled sound of disgust that came from Brady and swept Toby up in her arms. He could put on his shoes and socks outside.
“Ten minutes,” she told Brady, warning him with her glare not to embarrass her. He still rolled his eyes at her the same way he’d been doing for all of her life.