“You think you're gonna go unnoticed?”
“Of course. I’ll blend in.”
“Yeah, sure,” was Spencer’s muttered response.
Max gave him a slightly puzzled but also slightly pleased look. “I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Zander couldn’t help but glance at Caroline, who gave him a little smile that made him want more shared secret moments.
Spencer opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say a word, the table was surrounded.
Zeke dropped into the chair to Zander's left, Fletcher took the chair straight across, with their cousin Owen grabbing the chair next to Caroline. He gave her a big grin and stretched his arms out across the chairs on either side of him—Fletcher’s and hers. Their cousins Josh and Mitch commandeered the two remaining chairs at the table.
Zander groaned. He didn’t know what this was about exactly, but he suspected it had something to do with him and a certain gorgeous blonde. Not that the redhead to his right hadn't caught some attention as well. But he knew his brothers and cousins would be more focused on the woman his attention was focused on. And he was sure it was very clear who that was.
“So you're dating a girl who showed up here in a wedding dress about a week ago?” Zeke asked him, as if that woman wasn’t sitting right there. But Zeke’s grin was hardly one of censure.
Caroline’s eyes were wide, but she simply crossed her arms and legs and leaned back in her chair.
Max looked around the table and sat back down in her chair.
Clearly they were both settling in for the show.
Zander rubbed the middle of his forehead. This was so not what he needed. “What makes you think I'm dating her?”
“She's still in town, she's”—Zeke looked Caroline over—“wearing our girls’ clothes.” He winked at her. She ran a hand over her t-shirt with a smile.
“She's hanging out with the lion cub, she’s doin’ yoga with Paige, she’s even answered the Goat Phone,” Owen said.
Yeah, she was doing all those things.
See? It was not about the yoga pants. Not really.
Zander scrubbed the spot between his eyes a little harder but knew that would do no good to reduce the headache that was brewing. This was a twin-brother headache. There was no cure.
He sighed, dropped his hand, and looked at the six men who sat at the table with him. Not one of whom could be called good and chaste and a total gentleman. Every one of his cousins and brothers had been complete playboys in their time, some more than others, but until they’d fallen madly in love—something they'd all done now with the exception of Spencer—they had all enjoyed plenty of female company and very little of it had been called dating.
Then he looked at Caroline.
He wasn’t dating her.
It was a lot more than that.
“She had a few really bad days,” he finally said.
Caroline arched one eyebrow, but gave him a half-smile.
Fletcher, his older brother, grinned and nodded. “And you're the epitome of the perfect civil servant, right? Protect and…serve.”
Zander knew he had to go along with this. He could not let them think that he'd actually been worried about Caroline. That would indicate that there was some danger around her, which might lead to questions about what she was messed up in and the people who had come looking for her.
Spencer had surreptitiously gathered up the papers and Max had held her bag open, so that he could slip them inside before anyone else at the table had noticed what was on them. But Zander didn't even want them knowing that there was an investigation going on or that Spencer was here for any kind of police work.
“Just doing my best to make sure that everyone who visits Autre leaves with good feelings about the town,” Zander finally said.
All the guys chuckled and Owen nodded. “Something I used to take very seriously myself, man.”
Owen had done more than his share of entertaining the tourists who came to Autre for swamp boat tours. Ironically his wife was an Autre girl, so all of his work in the name of “tourism” had not really mattered in the end. Josh and Mitch, however, could both claim to have done their part to make sure visitors to Autre were quite happy and wanted to stick around. Both Tori and Paige were from out of town and it had only taken one visit to Autre to convince them to move permanently.
“Well, I’m so glad to hear that Caroline's feeling better after…everything,” Zeke said, clapping Zander on the shoulder. He looked at Caroline. “How long are ya’ stayin’?”
Zander started to respond, though he wasn't sure with what, when Max piped up, “Oh, Caroline and I are going back to New Orleans tomorrow. We have dinner reservations at seven.”
Zander looked at Caroline with a brow up. Was Max saying she was taking Caroline to Octavia’s with her? Caroline nodded, as if understanding his unspoken question.
Bullshit.
He knew he should be glad. Caroline leaving Autre was what he wanted. That had been the goal all along. The sooner the better.
But he wasn’t ready.
That realization hit him hard. And he felt like a total asshole.
Still, it was true.
It was a bad idea, anyway. Max was going to the restaurant to spy on the men on the list and they’d probably all know Caroline. She couldn’t just walk in there after dumping Brantley just a few days ago and hiding out from her family. The wedding had been a surprise, to Caroline anyway, but no one wore a tiara and a huge-assed, jewel-encrusted wedding dress she could barely move in for a small, intimate wedding with only family. Everyone in their social circle had to know about the wedding. And Brantley being left at the altar.
That was what Zander was telling himself anyway.
It wasn’t because he’d been planning on having more time with her. Or because the idea of her leaving suddenly had his gut tightening and his chest feeling like it was compressing his lungs.
Caroline was not going to Octavia’s tomorrow night.
At least, not without him.
“Actually, the four of us are going out tomorrow night,” Zander said. “Double date.”
Max grinned at him and he had the impression that he’d just fallen right into her trap. Spencer, on the other hand, looked like Zander had just punched him.
“Wait. You're going on a date? Like a real date? Not a here-let-me-make-it-all-better-one-night-hook-up thing?” Zeke asked.
Zander looked from his twin to Caroline and opened his mouth, but Caroline beat him to it.
“Excuse me. Do I seem like a one-night stand type of girl?”
She didn’t. She wasn’t. And that was likely the biggest problem of all. He wanted her and knew he wasn’t man enough to just leave her completely the hell alone. But he also knew if he slept with her, she’d take a piece of his heart.
“No. No, you don't.” But Zeke was studying him carefully, and Zander knew that if anyone could figure out there was more going on here than he was letting on, it would be Zeke.
Zander turned his attention to Spencer and Max.
“And then Max, Caroline's best friend, came down to check on her and she and Spencer hit it off so we all decided to go to dinner tomorrow.”
Again Max looked amused. Spencer did not.
“At Octavia’s,” Max confirmed with a nod.