ROMAN (Lane Brothers Book 5) Page 13

  Mama was almost distraught when she heard one of her boys was a murdering, no-good traitor, and I had to stop her from searching them out herself when I glimpsed her loading the twenty-two that Pop makes her carry around at all times.

  “They are going to be so cheesed when they realize it’s a masked ball and they won’t see them right off the bat,” Paulie mutters, eyeing my ginger ale with a frown that Mama takes note of with way too much glee.

  “They’ll get over it. We’ve been sitting around here for months, just waiting for things to be over. At the rate they’re going, Paulie will be showing before it’s done.”

  Mama’s words shock us all before we all start squealing and crying with excitement. Paulie’s face is priceless, and I feel pity for her when she turns to Mama and shrugs.

  “You’re so nosy, Mama.”

  “Oh pooh! Like I didn’t know two weeks ago when Jared started strutting around like the cock of the walk! Shame on y’all for trying to keep your poor mama in the dark.”

  And that’s how the men find us, all laughing like loons while Tracy and Clari tell some of the most terrible sex jokes I’ve ever heard.

  “You ladies just about done plotting the destruction of the world? We need to eat, women,” Miah growls, grabbing his very pregnant wife up and into his arms.

  The rest follow and I’m grinning by the time Roman and I are alone and he just stands there staring at me with a tender look.

  “You look stunning, baby girl,” he breathes and I grin cheekily, twirling in a circle as he comes closer.

  “Oh yeah, Lane? So you think you could stop being such a wuss and actually ask me what you want to ask me already?” I quip, biting my lip with a smile. “Or should I send back the judge your pop got to come over after the ball to marry our dumb asses?”

  I squeak when he lunges at me and squeezes me so hard that I feel both our heartbeats.

  “You’re ready, baby girl?” he says and I feel my pieces fall right back into place when he smiles so big that I can’t help but smile back.

  “I was born ready, Lane.”

  “But what about my job and stuff? I mean, I called my supervisor yesterday and I’m going in to sign my papers for early retirement, but—”

  “Hush, Roman. I don’t want you to give up something you love because I’ve been a hormonal nag and an idiot. You love your job, and I love you enough to trust that you’ll always come back to me every single time. Now ask me before I change my mind, fool.”

  He sets me down and falls to his knees with a smile and takes my hands with a gruff swallow.

  “Melissa Dobson, my baby girl and the only woman I have ever loved, I’m not going to ask you to marry me, or even beg you to be mine, because where we’re at right now is so much more than a contract or me pleading with you for a little piece of your heart. I will ask you to claim me, though, because it would be my greatest honor if you would tell the world that I am yours,” he rasps, kissing both of my palms with a reverence that is melting my heart.

  I fall to my knees before him, laughing and gasping as the purest joy courses through me.

  “I-I never thought I could have everything I always wanted, and I don’t. But what I dreamed of when I was young is so pale in comparison to what I have now that I don’t even remember the half of it. You do belong to me, and I finally believe it. I belong to you, too, babe. I have since I was fourteen and I developed a huge crush on this senior football captain who didn’t even know I existed.” I laugh, loving the expression that hits his face.

  “Why so shocked, Lane? You and your brothers were hot as shit, and y’all knew it. I just didn’t have the…stones at that point to even breathe near you. And then we grew up and I actually met you, and you know what? You were better than my fantasies. I love you, more than I did even a day ago, and I would really like to marry you and live the next eighty years as your wife and bartender.”

  We’re on the verge of kissing like animals when we hear a chorus of feminine squeals and male curses and I start laughing hard enough that I choke on my spit.

  “Goddammit, Ma! Can’t a man get a lick of privacy around this dump?” he gripes, grinning when Pop pokes his head in and grins.

  “Congratulations. All my ducks are now squared off. Now get out here and show us the ring.”

  “Pop,” Roman groans and I almost moan myself when George grins wickedly and shrugs.

  “You know it’s inevitable, boy.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Roman

  My nerves are strung taught and I’m in battle mode as the first masked bastards start arriving.

  We’re all on edge, every man among us, and I have to fight my instinct to grab Mel and carry her upstairs to the safe room in Pop’s closet just to have some piece of mind.

  I see Miah, Wyatt, Jace, and Jared all tense behind their masks, and it takes a huge leap of faith for me to trust in the women’s plan right now and not close the gates before things get way out of hand.

  It’s a good plan, though, and if I weren’t so antsy about the outcome, I’d have complimented them all for such devious thinking.

  I’m just sweating bullets as each new guest arrives, hidden safely behind full masks and makeup that make it impossible for us to tell who the guests really are.

  “Stop glaring and try to smile, would you, Lane? You’re scaring the guests.”

  “I’d like to fuck a good few of them up for going to this much trouble on such short fucking notice,” I growl, scowling at her chipper mood.

  Are these women not scared of these lunatics? I know I am, and I’ve been dead for God’s sake.

  “Behave. That tracker Tracy planted in the invite will let Clari know when they get to the door, and Prissy and that other girl are still following Lynn. It’s all going to be just fine,” she soothes, stroking her engagement ring with another happy sigh.

  I am happy to report that my Mel, my little grumpkins and the mother of my child, is the only Lane female to ever refuse Ma’s ring. That, alone, is keeping me from snapping at her right now.

  She’s a gem among gems, and I’m tickled by her no-nonsense attitude when she told Ma to put the ring in the safe and keep it for our second child.

  I keep calm for the next two hours as we move to join the guests by assuring myself that everything is fine and that we’re all going to survive this in one piece. Then I see Will Sparrow and about thirty masked bikers all trudge in and start taking up spots around the perimeter of the room.

  God help us all, I think when Ma spots them and immediately start clucking in glee. Only Ma would take a look at hardened criminals and bikers and start plotting how to get them over for regular lunches and marrying them off to every eligible female present.

  “Oh God, please tell me Mama is not introducing Will Sparrow to Prissy Bates,” Mel mutters and I laugh for the first time all night when I see Will’s blue eyes take on a decidedly predatory sparkle when Prissy curls her lip and sneers at his long hair and tatted arms.

  “Well now, that should be interesting,” I muse, grabbing a glass of orange juice from Miah and passing it off to Mel.

  “Interesting? They’ll kill each other in an hour. I met her yesterday and that woman makes me look like Mary fucking Poppins!” she hisses, almost grinning when we hear a feminine snarl and see Will taking stock of Prissy’s ass.

  With his palm.

  That keeps us all entertained for a good ten minutes before I literally feel the shift in the air and Miah tenses beside me.

  “He’s here.”

  I know it like I know that Mel is looking right at the motherfucker without knowing it, and that Wyatt has subtly shifted to hide his wife’s body when Lynn prances in a minute later.

  They’re both masked and concealed to the point that no one should recognize them, but I’ve been a hunter for years, and I know when my prey comes within spitting distance.

  “Will, nine o’clock, bro,” I mutter into my sleeve, covering the move with a cough as I w
atch Will step in front of Prissy and nod imperceptibly.

  I keep my eyes on Case while he moves through the room, and it almost stops my heart when I see him headed for Ma with a swagger that has my hackles rising.

  “Shit.”

  Miah and I are moving a second after I shove Mel behind Jace and Trace, and I see Case reaching into his jacket before we’ve made it halfway across the floor.

  “Ma!”

  The explosion that resonates around the room is deafening, and I hear it only faintly over my pounding heart when I leap the remaining distance, only to see Pop standing over Case, his blue eyes so deadly that I pause for the briefest second to just stare in awe.

  “You and that no-good sister of mine thought you could come into my home and harm my family, boy?” he snarls, aiming his piece straight at Case with a sneer.

  “No one comes near my wife and breathes another day. No one!”

  “George, honey, calm down,” Ma soothes, stroking Pop’s face with a shaking hand and trembling lips. “You’ll give yourself another heart attack.”

  Pop smiles at her tenderly before looking back at Case and nodding at a point just beyond my shoulder.

  “You shot me, your own family,” Case gasps, making Miah growl in warning.

  “You want to know why my family survives while you rats scuttle around like blind fools, thinking we’re defenceless? Because we’d die for each other, every one of us. That’s a family, boy. You and that mother of yours are nothing to me. Enjoy the hole Miah puts you and that viper in.”

  Case is gasping and bleeding as EMTs rush in to stop the bleeding while Lonnie cuffs a screaming Lynn.

  “Why?”

  It’s all I can bring myself to ask when Case just lays there, glaring up at me with so much hate it makes my skin crawl.

  “She deserved everything your father wouldn’t give her. I was going to give her the life she wanted. She’s my mom. I—”

  “Failed.”

  The cops arrive not too long after and I watch as Will and his crew all pile out after them, throwing Miah a chin lift that does not ensure Lynn and Case will make it to the hospital in one piece.

  I can’t even find the will to care as Mel jumps into my arms and smiles at me with enough love to light up the entire city.

  “Well that’s done. A little bit anticlimactic, since I planned to shoot him myself with the gun Mama gave me, but hey, there’s always a next time, right? So, you ready to get married or what, Lane?”

  I start laughing even before she waves the judge over and starts yelling at the murmuring, shocked crowd to shut the hell up so she can legitimize our son.

  To say that my wedding is a fiasco and bound to hit the society pages is the understatement of the century, but who the hell cares at this point? All I want is to marry my girl and get the hell on with life now that we have one to look forward to.

  “Come on, baby girl. Claim me.”

  Epilogue

  Melissa

  “Mason George Lane, get your little butt off my bar before I call your daddy!”

  The little criminal grins at me and totally ignores my yelling when his uncle Will holds out his arms and eggs him on to make a running start and leap off the edge.

  My heart almost explodes outta my throat when he goes airborne and launches his little arms out for Will to catch him, something they do every chance they get now that I’m eight months pregnant with my second child and too big to catch him in time.

  Roman thinks it’s hilarious, and why wouldn’t he? He and Will are thick as thieves now that Will is trying to tie down Prissy, and they delight in ganging up on me and turning my little angel into a menace right before my eyes.

  “I swear to God, if you two do not quit it, I’m going to—”

  “Uh-oh, Mama getting hew gun,” Mason breathes, turning to me with a puppy dog face that just melts me faster than an ice-cream cone in July.

  Damn kid looks just like his father and knows how to play me with all that Lane charm.

  “Baby girl, you’re too unsteady to do any good with old Bertha and you know it. Now give me some sugar,” I hear from my husband as he wraps his arms around me and loves the heck out of my grinning mouth.

  I can’t help but laugh when he lets me go and Clari waddles up, bemoaning her second pregnancy and the unreliability of birth control.

  This is what we have now, and while it’s chaotic and crazy most days in the old Lane household, I can honestly say I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. It’s home, after all.

  Miah and Clari finally got married last year. They have Josh and a daughter, March, with another on the way.

  Wyatt and Ellie have three little rascals—Al, Betty, and Hannah.

  Jace and Trace are the proud parents of little Poppy May Lane, the apple of her daddy’s eye.

  Paulie and Jared have a new baby on the way, and I am genuinely overjoyed about that after she miscarried in the second month of her first pregnancy.

  They went through a trying patch, for a while, but as Pop always say, Lanes endure.

  “You know, we could so totally let Will have Mason for an hour and go play nooky in the store room.”

  I snort and look down at my belly and the humungous size of the rest of me with a raised brow that makes him blush. I got this way exactly eight months ago to the day after he came back from a mission all locked and loaded, thanks to being away three weeks and an extra two days when a hostage taker tried to run.

  Now I have a kid in my belly to prove that a husband who is happy in every aspect of his life is apparently a beast in the sack.

  “Lane, if you can fit me, you, and the belly in that tiny little room, I will cave to anything your wicked heart wants.” I snort, pursing my lips in challenge.

  That earns me a grin and I’m giggling like a schoolgirl after he whispers into my ear and races me to the store room.

  “I love you, Lane,” I whisper when he proves to me that he is a genius and gets us in that position I didn’t think I was capable of anymore.

  “And I’m yours.”

  - END -

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  RED LOVE

  Chapter One

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art is my favorite place in the world, hands down. I love everything about it, from the steps at the entrance to the crowds of people vying to see the art.

  I visit at least once a month without fail and never cease to be spellbound by everything all over again, nevermind how many times I’ve been. My favorite painting is Monet’s Sunflowers.

  It’s the happiest painting I’ve ever seen, or at least, it makes me happy every time I see it.

  My college professor despaired of my one-dimensional view of art the whole time he’d been cursed with me and my uninspired ass. He said my interpretation of art is skewed, flat, and altogether too happy when faced with a world of possibilities.

  All I know is that I love creating something that is happy and colorful, something that brings joy to those who see it. And I love flowers.

  Sue me.

  It’s as I’m leaving that I make the quick decision to pop into the gift store, even though I know I won’t find the print I’ve been looking for. Every time I come here I’m disappointed. I never get my print of the Sunflowers.

  Last year Mom had bought me a tote of the Water Lilies for Christmas. I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s not what I wanted, so I’d aaahhhed and held it aloft and then gone home and hung it from a hook to store extra brush rags.

  “It’s a beauty, this one,” I hear from somewhere to my left. />
  I look back over my shoulder to see a man and what looks like Heidi Klum’s twin sister cooing about a dark blob that’s masquerading as art but is actually a one-way trip to depression. The guy is…hotter than hell, with black hair and a set of lips that make me wish I’d brought my sketchpad and pencils.

  I no longer do that after the last time I’d lost track of time and been asked to leave at closing time. But, and I hate to say this, with the super love I have for landscapes, I want to do something with this man that will dominate the canvas.

  Something about him is just so…

  “Oh, Vincent, I just love all this angst. To see and feel what the artist must have been feeling is so inspiring.”

  I hear the overwrought tittering and grind my teeth against the need to tell the airhead that no matter what people think, they can never know what the artist was thinking.

  I ignore the gushing and go back to my monthly fix, going over every minute detail, every brushstroke, every shadow and shade until I can go home and try my hand at it again. Here’s the print I’ve been searching for, and yet, it’s so pale in comparison.

  “This one is my favorite, but I like The Artist’s Garden at Giverny too,” says a crisply accented voice.

  British. How delicious.

  I know who is standing behind me, and I freeze, feeling my breath stall as shivers and goose bumps break out all over my skin. He’s standing so close I smell his citrusy cologne and feel the heat of his breath at my nape.

  “I…I prefer these stronger colors, but that one’s excellent too. It’s beautiful.”

  It comes out a choked whisper, and I feel myself blush and tense when he leans to my left and peers down at me.

  “You’ve been staring at it for over an hour before coming into the gift store. See something the rest of us don’t?”

  His breath whispers over my ear and cheek, and it’s all I can do not to lean back into him and experience the tightly muscled chest visible beneath his suit jacket and shirt.

  “I-I keep trying to paint it just so…but I can never commit it to memory enough to… The colors are never right.”