Page 22 of To Hold and Protect

Kade reached down and pulled him up. “No better time.”

“You know what...you’re right. You and Tristan go start a fire, and I’ll bring the box down.” He grabbed the whiskey bottle and handed it to Kade. “Can’t have a bonfire without the booze.”

As he passed the theater room, the sound of a movie playing caught his attention, and he peeked in. Skylar and Harper were kicked back on the recliners, bowls of popcorn in their laps, watchingPretty Woman, a movie they’d seen a half a dozen times at least.

If he hadn’t run Willow off, she’d probably be in there watching it with them, and a stab of guilt hit him. It wouldn’t kill him to be nicer to her. Wasn’t her fault she disturbed him. Without bothering them, he headed to the attic.

The box was in the back corner, shoved under an old desk. It had taken him a while to find it, and as he’d sat on the dusty floor, and as he flipped through her sketchbooks, emotions had warred within him. A part of him hated her for how she’d treated his brothers—and him when they were home—but there was another part that held a sort of...fondness, he guessed was the right word.

Why she’d showed him a side of herself that no one else was allowed to see, he’d never know. She’d taught him how to draw hands, the part of a body he’d had the most trouble with. She’d taught him about colors and shading. But in all the years she’d secretly been nice to him and taught him about art, he’d never known she’d been sketching him.

He learned about the other men when he started high school. She showed him a few of her drawings, asking his opinion. He was scandalized in the beginning, but she told him there was no shame in the human body, that her sketches were art. To prove it, she took down her art books in the library that was off-limits to him and his brothers, and showed him paintings of nudes—both male and female—by famous artists. He never thought to ask her why she didn’t draw female nudes.

Then during his senior year of high school, he filled up his sketch pad and knew his aunt had a supply of blank ones. She’d gone to the grocery store, and not wanting to wait for her to come home so he could ask for one, he went into her room—a place he was banned from, but she’d never know—to get a new one.

He could be in and out before she got home, and she’d never miss one from the stack. A sketch pad with his name on it was on her desk, and curious, he flipped it open. His heart dropped to his stomach at seeing the drawing of him as a younger boy...nude. “What?” he whispered as if afraid she’d hear him, catch him. As he flipped through the pages of sketches of him naked, bile rose in his throat, and he ran out of his aunt’s room.

The next time she left the house, he searched for and found more sketch pads filled with nudes of him, going back to when he and his brothers were brought to live with her. As far as he could determine, the one of him getting out of the bathtub was the first one she’d sketched.

Sick in his stomach, feeling betrayed and violated, he fled his aunt’s room without a new sketch pad. Instead, he spent the next few days applying for a passport, creating a portfolio, and filling out an application to send to an art school in France...as far away from his aunt as he could think to get.

If he’d known then he’d be betrayed again—and in the worst possible way—in France because he was the boy who couldn’t help falling in love, he still would have gone for one reason. Everly. His treasure and reason for living.

He hefted the box and carried it to where his brothers had rolled a barrel to the middle of the yard and had a blazing fire going. In between passing the whiskey around, they took turns tossing sketch pads into the fire. The pages caught fire, the edges turned black, and then curled before turning to ashes and floating away. It was liberating.

“A naked man broke into a church,” Kade said. “The police chased him around and finally caught him by the organ.” He passed the whiskey bottle to Parker.

“Don’t laugh. Don’t encourage him,” Tristan said.

“Seriously, Kade?” Parker said, then laughed so hard he tripped over his feet. He blamed the whiskey for his feet misbehaving, but he was liberated, and wasn’t that something?

Chapter Eleven

What was that racket? Willow peeked out her spy-on-the-neighbors bedroom window. A fire was burning in a barrel in the middle of the backyard, and the three brothers stood around it, passing a bottle around, tossing what looked like notebooks into the fire, and laughing themselves silly.

They were drunk, had to be. She watched them for a few minutes...well, her gaze was mostly on Parker. He’d pulled off the band holding his ponytail, and his hair was loose. What would it feel like to comb her fingers through it? Was it as soft and silky as it looked?

“Stop it,” she hissed. She was on a time-out from men. No thinking about how soft Parker’s hair was. She dropped the curtain back in place. She needed to write, not waste time fantasizing about a sexy grouch’s hair.

A few hours later, she reached her minimum word count for the day, but was on a roll and kept going until her eyes began to burn. It was getting late, and she had a busy day tomorrow, so she logged off her laptop. She wished she hadn’t signed up for the book fair and signing in Charlotte, but her travel schedule had been booked at the beginning of the year, before she’d broken up with her fiancé and inherited a house that was going to drain her savings account dry to get it ready to sell.

Fortunately, Charlotte was a little under a two-hour drive, so she’d go tomorrow afternoon, do the book signing the next day on Saturday, and come home that evening, back in time for her tour of the Church house and to see Parker’s art. She wasn’t about to miss that.

Everly was supposed to come for a visit tomorrow afternoon, and although Willow had planned to leave for Charlotte earlier, she’d wait to go until after her time with the little girl. Something else she was looking forward to.

She yawned, stretched her arms over her head, and wiggled her fingers. It had gotten quiet next door, and she went to the window. The fire was out, and the brothers were gone from the yard, but lights were on in what she now knew was Parker’s studio. The windows didn’t have any coverings, but the only thing visible from her angle was a daybed and what appeared to be a small kitchen.

Was he in there, painting? And so what if he was? What did it matter to her? She dropped the curtain, determined to stop thinking about Mr. Grouchy Pants.

Bells chimed a little after two, and Willow went to the door, expecting to find Andrew and Everly on the other side. Instead, there stood Grouchy Pants wearing a paint-stained navy blue T-shirt with the Marsville Fire Department logo on the chest, and his little girl perched on his hip.

Be still my heart.

A few awkward seconds passed while she stared at him, and he stared back. Then his brows lifted at the same time Everly yelled, “Miss Willow! I’m here.”

Willow shook herself out of her that-was-about-the-hottest-thing-she’d-ever-seen trance. “So you are.” She glanced up at Parker. “I thought Andrew was bringing her over.”

“As you can see, I’m not Andrew.” He smiled...freaking smiled at her. “One eager ladybug delivered as promised.” He set Everly down, then slid a canvas tote off his shoulder. “She brought art supplies so she can draw with you. I’ll be back in an hour to pick her up.” After handing Willow the tote, he leaned down and kissed Everly on the cheek. “You be good, okay?”

---