Page 16 of Tyler

His brother grinned. “Ty, you know perfectly well you do not need to know a woman to like her.”

True. He muttered an oath and shoved a hand through his hair. “But I don’t want to.”

Gabe laughed. “Sorry, bro, but it doesn’t work that way.”

“Yeah, well, it should.”

His brother sat back in his chair and grinned widely. “She really got to you, huh? Made you feel it?”

Ty muttered a curse. “Glad you’re amused.”

“You should’ve seen yourself with her yesterday,” Gabe continued as if Ty hadn’t spoken. “The way you were in protection mode was cute. You might be in denial, but everyone there could feel the connection between you two.”

Ty grimaced. “Don’t ever say the word cute. It doesn’t sound right coming from you.”

Gabe laughed again. “Affirmative. Anything else?”

He shook his head.

“So, you’re not denying the connection?”

He blew out a breath. His brother was too damned astute. “No, but I’m hoping it was just a one-off thing.”

“Whoa.” Gabe held up his hands. “Good luck with that. I had the exact same thoughts with Lyndsey when we first met. But why don’t you want to be attracted to Piper?”

Ty exhaled. “Erika was—”

“Erika was a conniver,” Gabe said, cutting him off. “Do not base all women off her, especially Piper Monroe. She’s the real deal, Ty. She would never do to you what Erika did.”

Ty stilled, narrowing his eyes. “You know something. Oh, shit…you ran a background check on her, didn’t you?”

Gabe shrugged. “This morning. I needed to see if she had any enemies, but I already knew how stellar her character was yesterday, thanks to Rylee.”

Their sister?

“Seems the girls had aget to know yousession at ESI yesterday.”

He nodded. “Yeah, they were doing their morning coffee thing.”

A lot of laughter could be heard coming from that room. He could tell which was Piper’s. It had a light tone.

“Well, they found out that Piper was married.”

Married?

Shit. His heart dropped to his gut. “She was?”

Was she separated? Divorced? He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more.

“No, she didn’t leave her husband, Ty,” Gabe said, as if reading his mind. “She’s a widow.”

This time his heart hit the floor. “A widow? But she’s so young.”

“Twenty-eight,” Gabe informed. “She was twenty-four when her husband died of cancer.”

Damn. His chest squeezed, partly from compassion and partly from a shit-ton of guilt at assuming she’d left the guy.

It sucked that his mind had automatically gone there. She didn’t deserve that.

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