Roman-1(Lane Brothers, Book 5)(187)

“You will apologize to each other right now, and then we’ll all get over it and start planning Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the holidays family is supposed to spend together.”

I can actually feel my skin shrinking as I say it, but I’m gratified when she breaks eye contact with Greg and looks over at me, her surprise clear.

“Don’t get so worked up, Hannah dear. They’re both of them stubborn as mules and impossible to manage. Ask me, I’ve lived with it for years.”

I titter quietly as Bryce Lucas wends his way downstairs and pulls his wife into a soft hug.

“Patty, darlin’, why don’t you say sorry to little Han and stop pretending you’re so full of piss and vinegar. The girl’s perfect for him, and you know it. Not to mention, she’s sturdy enough to actually give us some decent grandbabies.”

My eyes narrow at the “sturdy” remark, and I revise my opinion of the old cuss.

“Dad!”

“Bryce! Calling a woman ‘sturdy’ is the height of insult,” Patricia gasps, slapping softly at his arm.

“I didn’t mean—”

“God help me, I don’t know how I found you charming enough to marry. Honestly, Hannah, I thought I had him house trained better than this. Come along, dear, let’s go have a nightcap.”

“What?”

Am I in fact drunker than I’d assumed? Maybe I’d had more than the two glasses of wine, and I’m now hallucinating. I don’t know, I just feel like I’m suddenly in the twilight zone.

“Mom. Han’s tired.”

“Nonsense. We Lucas woman are never too tired. We’re made of sterner stuff. Now come along, dear. I want to know everything about dearest Nana’s condition, and I think I know someone who would be perfect for your friend Christina.”

She’s got my arm through hers and is towing me along so fast I’m speechless, and apparently so are the men. I look back at Greg pleadingly, and he just shrugs and smiles as he lets his mother pull me towards the messy living room and the drinks bar.

“I don’t understand.”

“Welcome to the Lucas clan. God help you.”





Chapter Thirty Six




Things go from bad to worse after that. I’ve managed to win over the dragon of the Lucas clan, my husband has morphed into the world’s most caring male, and Nana has the very beginning stages of Alzheimer’s.

So yeah, I’d had my three good things. Now it’s time to pay the piper and gird my loins for three humdingers of bad luck.

“I can’t go on a date with Fletcher Pennington!”

We’re sitting at a table close to the window of a new little café just down the street from the Lucas building, and Chris has hardly touched her lunch for the complaints and outright whining she’s decided to subject me to.

“Why not? I met him last weekend when we flew Nana down to Virginia. He’s good looking, he has enough money to buy a small country, and he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met. What’s not to like?” I ask, chewing delicately at the crust of my sandwich.

My stomach’s been off since last weekend, and if I didn’t take the pill every morning at the exact right time — yeah, I’m still anal — I’d be afraid I’m baking a baby somewhere in there.

Chris huffs loudly and flops back in her chair, her shoulders slumping in defeat when an answer doesn’t immediately come to her. I grin and let her off the hook, choosing to be the better person here. She’s my best friend, one I’d lied to continuously about my relationship before coming clean, and I think she deserves a little help, even if she is a big fat liar.

“I know who you really are, so you can cut the crap and just explain to me why you’re being so super cagey.”

Her surprise makes the three hours I’d spent Googling shit well worth Greg’s annoyance the other night. When the man wants some sex time, he gets huffy when I’m engrossed in the art of spying on my best friend.

He’d soon gotten into the spirit of things when I’d confessed my purposes, and he’d even helped me find a lot of stuff through some private detective he knows.

Yeah, I’m not even going to think about why the guy has a private detective on his payroll. It gives me the creeps.

“You know?”

“Yup. I’ve always wondered how that shade of red could be natural. And why you hid in the kitchen on Greg’s birthday.”

“Han, I…”

I stop her with a hand over hers and shake my head. I can see how hard this is for her, and I don’t want to make it harder, but as her friend I think it’s my duty to convince her that hiding from life and pretending to be someone else is the worst possible mistake she can make. I love her enough to give her words right back to her, no matter how annoying those words are.