Hard to Handle

handsome, no doubt about it. From his stylish black-framed glasses to the enviable cheekbones beneath them. But the seriousness in his eyes and his firm, flat line of a mouth made him less approachable than Aiden. She turned back to Aiden, his familiar smiling face like a blast of warmth.

“Would you like a Blue Martini?” Aiden asked, moving her hand to his arm. “They’re the signature drink of the evening.”

“Please.” Happiness trickled molasses-slow down her spine. She liked being here with him. She’d probably like being anywhere with him. She may as well loosen up and have some fun, especially since she planned on convincing Aiden to have some fun, too. The kind of fun that wouldn’t require a scrap of the clothing he wore now, she thought with a devilish grin. But first, she had to play the game. They were on a date. Sadie was good at dating. She practically had a 4.0 in dating.

“Your brother seems very…professional,” she told him as they meandered through the well-dressed crowd.

Aiden chuckled. “He’s a serious guy. Brilliant head for business. He and Shane will make good partners.”

Shane had a brilliant head for business, too, but according to Crickitt, he managed to keep a firm hold on his playfulness. Landon struck her as the type to ream the waiter if his martini wasn’t precisely chilled to a preferred temperature.

Blue drinks in hand, Sadie and Aiden made their way to one of the chairless tables scattered around the room. There was an occasional stuffed sofa or ottoman along the wall, but they were full.

“They don’t want people lounging, do they?” she asked.

“They don’t want them to eat much, either.” He cast a dubious glance at the table of plated tapas in beautiful but miniscule portions.

“The prosciutto bruschetta looks delicious,” Sadie said.

“It is,” Aiden said. “I’ve had about fourteen of them.”

She laughed, but Aiden didn’t join her. His smile dropped, shoulders tightened. She followed his eyeline to the man approaching. He was dressed in black pants and a white shirt, and his sleeves were pushed over forearms decorated with tattoos. This had to be Aiden’s other brother. His facial features were a mix of Aiden and Landon, but his hair was several shades darker. The bump on his nose was his own and hinted that this Downey brother had lived a rougher life than the other two. A shock of dark hair dropped over his forehead when he nodded at Aiden, his mouth set in a hard line.

“Sadie,” Aiden said, his tone careful. “My brother Evan.”

Evan gave her a curt nod but kept his hands in his pockets. She retracted the hand she held out for him and clutched her purse under her arm instead.

“Lyon is a great kid,” she said. To her surprise, Evan’s face broke into a small smile.

He shrugged one shoulder. “He’s his mother.”

She cast a sideways glance at Aiden. A muscle in his jaw ticked and Sadie inched closer to him, brushing his arm with hers. Aiden wrapped an arm around her waist and took a breath, calming some now that she’d reminded him she was here.

Tension strung between these two in a practically visible cord. Sadie remembered what Aiden told her in her kitchen, about how his brothers held Aiden responsible for having taken their mother to Oregon. Half of her wanted to lecture Evan and defend Aiden. The other half of her knew exactly how Evan felt. She’d been betrayed back then, too. No matter how righteous Aiden’s reasoning, Sadie had been hurt. And recovering would take time, because hurt…well…it hurt. There wasn’t much anyone could do besides wait it out.

Evan took his hand from his pocket and ran a hand through his hair. A tattoo of a bird decorated the inside of his forearm. She grasped his wrist, startling him, but he let her look. Not just a bird, then, she thought as she turned his arm to get a better look. A sparrow. Holding a string of hearts in its beak. One heart had snapped from the rest and was broken in two.

“Lyon’s mom?” she guessed.

Evan’s mouth turned down as he studied the artwork on his arm like he hadn’t looked at it in a while. “Yeah.”

She kept her hand on him, letting her palm warm his skin. When he met her eye, she said, “I’m sorry.”

His eyebrows met over his nose in a brief flinch. “Thank you,” he said with a nod.

Sadie released his arm. She knew Lyon’s mother had passed away, but Sadie wasn’t sure if she and Evan were a couple when she died. It was clear from the anguish darkening Evan’s blue eyes that they were. And it made Sadie’s chest ache to see how much the loss still hurt him.

As badly as she and Aiden’s breakup had been, at least he was here next to her. She could touch him, look into his eyes, talk to him.

A bit of ink peeked out of Evan’s sleeve and a design tracked up his other arm. “I like your tats,” Sadie said, hoping to steer the conversation onto smoother terrain. “Aiden’s is really good. Did you do it?”

Evan’s mouth turned down and he cast an angry look at his brother. “You have a tattoo?”

Oops.

“When?” Evan demanded.

“After Mom…” Aiden didn’t finish, his posture going rigid.

Sadie tipped her head in Landon’s direction, hoping the mention of their oldest brother would end this conversation. “What about him? Does he have any?”

“If he did, I’d have done them,” Evan grumbled.

“Ev.” Aiden’s tone was a warning.

Sadie looked over at Landon again. A glaringly beautiful woman approached, her long honey-colored curls dripping down her lithe, lean frame. She turned and Sadie nearly swallowed her tongue. Lissa Francine? Lissa, a lingerie model and runway queen, was here in the enviable flesh. Sadie would trade her entire shoe collection to have a body like hers. Lissa leaned in and said something to Landon. Sadie didn’t think it was possible for him to look less comfortable until his face twisted into a grimace. He followed her woodenly across the room in measured, reluctant steps.

Sadie was about to point out the celebrity in their midst when Evan muttered, “Nice to meet you,” and brushed by them, wandering toward the food.

“He’s cheery,” Sadie said.

”You should have seen him after Rae died,” Aiden told her. “I actually think this is him being cheery.”

“Sorry about the mentioning the tattoo.”

His mouth relaxed and he palmed her back. “You didn’t know.” He slid his eyes down her body and back up, tucking her closer to whisper into her ear. “You look good enough to eat.”

Her knees nearly buckled.

“Speaking of eating,” he said, backing away from her, “if you expect to get a meal out of these hors d’oeuvres, you’d better grab ’em before someone else does.”

After Sadie had eaten her weight in mini crab cakes and was on her second blue drink, Aiden had gone to the bar for a refill. Sadie chose to hang at a table rather than go with him. She sent a wave across the room to Crickitt, who shrugged in apology as she hobnobbed with a few of the company’s mucky-mucks. Sadie waved her off with a shake of her head. Shane had made Crickitt full partner; Sadie understood that she needed to work the room.

“You must be Sadie.”

Sadie turned to find a woman with chestnut-colored hair and kind blue eyes smiling at her. She was Sadie’s height, and in flats no less, Sadie realized as she scanned her simple, attractive black dress and shoes. “I am.”

“Angel Downey-McCormick.” She shook Sadie’s hand. “My brother’s been hiding you from me all evening.”

Sadie emitted an uncomfortable laugh. “I—”

“Thank you.”

Sadie blinked at her. “For?”