“Yes, sir.”
There was cheekiness in both Michaela’s answer and her eyes when she said that. Lewis’s hand actually itched to lay a little smack on that sexy ass of hers.
“You gotta love the brats,” Robert Jessop said.
It was an off-the-cuff sort of comment. A throw-away line. Or it would have been, Lewis mused, if it had been said at any other time by any other person in this town.
But here and now, and aimed at him by Robert Jessop about Michaela Powell?
There’s nothing off the cuff or throw away about that at all, damned Dom. Which, in the end, was just as well, since he was most definitely falling in love with the woman.
It was all he could do not to close his eyes as that truth reverberated inside his mind. Well, fuck.
He set away for the moment the other implication of Robert Jessop’s words—that he recognized the maybe not-so-latent Dom in Lewis.
He met Robert Jessop’s gaze. There was no mistaking the smirk the other man wore.
In the face of Robert Jessop’s roaring confidence, Lewis found himself unable—or maybe unwilling—to play any games at all. So he addressed the man’s last comment.
“So I’m discovering.”
Lewis felt like smirking when his simple sentence didn’t register with Michaela, who was busy watching Robert bandaging her wound and then using the gauze to, as he promised, bind her two fingers together.
When he was finished, she held it up and looked like she was going to say something. Then she shook her head and gave them all a sweet smile, instead.
Lewis had no trouble understanding what she’d considered saying, as the way she’d held up her index finger and middle finger together looked as if she was flipping them all a super-sized bird.
Randy shook his head, his grin the one he wore when he was really amused. In that moment, it gave Lewis great comfort to know that he and his best friend—in many ways, his brother—were on the same page when it came to Michaela Powell.
He and Randy both shook Robert’s hand and then stood back silently as he gave their woman a hug.
“If you have any questions at all, call me.”
Questions about what? Her hand or dealing with the men on either side of her?
Everything he knew about the way Dominants behaved, which admittedly wasn’t much despite his innate understanding of his own nature, told him that if it came down to it, Robert’s first instincts would always be to protect any woman. Which really was kind of hard to object to when he thought about it.
“I will. Thanks.”
They stepped outside. The door to the clinic was shaded, thanks to a large live oak that grew just to the west of the building. The shade did little to ease the heat of the day. Just past one, second week of July, and it was sweltering.
“How about we head over to Lusty Appetites for lunch?” Lewis asked.
The restaurant, if he recalled correctly, had AC.
“Perfect. I actually made a promise to myself, when I knew I was going to stay here, to make an effort to come into Lusty more than I had in the past.”
“It’s a nice town,” Randy said. “Weird, when I think about the fact that so many people here are actually related to us.”
They’d parked by the clinic, and even though it wasn’t all that far, Lewis drove them over to the restaurant. As they got out of the pickup, Randy looked across the street. “I’ll join you in a moment.”
Randy headed over to the drugstore. Lewis didn’t have to ask why. He took Michaela’s hand and led her into the restaurant.
“Hey, Aunt Bernice.” It hadn’t surprised Lewis to learn the woman worked part time in the restaurant her daughter-in-law Kelsey owned. He’d already figured out that most of his Texas relatives didn’t have to work for a living if they didn’t want to. It pleased him that rather than living life as a woman of leisure, his aunt, like most of the family, kept busy.
“Oh, Lewis, Michaela, hello! Will Randy be joining you?”
“Yes, ma’am. He’ll be right in. How are those two new grandbabies of yours?”
Bernice Benedict had a lovely smile. “They’re doing so well! Coming up on four months old. I swear they’re the most adorable babies, ever. And their big sister? My goodness, Mandy is just like a little mother with them.”
Bernice showed them to a table by the window. “I’ll bring you the menus. The soup today is Leesa’s Texas Cowboy Soup. It’s really good, and it comes with either a side of some cornbread croutons or regular crackers. Do y’all want tea?”
“Tea’s good,” Lewis said. “I think Randy would like some, too.”
“Milk for me, please,” Michaela said.
Bernice was back in less than two minutes with menus and their tea. “How’s your hand, sweetheart?” she asked Michaela.
“Healing, thanks. Dr. Jessop credits the fact I’m a devoted milk drinker as the reason I didn’t suffer a shattered bone. And thank you so much for that chicken soup and bread. It was exactly what I wanted when I awoke after a long sleep.”
“You’re welcome. When I was a girl, my mother told me that, when I got old, I’d be grateful to have drunk my milk every day.” She ran her hand down Michaela’s left arm. “A puncture is bad enough,” Bernice said. “But it’s good to see that some things, done right, do still have the right results.”
Lewis wouldn’t say that he was a particularly insightful man, but he had the sudden sense that something was bothering the older woman.
“Is something wrong, Aunt Bernice?”
Bernice Benedict nodded. “We just had some sad news from New York. You know Jacqui, Will, and Norm Kendall? Jackie is the manager of the bookstore that’s attached to us, right over there.” She pointed to the back of the restaurant, where an archway opened to Nancy’s Books and Things. “They’ve been in New York for a couple of weeks, visiting their family there.”
“I do,” Michaela said. Then her eyes widened. “There’s nothing wrong
