Choosing the Right Man (NICE GIRL TO LOVE Book Three) Page 3

  “So are we going to talk or are you going to take a swing at me?” he asked with a smirk.

  The latter. Brian was sorely tempted to do the latter. He spun around and glared at Connor. “You told me you were going to step aside to give me a chance with Abby.”

  All humor faded from his brother’s face. “Yes, a chance. To see if there was something more than friendship there between you two. I never said I was just going to give her up.”

  What the— “So this was just some sort of twisted challenge for you? To have her realize that she really does have feelings for me only to try and steal her back?!” Who does that?

  Connor grit his teeth and sighed wearily. “Of course not. I just…I wanted her to figure out her true feelings about you before…”

  “Before what? Before you deigned to let her surpass your dumb-ass one-month rule?”

  A hard edge slashed across Connor’s features. “Not all of us are like you, Brian,” he growled in defense. “Love doesn’t just come easily to everyone.”

  Easy? Was the man a total moron? “You think everything I went through with Beth was easy?”

  Connor blanched. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Criminy. For an ivy league grad, you’ve got to be one of the most idiotic people I know. Love isn’t easy or hard. It’s a choice you actively make despite all that. I choose to let people in and let myself care about them, regardless of how easy or hard it may be. The only reason you haven’t been in love is because you’ve never chosen to be, you jackass.”

  “Until now,” interjected Connor quietly.

  Brian stilled and registered for the first time how tortured Connor looked.

  It was all there—the confusion, the helplessness, and that damn irrepressible softening in his features that a man got when he was thinking about the woman he couldn’t get out of his head. Shit.

  “You’re in love with Abby.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.”

  Every gene he shared with his brother jerked in sympathy. But only for a brief moment before his annoyance came racing back to the helm twofold, eclipsed only by the flashing memories of how hurt Abby had been all winter.

  That just led to plain, white-hot anger.

  “Then what the hell were you thinking leaving her the way you did?” Remembering the few times he’d caught Abby covering up her tears, or worse…the few times she hadn’t been able to, had fresh rage-soaked agitation charging through him.

  Screw talking. Brian drew back and rammed his fist into Connor’s jaw.

  Connor staggered a step and smiled through the trail of blood seeping out of the corner of his mouth. “You want to go a few rounds like in the good ole days?”

  All the adrenaline in his body went on full deployment. Sounded fan-friggin-tastic to him. True, fighting never solved anything between them growing up but hell if hadn’t felt good to do it anyway. Circling his brother as they moved off onto the grass, Brian found himself smiling as well.

  Until Connor shot forward and flipped him on his ass with a double-leg takedown.

  Sonofabitch!

  CHAPTER THREE

  A SPLIT SECOND LATER, Brian watched, in downright shock, as Connor dropped and tumbled over him, yanking his left arm back and nearly out of its socket. When the hell did Connor learn to do an arm bar? And a nasty one at that.

  “See what happens when you bulk up to the size of The Incredible Hulk, little brother? It slows you down.”

  Smug bastard. Pivoting, Brian got control of one of Connor’s legs and rolled. But Connor was ready for him. He twisted out and shoved forward, slamming Brian back into a guard position, crushing down until Brian felt his lungs trying to breathe around his own knees.

  The fricker was pulling jiu jitsu on him. Brian almost laughed out loud. Damn if he wasn’t starting to have fun. “You learned MMA,” he managed to gasp out as he freed his legs and hooked one back for a sweep, tangling Connor up into a quick chokehold. “That’s a little extreme. Couldn’t you just have gotten Abby more of those obnoxious flower arrangements throughout the past six months instead?”

  In the next instant, he saw stars. Connor’s foot clipped him on the side of the head with surprising viciousness. His own fault, really, for insulting the man about his flowers and all.

  This time Brian did laugh. And he just kept laughing as they kept right on grappling and basically making a huge mess out of the lawn.

  Served their mother right for instigating this.

  Brian would have to remember to thank her on the way out.

  Because her devious plan was working. After who knows how long later—between jabs, kicks, joint-locks and the occasional uncalled-for punch for shits and giggles—they’d managed to talk their way through to a semi-tolerable compromise. Or an understanding, at least. And all it took was a few bruised organs, and maybe a majorly sprained ligament or two.

  “I knew it! Stop it, both of you!”

  Brian peeked out from under the dirt-covered forearm smothering his face and saw Abby racing toward them, shouting panicked, irate curses along the way. When they simply ignored her and clocked each other with another set of bell-ringing blows, she then did the unbelievable.

  She dropped an atomic f-bomb on their asses.

  Both of the brothers froze.

  “Get up! Now!” Uh oh, she was busting out the teacher voice and the mom voice in one. So not good.

  Brian quickly yanked his knee off of the side of Connor’s neck and Connor instantly stopped trying to make Brian’s elbow triple-jointed.

  “What the heck are you two doing?!” she barked in all her lioness glory. “You’re grown men behaving like children!”

  Connor gave him a look that said, ‘You take this.’

  To which, Brian silently shot back a, ‘Hell no.’

  With a drawn-out sigh, his stupidly brave brother offered a quick and very vague, “We were just ironing out the details of our plan regarding this...errr, situation we have on our hands.”

  Brian took an ever so subtle step back.

  Abby swung the entirety of her frustration over to Connor with the weight of a falling axe. “So let me get this straight, you were ironing out a plan—with your fists—that affects all three of us, and you failed to include me in the discussion?”

  Her eyes narrowed when both brothers chose to treat that as a rhetorical question. Of course their silent solidarity seemed to rile her up even more. “Okay, enlighten me—what’s this brilliant plan the two of you came up with?”

  Crap, don’t answer that!

  “Well—”

  Huh, Connor the great, slayer of the impossible court trials actually sounded nervous about presenting his case. If Brian weren’t smack dab at the center of the shit storm that was about to hit the fan, he’d be wholly entertained by the exchange.

  “Since we know that you didn’t exactly have a normal ‘courtship’ with either one of us…”

  Yeah, maybe another step back just to be safe.

  “Brian and I decided that we could have a joint custody dating agreement with you.” Connor looked over to his side and did a double take when he saw he was standing there alone.

  Abby exploded. “Joint custody dating agreement?! Of all the ridiculous, insulting plans you two could have cooked up,” she fisted her two tiny hands on her hips and looked ready to throw some blows of her own. “Of all the asinine solutions to our problems, this is what you guys came up with? A surefire way to get us guest spots on a talk show?!”

  Finally, Brian re-engaged. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. ‘Joint custody’ was probably a poor choice of words.” He glared over at his brother. “We haven’t established any ground rules beyond a few basic tenets but basically, all it means is that we’ll just do some regular non-exclusive dating. The kind most normal couples do before getting into anything serious.”

  “Non-exclusive meaning you guys are going to date whoever you want?”

  “No,” they replied in unison.<
br />
  She lifted an eyebrow. “So…non-exclusive meaning I’ll date whoever I want?”

  “No!” This time it was a dolby-rich shout in stereo.

  “Just us,” growled Connor.

  “Which is where the joint custody part comes in,” added Brian when she simply stared at them like they were out of their minds. “We’ll switch off weeks. And promise not to interfere or contact you when it’s not our week. Until you’ve made your decision.”

  “Oh, well that makes more sense. So you weren’t thinking a feature in a talk show, you two were thinking more along the lines of the world’s weirdest, most awkward reality dating show—The Bachelorette, the totally twisted and wrong edition. Lovely.” She skewered them with a look.

  “It’s no different than regular dating,” argued Connor.

  “Except for the fact that you two are brothers!”

  He shrugged. “I’ve dated sisters before.”

  Brian bashed the back of his fist into Connor’s chest. “Dude, you aren’t helping.”

  “Neither of you are helping.” Abby folded her arms over her chest. “We’re not doing this. What’s the alternative?”

  The guys glanced at each other. “We keep fighting, I guess.” Brian grinned at the prospect.

  Abby stomped her foot on the ground. Her frown as ferocious as a ferret’s.

  Again, if they weren’t in the middle of a nuclear-infused negotiation, Brian would find the situation all kinds of funny right about now.

  “What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with this joint custody dating?” she asked finally, calling forth that level-headed researcher inside of her that always thought every decision to death.

  Both he and Connor instantly took a microscopic step forward.

  Because the fact that she was considering it meant an invisible checkered flag had just been dropped. Meanwhile, the vulnerable worry in her eyes was like the bat signal for any and every protective, red-blooded male in the vicinity. It was a potent combination. Brian had no doubt in his mind that if Abby weren’t standing there, he and Connor would be going another round right now to work off all the alpha compulsions she was inadvertently triggering in them both.

  A coyote gleam crept into Connor’s eyes.

  But Brian beat him to the first punch.

  “Honestly, I think Connor would like to show you that he’s attempting to grow a heart in that tin man chest of his,” he fired off the first verbal shot, grinning when his brother tossed him a scowl scalded to a temperature that could deep fry a turkey. “Luckily for him, he has a lot of fertilizer to work with.”

  That made Connor’s lips twitch to the side in reluctant humor. “I’m going to take the higher road and resist the urge to slander my brother,” asserted Connor, breezily. “Because we all know that unlike Brian here, my maturity would never be questioned by the Cheez-It cracker testers.”

  A tiny chuckle escaped from Brian’s chest, which inspired one in Connor as well.

  Abby slapped two hands against her face and groaned. “Seriously? Dealing with one of you on something like this is bad enough. Together, you’re a million times worse.”

  “This idea isn’t that horrible is it?” reasoned Connor, no longer grinning. “Why not just try it for a few weeks? What could it hurt?”

  Her silence loudly answered, ‘everything.’

  No one could dispute the possibility.

  “Do you have a better solution?” asked Brian gently, largely hoping she actually did because though he agreed with Connor’s goals and rationale, he absolutely detested the idea of him dating Abby.

  After a few exasperated beats, she shook her head. “No.”

  “We’ll keep all weirdness to a minimum,” assured Connor. “We won’t contact you when it’s not our week, and we’ll never talk about each other when it is.”

  Long, huffed out moments later, Abby conceded. “Fine. But if we’re doing this, there will be absolutely no sex, obviously,” she made a face, “and no kissing or anything of the sort, either.” She frowned, looking like she considered herself crazy for even contemplating it. “We’ll just hang out. Treat it like a blind date.”

  With his lawyer rebuttal face on, Connor opened his mouth to say something and Brian nailed him again in the chest. “Shut. Up.” Between the three of them, they were well aware that Connor’s boundaries for a blind date far differed from Abby and Brian’s.

  Quickly turning back to Abby, he nodded. “Those terms sound acceptable.”

  Abby spun on her heel and stalked back over to the house, muttering under her breath. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”

  Brian stood there for a second watching her stomp away, looking quite adorable in all her fiery annoyance.

  When he looked over and saw Connor doing the same, he shoved him off balance. “Stop staring at her.”

  Connor swung his foot around and took out both of Brian’s knees. “I will if you will.”

  “There now, I knew you two could work things out,” called out Helen from the patio. “I’m taking Abby and Skylar shopping. Try not to kill each other.”

  “...At least not before you move that table I asked you to.”

  “WHAT WERE DAD AND UNCLE CONNER doing outside in the yard for so long?” asked Skylar, climbing in the backseat of Helen’s car.

  Abby exchanged a look with Helen. She couldn’t possibly tell Skylar about this whole joint custody dating thing. It was just be too weird.

  “Ohmigosh, were they working on your SUV?” guessed Skylar bouncing in her seat, clapping excitedly.

  What?

  Abby knew her SUV was the butt of most of her friends’ jokes, mostly since it was held together with more duct tape than metal by now. Still, she was madly attached to it. Fiercely protective of it. She had no intention of replacing it until it had taken its last quart of oil and needed to be towed off her driveway.

  “They’re going to do something to my SUV?” She was seriously contemplating having Helen turn right back around.

  Skylar giggled. “Geez, don’t freak out. It’s nothing bad. Dad just found you another soft-top for your SUV at the junkyard and he needed Uncle Connor’s help to install it since I’m too short. You had him so worried after the last dust storm that he’s been calling every junkyard in Arizona since to find one.”

  “Your dad did that?” Abby felt her lungs grow weightless.

  “Yeah, most of the junkyards just laughed when he told them the make and model of your SUV. The last junkyard we found was the only one that had it. It was so cool, Abby. The junkyard was this massive place with piles and piles of cars all shoved together. They told us the SUV that had the soft top compatible with yours was blue. And that was it. They pointed us to one section of the junk yard that was as big as a football field and told us to go find it. Crazy, right?”

  Helen gasped. “You can’t tell me you went out there with him.”

  Skylar nodded vigorously. “It was fun! We had to shimmy our way between most of the cars and it took us like two hours to find the right one. Dad had to climb over a bunch of cars and trucks to even get to it but he was like on a mission the whole time.”

  Abby smiled. That sounded like Brian. He was as doggedly loyal to her SUV as she was. Not because he loved it like she did. In fact, he hated it. Worried about her driving it farther than a few miles, or at speeds higher than thirty-five miles per hour. But instead of telling her to dump it like everyone else did, he’d just show up every few months to keep changing its oil or tuning up the engine.

  “It’s no big deal, Abby,” he’d always say.

  But it really was.

  Brian got her in ways no one else did. Always had, always would.

  It was in the little things. Like when the electricity would go out in her house, Brian was the only one who knew her house’s ‘time zones.’ She always set her bedroom clock ten minutes fast because she was horrible about getting up, her bathroom and kitchen clock were five minutes less than that because s
he always lost track of time when she was cooking, and the old clock in her dining room—the one that used to belong to her grandfather—needed to be set ahead three minutes upon any reset for it to read the time accurately a few hours later.

  In every way that resonated in her heart, Brian really was the perfect man.

  He just…wasn’t Connor.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SO WHAT’D YOU HAVE TO DO to get me this week, win a coin toss against Brian?” Abby asked without thinking as Connor’s hand accidentally brushed hers across the table, causing the equivalent of a power surge in her brain.

  At Connor’s now innocently-whistling focus on his glass of water, her hackles rose, and all nervousness over this ‘first date’ was quickly forgotten. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?!”

  “Even the Super Bowl is started that way!” he defended, the tiny crinkling at the corner of his eyes his only tell. “Besides, Brian wanted to rock-paper-scissors for you but I told him that was just downright insulting.”

  She smothered the smile that was threatening to make itself known. “You haven’t changed one bit.”

  Then all at once, the humiliating reminder of how she’d spent months waiting for him to return extinguished her good humor in a flash.

  He noticed.

  “I didn’t mean to stay away for so long, Abby.”

  This time, it was her glass of water that was the star of the show. “Then why did you?” she asked quietly, doing everything she could to convey a casualness she certainly didn’t feel.

  “I didn’t think Brian was going to take so damn long to try and sweep you off your feet. Hell, I wouldn’t have.”

  Scowling, she looked up, utterly confused. “Wait, what?” Understanding tumbled over her like a twenty-foot wave. “You two talked about this before our month was over. You told Brian to pursue me?” She shoved away from the dining table. “And now, what? You’re back because you don’t like that your brother is playing with your toy? Was this all some big game to you?”

  “Dammit, you and Brian really do think alike.” He clamped a hand on her wrist to prevent her from running out of his house. “Do you honestly think that little of me?” His eyes drilled into her, pinned her to the spot.