Destiny Calls by Samantha Wayland (100 best novels of all time TXT) 📗

Must be a slow day for crime.

Juggling her laptop, her briefcase and the bags from Luigi"s, she struggled into the house.

For the second time in as many days, the only one to greet her was Farley.

Fortunately, this time he didn"t appear to be desperate so she dumped everything on the kitchen table and went straight for the stairs. She was only halfway up when she could hear the boys arguing, loudly, about whether or not the Red Sox"s David “Big Papi” Ortiz was the greatest designated hitter in Major League Baseball history.

Some things never, ever changed.

Standing in the doorway, she took in the scene before her. Patrick and Brandon were propped up in bed watching the game on Patrick"s giant TV. Both were shirtless, with a beer propped on one thigh and a bowl of popcorn jammed in the space between them. Her eyes lingered on the bowl, narrowing.

82

Destiny Calls

“Patrick McLoughlin Brown, your Aunt Ethel would be spinning in her grave if she knew her one-hundred-year-old Limoges soup tureen was being used as a popcorn bowl.”

They both jumped. Patrick instinctively dropped one hand to shield the bowl from her view.

Brandon was the first to recover, his smile somehow both guilty and shameless.

“Busted.”

How many times had they said that when Aunt Ethel had caught the three of them at something? A hundred? A thousand? And she"d forgiven them, time and again.

Amazing how Aunt Ethel had shaped them, taught them right from wrong, guided them when their parents were not paying nearly enough attention. And how they"d loved her, listened to her and bent to her will because she did pay attention. It meant something that she"d cared. It had meant everything.

“Shit. I still miss her all the time,” Destiny said quietly.

Patrick and Brandon nodded, their laughter replaced with equal solemnity.

Shaking off her melancholy, she dug up a fresh smile. “I"ve got a surprise for you two. Stay here, okay?”

They both lifted one eyebrow, which was ridiculously cute, but stayed put.

Excellent. She wanted to have a nice, relaxing night at home so Brandon could continue to heal and they could all spend some time together. Dashing back down to the kitchen, she spread the dinner she"d picked up on a tray and carried it and a decent bottle of Chianti back up to the bedroom. She hadn"t planned on serving dinner in bed, but it struck her as decadent, which suited her mood perfectly. The boys had left her on edge all day and now she wanted to relax.

While Brandon opened and poured the wine, she changed into her “pajamas”—

Patrick"s oversized t-shirt—before she dished out three plates of toasted raviolis and Caesar salad. Patrick shut off the TV and tossed aside the remote.

Settling on the bed, she sat facing the boys, her bent knees brushing their legs, her plate warming her lap. It was comfortable. Easy. They talked about their days, the Sox, the headlines and made fun of Farley begging from all the way across the room with just his pleading eyes. If it hadn"t been for the fact that she had to rein in her wandering eyes as they roved over their bare chests, she wouldn"t have thought anything had changed in the twenty years since she"d met them.

Well, to be honest, that wasn"t that much different either. She"d always wanted both of these men desperately.

And now she might get to have them. Both. Her skin prickled with awareness even as, for the first time, she felt the sting of fear. She loved these men. They were her best friends. Her family.

What if it got serious? Like a real relationship serious? What if they wanted that?

83

Samantha Wayland

The idea made her dizzy with fear, her fork frozen midair en route to her mouth.

Forcing herself to choke down her bite of ravioli, she gulped air into her lungs.

She didn"t do serious. They both knew it. She was more than cool with monogamy and would never cheat—she was no slut—but she"d always made it very clear to the men in her life that she was Ms. Right Now. Not Mrs. Right.

Which Patrick knew. Hell, they"d been down this road a few times and he understood perfectly. She"d begun to suspect he was the same way, since they always ended up circling back to each other.

It was comfortable. They were comfortable.

The image of Patrick bending her over the back of the couch and fucking her ass popped into her head.

Okay, maybe comfortable wasn"t the exact right word.

But it made sense. She was proposing three people get together and have an adventure. Not be a couple or whatever it would be called. No one was going to get confused about it being anything serious. That was the beauty of it.

Right?

Right.

With one more deep breath, she forced herself to relax. Geez, way to give yourself apanic attack, Destiny. She was being foolish. They all knew the rules. If anyone got confused about that, she"d pull the plug. Immediately.

Anxiety returned when she thought about ending it. She forcibly shrugged it off. It had never been a problem in the past. It might be a little trickier with Brandon and Patrick, but nothing they couldn"t handle. She and Patrick had been down this road a few times.

Anyway, she shouldn"t be worried about crazy things that weren"t going to happen.

She should be thinking of ways to convince the boys to make good things happen. Soon.

Before she spontaneously combusted.

When she was finished with her dinner, Brandon was nice enough to take her plate and put it on the bedside table before serving himself and Patrick seconds from the tray.

He was holding his wineglass in one hand, his plate balanced on his legs, and taking a bite of the sinfully rich wild mushroom ravioli when a dribble of the thick red sauce landed on his bare chest.

“Shit.” He put down his glass and picked up his napkin.

“Here, let me get that,” she offered quickly. Grinning, she leaned over and with