“Uh huh. Don’t forget you said the same thing about being a billionaire.” Logan arched an eyebrow at me. “You got used to that.”
“You may have a point.” I kicked my boots up onto the porch railing. “I guess I’ll give it a few more days.”
“Billionaires.” Liam grunted. “It’s been twenty-five years since our boys found the mother lode of bentonite clay in one of the old mining caves and some days it still doesn’t seem real.”
“Agreed. Number one ingredient in kitty litter. I mean, what are the odds?” Logan snorted. “I’ve always been a dog person, but that gave me a new appreciation for cats.”
My chest clenched at the memory. Not at the discovery of the rich minerals on the land. And not the money it brought us. No, what made my chest clench was how damn lucky we were none of the boys had been hurt.
“I still don’t believe the boys’ story, but even to this day, they’re all sticking to it.” I ran a hand over my face. “An old miner and his wife led them to it.”
“Rose Foster finally found her long-lost husband. It’s crazy, but I believe it,” Liam said. “Of course, the firecrackers the boys were setting off in the caves might have helped.”
“Firecrackers, my ass. I’d bet money that Rye was mixing up another chemical experiment and it exploded.” Liam shook his head and grinned. “Even at eight, that boy of yours was too smart for his own good, Locke.”
That sounded about right. And why I practically had a heart attack whenever I thought about the incident. Even today, years later, it made me sweat to think what could have happened. The idea that we could have lost our boys that day had me on my knees every night. Our boys, Baze and Rye. Liam and Celia’s boys, Ford and Colt. Logan and Sara’s boys, Brody and Duke.
“Maybe Rose and her husband were looking after our boys that day,” I said.
“Heck, you two remember some of the trouble the three of us used to get up to running wild around town before Jed and Dodo took us in?” Logan asked, sending our minds back in time. “I believe our boys were almost as bad. Not saying raising kids wasn’t fun, but it sure is less stressful now that they’re adults.”
“Don’t forget Nic,” Liam said, throwing me a glance. “She was the wildest of all. That girl is like Max 2.0.”
She was. Wild and fearless and ready to tackle anything. Nic was our youngest at twenty-seven, but not one of her brothers or cousins—all boys by the way—dared treat her like a girl. Yep, so much like her mama.
My gaze ran over the ranch, now over five-hundred thousand acres. (Being a billionaire had its perks.) A far cry from the two-hundred fifty acres I started with. Back then, when the money ran out before the month did, life had still been sweet. Max and I have had a good life. Just like I’d known we could that first time I asked Jed for permission to marry Max.
It had been a hit to Max that Jed hadn’t shown up to our wedding, but he came around pretty quick. About a year later in fact, when our oldest son, Baze, was born. Two years later we had Rye, then two years after that the twins, Tash and Hunter. That was also around the time Dare came along; we’d taken him in as a foster and then made him our own. Two years later was Luke. Can you tell Maxie was trying for a girl? You know Maxie never gives up until she gets what she works for. Two years after Luke, Nicola Tillie Devlin entered the world. She’d wrapped me around her little finger—just like her mama.
“Y’all ever get the hankering to track down Chandler King and tell him we did fine without him?” Liam threw his boots up on the railing too.
“Not worth the effort,” I said, although I understood the feeling behind it.
“I heard he lost all his money in the dotcom crash and moved to Houston to manage a used car dealership.” Logan tilted his hat down to shade his gaze from the long rays as the sun sank lower on the horizon. “I’ve never wished ill of anyone, except for him.”
“On that note, I stopped by to see Honey yesterday,” Liam said. “I invited her to Christmas dinner tomorrow. Rocky said he’d pick her up after his shift.”
Honey. None of us could call her mom. We’d bought her a small house after we’d come into the money twenty-five years ago and paid her utilities and groceries. Told her if she wanted to be in her grandchildren’s lives, she had to stay sober. It took a while, but she’d managed.
Two helicopters flew over the house, one buzzing low and loud, making Logan spill his coffee.
“Damn, Hunter.” Logan shook the coffee off his hand. “The boy can fly, but good luck to Baze reeling him in.”
“Agreed.” I nodded, watching the helicopters land in the distance. Along with the Devlin Ranch and Devlin Aviation we had established a charity, The Devlin Foundation. What good was having money if you couldn’t give some away? “If Baze can’t reel him in, some woman will.”
“I will pay good money to watch that.” Liam laughed.
Max’s truck came barreling down the long drive, stirring up a swirl of dust.
“Speaking of reeling someone in…” Liam said.
“Never going to happen,” Logan said.
“Nope.” Her wild streak was part of what I loved about her. She sped past the house and on to the hay barn, slammed the door on her way out of the truck, and disappeared inside. Not one second later my cell phone pinged. I pulled it off the whisky barrel table to read the text.
Max: I’m in the hay loft waiting. Hurry up.
Me: Who is this?
Max: Ha ha. Seriously. There’s a fire. I need you to put it out.
Me: You need me to put out, huh?
Max: You bet. Don’t forget you had the flu last Christmas Eve.
Me: I wish I could forget.
Max: You. Owe. Me. Cowboy.
“Gotta go.” I stood, gave my brothers a nod, and moved down off the porch. Max and I had been married thirty-six years and the woman still made my heart pound and my breath hitch. “I’ll see you both tomorrow at breakfast.”
“Where are you rushing off to?” Liam asked. “I thought we were going to watch the game.”
“Can’t. I’ve got this…Christmas Eve tradition that needs my attention.”
All my attention. Every good cowboy knew you didn’t mess with Christmas traditions. Especially not when you had the cowgirl of your dreams waiting for you.
A Note From the Author
Thank you for taking the time to read How the Devlin Stole Christmas. If you enjoyed it, I would sincerely appreciate it if you would leave a review on Amazon. Just one sentence or two is all it takes. Reviews from readers make a huge difference and help other readers find their way to good books. Thank you! ♥ Lee
I hope you loved reading Max and Locke’s love story. The Devilish Devlins Series continues with the next generation of Devlins! Meet the Devlin siblings running Devlin Aviation.
The Pilot Billionaire books release Spring of 2020! Continue reading for a sneak peek at Baze Devlin’s story in The Devlin Looks After His Own.
A Sneak Peek: The Devlin Looks After His Own
Pilot Billionaires, Book # 1 Those Devilish Devlins
Chapter 1
Baze Devlin
Not for the first time in my life, the stick between my legs had all my attention. I threw myself into the moment, pushing forward and letting the pleasure and power take me for a ride. Hell, yes, this would never get old. People who say “don’t let the joystick between your legs do your thinking for you” have obviously never piloted a helicopter.
Flying fifty feet above the ground was always a blast. Even better was the fact that we got paid to do it. I took lead position, broadcasting forty-thousand pounds of seed from the bucket swinging below my helicopter. Hunter followed behind with a low pass of fertilizer. Lower than necessary which I’d talk with Hunter about. Again.
“I’m empty. That’s a wrap,” I said into my headset. “Heading to five-hundred feet.”
“Roger that. On your six.” Hunter’s voice sounded loud and clear in my headset. “Low level flying is the most fun I
can have with my pants on.”
“Thank hell you have pants on today,” I said, grinning when I heard his laughter in my ear.
It was a short trip back to Devlin Aviation and uneventful, meaning no bird strikes. At least it was uneventful until Hunter decided to fly a half Cuban-8 maneuver just as our landing pad was in sight. Pulling a five-eighths loop until he banked at a forty-five degree angle and rolled out. Damn him. I landed and went through my checklist before heading inside.
“What the hell bullshit was that up there?” I shoved my headset into the cubby, my gaze pinned on my hotshot brother. Hunter may be the best pilot I knew, probably even better than me and I was damn good, but that didn’t mean he could get away with showboating.
“It’s called having a little fun. You should try it sometime.” Hunter stored his headset and unzipped his flight suit down to his navel. Underneath he wore his “Sky Cowboy. I can get you off” T-shirt. One had to look real close to see the fine print below the slogan that qualified “the ground.”
“Whoa. Did someone exit out of the wrong side of the helicopter this morning?” No surprise Tash would take Hunter’s side. Fucking twins. They’d been cohorts and accomplices since they could crawl out of their cribs.
“This is not about me.” I threw the flight logbook onto the conference table in our ops office and took a seat. “Let’s debrief and it’ll be clear as a Texas blue-sky day that this isn’t about me.”
My brothers glanced at each other—doing that silent twin shit—before joining me.
“Okay, let’s debrief,” Hunter said, sitting in a chair across from me with a cocky grin on his face. “Job complete. Satisfied customer. Take offs and landings came out equal.”
There was a snort from behind me at the coffee counter which would only encourage Hunter.
“Not helpful, Nic,” I said, throwing a frown over my shoulder. Because the last thing Hunter needed was encouragement for his antics. Being the youngest sibling, Nic usually had enough oldest brother hero worship that she took my side.
“Yeah, sorry,” Nic said, moving to the other side of the room with her coffee and perching her behind on the three-foot-high bookshelf that housed our flight manuals and flying pubs. “But I think Hunter has a point.”
“What point would that be? That we can waste hundreds of dollars on fuel by tagging a joy ride onto the end of each job?” I raised an eyebrow at them all.
“Are you shitting me right now?” Hunter asked. “What’s the point of being billionaires if we can’t have a little fun every once and awhile? So I burned some extra fuel.”
“I don’t think this is about wasting fuel,” Tash added his two cents. “In fact, I’d even go as far as to guess this has nothing to do with flying.”
“Right. Or work. Or even us,” Hunter said, sharing an I-told-you-so look with the others.
“I’m sorry. I must have missed it when you graduated with your PhD in psychology.” I might have snarled, but I was in a piss-poor mood. I was tired, hot, and hungry so I didn’t need three of my siblings giving me shit.
“Well, there you go. He reached into his sarcasm suitcase.” Tash shook his head. “There are only two things that make him do that. When he’s been around Tiffany—”
“—and when he hasn’t gotten any in forever,” Hunter added. “You, big brother, need to get laid.”
“This conversation isn’t going to happen. We’re not going to talk about my sex life.” Hell, no. Mostly because they were right—I didn’t have a sex life right now. Hadn’t for a long time, dammit. Not since my ex, Tiffany, had moved back to town six months ago.
“Why not?” Nic said. “You guys talk about mine.”
“No. No, I don’t. You don’t have a sex life.” I looked at my sister and could still picture her with pigtails and skinned knees from the playground. “At least that’s what I tell myself so I don’t have to punch some guy in the face.”
“I’m twenty-seven, old man. I have a sex life,” she said.
Hunter grinned. “Do tell. Who are you banging? Someone in town?”
“My little sister doesn’t bang,” I said, running a frustrated hand over my face. This conversation wasn’t helping my mood at all. “I cannot think about my little sister banging.”
“I bang,” Nic said. “Just not in a long time. I’m in a dry spell.”
“Can’t find a guy with balls big enough to match yours?” Tash asked.
“Yeah, that’s it.” Nic rolled her eyes. As the only girl among seven siblings, Nic took a lot of grief. Add in all the cousins—all boys—and my sister had a black belt in handling smart-ass men since she did it daily. She’d had no choice but to grow up the tomboy she did. She might even be the toughest of us all. “So back to cranky pants…”
“It’s not cranky to not want to waste money,” I said.
“You say that like that’s the only time you’ve chewed our asses lately.” Tash pointed at me. “Just two days ago you threw a fit over the coke stocked in our snack fridge. Everyone knows whoever stocks it gets to decide.”
Hunter nodded his agreement. “And you don’t even drink coke, so obviously the ass chewing and temper is from something else. Gee, I wonder what it could be…”
“You got a bit snippy with a passenger last week. Remember that?” Nic peered at me from over her coffee cup. “The busty redhead? The one we flew over to Dallas?”
I frowned across at Nic. I remembered. The woman had invited me to her hotel room since her husband wasn’t arriving until the next day. The invitation was accompanied with her hand on my crotch. I turned her down. She could have paid her plastic surgeon for two more cup sizes to add to her DDs and I still would have turned her down. I found nothing sexy about a cheater.
“You’re suggesting had you been in a similar situation, you’d have handled it calmly? I’m almost positive a guy would be lucky to walk away with all his parts if that had happened to you.” At least I hoped that’s how she handled it when some guy propositioned her.
“Okay, true,” Nic said with a shrug. “But you’ve been short tempered with all of us for weeks now. I even heard you snap at Dad.”
Fuck. I had. Over some idiotic thing now long forgotten. I’d gone by the main house to apologize an hour later. It wasn’t like me to have a hair-trigger temper. So, maybe my siblings had a point. That didn’t mean the problem had a solution. Especially not their solution.
“Fine. I’ll watch my attitude. Happy now?” I could try to suck it up and lock down my temper.
“Not hardly.” Hunter snorted. “In fact, I’m making an executive decision. I’m taking myself off the HeloCon in Houston next week. You’re going in my place. And don’t come back until you get laid.”
“Can’t. I’m off to New Mexico to cover the Mt. Tundra fire. Accepted the job and signed the contract yesterday.” Thank hell, because I didn’t have the patience for all the schmoozing and face time at professional conferences. That was Hunter’s world. Hunter loved talking and socializing almost as much as flying and sex. And he made it very clear that he fucking loved flying and sex. “I’m heading out tomorrow at O-four-thirty.”
“Wrong,” Tash said. “All in favor of Baze getting laid at HeloCon, raise your hands.”
Well, you can imagine how the vote went. All three hands went up. I even looked hard at Nic, the traitor, and all she did was shrug again. This was one of those moments when if I could go back in time and kick my own ass, I would. As oldest, they’d wanted me to be the CEO of Devlin Aviation when we started our business two years ago, but no, I was all magnanimous and insisted we should all be equal partners.
“Besides, we all know I’m better at dropping my payload on a dime.”
“Damn, Hunt, it must be a tight squeeze in that metal bird. You and that huge ego,” I said.
“It’s not the huge ego but my huge dick that gets in the way,” Hunter shot back.
“Aaand I’m out.” Nic slapped her hands on her thighs and stood. “I don’t mind t
alking about dicks, just not my brothers’ dicks. Although since we’re on the subject, seriously, Baze, you’ve been a pain in the ass lately. Give us all a happy ending and use that dick of yours. Go to the conference and get laid. Maybe one of those flight services women who are always drooling over you. Or hell, even a pilot groupie will get the job done.”
Oh, this was good: my baby sister was giving me pointers on how to let my dick see more action. Nothing weird about that.
THE DEVLIN LOOKS AFTER HIS OWN will release this spring! Feel free to follow me on Amazon or sign up for my newsletter if you’d like to be notified when it releases!
Special Thanks…
To my amazing editors! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
To my proofreader, Mrs. “Eagle-eyes” K.
To Peter, my real life hero. Thank you for your constant support.
To my readers. Thank you for picking up my book for the romance but staying for the quirky humor. Everyone needs laughter and a happily ever after. And chocolate cake.
About the Author
Lee Kilraine is a RITA® and Golden Heart® Finalist. She lives in the pine woods of North Carolina. When she isn't typing away on her computer with her golden retriever, Harley, destroying something at her feet, you might find her on her front porch swing plotting her next book while guarding her garden from the local gang of deer. She loves writing and reading small town contemporary romance stories with a Happily Ever After.
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How the Devlin Stole Christmas: A Billionaire Cowboy Prequel ~ Those Devilish Devlins Page 9
