by Marla Monroe
“You can look at his paws and tell he’s not finished growing yet. Where did you get him? What kind of dog is he?” she asked.
Amos laughed and shook his head. “At the pound and your guess is as good as mine on what kind he is. They had him labeled as a setter of some kind. We think he has Irish wolfhound in him.”
Dee nodded then shook her head. “I think you’re right. He’s adorable though.”
“Tell that to my best pair of dress shoes. They don’t think he’s all that adorable,” Andy said with a frown.
“Ah, he likes to chew. Did you get him some chew toys? Rawhides?” she asked.
“We figured that out after he started chewing on the kitchen table leg. We think we have that under control now,” Andy admitted.
Dee couldn’t help but grin at the disgusted sound in Andy’s voice. She knew how important order could be to the man. It wasn’t that he was fastidious or anal about things. He just liked to be able to count on everything being where it was supposed to be so there weren’t a lot of surprises. No doubt Dozer had introduced him to what was considered to be a normal life to other people.
Amos wrapped his hand around Dee’s and pulled her fully into the den where she knew they spent most of their leisure time relaxing and watching their massive TV. She looked around and couldn’t tell that anything had changed. Other than what looked like a few dozen more DVDs on the shelves, it looked much like it had the last time she’d been there.
That thought quickly sobered her right up. The smile Dozer had inspired on her lips fell away in an instant. She remembered why she was there and chastised herself at how quickly she’d let them distract her. Dee needed to remain on guard or they would have her begging them to take her back.
Not going to happen. I’m not letting them get to me. I’m not settling for a pair of cheaters no matter how much I want them.
“Have a seat while I put our dinner in the oven,” Andy said. “I’ll be right back.”
She watched him stride away and the sight of his hard ass move as he walked toward the kitchen distracted her enough that she didn’t realize Amos had led her to the couch and sat down next to her until he spoke.
“See something you like?” he asked with a smirk on his face.
Dee snapped her attention and her eyes back from Andy’s direction and narrowed her eyes at Amos. She took a small measure of satisfaction when his smirk faltered then failed, leaving the same worried expression from at the office. It puzzled her. What was going on?
“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable. You know me, Dee Dee. I can’t pass up an opportunity to tease.” Amos shrugged and leaned back, giving her a little more space in the process.
“Look, Amos. I’m not sure why I let you and Andy talk me into this. I’m not changing my mind. I can’t go through that again,” she began.
“Wait. Let’s eat first before we talk. I’d rather we were all together before anything is said, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. I agree.” Dee inwardly sighed.
She’d hoped they would talk first and then she could insist they take her back to get her car. The longer she was in their presence, the harder it would be to resist them. Her body was on board with forgiving them and even to a certain degree her heart was as well, but her brain appeared to be the only one thinking clearly at the moment. Letting them back into her life would be asking for more pain and suffering. Dee wasn’t a masochist.
“Okay, dish is in the oven and will be ready in about an hour. I thought we could have a glass of wine while we wait and just catch up some. Nothing serious until after dinner,” Andy said as he sat a tray with three wine glasses and a bottle of white zinfandel on the coffee table in front of her.
“I—I’m not sure drinking is such a good idea. I think we all need to be clearheaded when we talk later,” Dee told them.
“I agree,” Andy said, “but a glass now and one with our meal isn’t going to have that much of an effect on us other than calming our nerves.”
“You don’t have to drink anything at all if you don’t want to,” Amos added, totally out of character. “We just thought it would help take the edge off.”
Dee stared at the man who’d always been the life of any party and could drink an Irishman under the table if he wanted to. To hear him tell her it was fine if she didn’t want to join them in a drink notched up her belief that something had happened that had affected his core personality. A sudden sense of sadness washed over her that her Amos had changed.
Not my Amos! They aren’t mine anymore. I’ve got to remember that.
“You’re right. Just a little bit then,” she said.
She nodded when Andy only poured a couple of swallows in all of their glasses then handed hers to her. She was about to ask them how business was progressing for them when Dozer padded into the room carrying something in his mouth only to deposit it on her lap. She almost screamed when it moved until she realized it was a cat. The multicolored animal turned over in her lap presenting her with some well-suckled nipples atop milk-filled breasts.
Dee was speechless. She turned to Amos, positive her mouth was wide open and a look of pure confusion covering her face. A dog and now a cat?
“Dozer! How many times do I have to tell you that Freckles can walk anywhere she wants to go?” Andy asked with a sigh.
“What’s she doing?” Dee asked when the cat squirmed in her lap.
“She wants you to rub her belly. She’s spoiled rotten from Dozer cleaning her all the time,” Amos said with a wide grin. “She just had three cute-as-a-button kittens last week. You’d think Dozer was the father the way he guards them.”
“Who’s guarding them now?” Andy asked, looking at the big mutt.
To Dee’s astonishment, the big dog jumped up and raced toward the kitchen. Freckles, who she assumed was the cat in her lap, began purring.
“Wow! She’s got a motor on her, doesn’t she?” Dee rubbed the cat’s belly, recognizing that the damp fur was either from nursing kittens or Dozer’s slobber.
“Yeah. It’s really funny. She doesn’t have a meow like most cats. She kind of chirps. You should hear her when she’s settling the kittens down to sleep,” Amos said, reaching over and rubbing the cat’s chin.
“Okay. First a dog and now a cat with kittens? What has happened to you two? You didn’t want pets if I remember correctly. You said you were too busy with your business and spending time with your family. When did that change?” she asked.
“When you kicked us to the curb,” Amos said in a quiet voice.
“What?” Had she heard him right?
“We were lonely without you and thought maybe a dog would help us adjust to you not being around. When we went to the pound to pick one out, Dozer had bonded with the cat and refused to leave without her, so we took him and the cat,” Andy said.
“We built a doggy door for Dozer to go out back to do his business and didn’t think about Freckles being able to climb the fence. She was scheduled to get fixed but came down with a bad upper respiratory infection and the vet didn’t want to do the surgery until she was over it,” Amos explained.
“Only by the time she was over it and we got around to rescheduling, she was pregnant. They said they’d do the surgery anyway, but you know how we feel about abortion,” Andy said.
“So, we have two adorable kittens and a soon-to-be-fixed momma cat,” Amos finished up.
“Um, how are you going to prevent her from getting pregnant again before she finishes weaning the kittens? They are known to do that.” Dee was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that they had Dozer. The momma cat and kittens blew her mind.
“Oh. We took care of that problem. We installed a pet door that won’t let anything in or out without a special collar on. She isn’t wearing a collar yet so she can’t get out,” Andy explained with a self-satisfied smile.
“Hope you had a talk with Dozer. If he likes her that much, he might sneak her out,” she teased.
Andy’s face paled at her words. She hadn’t been serious, but Andy sure thought it was a very real possibility from the sight of his wide eyes staring down at the now-sleeping cat on her lap.
“You need to have a talk with Dozer, Amos. We can’t have Freckles getting pregnant again,” Andy said, staring hard at his twin.
“Me? You talk to the mutt. He listens to you a lot better than he listens to me.”
“That’s because you let him get away with stuff. He knows when I say something I mean it,” Andy pointed out.
“That’s why you need to do the talking.” Amos crossed his arms and glared at the other man.
“You know,” Dee said, interrupting the two bickering brothers. “The chances of him trying to sneak her out are so slim it’s crazy. Besides, if Freckles has kittens to feed and tend to, she isn’t going to go far. I wouldn’t worry too much.”
The two men looked at each other before looking back at her. If they hadn’t been so serious, Dee would have laughed as their anxiety literally melted from their bodies so that they relaxed in their seats once again.
“Once the kittens get old enough, maybe I’ll adopt them from you,” Dee said. The idea of two kittens to play with and watch grow up sounded like fun to her. Their companionship would help ease some of the loneliness she felt at night and on weekends.
“You wouldn’t have to adopt them if you’d agree to marry us, baby girl,” Amos said.
“M–marry you?”
Chapter Five
Amos cringed. Why had he opened his big mouth like that? From the glare his brother was giving him, he figured he wouldn’t have to beat himself up over it at all. Andy was going to do the job himself.
“M–marry you?”
Dee’s face paled as her mouth opened then closed again. He’d blown it for sure. She’d never stay and hear them out. They’d planned everything right down to what they would say and he’d fucked it up like usual. Hell, if it hadn’t been for his bruised pride, they wouldn’t be trying to beg their way back into Dee’s good graces in the first place. Hell! They might have even been married by now.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that…”
“Amos! Will you just shut the hell up?” Andy’s voice broke as he jumped to his feet.
“I do mean it, but I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that,” he continued.
“Fuck! You’re ruining everything.” Andy stomped out of the room and the sounds of pots clanging and the oven door slamming whooshed from the kitchen along with the scent of meatloaf.
Amos dropped his head and dug the heel of hands into both eyes. It was no wonder he had a headache. The pressure that had been building all during the week burst behind his eyelids in brilliant flashes of light. He needed to take something before it got so bad he had to lie down.
“I’m sorry, Dee. I’ve ruined everything.” He slowly stood up and drew in a deep breath at how that simple movement increased the pressure in his brain. “I need to take something for a headache. I’ll be right back.”
When he stumbled into the kitchen for a glass of water, his brother was mashing potatoes with a vengeance that would leave any defenseless potato shaking in their roots. They’d be lucky if there were any potatoes left to eat by the time he got through with them.
“I’m sorry, Andy.” He didn’t say anything more. Instead he opened the cabinet door and retrieved a glass before getting ice and water from the dispenser on the fridge door.
After he’d grabbed the bottle of over-the-counter pain reliever from the cabinet, Amos poured out two pills and swallowed them down with the water. He could imagine them hitting his stomach and instantly dissolving along with the wine he’d sipped earlier. Now if only they’d work faster than the thirty minutes it normally took for pills to enter the bloodstream.
“Headache?” Andy stopped massacring the potatoes and looked at him with a worried expression.
“Yeah. Hopefully it will ease up by the time dinner is over. That is if Dee doesn’t demand we take her back right now.”
“What made you blurt that out? We agreed to take things slow and make sure she was right there with us all along the way. You jumped the gun, dude,” Andy said as he shook his head.
“I know. I have no idea why I said that.
“I think we’re both too worked up over it. We’re both going to make mistakes if we don’t settle down. Walking on pins and needles isn’t going to help our cause. We can’t act one way now and revert back to our true natures tomorrow.” Andy scraped the potatoes into a serving bowl and set the empty boiler in the sink.
“You’re right. I just hope I haven’t screwed it up already.” Amos walked out of the kitchen and returned to the den where he found Dee standing in front of their vast DVD collection.
“Are you okay?” she asked without turning to look at him.
“Yeah. The aspirin will start working before long. Find something you’d like to watch or borrow?” he asked.
“Not really. I was just noticing that you have a lot of inspirational ones like Remember the Titans and Courageous. I loved those. I didn’t realize you and Andy liked watching anything other than sports or action movies,” she said. This time she turned and looked at him.
“We really don’t follow sports as much as we used to. What can I say, men and action movies just go together.” He chuckled then sobered. “We saw one at a convention we went to that really struck a chord.”
“I liked Rudy and The Blindside,” she told them.
“We have both of those up there somewhere,” Amos told her.
“What? They’re not in alphabetical order?” she teased.
“Actually, they were in order until Amos mixed them all up in a fit of anger one day,” Andy said as he walked back into the room. “I refused to reorganize them until he made an effort to do it himself.”
“We’re at a standstill,” Amos said, ducking his head. He really needed to work on them. It had gotten out of hand.
The sight of Dee trying to suppress a smile lightened his heart after the screwup he’d made. Maybe he hadn’t completely blown their chances at getting another chance with her after all.
“You’re still like little boys competing against each other. Don’t you think it’s time to grow up?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Amos admitted. “I was going to work on the movies this weekend. I couldn’t find one I wanted to watch the other night and realized how stupid I’d been.”
“Yeah, well. I shouldn’t get so worked up if you put one in the wrong place sometimes. They’re always close to where they need to be,” Andy said.
Amos smiled at his brother. Maybe the anal organizer did realize that he was trying. Sometimes both of them went out of their way to aggravate the each other. He figured it was out of boredom. If they could convince Dee to date them and eventually marry them, neither one of them would ever get bored again. She exuded excitement and fun just by being in the same room with them. She always had.
“Dinner is ready. Are you hungry, Dee?” Andy asked.
“Yeah. I am. Something smells delicious.”
Amos walked over and extended his elbow to her. When she took it, he couldn’t help leaning in near her neck. The scent of her shampoo mixed with the natural hint of vanilla that always seemed to fill the air around her made him close his eyes, and forget to control his mouth once again.
“It sure does.”
* * * *
The sound of Andy clearing his throat snapped Dee’s attention away from where she’d been staring deep into Amos’s eyes after the ridiculously sexy comment he’d made. For a few moments she’d felt like the only one in the world with the man. The way his voice had gone all deep and gravelly when he’d said those three simple words had thrummed against her already aroused pussy in a frustrating way.
“Um, dinner?” he said again. “It’ll get cold if we don’t eat now.”
Amos seemed to gather himself before he covered the hand she’d placed on his arm at some point. Th
en he led her from the den to the kitchen where it opened up into a large dining area. Instead of going for a simple eat-in kitchen and formal dining room, they’d knocked out a wall and included the previous space with the already large kitchen to form a perfect family-sized country kitchen that could easily fit a family of eight or more.
Amos seated her then took a seat across from her next to where his brother sat. She wasn’t sure how to act now that she’d made a complete fool of herself in the den. To her relief, neither man teased her about it or even hinted at the brief loss of her normal in control nature. They chatted easily about their businesses, the weather, and the general lack of interest in understanding their financial positions that people had these days.
“How is Melissa doing? I used to see her pretty regularly around town with your mom, but I haven’t in a while.” Dee had worried about the other woman considering her health issues that usually plagued those with Down syndrome.
“She’s doing pretty well. She’s had some problems with getting bronchitis this year and Mom is keeping her close to home. She can’t afford to end up with pneumonia. It would be too hard on her heart,” Andy said.
“You know,” Amos began. “She loves you to death. Maybe you could visit her one day. She doesn’t get a lot of visitors.”
“Your mom wouldn’t mind?”
“No. Not at all. As long as you don’t have a cold or anything, Mom would love seeing you. She misses you, too,” Andy told her.
“Maybe I’ll do that.” Dee concentrated on eating after that. The meatloaf was delicious.
It was something she’d always liked about the guys. They both could cook normal everyday meals and never tried to make something fancy or outlandish. She’d never been one to enjoy elaborate meals like Beef Wellington or Caribbean Chicken. Simple spaghetti with meat sauce or fried chicken always went over well with her and the two men knew that.
“These are the creamiest mash potatoes I’ve ever eaten. What did you do, use an eggbeater on them?” she asked half-teasingly.
“No. He took out his frustrations with my big mouth out on the potatoes earlier,” Amos said with a wry smile. “That’s happened a lot lately.”
