Playing with Dynamite Read Online Free Page B

inherited the riverboat from an aunt. Russ had bought out the brothers’ shares and Carly had taken it over and made it into a successful business.
    Brick wasn’t in the mood to socialize. If he were honest with himself, he wasn’t in the mood for much of anything. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll stay here tonight.”
    Carly frowned in concern. “Business okay?”
    â€œBooming,” Brick said.
    She exchanged a sidelong glance with Russ. “Anything else bothering you?”
    Brick shrugged. “Nothing that a few more beers and a shower won’t cure.”
    â€œWhat’s her name?” Russ asked.
    Brick stopped midmotion in lifting the can to his lips, then set it down on the table. He didn’t look at Carly or Russ. He knew what he would see. Russ would be wearing that probing, no-nonsense, give-me-some-answers expression, and Carly would look worried. And Brick had thought he’d fooled them all. “It’s no big deal. It’s all over, anyway.”
    â€œIf it’s no big deal, then why have you been here five of the last six weekends?”
    That stung. Brick tried to shake it off and forced a grin. “Hey, if I’ve been imposing, you should let me know. I’m sleeping all the way over on the opposite side of the house, so I’ve only heard you scream once or twice.”
    His younger sister didn’t blush. She rolled her eyes. “I knew we wouldn’t get a straight answer from you. The CIA could take lessons from you on how to keep from disclosing secrets. You must not have been too serious about her, or you would have brought her down here for us to meet.”
    Brick rubbed his finger in the condensation on the can. “Why would I do that?”
    She looked at him with ill-concealed impatience. “Because that’s the normal thing to do. When you really care about a woman, you want her to meet your adorable younger sister and all six of your brothers. You don’t just want her to meet them. You want her to like them.”
    â€œYeah, well, maybe she didn’t want to meet my family.”
    Silence hung heavy in the room, and Brick looked up to meet his sister’s gaze. “And maybe I waited until it was too late.”
    Â 
    The next day Brick returned to Chattanooga with Russ’s words ringing in his ears: “Too late is when she’s got somebody else’s wedding band on her finger.”
    He hadn’t ever spent much time thinking about why he didn’t want to get married, because it was one of those things that he had decided when he was twelve years old. His mother had died, and his father might as well have. For the sake of the kids he’d remarried a sour woman who’d grown more sour because his father couldn’t love her.
    Carly had spent a year stuttering, his oldest brother, Daniel, had become an old man before his time. His stepmother had nearly ruined Garth. Brick had watched his family flounder, and in the middle of it all, he had felt lost.
    His mother had been the silken thread of joy that had bound them all together. He’d been angry that she’d left them. His anger had turned to fear when he watched what her death did to his father. All this, Brick realized, because his father had loved his mother too much. It was a knowledge that seemed to spring from his very soul.
    At the idea of marriage, Brick experienced a physical and visceral response. His skin grew clammy, his mouth went dry and he felt as if he were going to throw up. Even now, as he drove into Chattanooga, he felt it, the powerful edginess that went beyond simple aversion. In the past he’d always put it down to exceptional male survival instincts.
    Since two of his brothers and his sister, Carly, had taken the plunge and gotten married, though, he was forced to reevaluate. Daniel had been acting like a kid out of school since he’d married Sara Kingston a few months earlier. Brick