Safe Love (Love Brothers #4) Read Online Free Page B

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    worry about with a few hours of honest yard work. It took exactly three and a
    half hours to clear all the various flower beds and Crystal’s vegetable garden.
    That brought him up to noon, sweat-soaked and filled with the kind of pride in
    accomplishment he hadn’t experienced in years.
    After he’d tossed the last of the weedy debris from the
    former garden nearest the now barely-used patio across the fence, he stopped to
    admire the impressive pile of green and brown he’d accumulated. He jumped and
    cursed when someone touched his shoulder
    “Calm down bro,” Dominic said. He had a pair of work gloves
    and a six pack of Antony’s favorite of their brews—the crisp, delicious Kolsch
    style ale Dom had named ‘Eros’, which had offended their mother ever so
    slightly. “I heard you were out here slavin’ away, risking old man heart attack
    so…” He held up the sixer. Antony took it.
    “Thanks,” he said, using his utility knife to pop one open
    and draining half in one gulp.
    “All righty then,” Dom muttered under his breath before
    pulling on his gloves and jumping into the cleanup fray.
    Another hour or so went by as the two men worked side by
    side mostly in silence, years of doing similar work for their father standing
    them in good stead for the task. By two o’clock Antony’s stomach was rumbling
    and he felt light-headed. He leaned on the trowel he’d been using to scrape the
    last of the nearly twelve years worth of neglect out of the beds lining the
    long gravel drive, smiling at the sight of his other two brothers, Kieran and
    Aiden, hauling huge wheelbarrow loads of dead plants and old leaves towards the
    woods. He barely remembered them showing up. Something in his chest loosened at
    that moment, noting how they kept trying to dump each other’s barrow loads of
    stuff like a couple of little kids.
    Dom appeared at the front door, brandishing a pitcher of
    water and some cups. Antony nodded at him and trudged up the front lawn. This
    had been long overdue, and he was proud of himself for finally tackling it—but
    at the same time ashamed for letting it get into such a poor state. The same
    way he’d let his relationship with his own daughter decline.
    Thoughts of AliceLynn and how ornery she’d been lately made
    his brain shut down. He squared his shoulders and was opening his mouth to
    thank Dominic for his help when a loud horn beeped from behind him.
    The brewery van pulled up behind the cars already arrayed in
    the drive. The doors opened and Rosie emerged, bearing a picnic basket and a
    huge smile. His heart raced as the ‘you’re a lucky bastard’ mantra rolled
    through his head. He changed direction and headed for the van to help his
    mother out, and then took the basket from his fiancée.
    “Heard you’d finally gotten off your sorry lazy butt and
    were doing something about this yard,” Lindsay said, patting Dominic’s cheek
    and accepting a glass of ice water from him.
    “Yeah, well…” he said. His throat closed up when he saw the
    next two vehicles pull in behind the van. His daughter’s little car stopped and
    she climbed out, sunglasses on and ball cap pulled down low. Behind that, the
    stupid goddamned Audi that had shoved Margot firmly into his universe the first
    day they’d met, stopped, and she unfolded herself from behind the wheel.
    He entertained a brief moment of memory of the day she’d
    shown up at his parents’ house as the Lindsay-declared ‘family therapist.’ Her
    Audi—and he hated Audi’s for the over grown, pretentious VW’s that they
    were—had stalled out on her so he’d tinkered and fixed it while she’d watched
    making him comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.
    “Hey,” she called. “Thanks for inviting me.” She spoke to
    Lindsay but when her gaze met Antony’s he nearly dropped the basket and ran for
    the woods. This was not good. He didn’t understand it, couldn’t get his head
    around it and did not care