AllFreeNovel
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“This is yours?”
“Yeah.” Her brother loaded her bags in the back of the shiny red cab and helped her into the passenger seat.
“Did you win it or something?”
It was the only explanation Katie could come up with. She breathed in winter, leather seats, and new car.
“Nope. Dad went to trade his old truck in on a new one. Left the dealership with two.” He chuckled with a shrug. “You buckled in?”
She sat there with her mouth hanging open and reached for the seat belt, latching it into place. Kevin just turned sixteen in July. He was a junior in high school, for fuck’s sake. Katie spied some familiar foil packets in the cubby below the touch screen.
Oh, Jesus!
“Kevin, please don’t tell me you’ve been fucking girls in the seat I’m sitting on.”
“Nah.” He smirked and tipped his head behind him. “There’s more room back there.”
Kevin pulled into the snow-covered drive of their house on the outskirts of the small town they lived in. Lit with multicolored lights for Christmas. Same as every year. The Reillys’ farmhouse beyond was dark, their winter fields barren. A black truck she’d never seen before, she presumed it was her dad’s new one, and her aunt’s blue Tahoe were parked off to the side.
He turned off the ignition and Katie looked over at him. Kevin could read her face. He always could. “They’re all here waiting on ya. Mom made all your favorites for dinner.”
Which one?
Katie didn’t have one mother. She had four. Not really, but her aunts—her mom’s younger sisters—were all mother hens who liked to think she was still five. Kelly was the youngest, and if it hadn’t been for her already living in the city she probably would have never been allowed to leave the cornfields to go to school.
Her brother looked at her like he felt sorry for her. “I should probably warn you. Kelly told them all about your boyfriend.”
Thanks a fucking lot, Kelly.
She knew better. As the youngest of the four sisters, Kelly had to know the inquisition Katie was going to walk into. Her mother, Kristie, was the eldest, followed by Kim and Kara. Kelly, who was teasingly referred to as the ‘oops’ baby by her siblings, was six years younger than Kara—twelve years younger than Katie’s mother.
“Great.” She unlatched her seat belt and took a deep breath before she got out of the truck to prepare for the onslaught. “What did she say?”
Brendan was coming for dinner to meet her family and bring her back home on Sunday. It’s not like her parents didn’t know about him, for chrissakes, but Brendan had a point. Kelly was still judgmental when it came to him, and she wasn’t sure why that was.
“Not sure.” He shrugged, pulling out her bags. “I only heard Mom going on about him being older.”
“He’s thirty-two and he’s a wonderful man.”
Kevin helped her down from the truck and held her hands in his. “Listen, don’t let them get to you. If he’s good to you, then I like him.”
“He’s so good to me, Kevin. I love him.” She squeezed her brother’s hand. “And he loves me.”
“That’s all I needed to hear. C’mon, I got your back, big sister.” He kissed her cheek.
“You’re bigger than me now.”
He snickered. “Yeah, how’d that happen?”
They were all waiting for her in the family room. Her mom and her aunts sat together on the sofa, her dad dozing in his recliner. He got up as soon as she and Kevin walked in.
“Honey,” her dad called out, and extending his arms he wrapped her in a giant hug.
It started as soon as he let her go and lasted all the way through dinner. Brendan was the sole topic of conversation and Kim led the inquisition.
“So, what exactly does your boyfriend do?”
Katie smiled politely. “Brendan and his cousins have their own investment company—real estate mostly.”
