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Linc tensed. “I won’t have you all intimidating her.”
“You think we’d scare our own sister?” Butch snarled.
“Calm down,” Alec ordered. “Tanner, would you go find Ryleigh?”
“This might be too much for her,” Mia said, climbing off Alec’s lap. “I need to check on the kids anyway. I don’t know how much experience Opal has with kids.”
Oh, so that’s who had the boys.
“And I’m in the mood to bake cookies,” she added. “Everyone needs cookies.”
“I’m coming too,” Flick said. West rushed around to hold his hand out to her and help her up. The guy acted like she was still pregnant. She smiled up at him in thanks. He handed her Mitch, and she followed Mia out. Hannah and Lara followed.
Scarlett stood and turned to Clem. “Want to come?”
“I guess so. Carrots likes the idea of cookies, don’t you, Carrot?”
“Do not feed that rabbit any cookies,” Jaret ordered.
“So bossy,” Clem whispered.
Tanner left to go find Ryleigh, discovering her outside on the back porch. “Hey, you all right?”
She glanced over at him. “Kind of overwhelmed. I . . . I always wondered how this moment would go, and now that it’s here . . . it’s a lot.”
“I get it. My brothers can be overwhelming. They’re a lot. But they’re also the best people you’ll ever meet. We will protect you, Ryleigh.”
She bit her lip. “And Kye? Opal? Lilac?”
“They’ll be protected too. Nothing will happen to them.”
Especially Lilac.
“Lilac’s always sacrificing for us,” Ryleigh said. “I always felt so bad. Like a burden.”
“She never felt that way about you, I’m sure,” he said.
“I know she didn’t. I think she shows her love through sacrifice. Through doing. She isn’t like me . . . she never had any happiness. Any normalcy. She only ever had terror and fear. I don’t know much about her life with Stefan. But I imagine it’s hard to learn how to stop living in fear, to go from always being stressed to being happy. I think she’s probably scared to be happy, Tanner. For fear it will all get ripped away from her. Like it always has before.”
“I know. I’m going to show her how to be happy. That she doesn’t have to do anything to earn my love because she already has it.”
“You’re a good man. I’m glad you’re my brother.”
Tanner drew her against him, holding her close. “Ready to meet the rest of them? Just don’t be shocked.”
“By what?” she asked.
“Well, I am the most handsome and intelligent of the bunch. Just didn’t want you to get a fright when you see their ugly mugs.”
She started giggling.
Tanner knew that Stefan didn’t have a chance in hell of hurting these girls again. Not with his family to protect them.
42
Lilac stared at herself in the mirror.
Urgh.
