AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eva barked out a laugh. “You two are like a couple of roosters strutting about.”
Miles grinned at that. “I am the alpha rooster. The king of the flock, you might say.”
Eva laughed again.
“We’ll see, little brother. We’ll see.”
“Let me grab my shoes.” Eva hurried back into the room, used the bathroom to freshen up quick, and tied her shoes before rushing back out. “Sorry to make you wait.”
“Not a problem, little lady,” Clint drawled, offering his elbow again.
Eva slid her arm through the crook, her hand brushing his bicep. It was a nice muscle. He smelled nice, looked nice, seemed like a great guy. But her heart did not skip a beat at his nearness, and no tingly warmth filled her body at one brush of his fingers or longing look from his blue eyes.
Clint was a humble hero similar to Miles, but she’d seen Miles fight to protect her. He’d rescued her from death or worse. He was a Navy SEAL Lieutenant yet still humble in his speech and actions. She was mesmerized by him, no matter how she tried to tamp the feelings down.
Miles didn’t say much as he followed them down the stairs. Both men plunked their cowboy hats on and Eva remembered to put her baseball hat and sunglasses back on. They walked out the side door and through Millie’s pretty backyard, complete with a trellis, vegetable garden, and flower garden.
The men pecked at each other with verbal jabs as they walked. Eva called them a couple of hens and they both grinned.
Surprisingly, Easton and Walker weren’t in the barn. She thought they’d be here as an audience.
“You’re my only fan,” Clint told her.
Miles growled low in his throat.
“What?” Clint asked, arching an eyebrow. “You should’ve invited Lily.”
Eva’s insides froze.
“You know I couldn’t do that and risk word spreading about Eva being here.” Miles said the line reasonably, but honestly, he looked like he was steaming and ready to flatten his brother. “Let’s do this.”
The men got ready, removing their shirts, boots, and socks, wrapping their hands, putting on headgear. They both had jeans on, and that struck her as funny. How could they move well in jeans?
As soon as the fight started, she realized the jeans flowed with the men nicely. She’d never seen a fight like this. She remembered seeing fights as a teenager in high school, and she’d seen lots of staged fights for filming. She’d attended boxing and MMA events.
But this? This was a cross between a street fight and a professional boxing match. Miles and Clint were obviously both experts at boxing and MMA style fighting, but there was something more raw about this fight, as if they were trying to prove themselves. She still wasn’t certain if it was about Lily, or possibly about herself. Clint hardly knew her, so she doubted it was about her, but then a lot of men didn’t know her at all and thought they were her ‘future’. The fight could be about brothers who had a past grievance to air, or possibly just brothers slugging it out as she’d heard men liked to do. She and her sisters didn’t fight like this.
Easton and Walker wandered into the barn during the battle.
“How long they been at it?” Easton asked.
She lifted her hands, hating to tear her gaze away from the beauty and fluidity of movement Miles had, even as her neck tightened every time Clint got in a vicious hit. “Maybe ten minutes?”
“Just getting started then,” Walker said. “Should I go make popcorn?”
Miles and Clint ignored their brothers. They didn’t even taunt each other. Miles glanced her direction and got clocked in the head. She cried out and had to clap her hand over her mouth. He stumbled but righted himself quickly.
“He’s all right,” Walker said. “It would take a lot more than that to down one of my brothers.”
Walker was right about that. The two men fought and fought and fought. No hit or kick, no matter how hard, seemed enough to take either of them down.
Walker forced them to take a break and drink the water bottles he had for them, but then he left to help one of the ranch hands fix a fence.
Easton stayed by Eva’s side. He gave her play-by-play on the action, sounding like a sports broadcaster but adding in some Walker humor and making her laugh.
“And Clint gets in a solid jab, but Miles rebuttals him with a roundhouse. If either of our contenders possessed my devastatingly handsome looks, they’d worry about their faces being rearranged.”
Eva laughed at him, but quietly, not her normal loud bark that used to embarrass her. She owned her laugh now and Miles had said he loved it.
