Page 19 of More Than Meets the Eye

Evangeline looked from one to the other, sensing they weren’t talking about cotton any longer. If they ever had been.

Zach slowly rose to his feet, taking full advantage of his greater height as he looked down at Seth. “Some things are better left hidden.”

“Better for who?” Seth pressed closer, nearly squishing Evangeline between the two men.

Why wouldn’t he just let it go? But in her heart, she knew. Those secrets were poisoning Zach’s soul. She could feel it, and apparently Seth could, too. Zach had been closing himself off from them a little more each year. Withdrawing emotionally. Not that he’d ever been the demonstrative sort to begin with, but it was almost as if he was trying to protect them from himself. Though that didn’t make any sense. He was their protector. Always had been.

“You really want that cotton fluff growing around here, Seth? Might stir up your asthma.”

“Still sidestepping the real issue, aren’t you, Zach?”

Fists began to clench. Chins jutted. Good heavens! They might actually come to blows.

Evangeline thrust herself more forcefully between the two, planting one hand on each brother’s chest. Then she blurted the first thing that came to mind.

“I met a man in the woods today.”

Both faces bent toward her, redirecting their antagonism squarely in her direction. “What?”

Well, at least she’d managed to unite them, even if it was at her own expense. They had chorused their demand in perfect synchronicity.

Evangeline smiled. Now she just had to find a way to extricate herself without giving away too many details about her secret project. “I met a man,” she repeated, “in the woods.”

Zach’s eyebrows arched sharply. “What man?” He was in full-on protective mode now. Big brother impulses trumped personal issues every time. He really was a sweetheart under that lone wolf exterior. “Evangeline . . .” he growled.

All right, so he also had fangs, but she could deal with those.

“Don’t get your dander up, Zach. It was all perfectly innocent.”

Seth glowered, taking a stance beside Zach, his arms crossed. “Nothing is ever perfectly innocent with you, Evie.”

Really? That was just uncalled for. She cast a glare at her middle brother. Just because in this instance it wasn’t perfectly innocent—she’d been rummaging through Logan’s camp, after all, and he was probably involved in some sort of clandestine, better-if-you-don’t-know-my-full-name kind of activities of his own—didn’t mean she always behaved in a such a manner.

“How’d you meet him?” Zach, of course, was still focused on the man.

“He rescued me,” Evangeline said, hoping to reassure her brother that Logan meant her no harm. Yet instead of soothing him, her remark seemed to increase his agitation. He grabbed her upper arms in a controlled grip. It wasn’t painful, but it demanded answers.

“Was someone threatening you?” He looked her up and down, frowning at the small bruise she knew was forming over her right cheek where she’d collided with the ground when Logan tackled her. It hadn’t darkened much yet, so she’d hoped it would escape their notice, but apparently that was no longer an option. At least they couldn’t see the other sore places along her hip and ribs. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. And truly I was never in any danger. It was just a silly misunderstanding.”

Zach eyed her skeptically. “A misunderstanding that led a man you’d never met to believe you in need of rescue?”

Evangeline shrugged, a rather neat trick, considering Zach still had hold of her arms. “He might have reached the erroneous conclusion that I was in the path of a wild boar’s charge.”

“Hezzy.” There was that synchronicity again, as both her brothers chorused her pet’s name with equal levels of exasperation. But at least they were no longer glowering at her. Zach even released her arms, freeing her to punch his shoulder lightly.

“Don’t say his name like he’s the bane of your existence,” she scolded. “Hezekiah is a fine hog and a faithful companion.”

“He’s a nuisance and a plague.”

Evangeline would have been offended had all the heat not drained from Zach’s voice and his lips not curved into a hint of a smile.

She threw her arms around her brother’s neck and kissed his cheek. “You love him and you know it.”

His arms came around her back for a light squeeze before he disengaged himself. “I tolerate him.”

She grinned up at him. “Because you love me.”