A Bad Boy for Christmas (2 page)

“Just because she’s
his
sister, doesn’t mean she’s
our
sister.” Eli added his two cents.

Good point. Cutter was going to hold to that small but significant distinction, otherwise he was going to have to face the fact that he’d been temporarily and altogether unwittingly lusting after his sister.

Half-sister.

Step-sister?

Just shoot him now.

“You must be the smart one,” she murmured, eyeing Eli with frank appraisal, before turning her gaze once more to Cutter. “What does that make you?”

“Waiting for an explanation,” he grated.

“Aren’t we all,” she said.

“O-kay. Let’s all just … pause.” Caleb signaled a scuba diving stop-right-there sign and Cutter was all for it. He also wanted a rewind button, some kind of warning that the fine fisherman’s catch he’d hauled in off the trawler this morning was going to be overshadowed by a catastrophic revelation come lunchtime.

“Does my father know about you?” Caleb asked her and she had the grace to look discomforted.

“Me? No.”

Cutter spared a glance for his doppelganger. “What about you? Does he know about
you
?”

The man shrugged, a tight, tense motion, but he held Cutter’s gaze with a bleak one of his own. “I don’t know.”

“How can you
not know
?”

“Clearly you’re
not
the smart one,” the woman murmured, drawing his attention yet again. He scowled and watched her lips curve in reply. It was a good smile. A dazzling smile. A smile designed to challenge a man and it was directed straight at him.

He glared at her in some kind of lame attempt to deflect it. “How about you stop interrupting and let your brother speak?”

She opened her mouth to retaliate and—

“Leave it,” her brother said.

And lo if she didn’t cross her arms defensively in front of her and do what he said.

“My mother died up in Darwin a few weeks ago,” the guy continued. “We found an old photo of her outside this place in her belongings. She’d written a name and the date on the back of it. The name was familiar, seeing as I’ve been carrying it around since birth. She made mention of the name again in her will. Said I was his. I figured I’d drive by and get some answers. Ruin a few lives.”

“Good job. You could always just keep going.” Even as he said it, Cutter knew that notion was never going to fly. How was he supposed to protect his family when it was clear to anyone with eyes that this man
was
family?

Like it or not, the man existed.

Cutter breathed deep and raised both hands to his salt-heavy hair in an attempt to burn off some of the restless fight energy that threatened to engulf him. “Sorry. I’m—sorry.” Not a word he used all that often. “Your mother’s death … I’m sorry for your loss.”

A muscle ticked in the other man’s jaw. “Don’t be. She wasn’t the maternal type.”

“You could say we’re real familiar with foster homes,” the sister—not necessarily
his
sister—interjected, and that was just—

Cutter had no words for what that was, other than
wrong
. No way would his father have left any kid of his to be raised in foster homes. Not if he’d known. Family
meant
something around here.

This whole thing was
wrong
.

“He didn’t know about you,” Cutter couldn’t stop staring at the man who wore his face. “My father, he didn’t know.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know
him
.”

Nash—because no goddamn way was he calling him Jackson—offered up a hard smile. “Lucky you.”

Fist. Face. The urge was almost irresistible.

“Don’t.” Eli pinned him with that all-seeing gray gaze. “Caleb …”

“I’m on it. I go away for
one
dive and all hell breaks loose,” Caleb murmured as he headed for the fridge at the back of the workshop. He opened the door, pulled out a beer, cracked it and took a long pull, with his back to them all. And then he took a breath deep enough to inflate his chest and broaden his back, reached in and withdrew another four bottles of Australia’s strongest before heading towards the redheaded witch who was currently screwing with Cutter’s brain.

“I’m Caleb,” his brother said as he held out a beer.

The woman took the beer from him with a rueful and disarmingly sweet smile. “I’m Mia. It means mine. Or beloved. My beloved. Catchy, huh? You’re going to love me.”

Wisely, Caleb made no comment. “Where are you staying?”

“At the pub in town.”

“For how long?”

“Hard to say. We might stick around.”

Caleb still held the floor. “Not a lot of work around these parts. What do you do for a living?”

“I draw pretty pictures.”

“That’s a living?”

“Sometimes it is.”

Caleb crossed to the doppelganger next and held out a beer. The man shook his head in refusal, but that was okay; Cutter would take two. Did take two, as Caleb held out the cluster of beers to him.

What do we do?
Caleb’s look asked the question for him. Wordless communication a function of growing up in each other’s pockets and working together on a daily basis.

Hell if I know!

“Steady, man,” Caleb murmured, and it was good advice.

Cutter looked down at the beers and made a production out of putting one of them on the table and cracking open the other one as he waited for his brain to override the chaos of his emotions. There had to be a way through this for them all.

And he would find it.

By the time Eli had a beer in hand as well, Cutter had the scratchings of a plan.

He looked up to find all eyes on him, some wary and some just plain waiting.

“You’re looking for my father and he’s not here. We can probably rouse our grandfather to meet you at the pub this evening,” he offered, his sense of fair play warring with his need to protect. “He might know something about your mother and … the rest of it.”

“Not really a question for him,” Nash said.

“Yeah, well. I don’t know who else to point you towards. Like Eli said, our father’s in the UK.”

“Any way I can contact him?”

“I could give you my mother’s mobile number, but I’m not inclined to do that at this point. They waited thirty years to take this trip.” Which begged the question. “How old are you?”

Nash’s lips twisted. “Almost thirty-one.”

“Date of birth?”

“December nineteenth.”

Eli choked on the beer he’d just set to his lips. Caleb helped his younger brother out with a pat on the back guaranteed to send a lighter man sprawling and a smirk that Cutter could read only too well.

Cutter wouldn’t be thirty-one until the fourth of February. The doppelganger was about six weeks older than him, which meant Cutter had just lost his elder brother status. “Not one goddamn word,” he warned them.

“No swearing around our sister,” Caleb cautioned cheerfully. “Hey, you think she’s older than you too?”

“No.” He spared her another glance and tried not to linger.

“People always look younger when they haven’t been in the sun,” Caleb countered.

“I’m right here, boys. Why don’t you ask?”

But Cutter didn’t need to ask. He’d been studying women since puberty. “Twenty-four, twenty-five, tops. The miles on her are experience driven, not time related.”

“Oh, so you’re the
charmer
,” she said. “How does that work out for you?”

“Can I gag her?” he asked of no one in particular.

Eli shook his head sorrowfully.

“Push her off the jetty?”

Caleb signaled the iffy-ness of that with the wiggle of a flat hand.

“Take her fishing?”

“I could go fishing,” she said.

“
No!
” his younger brothers said in unison. Protective already, Cutter noted with grim amusement.
His
protective instincts had yet to kick in.

Truth be told, when it came to
Mia you’re going to love me
, his instincts remained downright unbrotherly.

His brooding gaze collided with that of the older man, and for a moment Cutter thought he saw a flash of sympathy in those all too familiar shaped eyes.

“She’s twenty-five,” Nash said. “And you can tell when she’s nervous by the number of insults she starts throwing around.”

“Feel free to share,” she said, clearly stung by her big brother’s words.

It was all just too much. Cutter had tried to take her and her brother in his stride, never mind the shock. He was trying, as they spoke, to sort through the implications for his family. His father had probably—clearly—gotten two women pregnant at around about the same time, and whether he’d known about both was anyone’s guess.

Cutter was guessing not.

“I’m thirty-one in February,” he said. “I was born eight months after my parents married. It was a shotgun wedding, but they’ve been together now for thirty years. They built a life together. There was always love. Still is.” That much he could give the man who wore his face. “I don’t know where you fit in, but you might.”

His gaze slid to Mia. He didn’t know where she fit in at all, other than in his wildest fantasies. “You should go. Give us some time to adjust. See if we can get you some answers. If you’re sticking around the Bay we’ll find you. If not, well. Leave your number on the noticeboard on your way out.”

Nash nodded, before looking over at the woman. “Mia? You ready?”

Mia finished her beer with impressive speed, burped, balanced the bottle precariously on top of a carburetor on a nearby bench and turned to exit. Her legs were great, her butt was round, her dress was backless, and—

“What in
hell
is
that
?” Cutter growled. Because the creamy skin was gone, replaced by a swirling morass of fine lines and greenish-black-on-gray coloring.

“Could be a frigate,” said Eli with a tilt of his head.

“Could be a man-o’-war,” offered Caleb. “Definitely a maelstrom.”

The sinking ship tattoo covered her back from the tips of her shoulder blades to way down somewhere below the line of her dress. A work of art, drawn by a master’s hand, and it was beautiful, no question, on that backdrop of milky skin.

Desecration.

It was that too.

“Probably not a good idea to ask her why she did it,” Nash muttered. “Been there, done that. Didn’t end well.”

“Wouldn’t have happened on
my
watch.”

Nash snorted. His other brothers—the ones who were supposed to have his back—tried not to grin. Eli managed a straight face. Caleb didn’t.

Mia glanced over her shoulder at him, the lines of her face a compelling mix of sharp angles and delicate curves. “Delusion suits you,” she murmured dulcetly. “It explains so much.”

“Aw, baby sis. Still so
nervous
,” Cutter purred back.

Her eyes narrowed. “You want a tattoo like mine, princess, you just say the word. For you a family discount. I’ll try not to make you cry
too
much.”

“There are words at the bottom,” said Eli, possibly by way of trying to divert out-and-out war. Not that anyone could read the words, for they barely peeked above the silky green material of her low-slung dress.

“Stop looking at your sister’s ass,” Mia commanded.

Eli immediately turned his gaze to the boat on the slip rail. A dull hint of red crept up his darkly tanned neck. “I wasn’t—I didn’t—Dear God, just tell me when she’s gone.”

Caleb too was looking resolutely away, his attention firmly fixed on the far wall.

She had them all, the whole lot of them, tossing in a wild, roiling ocean.

And she was enjoying it.

Cutter could play the fool when he wanted to. He had a healthy appreciation for the unexpected and the absurd.

He also had a reckless streak a mile wide.

But underneath it all he held an unshakeable commitment to family, and when his younger brothers felt threatened Cutter
always
stepped up. “Are you done winding us up?” he demanded of her. “Because, lady, I don’t care who you are. You need to go now and don’t bother coming back until you’re ready to play fair. Are we clear?”

He figured his words for a reasonable call.

No one came forward and said he was wrong,
Mia you’re going to love me
included.

Nash headed towards the redhead, herding her towards the open doorway she’d first appeared in.

No one protested.

And when they finally disappeared from view without another word, Cutter picked up the second beer on the counter and downed it whole.

M
ia Blake knew
her way around the men of this world. She dealt with them daily, all sizes and creeds. She could hold her own in a tattoo studio, a streetcar racing scene and, unless comprehensively outsized, in a mixed martial arts ring. She was streetwise and IQ smart and she’d deliberately set herself up as a target in there, drawing their fire away from Nash, and playing them all with ease.

Right up until the very end when the older one had called her on it.

“I thought it went very well,” she said, and met Nash’s incredulous glare with equanimity.

“Define well, Mia.”