Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (108 page)

“Absolutely.
 
Thanks and just give us a buzz if you
need anything.”

The line went dead.

Nicole hung up the phone and quickly ran
upstairs to the master bathroom, knocking on the closed door.

“Red!” she shouted.

After a moment, the door opened and there
her man stood in all his naked glory.
 
He was dripping wet, his hair was still soaked, and droplets were
hanging from the ends of his curly locks.
 
He slicked it all back with one quick motion of his hand.
 
“What’s up?” he said.
 
“Everything okay?”

“It’s your brother.”

“Jeb?”
 
His eyes grew wide with concern.

“He’s here.
 
Now.”

“At the house?”
 
Red looked shocked.

“I just got a call from the front
gate.
 
He should be at the door in
the next couple of minutes.
 
I told
them to let him through.”
 
She felt
suddenly anxious that Red would be upset with her for not checking with him
first.

“Okay.”
 
He shook his head, still stunned.
 
“I can’t imagine what would bring Jeb
here unannounced like this.”

“Well, you’ve had your phone off,” Nicole
reminded him.
 
“He probably tried to
contact you already and couldn’t get through.”

“Shit.”
 
He sighed heavily, turning to grab a
fresh towel.
 
She couldn’t help but
admire the rippling muscles in his back and his tight butt as he did so.
 
When he turned to face her again, she
was red faced.

“I should go downstairs and be ready to
meet him,” Nicole said.

“He’s a good guy,” Red told her.
 
“You’ll like him a lot.
 
I’m just going to throw some clothes on
and then I’ll be down.”

Somewhat relieved that she’d handled this
situation the right way, Nicole went back downstairs and awaited Jeb’s arrival.

Finally there was a knock on the front
door and she answered it, doing her best smile and hugging him as if he were
her own family.
 

“I’m Nicole,” she said, as he came
inside, looking around with wonder.

“Jeb,” he replied.
 
“Pleased to meet your acquaintance,
Nicole.”

She walked alongside him as he entered.

“I’ve never been here before,” Jeb said,
hefting a small suitcase over the threshold.
 
“I stayed at Red’s old house, but it
wasn’t anything like this monstrosity…I mean, this beautiful architectural
wonder.”
 
He grinned.

She liked him immediately.
 
He and Red seemed like night and
day—polar opposites.
 
Where
Red was dark haired, swarthy, almost exotic—Jeb was light haired, pale,
and All-American.
 
He had a plain, trusting,
boyish face but a quick and surprisingly funny wit that immediately endeared
him to her.

“Would you like to settle in for a
minute?” she asked.
 
“I can show you
to one of the guest rooms and then if you need to relax, change, use the
bathroom…”

“Is Red around?” he said, glancing up the
spiral staircase in the foyer.

“He’s just getting out of the shower,
he’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Jeb sighed a little, as if hoping to get
an unpleasant job out of the way sooner rather than later.
 
“Sure, I’d love to have a moment or two
of downtime.
 
Thanks.”

As she took him to one of the lovely
guest rooms, Jeb mentioned he hadn’t been able to get through to Red on his
phone.
 
“I tried him like four or
five times, and the last one it said his mailbox was full.
 
I was starting to get pretty worried.”

“He’s fine,” she said.
 
“He just shut his phone off for a little
while because he needed a break.”

Jeb’s forehead wrinkled at this piece of
news.
 
“Red needed a break from
work?
 
I guess more’s changed around
here than just his new house.”

She left him in the guest room and let
him know she was preparing dinner in the kitchen.

Jeb seemed happy enough with that, and so
Nicole went back to continue making her meatloaf, feeling confident that this
would be a simple family visit.
 
It
seemed as though Jeb was merely checking in on Red after not being able to get
in touch with him for an extended period of time.

She was just packing the meatloaf mixture
into her baking pan when Jeb appeared at the kitchen entrance, smiling
wryly.
 
“I thought for sure Red
would have a whole team of cooks in here, assisting you with this lovely
supper.”

“Nope, just little old me,” she laughed.

Jeb took a seat at the breakfast nook
nearby, watching her work.
 
“So how
long have you two been seeing each other?”

She glanced up at him to gauge his
expression.
 
Red had mentioned that
Jeb was close with his mother, so surely she must have told him her opinion of
their relationship.
 
And Nicole
reckoned it probably hadn’t been anything positive.
 
Still, Nicole wasn’t getting the
impression that Jeb was automatically assuming the worst about her, so she
tried to stay honest and open.

“Not very long,” she said.
 
“A couple of months.”

Jeb’s eyebrows rose in a way that
reminded her of Red.
 
“That’s pretty
fast.”
 
He put his hands up.
 
“No offense.”

“None taken,” she smiled.
 
Her fingers were sticky with pieces of
raw meat and onion and egg.
 
She
didn’t exactly feel like a model of perfection right now.

“Nicole, I’m going to be completely up
front with you,” Jeb said.
 
“I think
that—“

At that moment, Red burst into the
room.
 
“What in god’s name are you
doing here?” he called out, a huge, happy grin on his face.
 
His arms were open.
 
“Come on, you rascal, bring it in for
the real thing.”

Laughing, Jeb got off the stool and went
to hug his brother.
 
Red tousled his
hair and slapped his shoulder.
 
“You
look great, Doc.
 
To what do I owe
the pleasure?”

Jeb stuffed his hands in his
pockets.
 
Next to Red he suddenly
seemed younger and less self-assured than he had a moment ago.
 
“Well, I tried calling you a bunch.
 
I guess you were purposely going dark,
needed a break from all the hubbub?”

“Exactly,” Red replied, coming behind the
counter where he planted a kiss on Nicole’s cheek.
 
He sniffed at the meatloaf.
 
“Mmmm…that looks damn good, babe.”

Jeb came back over and sat again at the
breakfast nook.
 
“There’s a lot of
chatter about you on the web and even TV.”

Red gave him a look.
 
“You don’t listen to that crap, do you?”

“I don’t know.
 
Is CNN reputable enough for you?”

“Oh,” Red laughed.
 
“That kind of chatter.
 
Well, it’s true that business is down.”

Jeb’s expression grew more
concerned.
 
“How down?”

Red looked at him.
 
“All the way.”

“So what does that mean?”

“Hey, I don’t know.”
 
Red grinned again.
 
“All I know is I have this beautiful
lady in my life and meatloaf in a pan and soon it will be in my stomach.
 
I’m not getting ahead of myself.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jeb laughed.

“Let’s just enjoy ourselves and eat,
shall we?”

“Absolutely,” Jeb replied—but
Nicole could tell he had more he wanted to say.

Their eyes met for a fraction of a second
and she saw the smile die on his lips, but then Red was going to the fridge and
grabbing them a couple of beers.
 
“Hon,” Red called out, “is it okay if me and my bro go shoot some hoops
a bit before dinner?”

“Of course,” Nicole replied, loving the
fact that he’d called her hon.

“It’s kind of dark out,” Jeb said,
uncertainly.

“That’s why I put lights on the court,
dummy,” Red chuckled.
 
“Come on, I’m
going to school you just like the old days.”

“In your dreams.”
 
The two of them headed outside together.

Nicole shook her head as the front door
closed and their voices faded.
 
She
put her meatloaf in the oven and worked on the finishing touches for the
glaze.
 
Also, she had to make sure
her sides would be ready in time.
 
Some instant mashed potatoes, green beans and canned corn.
 

As she worked, she pictured Red and Jeb
playing basketball, talking trash, laughing like brothers did.
 
She thought Jeb was a pretty sweet guy,
which was what Red had said about him.

And yet, she knew now that more had
brought him here than just not being able to get in touch with Red for a day or
two.

Nicole was certain it had something to do
with their horrible mother and perhaps the status of Red and Nicole’s
relationship as well.
 
Her stomach
tightened at the thought of Jeb saying negative things about her, things that
Red might listen to coming from someone he respected.
 

Jeb seemed too nice to do something like
that, but what did she really know about him?

And would Red really listen if Jeb tried
to undermine their relationship in someway?
 
Nicole honestly didn’t believe he would,
but you could never be totally certain.
 
The pull of one’s family was incredibly strong.
 
She knew that as much as anybody.

Nicole decided not to allow herself to
dwell on whatever Jeb was here to discuss—that was between him and his
brother.
 
She needed to trust Red,
and she did trust him.

She focused back on making her dinner,
basting the meatloaf in her special glaze and putting it back in the oven for
the final stretch of cooking.

A few minutes later, Red and Jeb came inside,
still laughing and talking excitedly like a couple of teenagers, as she was
putting the finishing touches on the meal.
 

“Holy cow, that smells amazing,” Red
said.
 
His forehead was slick with
sweat and he looked invigorated.
 
“I
need some fuel after kicking this guy’s butt one-on-one.”

Jeb was slightly disheveled, but laughing
too.
 
“Remind me again that I’m too
damn old to be playing basketball with my hypercompetitive brother with no
witnesses around to see the blatant fouls and constant cheating.”

“Just because I go strong to the basket,”
Red said.
 
“Don’t be a hater.”

“Oh, you’re right.
 
Forgive my hating ways.”
 

“Dinner’s ready,” she said.
 
“Why don’t you two go sit outside on the
veranda and I’ll bring the food to the table.”

A few minutes later, everyone was eating
and it turned out that Nicole’s meatloaf was a hit after all.
 
Red had three servings, Jeb had two, and
Nicole even had a couple of servings herself.

During the meal they talked mostly about
Jeb’s practice.
 
It was obvious that
he enjoyed being a doctor and caring for his patients.
 
At the same time, he wasn’t averse to
joking about them, telling a few stories out of school.
 
He told one story about an older man who
would come to see him frequently complaining of heartburn, and after a million
and one tests, finally remembered to mention that he had a habit of eating
paper.
 

Yes, this man actually ate reams and
reams of paper, day in and day out.

“It was giving him serious indigestion,”
Jeb said, snorting.
 
“And when I
told him that he needed to quit cold turkey, he looked at me and said he’d just
as soon live with the heartburn then stop eating paper.”

“That’s insane,” Nicole said.

“So is smoking,” Jeb replied, “but that
never stopped anybody.”

“True.”

Eventually, they were all finished with
the meal, patting their stomachs and remarking on how good everything tasted.