Turner was slipping his key card—irritated at his cousin Mac at the delays in fixing Turner’s roof—into the lock on his suite at the Barratt, when he heard little feet on a carpeted rug.
There weren’t any children in his generation of Barratts. And since this was the family wing, his natural sense of curiosity had him turning.
A familiar redhead—one of his favorite redheads, at that—was limping up the hallway toward the suite she shared with her dork of a husband. Mel was such a pretty woman; Turner was half in love with her. Mel was the kind of woman a smart man always hoped to find—loyal, loving, intelligent, hot as hell, with a kick-ass sense of humor, confident. The list could go on.
There was a smaller brunette walking next to her.
For a moment, Turner thought he must be hallucinating. Annie had slipped into his dreams every night since he’d last seen her. Dressed in green scrubs—that she hadn’t worn for long. The things they’d done to each other in his dreams…
There she was, walking right up to him. The woman he was starting to think he was more than half in love with. Before they’d even had one real date. He put his bag down at his feet and looked at her.
Pitiful, but he was a Barratt man, after all. They knew the women they wanted.
She stopped walking abruptly. Her eyes widened, and she clutched the toddler in her arms closer. He shot a sleepy look at Turner and closed big, green eyes. The other two boys wrapped little hands around her scrub pants and clung. Her sister walked at her other side; her arms loaded down with a laundry bag. Houghton carried a basket.
Annie looked pale and exhausted, and it was only nine p.m.
And if he wasn’t mistaken, the entire lot of them—with his cousins the exceptions—reeked of smoke.
“Annie, honey, what’s happened?” He stepped closer just as the lot of them arrived at the suite next to his. He wrapped one hand around her elbow and turned her slightly.
She didn’t look injured, or singed, but she smelled like smoke.
“Turner. I...”
Big, blue eyes showed her exhaustion, her confusion. Her worry.
“What’s happened, honey?”
“My neighbor’s house caught fire. We…Jake told my sister to come here. We’re going to stay here tonight.”
“In Clay—and now Bailey’s—suite,” Houghton said, quietly. Turner looked at him. His cousin was smirking. But Houghton got it.
Clay’s suite was right next door to Turner’s.
Annie would be right next door to him, all night. And Turner couldn’t do anything about it with three kids and a teenager with her.
Houghton was messing with him. No doubt about it.