Tangled Web: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 6) by Giulia Lagomarsino (an ebook reader txt) 📕

“And it was dangerous as hell. My girlfriend is pregnant.”

I flinched back. Okay, obviously this was all about his girlfriend and me putting her in danger. “Well, I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.”

“You can help by staying the hell away from her.”

“Hey,” Andrew snapped. “How about I remind you of how I treated Sofia when she came here?”

Joe’s eyes shuttered and he walked away. Obviously there was some unspoken tension going on there, but I wasn’t about to pursue that right now.

“You know, I think I should get home.”

Andrew nodded and headed for the door. I said goodbye to the girls, ignoring the glaring looks from Robert and Joe. Apparently, I was a dangerous person to be around because I had aided their girlfriends. Lesson learned. We headed downstairs and got in the truck. I stared out the window, wondering how this day had turned so shitty.

“Sorry about my brother.”

“What was that about up there? Was that all because I helped his girlfriend out?”

He sighed, tightening his hands on the steering wheel. “Kat, Eric’s wife, she lost her baby almost two years ago.”

I nodded. “She mentioned that. How did it happen?”

“Not sure. She was eight months pregnant and she just didn’t feel the baby moving anymore. The baby was stillborn. It devastated both of them, and it was hard to watch them fall apart as a couple.”

“So, now everyone’s worried that it’ll happen again,” I concluded.

He nodded. “It’s why they’re all so protective of them.”

“You included.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute, but then he glanced over at me. “My family is very close. None of those women are married to my brothers, but the minute my brothers said they fell in love, they all became my sisters. I would do anything for any one of them, and that includes protecting them from any threats.”

The way he said that last part almost made me feel like I was a threat. “I would never hurt them.”

“I know,” he nodded. “But my brothers have just met you. All they saw was that you put them in harm’s way.”

I snorted. “That was hardly harm’s way.”

He grinned slightly. “Well, maybe not to you and the girls. But to us, anything could be considered harm’s way.”

“So, if I were walking with them and we crossed the street…”

“Is this another scenario where a car is coming at us?” he grinned.

“I’m just saying, those women are going to lose their shit if everyone keeps treating them like glass.”

“You may have a point,” he said as we drove out of town. “It’s hard to let go of that control though.”

We fell into a comfortable silence until we were almost to my house, but there was something that I had to ask. “What did you mean about the serial killer?”

He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“When we first came back, you said something about serial killers and Sofia cooking.”

He looked panicked for a moment and then laughed uncomfortably. “Oh, that was nothing. It’s just a joke in our family.”

“Because of Carly?”

He frowned and then laughed. “Right, because of Carly.”

“I have to say, she’s a little psycho. I mean, I’m all for having cool interests, but dismantling a bomb is a little outside my area of interest.”

He nodded, like this made him happy, and I wasn’t sure what else he was expecting of me. We got out after he parked and unloaded all the groceries in the kitchen. It was still freezing in the house, and the fire had died out while we were gone.

I didn’t even have to ask Andrew to build the fire. He just got to work on it. I could do it myself, but it was nice to have a man do it so willingly. I put away the food, sticking the cold food on the back porch in a cooler. It wasn’t the most ideal solution, but it would work for now. Darkness was starting to settle in the house, so I grabbed a few candles that Andrew had picked up and brought them into the living room, along with a bottle of wine.

Andrew looked over his shoulder at me and grinned. “No food, just wine tonight?”

I shrugged. “Who needs food?”

“Me, but I can get it myself.”

I hurried over in front of the fire and held my hands up to warm them. “You could have stayed at your apartment, you know. You didn’t have to come babysit me.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, looking pointedly at me. “Is that what this is?”

I grinned and rubbed my hands together. They were finally starting to warm up. The house was chilled to the bone, and even if the power did come back on, it wouldn’t warm up fast enough.

“I’m gonna grab some food. You want something?” he asked over his shoulder as he headed for the door.

“Maybe just some beef jerky.”

“Coming up.”

I gazed into the fire and laughed to myself over the day’s events. I never would have imagined something so crazy would happen, but it had. But Joe…something about him…he didn’t like me and I couldn’t understand why. It was like he thought he knew me, but that was impossible. I didn’t recognize him from anywhere and I was great with names. He definitely didn’t know me. So why was he looking at me with so much hate?

“Here you go,” Andrew said, handing me over some jerky as he sat down with a sandwich. “Jesus, it’s freaking cold in here.”

“It’s going to take a while to warm up. Are you sure you don’t want to go home? I really won’t be upset.”

He gave me a funny look. “No, I’m fine. Besides, I’m not the sort of man that would leave you out here by yourself.”

“I’m very resourceful. I don’t need you to take care of me.” It sounded harsh, but my tone didn’t reflect that. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”

“You know, there’s this thing that people