Spencer aimed at changing the subject before he and Kyle got into it again. “Two really good things came out of our…adventure.”
“An adventure you promise you’ll explain, later,” Kyle grumbled.
“Yes. You’ll hear all about it, I swear.”
That seemed to satisfy Kyle for the moment.
Mason actually chuckled. “Yeah. I see one of those good things sitting with us, right here.” He leaned over to give Spencer a punch on the shoulder, but his chair chose that moment to give out.
He ended up sprawling on the floorboards. “What the…?”
He started laughing, and soon, when he had trouble stopping, everyone else was in hysterics as well.
It was just the tension-breaker they all needed.
Kyle rose first, carefully. He gave Mason a hand up, then looked back at his chair. “I think I’m good standing.” He brought his gaze back to Spencer, reminding Spence he’d been being grilled.
“Okay. So Tabbi is one good thing. What’s the other?”
Yeah.Kyle wouldn’t stay distracted for long. His brother was often times like a dog with a juicy bone.
Spencer, however, wasn’t going to dance around his plans any longer. “I’ve decided what I want to do with my life—not that I’m ready to reveal what that is just yet. And that means I’m aiming to stay in Maine. But get this. If I’m successful in setting things up, Buck is going to join me as a third partner.”
“Third?” Mason’s astute gaze from his position where he currently leaned against a railing, turned to Tabitha.
“Yup,” Spencer confirmed. “Tabithamighthitch her wagon to mine and settle here in Maine. Thereismore to her story, though, which I hope we can hash out over dinner at Ma and Dad’s tonight.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tabitha’s tiny pout.Right.She’d wanted a moonlight row onto the lake. He turned toward her.Tomorrow, he mouthed.
She nodded, easily appeased.
“Dinner at the ‘rents? This is the first I’m hearing of that.” Mason’s face lit up.
Yup. Every one of the Sothard boys loved their mother’s cooking.
“Right,” Spencer confirmed with a smirk. “Ma said if we behave ourselves and nobody’s bloody, she’ll put on a feed for us all tonight.”
Without another word, Mason and Kyle pulled their phones from their pockets.
“Everlee…”
“Rowan…”
They both began filling their wives in at once, while Tabitha grinned at Spencer.
“I think that went well,” she whispered.
Spencer snorted, not hiding his words.
“You can tell yourself that, but this is definitely not over.”
Tabitha raised a brow, to which he gave a knowing bob of his chin.
There was no way his brothers were letting him off the hook this easily.
CHAPTER 23
Tabitha wasn’tsure what to expect when they drove onto the Sothard’s property. She’d been picturing a place that was rough and ready. Maybe log-cabin-y. A place where it was obvious that eight rambunctious boys had been raised. But what she was seeing was…absolutely lovely and quintessentially New England. It was a huge white house in the style of a traditional cape, but with many additions rambling off in all directions in a very charming and cohesive manner. An enormous front porch stretched the full length of the home, and it held so many rockers that Tabitha couldn’t immediately count them all. The home sat slightly elevated on the property that sloped upward from where they stood, and on every porch soffit hung several baskets of overflowing, multi-colored flowers. It all took Tabitha’s breath away.
