Page 34 of Winning His Wager

“No. Not fighting.”

“The whole housekeeper thing? Girl has no clue, does she?”

“She’s damned good at it. Knows what she’s doing. I think she took care of her whole family for years, while that dumbass father of hers worked. Hell, I think she’s been the twins’ and Dorie’s mother for all practical purposes, probably their whole lives.”

“So I’ve noticed. It’s probably good for her to get away from her sisters. Figure out what she wants for herself, and not just as the one who takes care of all of them. I know it was culture shock for me to go to Finley Creek where I didn’t know anyone. You aren’t being an ass to her, are you?”

“No.”

“You’d better not be. I…may not have been very welcoming to her, I’m afraid. We didn’t exactly get off to the best start.”

“You should try to fix it. She’s not going anywhere. You are family.”

“How are the two of you getting along?” she asked as he pulled her closer for a moment and spun her lightly. He’d always loved dancing with this woman. He’d always get a bit of a thrill when they did. That was missing now. Maybe it was because it wasn’t really this Talley he wanted to be dancing with right now at all.

The one he wanted was all wrapped in Mr. Hollywood’s arms. “Fine. We’re getting along fine. She makes me cookies.”

“That’s all it took to tame the savage Fletcher beast? Cookies?”

“Oatmeal cream cookies. And she makes beef stew and meatloaf and real food. It’s been too long since someone actually cooked in my kitchen. It’s nice.” And it made him actually want to spend more time there.

Before? He just hadn’t. His house hadn’t felt the same since his sister had moved out years ago. Or his brothers. The place had kind of echoed a little. It was far too big for just one man. Of course, it was far too big for just one man and his rather small housekeeper too. But there was more laughter in his house now than had been there in years.

Entirely her doing. She made him want to be there now.

With her.

“Not coming home to an empty house? I can understand that. You are behaving with her, otherwise?”

“I’m not a savage.”

“No. But you are a Tyler. And, well, we all know about Tylers and their housekeepers.”

Fletcher growled and spun her. She looked up at him, a wicked look in her big green eyes. She and Dylan had the same eyes—that always threw him off a little.

“Fletch, you’d better go. Fast. Looks like Derrick is absconding with yourhousekeeperrightnow. You’d better hurry before she gets away.”

Damn it.

Everyone in this damned town was a comedian or something.

20

Dylan wasn’t really payingattention. Quade knew it from the moment he wrapped his arms around his date and pulled her close. “You in there?”

“What? I’m sorry. I’m just a bit preoccupied. Is everything okay with the movie peeps?”

“We’re going to have a big problem, actually.” And he was trying to figure out how to help Rowland fix it. The man was practically beside himself as it was—something was going on with Rowland’s assistant Jenny, and it had him distracted.

Having four actresses, including the women who had been slated to play the Tyler twins, Perci and Pip, arrested for drug use—hard drug use, including fentanyl—in LA ruined everything. And Rowland wasn’t the kind of man to give up. Rowland and Quade and his brothers and Hunter had invested far too much into this docudrama to just quit now.

“What’s wrong? Do I need to go kick someone’s butt?” Dylan looked up at him, those big green eyes of hers serious. He could almost see her going to battle with nothing but attitude and a big stick to defend the ones she loved. That was one of the things that intrigued him the most about her.

“The actresses for the twins thing is really getting complicated. You sure your sisters won’t do it?” Rowland had had trouble casting the twins’ parts in the first place. The women they’d had weren’t even twins—they’d just resembled enough like that they could be made to look identical. “Rowland is having a meltdown. He’s rewritten the script a little so the actresses won’t even have that many lines, if needed. He’s good at that meltdown thing. Hunter and Nikki are calming him down now. Charlotte flew up a few hours ago and came straight to us. She seems to be able to calm Rowland too.”

“Charlotte is the queen of everything, dear. I have learned. I have learned. And…I have a pair of twins you can borrow if you need them. They take turns regularly annoying me. It’s a sister thing, you know. I’ll introduce them to you tonight. They are both finally in the same place. I just don’t think a movie set is the best place for Dahlia, honestly. I think it would be far too chaotic. And Devvie has classes—a really heavy schedule. I just don’t think they’d be able to make it work.”

He had yet to meet all of her sisters, he thought. He definitely hadn’t met both twins. Quade dipped his little dance partner and lifted her off her feet. Just for a moment. When the song ended, he led her to their table.