Page 175 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

"Shove it, Devereaux."

I giggle into the batter bowl.

I can't help it.

Beckett swings his glare to me, and it melts halfway there into something soft and pleased, like the sight of me laughing in a bad robe at seven in the morning is worth more than a full night's sleep.

"She laughs," he says. "At my pain."

"At your drama," I correct.

The hallway delivers August next, and he arrives with a grievance already loaded and ready to fire. He's the only one of them who looks halfway put together — a soft Henley pulled on,drawstring pants, his hair somehow fine — but he's rolling one shoulder in its socket and wincing.

"This old man," August announces to the room, aiming a wounded look directly at Beckett, "tried to break my back in the middle of the night."

Beckett doesn't even turn around from where he's leaning over the griddle, inhaling steam.

"I knocked you off the bed by accident."

"Accident." August pulls out a chair and lowers himself into it like a man twice his age. "Accident my ass, Shaw. I don't move in my sleep. You know I don't move in my sleep. I woke up on the floor. The floor came to me."

"Then you should be grateful for the change of scenery." Beckett shrugs, one big shoulder rolling, and delivers the verdict with the flat calm of a man who has thought about it. "Well. That's what you get. I didn't get to brush Amber's hair last night."

There's a beat of pure silence.

Then I set the whisk down, because I need both hands free for how hard I'm about to laugh.

"I'm sorry." I brace myself on the counter. "You knocked August onto the floor…on purpose, allegedly by accident…because Sawyer did my hair instead of you?"

"I never said on purpose," Beckett says with tremendous dignity.

"You are holding a grudge," I wheeze. "About a hairbrush. Against a man who was asleep."

"I am holding," Beckett corrects, "a completely reasonable position. Hair duty is my duty. It got stolen from me, in my own house, by a smooth-talking wedding planner. Somebody had to pay. August was closest."

Sawyer slides the first stack of pancakes onto a plate and passes it down the counter, grinning like the cat with the canary.

"In fairness, Beck, you couldn't tell a comb from a paddle brush last night. You stood there holding both like they were live grenades. I did the girl a mercy."

"I was performing a controlled comparison," Beckett says.

"You asked, and I quote"—Sawyer pitches his voice into a passable imitation of Beckett's gravel—"'why are there two tools for the same job.'"

August snorts.

Beckett's ears go faintly pink above the beard, which is the most extraordinary thing I've seen all morning, because I did not previously know that Beckett Shaw was capable of being flustered by anything short of a natural disaster.

"They are two tools for the same job," he mutters.

"They are absolutely not," August and I say at the same time, and then point at each other, delighted.

Sawyer leans across the counter toward Beckett, dropping his voice into something low and syrupy, purely to twist the knife.

"Tell you what? You want the hair job so bad, I'll teach you. Real patient. Start you on the easy stuff. We'll build up your"—he lets it hang, the pause obscene—"technique."

Beckett, who came into this kitchen unbothered by the loss of an entire night's sleep, goes the deep, betrayed red of a man who has just heard his own bedroom vocabulary handed back to him across a breakfast counter. He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He closes it.

Sawyer looks like he'd like to frame the moment.