Page 61 of Guarding Colton’s Witness

“Because?” Ryan asked. There was a teasing tone in Aiden’s voice, so he wasn’t exactly worried, but he also wasn’t exactly thrilled that three intimidating men had their eyes on him.

“One word,” Cal said. “Sister.”

Aiden nodded. “Yup, that. Don’t break her heart. We know where to bury a body so it’ll never be found.” He leaned his head toward his brothers. “He’s shaking in his boots. Think our work here is done,” he loudly whispered.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “You’re a funny guy, Aiden.”

“Already told you that.”

“In all seriousness, we owe you big for protecting Matti and Sam,” Cal said. “I don’t even want to think about how that would have gone down if you hadn’t been here. Sorry about the black eye.” He glanced at the brace on Ryan’s wrist. “And your hand.”

He almost said, “It was nothing,” but he supposed it wasn’t. Maybe even a little heroic and not something he ever thought he’d think about himself. “My eye and hand will heal. I’m just glad I was here, but I’m sorry I let him get away.”

“We’ll catch him and hopefully soon,” Wyatt said. “Let’s get this alarm system installed, so we can go try to do just that.”

Between the four of them, they had the system installed in all but the primary bedroom by the time Matti appeared. She stopped at seeing three of her brothers. “Why are you all here? Did something happen?”

“Something sure did,” Aiden said, going over and hugging her. “You now have an alarm system. We just have to finish up in your room.”

“Should’ve thought to put one in when all this started,” Cal said.

Until recently, Red Grove had been a safe place to live. Half the population didn’t bother to lock their doors or their vehicles. In the last few months, that was changing, and Ryan didn’t at all like seeing those kinds of changes in his town.

Matti’s gaze ran over the four of them, stopping on Ryan. “Did you know they were going to do this?”

“Wyatt and I talked about it yesterday morning. With everything going on, I forgot to tell you.”

“Well, thank you.” She lifted onto her toes and kissed him.

“Ack!” Aiden said. “None of that in front of your brothers.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “Gross.”

“What he said,” Wyatt said.

“Ditto,” Cal said.

She laughed and kissed him again. “They should know better than to tell me something grosses them out.”

Ryan grinned. “We can kiss some more and maybe they’ll leave.” As an only child, he’d never experienced having a sibling, or in Matti’s case, a handful of them. He was a little jealous of the fun they seemed to have with each other, the teasing and giving each other a hard time but all in fun. Their closeness.

It was then and there that he decided he wanted a big family, and wasn’t that a surprise? When he’d thought he would marry Cassie, they’d been undecided if they even wanted children, and if they decided to, it would be no more than two. Now, he wanted kids running all over the house. He wondered if Matti wanted children.

“Since Sam isn’t in the guest bedroom, I assume he’s in yours?” Wyatt asked Matti.

“Yes. He was afraid to sleep in the room where the man tried to take him. I don’t want him to make a habit of that, so maybe having an alarm will ease his mind.”

Ryan didn’t want Sam sleeping in Matti’s room either. That was his place to sleep…among other things he liked doing with her in her bed. “I’ll get him up.”

As he stepped into the room, Matti’s phone chimed. He walked to the charger on her dresser, and seeing Dylan’s name appear on the screen, he picked it up. Leaving Sam to sleep a little longer, he carried her phone to her. As he handed it to her, he saw that her three brothers had their phones out. He leaned into her to read the screen.

Dylan: Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me Matti’s house was broken into?

Aiden: Bro, thought you left the chat.

Dylan: You put me back in, bonehead.

*Aiden Colton has removed Dylan Colton from the chat*

*Cal Colton has added Dylan Colton to the chat*