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shuffled a deck of cards with easy practice. He clamped a cigar between his teeth and gave Grant a challenging smile. “We were just about to deal a new hand. I’ve taken all the money I can from these losers.”
    Declan sat next to Cade with nothing more than a few quarters on the table in front of him and a scowl on his face, and Shane and Riley sat on the opposite side, having nothing more to show for their success than peanut shells and empty beer bottles.
    “It looks like Darcy’s doing well enough. Why don’t you take her money?” Grant said, glancing at the tall stacks of quarters and the small pile of dollar bills in front of her.
    “Yeah, Cade. Why don’t you take my money?” She shook back a loose tangle of black hair and laughed. “I’m sure he’d be happy to bleed me dry if he could beat me,” she said, winking at Grant. “Some of us are more interested in talking a good game rather than playing a good game. Ante up, MacKenzie. Put your money where your mouth is.”
    The rest of them hooted in laughter, and Cade got that competitive look in his eyes that Grant knew meant trouble. Darcy was no wilting flower, that was for sure, but she could hold her own. She’d bloodied plenty of noses as a child—mostly theirs—she’d had to with four older brothers.
    Darcy and Cade started a string of trash talking that would make their mother box their ears if she heard what was being said. Grant decided to escape before Mary MacKenzie showed up and did just that. Their mom had a way of knowing when her children weren’t doing what they were supposed to.
    He snagged another beer from the ice chest and weaved in and out of running children, a cat, and two dogs until he got to the kitchen. All of his cousin’s wives and his mother were gathered around the big island in the center of the room, trying to decide the best way to get a twenty pound turkey in the oven.
    “Just the man we were looking for,” his mother said with a devious smile.
    “I seriously doubt that,” Grant said. “I have a feeling I’m just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do you need me to unstop the toilet? Replace shingles on the roof? Do I need to replace the towel bar again in Charlie’s bathroom? It’s always something in this family.”
    Charlie blushed crimson and put her hands on her hips, the glint in her eyes dangerous, while the other women started to laugh. Charlie was married to his cousin Dane, and they’d once used the towel bar in their bathroom a little too rigorously during some naked water games, and the bar had ripped out from the wall. Since Grant had his own construction company and was the handiest with tools, he was the one the family always called on to repair things. And there had been no way he was going to keep that story to himself after seeing the damage they’d done. He’d laughed himself silly at the giant holes in the wall and the two black eyes Dane had sported, since apparently the force of Charlie pulling it from the wall had whacked Dane right across the nose.
    “Shut up, Grant. You promised you wouldn’t bring it up again.”
    “No, I’m pretty sure I never promised that,” he said, looking completely innocent as he bent to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I promised I’d never tell anyone how you got that hole in the sheetrock of your laundry room.”
    “Ooh, tell us! Tell us!” Cat, Thomas’s wife pleaded. “I always wandered how that happened. It was a really big hole.”
    “It’s a miracle that house isn’t lying in a heap of rubble around them,” Riley’s wife, Maggie said, rubbing her very pregnant belly.
    They didn’t bother to hide the laughter this time at Charlotte’s expense.
    “Grant MacKenzie, look what you’ve started. You stop embarrassing Charlotte right this instant,” his mother admonished, fighting her own laughter. “Help us get this turkey in the oven and then get out of the kitchen.”
    “You know, sometimes a guy gets tired of being objectified