Conspiracy Game (GhostWalkers #4)(72)
Author: Christine Feehan

She set the dishes in the sink and wandered through the house, exploring the various rooms. It was obvious to her that the two men had planned each section of the house carefully. Ken’s style was distinctly different from Jack’s-yet there were touches here and there that reminded her of his twin. He liked Western motifs and music, yet he had a gun cabinet beside his bed and another in his office-just as Jack did. Jack had shelves of books everywhere.

Briony retrieved the pregnancy book and carried it into his office. She stood in the doorway frowning. The office was finished, walls in place, a beautiful one-of-a-kind desk that she suspected Jack had built, piles of papers, and a box containing a brand-new computer. Beside the box was another carton containing paper, but it was open and there was a column as long as or longer than her arm of paper spread across the desk and onto the floor. She went closer to examine the handwritten notes.

Two separate masculine scrawls, one stating in very crude terms that Ken could shove the computer somewhere impossible to shove and Jack wasn’t opening the thing. Ken answered with a long dissertation about computers being a necessity in their new business venture and Jack could just come out of his cave and quit bellyaching. The rest of the notes were a daily ongoing argument about who would get the computer up and running. Ken was adamant that it was Jack’s job since he was going to have deal with all the actual people, and Jack stated that he absolutely wasn’t touching the machine under any circumstances.

Briony took the computer out of the box and found that it was a fairly decent model, one that certainly could be used for the type of business Ken wanted to try. She spent the next hour putting it together and hooking up the various cables and connectors, along with backup batteries and surge protectors and finally the printer. She doubted if Jack would actually use it, but she loaded the software programs Ken had purchased for it anyway.

Sinking into the chair, she opened the pregnancy book, and skimmed each chapter carefully before retrieving a black permanent marker from the desk drawer. With great care and precision she blacked out every reference to caffeine she could find in the book. “Don’t ever try to come between a woman and her coffee, Jack,” she murmured aloud.

Briony sat back with a satisfied smirk before going through the book again, this time reading with much more diligence, blacking out everything she didn’t approve of and making her own notations in the margins, before closing the book and taking it into Jack’s bedroom. She left it on his dresser, right where he would be certain to find it. Laughing, she went back into the kitchen to make the men lunch.

She found the brothers in Ken’s wing of the house, in his bathroom, finishing up the last of the tile, wrangling with each other, much like all the notes on the computer. Both men wolfed down the sandwiches and lemonade while she surveyed the large room.

“This is beautiful, Ken. Both of you really like space.”

Ken nodded. “We thought a lot about what we’d need before we designed the house.” He grinned at her. “Of course we hadn’t really considered children.”

“Well, the second bedroom would easily make a room for the baby,” she pointed out. “The room isn’t finished in Jack’s wing, but it doesn’t seem like it would take that much to get it ready before the baby comes.”

“Babies,” Jack corrected. “We’re having two.”

“I’m not thinking about that.” She gave him a quelling scowl. “One is all I can assimilate right now, so stop saying that to me. The doctor could be wrong.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “We saw the two hearts and heard two heartbeats. I don’t think there’s much doubt, baby.”

Briony glared at him again and flounced off. “Go back to work.”

The feeling of being home stayed with her throughout the day as she did laundry and thoroughly went through the pantry to get an idea of what she had to work with for meals. As she did, she made lists of anything she thought they could use, so the next time one of the twins went into town he could pick up more supplies. It didn’t matter how much she told herself not to get too comfortable, this place-and this man-seemed to fit.

The sunset was spectacular and Briony went out onto the porch to watch it. Both men were in the shop now, working away on something she couldn’t see yet. She was fairly certain Jack was starting the cradle and they were making plans for the spare room in his wing to be finished.

Briony stepped off the porch and inhaled the slight wind, taking the crisp mountain air into her lungs. The house was spotless and dinner was simmering. She’d even managed to whip up a pie for dessert. She felt safe and secure. Jack and Ken left her alone to do whatever she wanted while they went about their business. Occasionally, Jack would touch base with her, brushing her mind with some anecdote about Ken, and it made her feel even more a part of him-of the bond the twins shared-as if she really did belong.

She had found herself smiling throughout the day, and the strange part was that although she really missed her family, there was no pain, there were no migraines, no forcing herself to do things that hurt like hell. She could be happy here in this place-she was happy.

Briony examined the front yard first, noting where she’d put in flowers if the property was hers. There were two really good locations, and on the side of the house there was a garden already planted in long, neat rows. Fencing caged the area in, to keep out the deer and other animals, and she could see it was on a water system, fed by the spring.

She’d never considered that Jack and Ken would have a garden, but she should have. They could probably live on their mountain for months-maybe years-without needing anything from the outside.

She began to jog, enjoying the feel of her muscles as they stretched. Twice she jumped into the lower branches of trees, just because she could. It was no wonder the men loved it up here.

“It’s about time to quit,” Ken said. “You can’t work all night anymore, Jack. You’ve got yourself a woman and she’s not in your pocket yet.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you have to do a little courting, bro. You know, actually make nice.”

“You’re really enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” Jack demanded, giving one last pat to the wood lying on the table. His head jerked up and he suddenly took off running, snatching up the rifle beside the door.

“What the hell?” Ken snapped, breaking into a run to match his brother’s.