Chapter 8

8

She was working the front desk, covering for Daisy, when Charlotte's friend from Finley Creek came. Meyra recognized her immediately. Brandt's twin sister. Everyone had said they were on their way to get to him. She'd met his sister several times before.

"Hello, welcome to the Talley Inn." She repeated the words by rote. This was exactly what she was supposed to do, after all. But there were two men behind Powell Barratt, and they were the intimidating kind. They just sort of glowered at her. Meyra fought the urge to take an instinctive step back.

They were very handsome and looked a great deal alike. They had the same hair color as the woman walking in front of them. And they looked like him. But in business suits. Brandt wore suits like that sometimes, but mostly, he wore jeans. She liked him in jeans best. "You must be Brandt's brothers. I know you are his sister."

"Hello, Meyra," Powell said quietly. She was kind of serious. Meyra had noticed that when she'd met her before. "Where's our brother?"

"He's still at the hospital. But Joel, that's the sheriff, said he's going to be okay. He's bruised and sore, but Brandt will be okay." She'd been worried about him all night. She hadn't slept much at all. "He'll be okay."

"What in the hell happened?" the taller of her brothers asked. He was almost as tall and muscular as Brandt. A very beautiful man, but very scary. His eyes were that same bright blue as Brandt's. But he was the kind of man who was used to being in charge. So was Brandt, but Brandt didn't feel as intimidating. At least not to Meyra. Not anymore.

"All I really know is that someone hurt him and he made his way here. I found him in the back garden. I stayed with him until we got to the hospital." She went through the process of booking them rooms on the same floor as where they had put Brandt. That they were only going to be a few doors down from the family wing—and her room was the first one inside the family wing on that floor—made her a little nervous.

She had never really liked men who wore those kinds of suits. Well, besides Calloway Grady, anyway. And for some reason, the way they were looking at her made her want to squirm a little.

It was like they were trying to figure out who she was inside. She didn't understand it. She didn't know these people at all.

Why would they care about her ?

She really wished they'd stop staring at her like that.

"Do the police have any leads?" the taller one asked, kind of rudely. His sister elbowed him and glared.

"Excuse Mac, Meyra. He gets to be a bit hard to handle when he's on a quest," she said. She had Brandt's smile, too. Meyra would just focus on her and not the two men. She liked Powell much better than she did his brothers. "He's just worried. Mac thinks he has to take care of us all since he's the eldest."

Well, Miranda and Darcey were like that, too, sometimes. And Dylan tended to hover over the three youngest Talleys a lot, too. And Meyra. Dylan liked to hover over Meyra for some reason, too, even though Meyra was two years older.

"Brandt said there were three of them and he didn't know it. They had a ball bat, I think. Otherwise, he would have been able to fight them off."

"He probably would have," the other brother said. He stared at her for a moment. Again, almost rudely. Meyra wasn't certain she liked his brothers one bit. "We trained him well."

To do what? It took her a minute, but she figured out he was trying to make a joke or something. "I've put you all on the same floor as Brandt. He is supposed to get out of the hospital in the morning, I think."

"We'll drive over there after we get upstairs and settled," his sister said.

"I want to speak to the cops in charge here," the tall one said. He held out a hand to Meyra. "I'm McKinley, but they call me Mac. I'm his older, smarter, better-looking brother."

He was very good looking, but Brandt was still more handsome.

"I'm Meyra Talley." A thought occurred to her—Brandt's sister was Charlotte's good friend. They had met before, after all. But she didn't think she'd met his brothers. "Charlotte is my older cousin."

"We can see the resemblance. The eyes, for one thing," the other brother said. She kind of got the impression he was a bit of a flirt or something. But there was still worry in his blue eyes. For his brother.

Well, she could understand that. She worried about Miranda and Marin all the time. "He's going to be okay, you know. I wouldn't have left the hospital if he wasn't. They said he'll be okay. I promise."

Powell just looked at Meyra for a long, long time. "Thank you, Meyra. We appreciate that."

They went upstairs.

Meyra just watched the desk and waited. She wanted to know he was going to be okay, too. Her shift was over in two hours. Maybe she'd drive to the hospital again to check on him for herself. After his brothers and sister had time to be with him now.

She didn't want to get in their way or spend more time with his brothers than she really had to. But she wanted to know he was okay.

She just was worried. That was all.