Read Online Adding Up to Marriage by Karen Templeton - Free Book Online Page B

in his squealing laughter and figuring what old stick-in-the-mud Silas didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
    Â 
    â€œLook sharp!”
    Silas barely looked up in time to catch the wrapped burrito his brother Eli tossed across the desk, the cardboard box in his other hand holding three drinks large enough to give everybody’s kidneys a good workout the rest of the day. The drinks set on the desk, Eli plucked off his ball cap, raked a banged-up hand through his too-long brown hair and grabbed his own burrito from the box.
    â€œWe may as well get started. Noah’ll be along in a minute, he’s over patching up my old roof.”
    â€œAnd Dad?”
    â€œGone home to see how Mama’s getting on,” Eli said, his butt not even making contact with one of the two chairs on the other side of the desk before he’d chomped off a quarter of the burrito. Blue, their father’s old heeler, wriggled and whined in anticipation of whatever handouts he might get, getting his snout shoved out of Eli’s lap for his efforts. “You know how he worries.”
    A trait Silas had apparently inherited, he thought as he rose from his own chair, tugging his jacket off the back.
    â€œAnd where do you think you’re going?” Eli mumbled around a full mouth.
    â€œHome. It’s Tad’s and Jewel’s first day together. I should see how things are going—”
    â€œDid anybody call and say there was a problem?” Eli said, licking his greasy fingers. Evangelista’s burritos were not for the fainthearted.
    â€œNo, but—”
    â€œThen sit your rear back down, you ain’t going nowhere.”
    Silas glared at his younger brother. “You got a problem with me at least calling to see how they’re doing?”
    â€œNo. But Jewel might. Sit. ”
    â€œSince when do you get to order me around?”
    â€œSince you started acting like a pea-brain about your kids.”
    â€œAnd you being a stepdad for five minutes doesn’t make you an instant authority on fatherhood.”
    Eli gave Silas a hard look for a moment before swallowing. “No. It doesn’t. And it’s not like I don’t understand where you’re coming from, that there’s always this shadow in the back of your brain that something might happen.
    Before Tess told me she was pregnant I had no idea you could feel so excited and so terrified at the same time. But seems like you’ve gotten even more skittish about the boys over the last little while than you were right after the accident. You keep that up,” he said, taking another bite of his lunch, “and you’re gonna push yourself over the edge. Not to mention everybody else.”
    They glared at each other for a moment before, on a heavy sigh, Silas dropped back into the chair and unwrapped the burrito he didn’t feel much like eating. “Sorry. It’s just…” The pungent tang of carne adovada made his mouth water anyway. “The bigger they get the more they remind me of you and Noah. Then I remember some of the pranks the two of you pulled on me and my blood goes cold.”
    Eli snorted. “You do realize most of those were in retaliation for the crap you pulled on us, right?”
    â€œUh, sorry, but I wasn’t even around that time you goons jumped onto the trampoline from the roof.”
    â€œOh, come on, we were fine. Noah didn’t even have a concussion.”
    Silas almost laughed, then sighed. “It was like we were on a mission to make our folks’ lives a living hell.”
    â€œAnd yet, they still love us. Just like we’ll still love our kids. You’re thinking too hard, Si. Give it a rest—”
    â€œHe at it again?” Noah said as came in and swiped a burrito and drink from the box. Sensing new opportunities, Blue immediately switched loyalties.
    â€œHad to stop him from going to check on Jewel and Tad.”
    â€œBro,” Noah