Saving Simon (Tarnished Saints Series Book 5) by Elizabeth Rose Read Free Book Online Page A

instead. Then, before he knew it, the pillow was being pulled away and he was doused with a pitcher of ice water.
    “God dammit, what’re you doing?” he barked, sitting up in bed and taking a quick deep inhale of breath. His brother Thad stood there with the empty pitcher dangling from his fingers and a shit-eating grin on his face.
    “I thought you needed a little help getting out of bed,” said Thad.
    “I don’t need any help, now get out of here before I kick your ass for acting like a fool.”
    “Looks to us like you’re the one acting like a fool,” came another voice from outside the door.
    He looked up to see his brother Zeb enter the room with two of his older brothers, Thomas, and Levi, right behind him.
    “What is this, some sort of intervention?” he growled. “Can’t a man have a little privacy around here?”
    “Simon, I don’t mind letting you stay in my cabin while you’re here, but you’ve got to get up and be sociable,” said Thomas, the eldest of the twelve brothers. Thomas was tall and rugged with dark hair and had six sons. And though he disciplined them strictly, he’d also taught them to be self-sufficient – even the youngest who was only six. He’d married Angel who had a young daughter and now was pregnant with their eight child.
    “That’s right,” said Levi, who’d become the mayor of the town after being released from prison. “You haven’t even taken the time to meet my kids.”
    “Kids? What kids? Oh yeah, that’s right you have twins I’ve never met. Well, don’t go pointing a finger at me when you never even knew them either until a few months ago.” Levi had married Candace, and they too, were now expecting another child.
    “Come on in, Jaydee,” came the next voice, and his brother Judas, the sheriff of Sweet Water, walked in followed by a teenaged girl with face piercings, ear gauges, and tattoos, holding a crying baby. “Levi, this is my daughter Jaydee and my grandson, Mathias.” Judas still had a sling on his arm and Simon knew it was injured from jumping in front of a bullet to save his newfound daughter.
    “Nice to meet you,” he said, pulling the sheet up to cover his briefs, not wanting to be seen half-naked by a teenage girl.
    “Did you want to hold the baby?” she asked, trying to push the crying whelp in his face.
    “No, and try to quiet that thing already, I’ve got a headache.” He leaned far away from the obnoxious infant.
    “Got a hangover?” asked Levi with a crooked smile.
    “No, that would be you, Levi,” he pointed out. “My headache is from something totally different.”
    “He’s lovesick,” said Thad, putting the empty pitcher down on the bedside table with a loud clank.
    “So you met a girl on the cruise?” asked Judas with a nod of his head. “Nice.”
    “I did but it’s over. It was stopped before it began, by her father, not that it’s anyone’s business.”
    His brothers crowded into the small room, and Jaydee, or J.D., as everyone but Judas called her, sat on the edge of the bed and lay the baby down, looking like she was going to change its diaper right there.
    “Is this some kind of lame attempt to get me out of bed?” he grumbled.
    “No, but this is,” said another of his brothers, Nate, who walked into the room next. Nate was the second youngest of the brothers and had been down in the Caribbean for a while with Simon and Thad, and played guitar in a band.
    “What is?” he asked, and almost wished he hadn’t.
    “Is it time?” asked Nate, looking at his brother Levi who was always the instigator of the bunch.
    “Oh, it’s time all right,” said Levi, opening the door to the bedroom wider. “Stand back everyone, and J.D. you’d better get that baby off the bed before he’s hurt.”
    “Hurt? What’s going on?” asked Simon, wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep. But with all these people in his room, and dripping wet and with ice cubes in his bed, he knew it was never going to