His to Cherish (Carmel Springs Book 3)

Chapter 1

Keats~

Not a lot of people were lucky enough to say that they loved their jobs, but I wasn't one of them.

I loved my job.

While Carmel Springs wasn't a cesspool of crime, I still liked the idea that people of our community feel safe with what Colter Security did for them. Though we didn't have a high murder rate, drive-bys, or mass shootings, we still had an unsavory side of town, and the town of Carmel Springs wasn't a stranger to theft, fights, domestic abuse, drunk driving, or drunken brawls.

So, while some of my brothers did their duty by patrolling the streets in Carmel Springs police cars, the rest of us worked in private and commercial security.

My family was made up of our parents and their six sons. My father, Stanley Colter, had been a career military man, finally retiring to become a cop for the Carmel Springs PD. He was retired from both now, working part-time for Colter Security as a consultant. However, now that Brett and Trayce were loved up, I knew that he was hoping for a grandchild soon. Dad wasn't shy about having always wanted a daughter in the family.

As for Mom, Nadine Colter had been the director of the local recreational center for as long as I could remember. She had loved being around kids, something that'd been obvious by giving my father six sons. Granted, Trayce and I were twins, but they still could have stopped after Jax. Instead, Mom and Dad had gone on to have Maxwell, bringing the final count to six.

She'd been diagnosed with COPD a few years back, and a respiratory infection had taken her from us way too soon. Dad had been devastated, but he'd held fast and steady to help get his children through the tremendous loss. While we had all been torn apart by her death, Maxwell had taken it the hardest because he'd been deployed during the worst of her illness, regret torturing him daily.

Now, while we all took after Dad in looks and coloring with our dark brown hair and hazel eyes, Maxwell had gotten Mom's blue eyes, and I think that also made things harder on him. Every time that he looked in the mirror, he saw Mom's eyes looking back at him, and while it made him feel close to her, he said it felt like a double-edged sword sometimes.

Maxwell was also our family genius, and Trayce and I were grateful that he had chosen to come work with us at Colter Security, instead of becoming a cop like Dad, Brett, Clayton, and Jax. His incredible mind helped make us one of the best security companies in the state, and it showed in our bank accounts, though you'd never know it by looking at us. We weren't the fancy type at all.

Clayton was the oldest at thirty-two, was a cop, and was a bit...standoffish. Lots of people thought that he was mean, and while he could be, he was just...solitary. Trayce was the comedian of our family, and he was the one that you hung out with after having a bad day. We were both thirty and the second oldest of the family. Now, where Trayce was funny, I was the amiable brother. I liked my life easy, and I didn't mind people. Brett was next in line at twenty-eight, and I would describe him as kind. Brett really meant no harm to anyone, and he was probably the most approachable out of us all. Jax was next in line at twenty-six, and he was the partier. Though to be fair, he had no reason not to be. He was young, single, and fresh out of the police academy. Maxwell was the youngest at twenty-four, and he was the serious brother. The kid had no time for bullshit, and it wasn't often that you saw him cutting loose.

With so many of us, we were also known all throughout Carmel Springs. Most every citizen had heard of us or had gone to school with one of us or a few of us at some time or another. We were stairsteps with how Mom had popped us out, and we'd all gotten into our fair share of teenage trouble. Granted, we could have turned out worse if Mom hadn't been as strong as she'd been, but we'd still given her some sleepless nights. Of course, whenever Dad had been home, we had acted like choir boys. Dad hadn't been afraid to kick our asses, and the man still wasn't.