The McEllis Boys

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Nicole couldn't sleep that night. Her thoughts were too scattered and relentless. How long had it been since she had wanted to be in a relationship with a man? Not since Brian had ripped her heart out and stomped on it nearly five years ago.

Brian, her hero. Her prince charming. A lying rat who had run off with another woman. Not just any woman but Nicole's best friend Lisa. That had ended any and all trust Nicole had toward the opposite sex and friends for a long time.

Nicole still didn't really have friends. She had acquaintances and people she spoke to if she saw them out but she didn't have a best friend and there was no one that she shared her thoughts or feelings with. Her mother and father had both passed on. Her mother from cancer, her father from heartache. Her cousins were scattered all over the place and she didn't know them any better than she did the faces she passed on the street.

Her life revolved around the children she cared for and now thanks to imagined wild cowboy orgies she would not even have them. She wasn't worried about the money from losing her job. Her parents had had good life insurance policies and she hadn't touched them. That combined with her teaching degree and Nicole would be okay financially.

She was going to miss those kids though.

She sighed as she sat up in the bed. Sleep was not coming. She needed a glass of milk. Sometimes that helped. She grabbed her thin black robe and pulled it on over her flannel pants and gray tank top. She slid her feet into her fuzzy pink slippers and headed for the door, hoping that all the men would be sound asleep at two in the morning and not see her looking her worst with bags under her eyes and her uncombed hair hanging down her back.

As she walked down the hall she heard snoring coming from the guest room that Andrew and Ian were using and she peeked through the cracked door.

Ian was in the floor seemingly sound asleep and Andrew was on the bed... .it was what was on the bed with Andrew that had Nicole fighting back laughter behind her hand.

Andrew had enjoyed the grocery store and getting every form of junk food imaginable and now he had all those boxes and bags of goodies in the bed with him. Nicole knew it would take a few washings to get the nacho cheese out of the white sheets but she didn't mind.

It was strange how attached she already was to these men she hadn't known for two full days yet. She felt as if she had known them forever and given her distrust of most people the fact that she had opened her home to them spoke volumes for how much she liked them all.

Except Cavanaugh. Oh, she liked him. She more than liked him. But she just couldn't read him and didn't understand him. One moment he was looking deep in her eyes and touching her cheek gently and the next he was cold and bristly and then he would change yet again and become open and joke and laugh only to do another one-hundred and eighty degree turn and bite someone's head off.

Nicole sighed and walked on down the hall. She paused outside the other spare room that Cavanaugh was sleeping in and thought about poking her head in just to check on him. Then again as grouchy as he had been all evening he would probably shoot her for snooping.

Her feet patted softly on the hardwood floor as she went down the stairs and walked into the living room. She was surprised to see that Jamison was awake and sitting on the couch which was serving as his bed since Cavanaugh had refused to share a room with him. He had lit a fire in the fireplace and was staring into it as he puffed on a cigar from the pack Nicole had gotten him today.

"Can't sleep?" Nicole whispered quietly and he snapped out of the daze that the dancing firelight had put him in.

"No, ma'am." he replied as he stood. "I don't sleep much. I didn't disturb you did I?"