Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read Free Page B

much as he had when he’d pulled it out of the oven yesterday evening.
    “Maybe you wouldn’t be so jumpy if you didn’t live out in the boonies.”
    “I like my privacy, not to mention the peace and quiet.”
    Cade silently nodded but said nothing as he scratched Eight Ball behind an ear.
    Thayne enjoyed the silence for a moment, waiting his brother out. He knew Cade had something on his mind, and when he was ready to talk about it he would.
    “I worry about you,” Cade muttered.
    Thayne raised his eyebrows and did a double take, not even bothering to voice the obvious response that rested on the tip of his tongue.
    “Yeah, don’t be such a smartass. I can’t worry about you because you’re older than me?”
    “That’s not what I was thinking.”
    “Well, I do worry. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve worked too hard.”
    Thayne shook his head. “I don’t work any harder than any other doc—”
    “Oh please, tell that to someone who doesn’t know you. You’ve always given a thousand percent to your patients, leaving little to nothing for yourself.”
    “What’s wrong with that?”
    “You really want me to answer that?”
    No, Thayne didn’t, but he was sure he would get an earful anyway.
    “You need to stop and smell the roses before you suffer a heart attack or stroke. You know you’re not too young. Yeah, yeah, you eat right and exercise, but stress can get you, too.”
    This time Thayne couldn’t hold it in. “Look who’s talking.”
    “You know what I mean, Thayne. You need to get a life outside of that hospital.”
    “We can’t all be footloose and fancy-free like you.”
    The temptation to tell Cade about Maia just to get his brother off his back was almost unbearable. His brother was a serial dater and master of one-night stands. Talking to him about a woman who might be important in Thayne’s life, however, would be like serving his and Maia’s embryonic relationship up to the wolves for vivisection. Thayne was not ready to hear all the atta-boys and it’s-about-times from his worldly, jaded younger brother. He didn’t think he would ever be ready for that scene.
    It wasn’t as if he and Maia were serious or anything anyway.
    They had only been out on a couple of dates since he’d gone to her sister’s thirtieth birthday party a couple of weeks ago. He liked her and enjoyed her company but hadn’t tried to pursue things any further than casual friendship.
    He’d be lying to himself if he said there wasn’t more, an attraction—on both their parts. Despite Maia’s own differentness, however, he wasn’t sure that she could accept or even appreciate every weird facet of him once he introduced her to them. Not many people could. He knew he used his “specialness” as an excuse for not getting closer to her, but this was where things stood for him in a nutshell, pretty much unattached.
    He plain acted the coward, and he knew it.
    He used to face off against gangbangers during his ambulance ride-alongs in LA. He had never flinched at the sight of blood or tattered limbs and splattered brains before. When it came to a woman, however, he was too frightened to commit. Scratch that. Not just any woman but the alluring and sensual Maia Jensen.
    Thayne closed his eyes and stopped himself short of groaning at the memory of her café au lait skin and slightly slanted, espresso eyes. Everything about her, from her beautiful face to her petite, sexy body, drew him. Yet he couldn’t, refused to, pull the trigger and get with her the way they both wanted.
    Thayne realized he wasn’t much different than his brother in this instance. They both shunned intimacy, just went about it in different ways. Thayne escaped to a ranch house, practically in the middle of nowhere, and Cade continued to be a loner and alone in a sea of people in the big bad city.
    He couldn’t help thinking the two of them were a pair who really deserved each other.
    “So, how are things going for you, man?