The Last Thing He Needs Read Free Page A

time.”
    “I got it, you go on.”
    She flashed him one more weary smile. “Night.” She looked at Bobby and added, “And good night, Bobby, thanks for stopping in.” She disappeared through the door as if afraid some new emergency would drag her back and keep her from her bed.
    “Night, Colleen,” Bobby said too late; the girl already gone.
    “You can go on, I got this.” Tommy cradled his brother in his arms.
    “You kidding me? And miss out on these cuddles? No way.”
    He grinned like it was a joke, but he held Zoe closer and settled down into a chair at the scrubbed pine table.
    Tommy could only shake his head, wondering what was wrong with a guy who could be out getting laid but decided to stay in and feed a sick baby. “Either you party way too much,” Tommy told him as he passed one of the bottles over to Bobby, “or not nearly enough, if this is your idea of fun.”
    Bobby laughed as he took the bottle. “There’s lots of kinds of fun.” He tipped Zoe into his arms so she could reach her bottle and smiled again when she took it greedily. “This is one of ’em.”
    “If you say so.” Tommy had settled at the table with Max in his lap and was feeding him as well. Max’s hand curled around the bottle for a moment, and then he reached up to touch his brother’s face. Tommy brushed a small kiss to the tiny, pudgy fingers, rocking him without even realizing he was doing it at first. He’d never admit it out loud, and he didn’t find this fun exactly, but there was a certain comfort from it, as if these kids kept him just as safe as he meant to keep them.
    “I do,” Bobby murmured, looking over at Tommy and then down at Zoe. He tightened his hold on her, as if he intended to keep her to himself.
    Before long, both babies were sleeping peacefully, seeming comfortable and in need of the rest. “I hate to put ’em down, don’t wanna wake them…,” Tommy whispered as he started to rise from his seat.
    “They’ll sleep better in their own beds.” Bobby stood with him. “Which way?”
    Another crunch of unease bit at Tommy. He didn’t want someone who had the ear of social services seeing anything in their house, let alone the tiny bedrooms with too many beds crammed into them. “Upstairs.” He swallowed his nervousness as he led the way.
    The twins shared what would be a master bedroom with Collin, Davey, and Mike. One crib and two bunk beds. The babies were already too big to share the crib, but they slept better when they were together, and hell, there was no room for them anywhere else. When Max was older, he could take the spare bottom bunk, and Zoe could go into Colleen and Carrie’s room, but until then, this was it.
    Leaning over the crib railing, Tommy gently set his brother down. He found Max’s blanket and draped it over him before tenderly sweeping his hair back from his face. Bobby did the same with Zoe then stood back as Tommy raised the side again, locking it in place before switching off the small lamp on the dresser next to them.
    “I’ll get Collin,” Bobby said, starting to turn out of the room.
    “Nah, he’ll flip if he wakes up and you’re carrying him. He’ll think he’s headed to foster again.”
    Bobby looked as if he was going to say something meaningful, but all that came out was “Oh, right.”
    They all remembered the one time the kids had been removed from the home. Collin was only three at the time, but even seven years later, it still put a chill in his eyes whenever they talked about it. The boy had fought like a lion, raging against the caseworker as she tried to pick him up and carry him to the car. Collin bit the hell out of her. She let her temper flare with a totally unprofessional curse.
    Tommy, only fifteen at the time—not old enough to stop it, but old enough to understand—told the woman she should’ve minded her own damn business and let them be. Then he added that that’s what you got when you messed with an O’Shea, and Collin was a