“Open the door!” she snapped, annunciating her demand by pounding on his door.

“Are you ready to give up yet?” he asked around a yawn, because if this was all she had left then she might as well give up and accept the inevitable.

There was a slight pause before she asked, “Will you come out if I do?”

“No.”

“I hate you!” she snapped, emphasizing her declaration by slamming the front door shut.

“No, she doesn’t,” he said with a slight shake of his head as he watched her storm past his front window and head towards her car only to slow down when she spotted Aidan, climbing out of his SUV. He shot Marybeth a smile and a wink before he turned around and busied himself with loading his arms with the bags of takeout that he’d promised to pick up.

“What is she doing?” Jason asked with a frown as they watched her abruptly stop in her tracks, turn around, walk back towards the house, grab the hose and storm off back towards the driveway.

“Oh, shit,” Reese muttered.

“She wouldn’t…..” Trevor said, slowly coming to his feet as they watched Marybeth storm across the yard towards Aidan and-

“Shit!” he growled, racing for the door, praying that he was able to make it to the faucet and shut the water off before-

It was too late.

He’d barely managed to throw the front door open when Marybeth took her revenge out on Aidan, and more importantly, the delicious Chinese food that he’d been dreaming about all morning. Aidan tried to make a run for it, but the heartless wench that he loved more than anything managed to take his brother down with a jerk of the hose. While Aidan scrambled to save the last few morsels of food that had somehow survived her vicious attack, Marybeth calmly shifted the hose to the right and with her eyes locked on him, destroyed every last tasty morsel.

The woman was heartless, he realized as he watched her drop the hose by her feet, step over Aidan who was searching in vain through the waterlogged food for any survivors, and walked towards him only to come to stop and noticeably swallow when she caught the murderous twinkle in his eyes.

Absolutely heartless, he decided as he lunged for her only to find himself pinned down on the ground by his cousins as the cruel woman that he was more determined than ever to make his own made her escape.

*-*-*-*

God, she missed him, she mused absently with a pathetic groan as she lay there watching the alarm clock, waiting for the last minute to pass before she had to get up. She shifted in anticipation only to wince when the move caused one of the rusted old springs that were becoming more and more noticeable with each passing minute to poke her in the side.

She also really missed her bed, she thought miserably as she slowly sat up and carefully untangled her favorite shirt from the sharp spring poking out of the ratty old cushion. Sighing, she shifted to the side, reached over and grabbed the roll of duct tape that she kept on hand for just such an occasion. She pulled off two short strips and covered the jagged metal tip, hoping that the spring wouldn’t see that as a challenge to pop all the way through tonight while she was trying to sleep and impale her.

She glanced at Jake’s closed bedroom door and considered forcing the bastard to trade places with her, but….

She’d seen his mattress.

Not that she really wanted to know, because she didn’t, but she was pretty sure that was the same mattress that he’d had since he was fifteen. It was lumpier than the couch, stained from all those iced coffees that he liked to drink at night and had chunks missing from it. Until she figured out what she was going to do, she was going to have suck it up and deal with his lumpy couch and the possibility of contracting tetanus.

“You’re up,” Jake said around a loud yawn as he stumbled out of his bedroom and headed towards the bathroom.

“Do you think you could swing by my house today and pick up a few things for me?” she asked, pulling out the list she’d made last night, knowing that this made her a coward and not really caring.

He shook his head. “Sorry, can’t. I’ve got a date tonight,” he said with a sheepish smile that could only mean one thing.

“Crap,” she mumbled with a sigh.

“Sorry,” he said with that boyish smile that usually had her rolling her eyes and laughing it off as she called him a jackass, but not today. Not when it meant that she was out of time. “Maybe you can stay with Mom?” he suggested with a shrug.

Where her mother could bombard her with a thousand questions about why she wasn’t staying in her own house and why she looked like she was constantly looking over her shoulder? No, that really was not the best idea, not if she didn’t want to end up having to explain the real reason she’d come between a group of Bradfords and their food.

“I can’t,” she said with a heavy sigh, realizing that she had nowhere else to run.

It was time to go home and face the music, she decided with a cringe as she was forced to shift to the side as another spring tore through the rough couch fabric and threatened to lodge itself in her hip.

“Do you want me to talk with him?” Jake offered, as he grabbed his toothbrush that had been worn down to a matted mess and squirted an obscene amount of toothpaste on it.

Since she knew who “him” was, she shrugged it off and shook her head. “I can handle this on my own.”

“Are you sure?” he asked around his toothbrush and a mouthful of toothpaste, pausing mid-brush and looking like he wanted to argue with her, again.