Brothers in Blue: A Bryson Family Christmas-Ebook

Part
One:

Christmas Eve Morning

Chapter One

Max
& Amanda

The low, gravelly whisper filled
her ear and made her nipples pebble. “You know what happens to bad girls who
don’t stay out of trouble?”

Amanda smiled and stretched,
keeping her eyes closed. Her man’s voice was delicious. “Mmm. Her
husband spanks her ass.”

“EWW, Mom! Gross!”

Amanda’s eyes popped open and her
ten-year-old daughter, Hannah, stood by the bed, her face twisted in disgust.
She swallowed her thumping heart back into her chest.

“Why would Dad spank you?”

Oh
shit. “He wouldn’t,” she lied as she sat up and noticed the other side of
the bed was empty. “Where’s your father?” Certainly not whispering naughty
promises into her ear, damn it.

“Getting Liver and Greg ready.”

Amanda pinned her eyebrows
together. “Stop calling your brother Liver.”

Her daughter huffed like only
Hannah could. She was an expert at it. “That’s his name.”

“It is not. We picked out a
perfectly good name.”

“Then you should’ve had a perfectly
good son. He’s not. He needs to go back.”

Her five-year-old son was never
going back up her vagina. No way. No givebacks.

After Oliver was born, she’d pretty
much threatened Max with death if he even thought
about having a third child. She even had him get snipped. And if he didn’t, she
threatened to do it herself sometime during the night with a rusty butter
knife.

Knowing his wife too well, he
decided not to take that chance and made an appointment the next day.

Smart decision.

Two pregnancies were more than
enough. The only good thing that came out of those were her two kids. Though,
she was rethinking that right now as she frowned at Hannah, who stood with one
hand on her hip.

She was ten going on sixteen. She
took after her father.

Funny, he insisted Hannah was just
like Amanda.

Well, at least they agreed she
looked like Max with his dark brown hair and crystal blue eyes.

Amanda yawned. “What is he helping
them with? Breakfast?”

“No, Mom! For Grandpa to pick us
up.”

“What?”

“It’s an early Christmas present or
something. That’s what Dad was telling Liver.”

“Hannah...”

Her daughter bugged her eyes out.
She was an expert at that, too. She probably practiced the hand-on-hip,
bugged-out-eyes routine in the mirror. “Oooooliver. There, you happy?”

Not really. “Whose Christmas
present?”

Hannah shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“I don’t know,” she
corrected her daughter.

“Apparently you don’t, if you’re
asking me.”

“Hannah.” Amanda took a deep
breath. Kids took a lot of patience. No one warned her of that before one of
Max’s enthusiastic swimmers hooked up with one of her reluctant eggs. “Say I
don’t know.”

“Okay. You don’t know.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. Her
daughter did, too.

Oh lord, she was putting an
ad in the local penny shopper and giving Hannah away. Cheap. Screw it,
free.

Shit, she’d only find her
way back home. The kid was pretty damn smart for ten. Plus, Max might not be
happy that she gave away “Daddy’s girl” and he might arrest his own wife.

Hmm.

That reminded
her, they hadn’t broken out the cuffs lately…

“Mom!”

“What?”

“Can I borrow your makeup?”

That was why her daughter
interrupted her hot dream? “No. You’re ten. And the last time you borrowed it—without
permission, might I add—you ended up looking like a drunk raccoon.”

Hannah snorted.
“Well, if you’d teach me…”

“You’re ten,” Amanda reminded her
for the millionth time. “Your father doesn’t want you wearing makeup and we’ll
let him decide when you’re allowed. Plus, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not great
at it.”

“Teddy can teach me, then.”

“Fine, go to Teddy. But not before
your dad says it’s okay.”

“I’ll ask him.”

“Okay. Go do that now and stop
asking me questions that you know I’m going to say no to before you even ask
them.”

“Whatever, Mom.” She did her
signature huff.

“Yeah, whatever,” she
mimicked. “Now come here, give your mean mom a kiss and then go get ready to go
to your grandparents. By the way, if Grandpa saw you with makeup on, he just
might throw all your presents into the fireplace and then ground you for a
month.”

“He can’t ground me.”

“No? He still grounds your father
and uncles.”

Hannah giggled. “He does?”

“Yep. And since he outranks us all,
he can ground anyone in the family.”

“Even Grandma?”

“I’m sure Grandma gets a different
type of punishment.” She rolled her lips under, trying not to smirk.

“What kind?”

Oh shit. “Uh… that’s
between them.”

“I’m going to ask him.”

Oh shit! “No, you won’t!
That’s… That’s their business, not yours. Now, come give me a kiss since I
won’t see you until later.”

“What’s later?”

“The Christmas parade. Daddy’s
going to be up front right behind the mayor.”

“He is?”

“Hannah, honestly, don’t you pay
attention to any of our conversations at dinner?”

“Yessss.”

Amanda sighed. “Now you’re
fibbing.”

“No worse than you,” Hannah blurted
out as she surged forward, gave Amanda a quick kiss on the cheek and bolted
from the room.

Amanda stared at the empty doorway
and smiled.

God, she loved that kid. She
might have been worth all those hours of pain and torture—and the verbal
abuse she gave Max—during her labor.

She should get up, take a shower
and get ready for the day, but it was rare that the house was empty of not only
the spawn from her loins, but her brother, Greg, too. She glanced at the clock.
Another hour of uninterrupted sleep would be heaven.

She shimmied her way back under the
covers and sighed as she stretched out, having the whole king-sized bed to
herself. Then closed her eyes and went searching for that dream…