Love Inspired May 2015 #1 by Brenda Minton, Felicia Mason, Lorraine Beatty

twenty-six there wasn’t a thing wrong with him. He wasn’t as tall as his older brothers. He was more lean than muscular. His dark hair was a little too long, and his blue eyes hinted at something going on that he kept hidden deep down where no one would care to try to excavate it.
    Jake, on the other hand, looked like the happy newlywed he was. He’d married Breezy Hernandez just weeks ago and still had the look of a man who had found what he wanted when he hadn’t even been looking. He waved as he pulled a handcart from the back of the truck.
    â€œSomeone called for Martin Moving, Inc?” he called out as he headed up the sidewalk.
    Oregon held the door open, and from behind Lilly pushed her, wanting to see. “We don’t have a lot.”
    â€œThen it won’t take long,” Brody supplied as he half limped up the sidewalk. “You just tell us what to do, and we’ll do it.” He stepped through the door, giving Lilly a playful nudge as he did. “Duke should be here soon. He had to make sure everything was taken care of for the dinner crowd.”
    â€œHe’ll try to find a way out of this,” Jake informed her. “He hates moving.”
    â€œTalking about me, big brother?” Duke appeared in the doorway, a little taller than Jake and quite a bit wider in the shoulders. He might be younger by a few years, but Duke was no one’s little brother
.
    Jake grinned as he started to stack boxes. “I’d never talk about you. Not much.”
    Oregon looked over at her daughter. Lilly watched in wide-eyed fascination as the brothers argued back and forth. She’d never been a part of a family, not one like this. They’d only had Oregon’s mom and her newest husband until he became the ex-husband. They didn’t have siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins.
    By coming here, Oregon had given Lilly a family. She’d given her daughter a safety net, people to be there for her. It felt good. She felt secure in the knowledge that if something happened to her, Lilly would have the Martins.
    â€œHey, do you have tape?” Duke nudged her a little.
    She shook her head. “Sorry. What?”
    â€œYou didn’t hear a thing I said, did you?” he asked.
    â€œNo,” she admitted. “Not sure where I was.”
    â€œFar away.” He smiled as he said it, that smile indicating that maybe they would be friends. Friendship would make things easier between them, easier for Lilly. Friendship meant someone having her back.
    She drifted back to reality. “So...tape?”
    He arched a brow. “Yes, tape.”
    She went to get it. When she returned, Lilly was sitting next to Brody, telling him about the last place they’d lived in and how she’d spent time with a friend of her mom’s for a month. Brody looked up and saw her watching them. He winked and went back to work, still listening to Lilly’s stories about Mississippi, Alabama and a small town in Oklahoma. For a time they’d tried to stay close to Oregon’s mom, but that had proved exhausting. Oregon wanted stability for her daughter, not for her to be another victim of her mother’s unsettled lifestyle.
    â€œDo you want us to move this furniture into storage?” Duke asked as he headed for the door with boxes.
    She shook her head. “No, I’ll leave it here. When I’m in the shop, it’s nice to have a place where Lilly can hang out.”
    â€œWorks for me.” Duke shouldered the door open and headed down the sidewalk.
    Oregon grabbed two boxes and followed him. She wasn’t sure why or what she planned on saying. As the door closed behind her, she heard Lilly call Duke’s brother Uncle Brody.
    Her heart tightened at the words. She hurried on, catching up with Duke.
    â€œFollowing me?” Duke asked without looking back.
    â€œI’m carrying boxes.”
    â€œRight.” He shifted the boxes he carried and