by Beth Ehemann
“Girls, come here!” I called out, but they didn’t hear me over their giggles.
“Oh, don’t. Let them play.” JoAnn smiled nostalgically their way. “They never stop, do they?”
“Never.” I sighed with a smile on my face.
“I tried to get Shae to come home this weekend too, but she couldn’t pull herself away from her new boyfriend.”
Brody’s eyes hardened at his mom’s revelation. “She has a new boyfriend?”
“Yep. Ricky May. Apparently he’s the one.”
His face softened as he tried not to laugh. “May? His last name is May?”
She nodded.
“Oh my God, he can’t be the one. She can’t marry this guy.”
JoAnn crossed her arms over her chest and took a step back, cocking her hip to the side. “And why is that?”
“His last name is May, Mom. That would make her Shae May.” He held his stomach and fell down onto the wicker couch, laughing hysterically. “I would be bound by sibling law to make fun of her for the rest of our lives.”
“I have a feeling you’re going to do that anyway.” She sighed as Brody reached in his pocket and took out his phone. “What are you doing now?” she asked him.
“Just texting Andy to remind me to run a background check on this clown.”
She laughed and bent down, swatting his shoulder. “Oh, Brody. Stop scaring away her boyfriends.”
He held his hands up defensively in front of him. “I’m not scaring anyone away, just protecting my baby sister.”
JoAnn rolled her eyes and turned toward me. “I was just making lunch. Wanna come help me?”
“I would love to.” I looked back at Lucy and Piper as they squatted down, staring at something on the ground.
“Go ahead, I got them,” Brody said, following my gaze. “Mom, where’s Dad?”
“In his shop, building a picnic table or something.” JoAnn waved for me to follow her into the house. “C’mon, Kacie.”
“Your house is beautiful!” I cooed once we were in the kitchen.
“Thanks. It’s our dream house. Brody built it for us.” JoAnn smiled that proud mama smile that I’d worn myself so many times.
I tilted my head to the side and smiled back at her. “He told me. He talks about you a lot, actually.”
“I’m very lucky.” She motioned for me to sit at the kitchen table. “He’s a great son. Not everyone can say that.”
“Well, I think he’s pretty wonderful too, but I know you had a big hand in that. What was he like as a kid?”
“Oh, goodness.” A small chuckle flew from her mouth as she set a tall pitcher of sweet tea on the counter and grabbed two glasses from the cabinet. “Brody as a child. Let’s see… For starters, he made Dennis the Menace look like an angel.” The ice cubes in the glasses popped and cracked as JoAnn poured the tea over them. “He was bold and adventurous and charming, even at eight years old.” She slid a glass in my direction as she sat down across from me. “He was all dark brown curls and big cheesy grins. I didn’t know a child could smile as much as he did. Hockey has been his life since he was old enough to stand on skates. He wasn’t always a goalie, you know.”
“He wasn’t?”
“Nope. Not until high school, actually. That’s when he decided he didn’t like relying on someone else to make sure the other team didn’t score. He needed the control. Anyway, he made the varsity team as a freshman and asked the coach to put him in as goalie. Coach said no, they had some hotshot senior who had claimed that position, but Brody was persistent. He asked over and over. He was the first one to show up to practice and the last one to leave. One day, about a third of the way through the season, that hotshot got hurt and his coach had no choice but to put Brody in.” She smiled and looked out the back window at something that caught her attention. I followed her gaze just in time to see Diesel and the girls run across the yard with Brody chasing after them. Smiling, she shook her head and continued. “That was Brody’s defining moment. The other team didn’t score once that game. In fact, opposing teams rarely scored on him for the rest of his high school career. College scouts started showing up at his games midway through his sophomore year. He was amazing. Once he was in that goalie box, nothing else existed.”
I’d seen that intensity. Before we started dating, I was bored one night and may have googled him. I’d quickly become mesmerized by the YouTube videos of him on the ice. He was so focused, so intense. It was as though the second his skates hit the ice, he had the ability to shut the rest of the world out and focus on what needed to be done.
“It didn’t come without sacrifice, though. He gave up a lot of his childhood for his love of hockey.”
I frowned at her inquisitively. “Like what?”
“Like high school dances. He never went to one.” Her eyes grew sad thinking back to the experiences her son had missed out on.
“None?”
“Nope. Not one homecoming, not one prom. He was even voted Snow King his senior year.”
“Snow King?”
“Yeah, for the winter dance. The girls ask the boys to the Snow Dance and they vote for a senior to be the Snow King. Brody won and he couldn’t even go to the dance because he had a tournament in Milwaukee.”
“What are you two yapping about?” Brody bellowed as he came through the back door.
“About you and your boring childhood.” JoAnn winked at him.
“Boring?” He collapsed on the chair next to me. “How was my childhood boring?”
I turned to face him. “You never went to any dances? Ever?”
“Nope. Wouldn’t know how to order a corsage if my life depended on it.” He laughed, stealing a gulp of my iced tea.
“That’s so sad.”
“Not really. Did I miss out on some things? Sure. Has it paid off for me? Hell yes.” He shrugged. “Even if I wasn’t playing hockey now, I was doing what I loved at that time. I’m not really a plan-for-the-future type of guy. I like to live in the moment.”
“You don’t say?” I teased, rolling my eyes.
He reached over and caught my bottom lip in his mouth, leaving me reeling from a quick but passionate kiss. I pushed his chest back gently, embarrassed that his mom was still sitting at the table with us. “Brody!”
JoAnn stood up from the table and went to the oven, removing a pan of freshly made chicken pot pies. “It’s okay.” She laughed. “It’s nice to see Brody showing love to something other than his hockey stick for once.”
Brody cocked an eyebrow and looked back to me as his mom walked away. Leaning in, he whispered, “I’m not the only one who likes to play with my hockey stick.”
I punched him hard in the arm and snapped my head toward his mom, praying she hadn’t heard. He laughed and stood up, walking over to the pantry where he grabbed a loaf of bread.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Come on.” He held his hand out to me. “Let’s go grab the Twinkies and feed some ducks.”
“Not too long,” JoAnn called out as we headed out the back door. “Lunch will be ready soon.”
“Oh my God.” I laughed as I opened the wooden door to my dad’s workshop and caught a glimpse of Lucy and Piper. They had on clear safety goggles and their little arms were chugging back and forth as fast as they could go, sanding the bench of the picnic table my dad had finished building.
“What?” He held his hands up defensively. “They wanted to help.”
“There are child labor laws against this sort of thing, Dad,” I teased.
Kacie walked over and greeted my dad.
“Hi, Mr. Murphy. Good to see you again.”
“No, no. None of that. Call me Bob, please.” He bent down and gave her a quick hug. “Good to see you too. And on much better terms this time.”
“Absolutely.” Kacie sighed. She walked up behind the girls and peeked over them to get a better look. “Are you two behaving?”
“Mom! Back up!” Lucy pushed Kacie’s st
omach back gently. “Mr. Bob says you can’t be in here without protection. You need goggles.” With that, she marched over to a big bucket near the door and grabbed two pairs of clear goggles out of it. She handed one to Kacie and then one to me. I laughed and watched Kacie slip the arms of the goggles over her ears and look up at me, blinking fast. Kacie made anything and everything sexy.
Mental note—swipe a pair before we leave. Maybe we can play a game of lonely housewife meets horny carpenter later.
“You too, Brody.” Lucy crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot impatiently.
“Yes, ma’am.” I followed the little drill sergeant’s instructions and put my glasses on immediately.
“This is really cool.” Kacie looked at the bench closely. “I love the grain in the wood.”
“We had to take down a bunch of old trees around the property last year and I didn’t want the wood going to waste. I’ve made a few for local people already. Figure I’ll just keep makin’ ‘em.” He shrugged.
Kacie studied his face with a sweet smile. More than likely, she was confused by my father. He was the most southern northerner you’d ever meet. Living the simple life was all that really ever mattered to him. He never got caught up in the famous part of my life. Mom jumped at the chance to walk a red carpet with me or go to a benefit where she might rub elbows with other celebrities. Dad would rather go through a back entrance and avoid the limelight altogether. As a kid, he wasn’t the kind of dad that was jumping up and down in the stands screaming at me or the refs or the coaches. The games he was able to come to, he just sat and cheered me on quietly. I definitely got my loud, playful spirit from my mom.
“Hey, you guys wanna take a quick walk? I brought bread; we could feed the ducks.”
“We wanna stay here,” Piper whined.
Kacie shook her head. “No, no. Come on. We can come back later.”
“It’s fine by me if they want to stay,” Dad mumbled with a pencil clenched in between his teeth, trying to measure a two-by-four.
“You sure, Dad?”
“Sure, they’re no bother. Besides, I like having someone else in here with me.”
“You okay with that?” I glanced at Kacie who didn’t look convinced.
She crossed her arms and cocked her hip to the side, her eyes darting back and forth between Lucy and Piper. “Are you two going to behave?”
They both nodded excitedly and went right back to working.
“Thanks, Mr. Mur—” She pushed her lips into a tiny smile. “Bob.” Dad looked flushed. He nodded once and went right back to his project.
I reached down and took Kacie’s hand in mine, gently pulling her toward the door. “C’mon. We only have a little while before lunch.”
Grinning up at me, she squeezed my hand and happily followed my lead. I took my glasses off and dropped them in the bucket near the door. When she reached up for hers, I gently grabbed her hand, stopping her. “You should leave those on.” I growled, winking at her.
She punched me in the arm playfully after she tossed them in the bucket.
We left my dad’s workshop and turned left, following a dirt path down toward the small lake. Our lake wasn’t nearly as big as the lake at Kacie’s house, but my parents owned this one. The whole thing. Their property wrapped all the way around to the other side and they were the only ones allowed to use it. Every couple years, my dad stocked it with fish. Even though you couldn’t put a boat on it, he liked to sit on a rocker and fish off the pier or the shore.
“Your parents own all this?” Kacie held her hand up to her forehead to block the sun, trying to see across the lake.
“Yep. It’s all part of their farm.”
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “This whole place… it’s unreal.”
“Want one?”
She whipped her head up and tried to look at me, but she was blinded by the sun. “Do I want what?”
“This.” I shrugged. “A farm. A place for the girls to play and grow. I own a lot more property than my parents are actually using. Like hundreds of acres. I could build one for us.”
“Oh, Brody. No way. Don’t you dare. I was just saying it’s—” She stopped suddenly. I turned to face her and followed her gaze to the old, rundown barn way to the left of the lake. “Oh my God. Is that barn yours? Theirs? Whatever.”
“Yeah,” I answered, completely confused.
“Can we go see it?” She bit her lip and begged me with her eyes.
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
The words were barely out of my mouth before she was pulling me through the tall grass and weeds toward the neglected building.
What the hell?
“Kacie, slow down.” I laughed.
She turned her head to the side and grinned at me, but didn’t respond or walk any slower.
We got to the barn and she stopped so suddenly, I almost ran into her back.
“Wow,” she whispered, gazing in awe up at the broken-down wooden structure. “Look at how beautiful it is.”
I massaged her shoulders gently, squatting so I was just behind her ear. “It’s just a barn, Kacie.”
“You see just a barn. Let me see if I can show you what I see.” She grabbed my hand again and pulled me forward.
The dry wood popped and snapped as she cautiously slid the barn doors open. The smell of wood, dust, and old hay rushed into my nose and down my throat, making me cough.
“Look at that. How beautiful is that?” She pointed toward dozens of laser beams of sunshine that escaped through the cracks in the wood, highlighting millions of little dust particles floating through the air. “How amazing is that?”
She was staring up at the light and I was staring at her. “What is this? What’s with you and old barns?”
“I have no idea.” She sighed happily. “But I love them. And when I say love them, I mean I really love them. The old wood, the dusty smell, the creaky lofts. And don’t get me started on the intricate spiderwebs you find in these places.”
“Uh, I distinctly remember a certain cute little copper-headed girlfriend of mine hopping onto the counter in her kitchen just last week because she saw a spider crawl across the floor.”
“But I—”
“And,” I continued, teasing her, “I seem to remember that same woman screaming for me to pee faster so I could come kill said spider.”
She folded her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes. “That was a house spider. It was scary. Barn spiders are harmless.”
“And bigger.” I nodded my head toward the far dark corner of the barn. “But you’re in luck. There’s a ladder over there.”
“There is?” Her eyes grew wide, excited. “Wanna go up?”
I laughed and nodded at her. “Sure.”
She practically skipped across the wood floor of the barn and grabbed onto the rails of the ladder, scampering up it so fast, I barely had time to enjoy the view. By the time I got to the top, she was slowly spinning in a circle, trying to look at everything all at once.
“Look at it up here.”
I glanced around and saw lots of dust, piles of old hay tucked in the corners, and spiderwebs. Shrugging, I looked at her and shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t see the appeal.”
“Take a deep breath.” She closed her eyes and inhaled. “You smell all this history? Who lived on this property years ago? What were they like? What used to be in here? Doesn’t all that excite you? All that… unknown?”
“Unfortunately, no. The smell of ice excites me. Interesting to add this to the list of things that make you tick, though, huh? So far it’s blood, guts, barns, and lofts.” I grinned at her. “Anything else?”
“You.” She slowly stalked over to me and curled her arms around my waist.
“What is this?” I gladly returned her hug. “This barn really turns you on, huh?”
“Maybe,” she cooed. “It’s romantic.”
“Well, I don’t have our trusty pier blanket here, but I’m guessing we
can find a nice, soft patch of grass outside. Wanna go down?” I took a step toward the ladder, but she caught my hand and pulled me back toward her.
“Funny you should ask.” She raised an eyebrow at me as a devilish grin appeared on her lips. “I would like to go down, actually.”
“Wait, what?”
By the time my brain registered what she was saying, my dick was already rock hard.
Kacie slowly sunk to her knees, staring at me the whole way with those big sparkling green eyes. Reaching for the button on my khakis, she peered up at me and rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. She tugged the hem of my boxer briefs down just enough to free my cock and wrapped her tiny hand around it. It was all I could do to keep from blowing my load all over myself like an overly excited fourteen-year-old boy who just got touched by a girl for the first time. The minute she wrapped her tongue around my swollen head, I didn’t give a shit about barns or hockey. As she lapped at the tip, my hips instinctively started thrusting. I wanted her to hurry up and slow down at the same time. I shoved my hands in her hair and squeezed. That little tug was like gasoline to her fire as she moaned around me. Kacie flattened her tongue, slid down to the root, and opened her throat, taking as much as she could. She held it there for a minute, swallowed the tip, and I bucked. Reaching around behind me, she gripped my ass to pull me closer as she suctioned her mouth tightly around my cock with a pull so fierce I could blow at any minute.
“Mommy! Brody!”
My eyes snapped open and Kacie jumped up in a flash, wiping her mouth and trying to compose herself. My brain struggled to function again as I buttoned up my shorts.
“Mommy?” Lucy called out again.
“Up here, baby,” Kacie called over the railing. “Don’t come up. It’s not safe. We’ll be right down.”
Lucy and Piper’s feet clomped around the wooden floor of the barn as they skipped to the other side to look in one of the old horse stables.
“Are you okay?” Kacie licked her swollen, pink lips.
“No.” I grunted. “I’m so past the point of no return, it’s not even funny.”