The group started to break up. Mandy, Ivy, and Addy wanted to go tuck their kids in. Hope followed them out. Max was still playing pool, but now just with Ace and Val. Hope nodded at Max on her way out. He straightened and caught her arm, stopping her—a gesture she didn’t care for in the least.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She jerked her arm free. “Upstairs.”
He frowned at her. The short moment grew uncomfortably long, until she turned and continued on. At the door, she heard Max put up his cue and say, “Sorry, guys. Time for me to quit.”
Hope had the insane urge to run ahead, away from him, but he was headed to the same place she was. He jogged to catch up to her, then walked silently beside her, following her up the backstairs. At the bedroom wing they shared with Val and Greer, he opened their door and let her enter first. His speed and size were an unfair advantage, she thought as he caught her against the wall in the short entry hall to their room.
“You’re angry with me,” he said.
“Yes, I am.”
“Why? What did I do?”
She pushed free and went into the closet to change. “That’s exactly why I’m angry. You don’t know.”
“I guess I’ve been preoccupied lately.” He watched her pull her long-sleeved tee over her head.
“You have been. And mean, too.”
He lowered his gaze to her hips, waiting for her step out of her jeans. Though it was December, she wore flip-flops in the house, so there wasn’t anything to slow her down getting out of them. When she stood before him in just her bra and panties, he let his gaze slowly travel up her body to her face.
His eyes were serious as he said, “I apologize, from the deepest, darkest parts of my heart.”
“You can’t just apologize and call it done when you don’t really understand why I’m angry or why you’re apologizing.”
He spread his arms across the doorway. “I don’t. It’s true. Talk to me.”
“No. I can’t while I’m pissed.”
He spread his legs, as if preparing for her to try to slip past him. “Can I unpiss you?” He gave her a lopsided grin.
It took everything she had not to crack a smile. He was irresistible when he was like this, which wasn’t very often for an alpha guy like him. “I’m serious, Max. I need you to take this seriously, too.”
He nodded. Taking a swift step into the closet, he bent over and hooked his shoulder against her belly and straightened. Spinning around, he stomped over to their bed and dropped her. She started to get up, but he flattened her with a hand spread across her belly. “Don’t move.”
He unfastened his boots and kicked them off, then stripped in record time. She sat up to remove her bra.
“I told you not to move.” His attention shifted from his failed directive to her bared breasts. He drew a long, hissed breath.
“You aren’t the boss of me.” Such a feeble comeback. It was all she could think of with his eyes devouring her.
“I wish I were. We’d never leave this room.”
He reached for her panties and pulled them down her legs. Kneeling between her knees, he positioned himself at her opening without fully penetrating her. He pushed his hands under her shoulders and settled over her.
* * *
Max moved his hips, playing his apadravya where he knew it felt wonderful for her. The pleasure-pain for him, as always, was intense.
“Okay. Go. I’m all ears.” He gave her an innocent grin, anticipating her usual response…which he didn’t get. Her chin trembled and her eyes watered, then she drew a ragged breath.
No. No, she couldn’t be crying. Jesus, he kept getting this all wrong.
He went still, then leaned down and kissed her forehead, holding his face against hers for a moment. “Talk to me, Hope. You’re scaring the fuck out of me right now.”
“Are we…over?” she whispered.
“What?” He leaned back to look into her eyes. “Why would you think that?”
She gave a little shrug. “We haven’t really been talking much this past month. In fact, it seemed you were avoiding me.”
“No. We are not over. We’ll never be over.” He nodded. “I can see I’ve been an ass. I’m sorry I upset you.”
“Then what’s going on, Max?”
He used his thumbs to sweep away the stream of tears from the corners of her eyes. “I’ve been working on a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?”
“Yeah. I meant it as a good thing, not something that would tear us apart. Between searching for Owen, looking for Lion, and working on this project…well, I can see I neglected you. I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I’m taking you away for a weekend. Not far, of course, but it’ll still be time alone, just you and me. I guess I was worried someone—even me—would spill the beans.”
“The others know about it?”
He nodded. “They helped me with it. Almost all of them.”
“When’s this happening?”
“Tomorrow.”
She winced. “I can’t go tomorrow. I’m teaching an auto mechanics class to the cubs.”
“Do it in the morning. We’ll go after that, after lunch.”
She smiled at him. “Tomorrow afternoon it is.”
He kissed her. Her response was passionate. Hungry. When the kiss ended, she stroked a hand over his cheek. “Are we okay?” she asked.
“Fuck yeah. We’re more than okay. Honey, why didn’t you tell me I was being an ass?”
“I didn’t want to be that girl. Clingy and needy.”
“You aren’t the clingy and needy type. We both know that. I’m supposed to make you happy, not make you cry. That killed me.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him. “I love you so much, Max. I can’t even imagine my life without you.”
“Life wouldn’t be worth having without you, Hope.” He caught her head in his hand and drew her away so he could look at her. “You know that, right?”
“I do now.”
He kissed her as he started to move in her. After a few minutes, he rolled over and let her take the lead. He loved watching her body as they made love.
2
Casey looked up as a knock sounded on her door. Eddie popped her head in. “Hey there. Ready to help me find the Christmas decorations?”
Casey set her notebook down. Her schoolwork could wait. “Sure.” She slipped on a pair of flip-flops.
“Might be better if you wore your sneakers. There’s a lot of loose stuff up there. Don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Casey quickly switched shoes, then followed Eddie down the hall and into the main part of the house. “Where’s the attic?”
“Attics,” Eddie corrected. “There’s one above each bedroom wing in the original part of the house.”
“How do we get up there?”
“I had to have Ty show me. I would never have found it.” They walked past the north staircase. The walls in that section of the hallway were finished with tall wainscoting, three panels on a column. Casey noticed that Eddie was counting panels. When she came to the third one, she pushed gently until it popped open with a faint snap, like a cabinet releasing its catch.
Eddie smiled at Casey, who leaned forward and peeked inside. The door was wide, as was the staircase.
“I didn’t know this was here,” Casey said, a little awed.
“It makes for a good storage area. When some of the guys wanted to swap out the furniture in their rooms, we were able to store the old stuff up here.”
Casey stepped back a few feet to look at the whole wall. She’d seen the panels with the slight seam between each column, but they all looked so uniform that she never thought anything was different about that part of the wall. Plus, the reading cubby in the middle of the hall had always caught her attention. She loved that space with its comfy cushions and colorful pillows. It was her favorite spot in the whole house.
“Let’s get up there,” she said, anxious t
o check it out.
Eddie flipped on the lights in the hidden stairway, and Casey followed her up.
The attic opened into a huge space that was somewhat finished. Rough wood planking covered the floor. The walls and ceiling had unfinished drywall. There were no windows, but skylights let light fill the room.
The place looked like a used furniture store, like the one Casey and her mom had used when they moved to Wolf Creek Bend. It had a dusty smell and a strange energy—a place forgotten by time. She wished she could bring her friends over so they could play up there. She was too old for make-believe games, she reminded herself—but this was the kind of place the Chronicles of Narnia might have come from, and it tugged at her imagination.
“Does my dad know this stuff is up here?”
“He does. The team has been through everything in this attic and the other one.”
“It’s huge up here.”
“It covers the space of the four bedrooms on this side of the house. The other attic is just the same. We took a lot of the twin-bed mattresses down so the pride could use them. We were able to furnish quite a bit of what the boys needed from what we already had up here.”
They moved around the big space, opening boxes and trunks. “I’m certain I saw Christmas things when Ty brought me up here,” Eddie said. “The holiday decorations were in plastic containers. I don’t see many of those up here.”
“Maybe they’re on the other side,” Casey suggested.
“I bet you’re right. Let’s go over there.”
They went down the stairs, switched off the lights, and closed the secret panel. After they crossed the bridge over the entryway and passed the other reading nook, Eddie let Casey find and open the panel hiding the attic stairs on that side of the original house.
This attic was as cluttered as the other one, but it did have more of the smaller containers. They found a bunch of them stacked together. “Here they are,” Eddie said as she opened one.
“Looks like there are hundreds of them to bring down.”
Eddie laughed. “A couple dozen, at least. Why don’t you go get the cubs to help us?”
“I will!” Casey jumped at the chance to see Lion. She hurried down the stairs, ran down the hallway to the south stairs, hurried down those, and ran out to the gym building, where Lion and his boys had their bunks and classes set up in the basketball court.
The room was silent as she charged inside. She sent a glance around at the boys studying at rows of white folding tables. Miss Wynn was sitting at a desk at the front of the class. Lion and Hawk were sitting in a circle of armchairs, reading. Normally, Casey would have been studying with the boys, but she’d worked ahead and was in her room doing a project that Miss Wynn had assigned her.
Casey smiled at Lion then forced herself to look away. She could feel her neck and face heat up. Hopefully, they’d just think that was from her rush to get there. She went up to Miss Wynn’s desk.
“Casey, is everything all right?” Miss Wynn asked in a library-like whisper.
“It is. We found the Christmas decorations. Eddie was wondering if we could borrow the cubs to help bring them down from the attic.”
Miss Wynn looked at her watch. “It is almost time for them to take a break. Sure. We can do that.” She stood, capturing the cubs’ attention. When she told them what they were going to do, they ran to the door. Miss Wynn stopped them, ordering them to move calmly and not in a stampede. Casey looked back and smiled, but her eyes caught Lion’s curious glance. She turned away and hurried out after the boys.
“Where are we going?” Robin asked.
“Upstairs,” Casey said. “There’s a secret way to get into the attic.”
“I didn’t know there was an attic,” Badger said.
“Me either,” Squirrel said.
Eddie was just coming down with two of the plastic bins. “Hi, boys. Thanks for helping us. Why don’t some of you grab the bins here and take them to the living room. The rest of you, come up with me.”
“But we all want to see what’s up there,” Wren said.
Eddie laughed. “Curious, huh? Go ahead.”
Casey went up with them. They ran around the room, exploring every nook and cranny.
“We could play up here,” Fox said.
“We could be pirates,” Coyote said.
Eddie grabbed a bin. She smiled at Casey. “You can play up here. Just don’t be wild and don’t break things. And put away anything you take out.”
“Really?” Fox asked.
“Sure.” Eddie shrugged. “Winter’s here. You’re stuck inside a lot anyway. Might as well have fun.”
Casey grinned at Spider. Maybe she should hang with them and supervise things so they didn’t get out of hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on them.”
“Perfect. Now let’s get these bins down to the living room.” Eddie handed each boy a container, keeping the light ones for the smaller boys. They had everything cleared out in no time.
“Look!” Casey pointed to the three long containers marked Christmas Tree that had been behind the bins. “You think we’ll use it? Or cut one?”
“Well, we should take a look at it. If we were to cut one down for the living room, it would have to be one of the taller trees, which would be hard to handle. And it would be sad to take an old tree just for a few weeks of fun for us. I say, if this tree looks good, let’s use it.”
“I agree!”
When the boys came back up, Eddie had the older, stronger ones carry the tree cartons down to the living room. The bins filled all the free space in the sprawling living room.
Casey smiled at her dad as he and Ty joined them. “We found all the Christmas stuff.”
“That’s great, Case,” her dad answered.
“We even found a Christmas tree,” Eddie added. “Do you think you two could put it together?”
Casey noticed that Ty looked odd. She was relieved when her dad answered, “Sure we can.”
“How many Christmas trees have you put together, Kit?” Ty asked her dad.
“Um. Well, none. But how hard can it be?”
“I think we need an engineer.” Ty activated his comm unit. “Angel, we could use a hand…putting up the Christmas tree. The damn thing’s in three boxes.”
“We need a ladder, too,” Kit said. “Just tell all the guys to get up here.”
“All right, boys,” Miss Wynn said. “Let’s get out of the way.”
“Aw, do we have to?” Jay whined. “We never get to see Christmas like this.”
“Yeah, and they need us to help with stuff,” Mouse said.
“I’ve always been flexible with their study time,” Lion said. “And they aren’t going to concentrate now anyway.”
“And it’s Friday,” Hawk pointed out. “We can get back to studying on Monday as usual, after this excitement’s over.”
Miss Wynn shook her head. “We already have Monday off so we can move the boys downstairs.
Casey laughed when her dad tilted his head and said to Miss Wynn, “Pleeeease?” Casey thought she was going to stay firm, but she caved.
“Fine. We’ll start up classes again on Tuesday. You kids are officially out of school for a long weekend.”
The boys jumped and shouted. That noise brought Casey’s mom and the other ladies in from the different parts of the house.
“Can we help decorate the tree, too?” Robin asked.
“Of course,” Eddie said. “Just remember, this stuff is fragile. And we’re not in a hurry. Casey, help me organize the bins so we know what we have to work with. Not everything here is for the tree. Some of these hold garlands and other decorations.”
The guys from the team came in. Usually her dad was the boss, but now everyone was directing everyone else in what to do first. Casey looked around the room at all the people who were in her life and in her heart. She caught her mom smiling at her as she headed her way.
Ivy put her arm around Casey.
“I think
this is going to be the best Christmas ever,” Casey said. “We found the attics.”
“Did you?”
“Eddie said the cubs could play up there some, as long as they were careful. I think I should be with them to make sure they don’t break anything.”
“Oh, most definitely.” Her mom gave her a hug.
“I’m glad we’re here, Mom. With everyone. Feels like home,” Casey said, watching her mom to see if she felt the same.
Ivy’s eyes watered. “It does, doesn’t it? Now we’d better make ourselves useful. There’s a lot to do.”
* * *
Casey was reading in one of the upstairs alcoves when she heard the cubs coming down the hallway a little later, hushing each other. They didn’t see her until they were next to her. She sat up, sending a speculative glance over them, noticing their guilty looks.
“What are you up to, sneaking around like that?” she asked.
They sent looks among themselves. Only the younger boys were there, she realized, feeling a zing of disappointment that Lion wasn’t with them.
“We’re going up to play. Eddie said we could,” Robin said.
“Which attic are you going in?” she asked.
Fox looked back at the others, then nodded to the attic that was in this half of the house.
Casey set her book facedown and stood. “All right. I’ll go with you.”
“No girls allowed,” Coyote said.
Casey put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “That’s ridiculous. Girls can do anything they want. Do you want to go to the attic or not?”
“You aren’t the boss of it,” Squirrel said. “Eddie is, and she said we could go up there.”
“Why do you think I’m sitting here if not to guard it?” Casey asked. “Fine. You can go up, but I’m not going to show you how to open the secret door.”
“We don’t need you,” Owl said. “We can find it ourselves.”
The boys spent the next several minutes searching for the panel that opened the attic access. It wasn’t until Vole got exasperated and fisted the wall at just the right spot that the doors sprang open. The boys shouted and jumped up and down at that victory, then disappeared into the opening. Casey hurried after them.
Max and Hope_A Red Team Wedding Novella_The Red Team, Book 13 Page 2