by Shey Stahl
Dad smiles, and I see a little bit of Sev in him. “No, but my brother did right before it killed him.”
Kacy’s eyes widen. “Seriously?”
Lara Lynn laughs, unable to keep up with the lie. “No, sweetheart. It didn’t kill him. But he does live in Montana, and it was becoming a nuisance to their cattle.”
“You eat meat, right?” Morgan asks Kacy, slinging his arm around her and suggestively nodding south.
Told you Morgan shouldn’t be allowed the tequila he’s holding.
“I eat meat,” Kacy says, her cheeks red as her eyes dart from mine to Morgan’s.
Dad grabs the bottle from him with a hard yank. “Who let you have that?”
“Barron.” Morgan winks at Kacy. “You fuck my brother yet?”
“Morgan Christopher Grady!” Dad grumbles. “We don’t talk to ladies like that.”
“Who says she is one,” Carly pops off, sipping her wine like the stuck-up bitch she is. I can’t hit a girl, but I sure as shit want to in this moment. You know, I’ve never liked Carly. I always thought Morgan made a huge mistake marrying her, and now I’m sure of it.
Glaring at Carly, I mouth, “Shut the fuck up,” to her and push Morgan away from Kacy.
“Honey,” Dad looks to Carly. “When you’re in my home, you treat everyone with respect.”
“Sorry, sir.” Carly stands, rolling her eyes at Morgan. He puckers his lips at her, but she shoves her hand in his face. “Knock it off.”
Kacy sighs when Carly leaves the room. “I was just about to come up with something really good to say to her.”
I smile, leading her into the dining room. “Well, keep a tab. She’s known for saying a few shitty things per night.”
“Noted. Is she always like that?”
“Pretty much.” I lean into her, our shoulders touching, but it’s not enough. I want all of me touching her. “Morgan always goes for the bitches.”
Kacy blinks. “Hey, I like Lillian,” she whispers. “She doesn’t seem like a bitch.”
“You don’t know her that well yet.”
Dad brings in the smoked tri-tip, the girls following him. Kacy jets her bottom lip out again, and I find it so goddamn sexy I want to shove her inside the bathroom next to the stairs and suck it into my mouth.
“What was the cows name?” Kacy asks, staring at the meat.
“Lonnie.” Camdyn hugs Kacy’s leg. “It’s okay, Kacy. Lonnie was really mean.”
She’s lying. There wasn’t anything mean about old Lonnie, except that it was his time to be slaughtered.
“Lonnie? His name was Lonnie? Please tell me it’s not Poppy’s dad.”
Camdyn giggles. “No, silly. Lonnie ain’t got babies.”
When we end up all sitting down for dinner, Morgan is shit-faced, and I’m wishing I wasn’t sitting next to Kacy. She’s wearing this low-cut green top that makes the blue in her eyes stand out and her flawless skin irresistible. I want to spend hours with my mouth all over her, worshiping her in ways I haven’t done.
Underneath the table, Kacy’s hands are anything by innocent. She’s touching my goddamn thigh so high my balls are jealous, and my dick, he’s just fucking angry. At me, my kids, the entire damn world at this point.
“So, Bishop,” Kacy begins after taking a bite of Lonnie. “Camdyn told me this ranch has been in your family for over a hundred years.”
I cock my head at her. She wants to talk family history while she’s touching my junk? Okay. No complaints here.
Dad sets his whiskey on the table, smiling at Kacy. “Yes, darlin’. It has been. Handed down from one Grady to the next.”
“Do I get to run it next?” Camdyn asks, carefully building a mashed potato volcano on her plate.
“That’s up to Morgan, sweetheart.”
Morgan smiles at her, giving her a goofy face from across the table. “We’d make a good team, Cam!”
Naturally, she scowls at him. “Camdyn.”
“How long have you and Bishop been married, Lara Lynn?” Kacy asks, taking a small sip from her whiskey and inching her fingers higher. Her pinky strokes the side of my dick, and I jump, clearing my throat like I’m choking. I am choking on what-the-fuck-is-she-doing?
Lara Lynn pays me no mind, as does everyone else, and smiles tenderly at Kacy. “About ten years, right, honey?” She looks to my dad for confirmation.
“Yes, ma’am.”
They entertain their small talk, and I fight with my own self-control to take Kacy’s hand and shove it down the front of my jeans and tell her, “If you’re going to touch it, mean it.” But I don’t. I have a surprising amount of willpower.
Morgan is on my other side and smacks my elbow the second I reach for my beer. “Psst,” he whispers, as if his presence hadn’t already been announced when he smacked me and my beer went into my mashed potatoes.
“What?” I growl, picking my beer up.
“You spilled your beer.”
I glance over at him. His eyes are half-lidded, and I realize he’s been drinking out of his flask for the last hour. “You spilled it.”
“I did not,” he snaps, looking like he wants to hit me for suggesting it. Here’s the thing about Morgan when he’s been drinking tequila. You know he doesn’t make good decisions, but he also doesn’t have reasoning skills and argues until he’s blue in the face. Right or wrong.
I rip the flask from the pocket of his flannel. “Give me that.”
In the process of Morgan and I fighting over a flask, I hear commotion under the table and realize Sev isn’t on Tilly’s lap anymore but underneath the table.
Before I have time to knock Kacy’s hand away, Sev giggles. “Daddy? Why Kacy touchin’ your boy parts?”
Kacy jumps in her seat, snaps her hand back, and then bursts out laughing.
Morgan takes his flask back while I’m distracted. “Don’t take shit that doesn’t belong to you.”
I draw in a deep breath and shift in the chair, trying to conceal my erection from my kid. “She wasn’t,” I’m quick to say. “She was looking for her napkin.”
“I got a napkin you can use,” Morgan says, winking at Kacy and taking another pull from his flash.
I give Carly a “what the fuck” look that goes unnoticed. What does she care? She’s divorcing his ass. My next plea to contain Morgan goes to Aunt Tilly across from me. If anyone can control Morgan, it’s mean Aunt Titty, as he used to call her. Only she’s talking to Camdyn about Christmas bullshit and is absolutely no help.
“Morgan.” Lara Lynn sighs and hands him coffee. “Drink this.”
“No thanks,” he says politely.
Carly glares at him and then leans forward to catch my eyesight. “Nice.” Her eyes dip low to my crotch. “In front of your children?”
I’d love to say that our family suppers are never this hectic, but I’d be lying. They usually are.
After an eventful dinner and a lot of sexual frustration, we pile in the side by side and head back to my house. Kacy takes another shower in my bathroom while I get the kids ready for bed. They talk nonstop about Christmas after Aunt Tilly got them all wound up about Santa.
Or it might have something to do with the fifteen-foot-tall Christmas tree in our living room that’s decorated only on the bottom four feet.
When their baths are finished, and I’ve gotten them water, ice packs, and everything else under the sun they ask for, I press my ear to the door and listen.
“Can I sleeps on the big bunk?” I hear Sev ask Camdyn. It still cracks me up that they have their own rooms, but they insist on sharing one together.
“No.” There’s a thud, and I imagine she’s thrown a pillow off the bed and at her sister. “Go to sleep.”
“If you sleeps on the bottom, I can sleeps ups there.”
“Sev. No. Sleep.”
“When you falls asleep, I’m comin’ up there. And then when you wakes up, I be there.”
I chuckle to myself, waiting for Camdyn’s reply. She sighs
again. “Go to sleep.”
“I love you,” Sev tells her.
Did your heart melt? Mine did.
Sev, though she acts tough, she’s like a unicorn that breathes fire and is blind, always running into things and then gets scared and sets on fire what scared her. Camdyn, she’s a protector by nature, like me, watchful, wary, and always observant.
Sighing, I walk down the hall to find Kacy sitting on the couch, her legs tucked underneath her wearing my sweatpants again. “Told you I was keeping them,” she notes, winking at me.
The corners of my mouth twitch. “They look good on you.” I take a seat next to her. “But they’d look even better off.”
A beautiful sigh falls from her lips. “They’re not staying in their rooms, are they?”
Dejection hits me as I sit next to her, a foot of empty, unbearable space between us. “Probably not. Sev still gets up once a night, and Camdyn, you never know with her.”
Her eyes find mine, the flickering of the fire dancing golden light on her perfect skin. “I can’t believe Sev caught me touching your boy parts.” She starts giggling.
“I’m not laughing,” I grumble, annoyed.
“I’m sorry. Your family is nice.”
“If you say so.” I drop my gaze to my hands, the callouses on my fingertips dragging against the roughness of my jeans when I pull my cell phone out and set it on the coffee table in front of us. “I’m sensing you’re not close with your family?”
“No. I’ve never been close with them. I have an aunt I like who lives in San Diego, but my parents… I don’t know. I was close with my dad growing up, but he got so into his own life and his music that he didn’t notice his daughter was heading in the wrong direction.”
“Wrong direction?”
“I was a bit of a rebel when they weren’t looking.”
I laugh lightly. “Weren’t we all?”
“I know Morgan was.” She snorts, shaking her head.
“That’s an understatement. So your dad’s in music?”
“Yep.” She nods. “Russell Randal.”
My eyes widen. “The drummer for Final Order?”
“That’s him.”
“You don’t have his last name?”
Shifting, she turns toward me, her legs crossed under her. “Nope. My mom didn’t want me to have his name because everyone would know who I was. Only daughter of a famous drummer, well, she wanted me to have a more private life.”
“And did you?”
“If you mean being raised by my nanny and private schools, sure.”
“But everyone still knew who you were, didn’t they?”
“Unfortunately. I only got attention because of who my parents are.”
“Something tells me that’s not entirely true.” I reach over, sweeping her hair from her neck. “I have no idea who your family is, but you still caught my attention.”
A soft laugh escapes her, and I fight through the urge to grab her by the ankles and lay her flat on the couch so I can settle between her legs. And then the urge collapses all my rational thoughts, and I do just that. “That’s because I rammed my car into the side of your building,” she says, giggling when I have her on her back.
My stomach tightens with need, and I grind my hips into hers. “Don’t say the word ramming.”
Licking her lips, she taunts me with a raise of her brow and a “fuck me” face. “Why?”
“Because you know I want it,” I breathe, my face an inch from hers. I see the smile and the overwhelming realization that I might not be able to keep her. My lips come to rest on her warm shoulder, the flames dancing on the wall behind us. Reaching down to her knee, I lift her leg higher on my waist and angle my hips into hers.
She touches my jaw, rubbing her thumb across my chin—eyes hooded and breath falling fast from her lips. “You’re… nothing like I expected.”
I don’t know what she means by that, but just before I’m about to carry her to my room, Sev comes out of their room, scratching her face. She looks at us on the couch and then where my hips are connecting with Kacy’s. Neither of us says a word or move before Sev rubs her nose. “I can’t breathe.” And then her eyes drift back to our lower half connected.
Yes, Sev, my boy parts are touching her girl parts. And if I ever catch you doing this with a boy, I’ll murder him.
“Daddy, gets off her.” She stares at Kacy. “Can yous breathe?”
“I can breathe,” Kacy giggles out, covering her face with her hands.
I love my kids.
I love my kids.
I fucking love my kids.
I think I’m trying to convince myself of this, but it’s not working. I want to tell my three-year-old to stop being a bitch baby and go back to her room.
Groaning, I push myself away from Kacy. “Told you they wouldn’t stay in their room.”
I’ve earned this right over the years.
BARRON
Monday morning, I’m thinking of ways to draw out fixing Kacy’s car because guess what? The parts are on their way. I blame Lillian for ordering them so soon. It’s all her fault. How am I supposed to close the deal if I finish her car? I need to get her alone, is what I need without the kids. I wonder if Morgan would watch them at his house. Actually, no. I’m still mad at him for last night. You want to know how the tequila went for him? He slept in the barn last night. I hope he froze his one ball off.
I stare at the coffee on my toolbox, trying to think of other options. I could… take her on a date? No, that won’t work because the girls will want to come. I mention date, and they think I’m taking them out. They give me those pretty innocent eyes, and I’ll cave. Then I’ll be taking all three girls on a date.
So a date’s out. This is going to take some time. I don’t have time though. I could finish up her car in a day, and she’d be out of my life forever probably. But then I think, if there’s more wrong with her car, then I’d have to order parts, right? And that could potentially draw this out even further. That’s when I stitch up a plan to let the air out of all the tires and tell her we need four tires instead of two.
Because of the witnesses in the shop—I’m looking at you, Jace—I have to convince the kids to do this. I glance toward the office where Kacy is, helping Lillian with filing and our schedule. I won’t let her pay to fix her car, but she insists on helping, so she’s basically given herself a job in the office. And I’ll tell you something else, her customer service, fucking incredible. If she was looking for a job, I’d hire her in a heartbeat, if not for her skills, just so I could look at her all day long.
Pulling Camdyn aside, who’s still out of preschool due to the obscene amount of snow we still have, I sit her on my toolbox. “I got a job for you. Let the air out of those tires,” I whisper, gesturing to Kacy’s car parked in my stall.
Camdyn, she has a conscience. Can’t lie or do anything she thinks she’s going to get in trouble for. “I don’t work for free,” she tells me, holding out her hand, eyes twinkling.
I tug on her braids hanging over her shoulder. “I’ll give you a cookie if you do it.” I lean in close, and she grabs my face between her hands, squishing my cheeks.
“Ten cookies!” she bargains.
“Fine. Ten.”
“Deal.” We shake on it, but Camdyn levels me the look. “I won’t get in trouble?”
“Nope.”
There’s confusion in her eyes, and she looks at her hands on her knees, her legs kicking between us. She makes contact with my balls, and I fight through a wave of pain. “Why do you want me to do it?”
I move to the side so she doesn’t kick me in the junk again. “Because I said so,” I grit out, trying to catch my breath.
“I’m scared. You’ll get mad, I know it.”
Too late. I’m pissed you just nailed my ball sac. “I’m asking you to do it. Why would I get mad at you?”
“Because,” she groans dramatically. “Where’s Sev? She can do it.”
“You
won’t get the cookies.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m scared, okay?”
“Fine. Don’t do it. But no cookies.”
“I don’t even want them,” she grumbles, crawling down from my toolbox. Fuck. Now what?
I glance over my shoulder. “Sev? We need you, kid.” I don’t know why I’m enlisting the help of my kids. But I can tell you this much. Watch out when the little one gets involved. She’s three feet of nuthouse.
Am I going to hell for this?
Yes. The answer is yes.
Do I care?
Nope.
I find Sev near the open bay doors outside. “Kid, come here.”
“I got a name, dude,” she barks, running over to me with what looks to be snow in her hands. She stops in front of me, her nose and cheeks bright red from the cold. Poor kid is really struggling with this cold weather and the wind. “I got you dis,” Sev tells me, handing me a handful of yellow snow.
Yellow. Snow. I want to laugh that she picked up yellow snow outside, but I’m more disgusted she’s holding it in her bare hand. “Sev, gross.”
She looks at the snow, and then, before I can stop her, fucking takes a bite out of it. “What? It’s pretty.”
I knock it out of her hands. “It’s yellow because that’s pee.”
She looks at the snow, then me, her brow furrowed, and then tears surface. Full-blown alarm over pee snow. I can’t say I blame her, but, come on, what the fuck did she expect eating yellow snow? Right. She’s three.
After having her wash her mouth out and drink a bottle of water, I hold her in my arms. “I got a job for you.”
“I don’t wants a job,” she whines, her tears starting to dry. “I’m too small.”
“You’re not for this one. I’ll give you cookies.” I hold up the box Lara Lynn brought in this morning for the guys.
Her eyes light up, and she sucks in a hiccupped breath. I’m a sucker for this kid and her tears. My heart melts anytime I see those bright blues tear up. “I have them?”
I nod. “Yep. Ten of them if you want.”