“Libby and Granny Fin do yoga, too,” Sebastian added.
His jaw dropped. His gran wasn’t one to waste an hour, or even a quarter of an hour, for that matter, to sit on a mat and twist around. He wasn’t even sure the old bird could get herself down to the floor. She was more of the type to bustle around the kitchen, slapping him on the backside for drinking out of the milk jug or riding his sisters to do their homework.
“You have my granny Fin doing that splits business?” he asked.
“No,” Libby replied curtly. Her tone was cordial, but irritation simmered beneath her singsong voice. “I showed her a few restorative yoga positions to help with her arthritis. You might have noticed if you’d been able to spare us a moment.”
And the punches kept coming.
He had to do this. There was no other choice than to make her despise him—again. But as the realization hit, the image of her naked and biting her bottom lip as she hummed the dirtiest of moans invaded his mind. Their bodies had moved together, pumping and thrusting as they rode wave after wave of delirious ecstasy. The hum of energy that had flowed between them and the depths of her amber eyes had him craving a life that was not for him. A life he didn’t deserve. A life he had to forfeit. Libby’s tenderness only fueled the fever dream that he could be anything more than a fighter. He’d failed as a husband. He was failing at being a parent. Boxing was all he had left.
Mere had sacrificed too much for him to fail in the ring.
“Now that we’ll be together in Rickety Rock, we’ll get to see my dad every day, Libby. You won’t have to ask me so many questions about him because he’ll be with us,” Sebastian chimed, and now Libby was the one blushing.
“You’ve been talking about me with my son?” he asked, lowering his voice.
Libby shifted in her seat. “Just normal nanny questions.”
“What did you want to know?”
“She wanted to know what you and I used to do in London,” Sebastian answered crisply before Libby could conjure a reply. “I told her we didn’t do much of anything because you were training a lot back in England, too.”
Shame scorched through his veins. He glanced at his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. It would be a miracle if he didn’t rip the damn thing clean off the dash.
The kid couldn’t be right, could he? The two of them had to have done something together in the recent past.
Or maybe not?
After Mere’s death, his time in London blurred into a parade of one-night stands that only ushered in more loneliness. He released a pained breath when Sebastian cut into his tormented thoughts with an elated whoop.
“We’re here! Look, it’s the sign for Rickety Rock, and it’s got a donkey on it—a donkey next to a big boulder. I wonder if that’s our donkey. I can’t wait to meet the donkey. Did you know that a male donkey is called a Jack, and a female donkey is called a Jennie?”
“Sebastian’s read a lot about donkeys and pack burro racing since he got to Colorado. He’s even made a few sketches in his book,” Libby said. He didn’t have to look at her to hear the smile in her voice.
“See,” Sebastian called, holding up a drawing of a donkey’s head. “I drew you with a donkey, Dad.”
“He’s excited to spend time with you now that we’re out of the city and training for the Ass-in-Nine,” Libby added in a hushed voice. The venom in her tone had been replaced with a hopeful lilt.
Too bad he was about to disappoint her again.
“You know that I’m still going to be training for the fight, right, mate?” he said, meeting Sebastian’s eye in the rearview mirror. “This donkey race isn’t such a big deal compared to a championship fight that millions and millions of people are going to watch.”
“Yeah, I know, Dad,” the child answered, deflating into the seat.
“But you’ll have those camps and activities with your mates,” he said, trying to find the bright side. “You’ll be so busy you won’t even miss me.”
Had more hollow words ever been spoken?
What was wrong with him? He was better off keeping his gob shut.
“Yeah, Dad, camp with Phoebe and Oscar will be cracking,” the boy answered flatly.
Bloody hell.
Libby glared at him, her amber eyes blazing.
If she had a vibrator, she’d surely chuck it right at his head.
Silently fuming, she didn’t say a word as they exited the interstate. The GPS barked directions as they entered the tiny town of Rickety Rock. The place looked like something out of an olden day’s movie. There was a quaint downtown area with a mix of one- and two-story brick buildings lining the main drag, coupled with hanging baskets of brightly colored flowers. He took in the shops and raised an eyebrow at their interesting names. There seemed to be a theme to this town—an odd coupling of two categories: donkeys and discombobulation.
Sebastian rolled down his window and craned his neck. “Burro Café, Ass You Are Western Wear, The Mule and Donkey Saloon, Jack and Jennie’s Bookshop, Wobbly Hardware, Loopy Scoop Ice Cream Parlor, Askew Market, Crooked Zen Rocks and Fortunes, Rickety Rock Visitor Center and Vortex Resources,” Sebastian called out, reading the names of the various eclectic shops.
Bloody brilliant! He’d be training in a lopsided town that had a bizarre affinity for donkeys and mystical bullshit. Libby should be over the moon. There must be spiritual yoga people coming out of the woodwork here. This was not his scene in the least, which may be a good thing. What he needed was some bloody peace and quiet to train. Hopefully, Madelyn had worked her magic to secure decent lodging for them in the peculiar mountain town.
“There’s a bunch of little houses down the side streets. And look, there’s the post office, a library, a community center, and a town square,” the boy continued, like a mini tour guide. “Where’s our house? Is it close to here?”
“It’s off Falling Stone Road,” Libby said, glancing at the GPS display. “Up there,” she added, pointing toward a cluster of structures in the distance.
At least they’d have some privacy.
They continued up an uneven gravel road that zigged and zagged until the mountain foliage cleared, and the large structure that he’d spied from the town below turned out to be a grand Victorian mansion. One would assume an English-style home would stick out like a sore thumb against the rocky, mountainous terrain, but it worked.
“Wow,” Libby breathed.
He parked in front of a set of stone steps that led to the front door. They exited the car and inhaled the clean mountain air.
He surveyed their summer lodging.
The place looked like an elaborate dollhouse come to life.
Painted a crisp cream with plum paint outlining the windows and highlighting the fish-scale shingles, the three-story structure rose into the air with a pointy, pitched roof and a tower-like portion with a turret jutting into the sky like a witch’s hat. Several windows were fitted with square glass panes in every shade of the rainbow. A path lined with white stones curved along the wraparound porch. It meandered past three more structures. The first appeared to be a two-story five-car garage, the second a barn, and the third, tucked closer to the back of the main house, was a small cottage built in the same Victorian style.