Especially the very alive, very virile, very sexy, very unavailable kind.
Chapter 21
Flint
I never knew torture until Maisey Spencer moved in up the driveway.
When Tony was alive and running the ranch, he’d stop to chat every time he passed the gatehouse if I was outside. He’d invite me up to the house for a beer after school. We’d do dinner with Kory and a few others at Iron Moose every other week or so.
He was a good friend when I needed one after I moved back to Hell’s Bells.
And now images of his niece—watching me, kissing me, clinging to me, the color high in her cheeks, her breath coming in short pants, her eyes dark with craving—haunt me with every waking breath.
Tony was never a prude. Clearly.
But I don’t know what he’d think of my wanting to strip Maisey naked to work her out of my system.
At least you know it’s public knowledge that this one’s fully divorced, a not-helpful voice in my head offers.
And are you going to marry her? Tony’s voice adds.
Jesus.
Fuck.
Neither one of us wants to get married.
That’s why blowing off steam is good. Friends with benefits. Clear rules. Boundaries. We can do this.
We can blow off steam. Privately. Won’t hurt anyone.
That’s what I’m telling myself while I follow the sound of nails being hammered somewhere on the ranch early Saturday morning.
Our next playoff game is this afternoon, and I know Maisey never sits still, so this isn’t a surprise.
The barn comes into view, along with Maisey’s rear end.
June’s dribbling a ball around cones on the far side of Maisey’s truck. That helps my body’s instant reaction to Maisey’s ass.
As does the reminder that June’s really good.
She’s had solid coaching. More, she puts in the work to improve her natural talent. If they’d been here two weeks earlier, she’d be on the team.
I’d tell her that if I didn’t think it would get me an eviscerating eye roll.
Also probably won’t tell her how much of her mom I see in her on the field. She’s been the first person to trot over and talk up a player who has fucked up. The loudest cheerleader. The quickest to jump in with a quip that clears the tension when things are rough.
Coaching a coed team is no joke.
She’s made it easier without realizing it and probably without intending to.
She spots me, frowns, and finishes her run with a solid kick to the ball that sends it sailing into the side of the barn, where it connects with a hard thwack, then continues right on through the wood.
Maisey drops her hammer and leaps to her feet, her head swiveling first to the barn, then to her daughter. “Juniper.”
“Sorry, Mom. Guess I forgot my own strength. I’ll go—”
Get it.
I assume she’s about to say she’ll go get it, but an ominous creak from the barn cuts her off.
Her eyes go wide.
Maisey takes two steps back, then darts toward June.
The building sways.
Oh, fuck.
It’s swaying.
The barn’s swaying.
“Get back!” Maisey yells at June. “Back! Back!”
“I’m sorry,” June gasps.
“It’s okay. Back. Back!”
I’m dashing toward them as well, but I have nothing on Maisey’s speed.
Jesus.
She’s fast.
She’s fast. She can hammer. She can paint. She can fix fuse boxes and roofs and plumbing and doors.
She can do anything, and she does it well.
Fuck, competence is hot.
But the barn is not.
The boxy, two-story, formerly red building creaks and groans and leans. The sound of dry, old wood splintering crackles through the crisp fall morning.
“I didn’t mean to.” June’s voice is high and tight, her face flashing with horror.
Probably afraid of how much trouble she’s about to be in.
But Maisey grips her arm tighter and pulls her farther and farther away from the barn. “It’s okay. I know. I know. Back. Get back.”
“It’s falling the other way.”
Maisey pauses and looks back at the barn. Then she spots me as I reach them. She looks at the barn once again, her lips moving quickly.
June does that in class.
Maisey’s doing math in her head.
They both move their lips like they’re saying the problems out loud.
Maisey likes math.
Maisey does math.
That’s as hot as competence.
The barn creaks heavily again, and four rapid-fire snaps get my brain out ahead of my hormones.
She grabs June’s arm with one hand, drags her three feet to me, grabs my arm, and hauls us both another fifteen feet away.
“Mom,” June whispers.
“I don’t want—” Maisey starts, and then she stops talking altogether as the barn gives one final groan and collapses on top of itself with a racket like ten loads of lumber being dumped on each other at once.
Dust and wood splinters billow into the air, sending a cloud of dirt debris swelling out from the base.
June squeezes her eyes shut and holds up an arm, but the flying dust scatters and dissipates approximately where we were just a minute ago, settling to the dry ground with small swirls of final joy.
Maisey lets out a loud hooo.
June squeezes her lips together, but a noise still slips out, like she’s trying not to cry.
“Well, that was fun,” Maisey says.
Dust is still swirling around her truck. A small cloud of it, but still enough that we can’t see yet if there’s any damage from splintered wood that might’ve flown off the outside of the structure.
I look at her.
She slips an arm around June’s waist. “It astonishes me that with a kick like that, the soccer coach wouldn’t take you on. His loss. You’re amazing.”
Now I’m not just looking.
Now I’m gaping.
Did she seriously just do that?
“He’s such a dick,” June says around a sniffle.
“If your plans to be a professional soccer player don’t pan out, we can still get you a job taking buildings down.”
“Mom.”
“What? Do you know how much work you just saved me trying to figure out how to get that thing safely pulled down? One kick and boom. Now it’s just a salvage job. I’ll even buy you a new ball until we can find the one lost in there.”
“Stop,” June whispers.
Maisey visibly squeezes June’s waist tighter. “Okay,” she says quietly. “So long as you know I’m not mad.”
“Dad would’ve yelled.”
“He’s the last thing I’d ever want to be.”
June’s eyes go wide as she looks at Maisey. And then she chokes on a laugh that turns into another sob. “I’m going home,” she whispers.
“Make sure you take the shortcut,” Maisey replies. “None of that weaving around all of these open plains to get back to the house. Never know what kind of questionable characters you could run into.”
“You are such a dork,” June mutters.
She doesn’t say a word to me. Or look at me, for that matter.
“I’m your dork,” Maisey says to her as she sets off for the house.