I opened my mouth to lie, but nothing came out.
For the first time in my life, words failed me.
Well, words didn’t fail to come out of my mouth. Just ones that didn’t sound as if I was trying to hide something.
“So whose dog was that in the forecourt as we drove in?” I blurted.
When nobody answered, specifically not my brother, I chose that moment to steal a cookie and run.
It was not a good idea to get my father and brothers interested in someone I was dating.
They ruined every single relationship that I’d ever tried to have before I’d even had it.
Trust me when I say, the males in my life were shit heads.
Spotting the dog still where he’d been when we’d arrived, I took off at a slow jog in the dog’s direction, anxious to get away from my current predicament before it could come back and bite me in the ass.
“Ohh, aren’t you just the cutest thing ever?” I cried as I dropped down, ass to calves, and reached for the cutest thing I’d ever seen on four legs. “Yes, you are. Oh my God. I just want to take you home and love you forever. I’ll bet nobody will notice that you’re gone.”
A heartbeat passed, then a deep, very familiar, very sexy voice said, “I’d notice.”
I closed my eyes as recognition hit.
Then two things happened.
One, I looked up into Adam’s eyes to see him smiling down at me.
Two, my father and brother joined us.
Chapter 8
It’s time to start living. That means eating ice cream in the morning for breakfast, and cookies for lunch. You can save that salad for a rainy day.
-Adam’s secret thoughts
Adam
“Mom,” I said as I pushed my mother’s hand away from the cut on my face. “It’s okay.”
“I know it’s okay. I put the stitches in,” Mom said. “I just wanted to make sure there was no swelling.”
My mother was a paramedic. She was also a mother. A very protective one at that.
When one of her babies were hurt, she damn well protected them with everything she had.
Two things that didn’t go well together when you were damn good at banging yourself up from time to time.
Like today.
I’d cut myself while splitting wood with my dad.
I’d been chopping an oak log up with my ax when a piece of wood popped back and slammed into my chin.
Now I was sporting three stitches thanks to my mom.
“I’m okay.” I pulled away as I picked up my ax again. “Where’s Dad?”
“He went to get a beer and speak with Sam,” Mom said. “Something about hearing an exhaust leak on Sam’s younger sister’s car.”
I frowned and stood up straighter.
“Sam’s sister?”
Sam had a sister that was really young. At least, way younger than him.
I hadn’t seen her in years, either.
I always remembered her as weird, though.
Always watchful, not talkative, and very, very standoffish.
She was good friends with Sam’s youngest girl, Phoebe, though, so she’d been here a lot when we were kids.
I wondered if she was still just as weird.
And she never ate anything. She’d always had to have special food because she was picky.
“Yeah,” she said. “Are you almost done with that?”
I looked at the ever-growing pile of wood that was at my feet and shrugged.
“I’ll finish this lot out,” I said. “Since Dad bitched out.”
“I didn’t bitch out,” my father said as he came around the corner. “I saw Sam’s dad and sister pull in a few minutes ago while you were getting your face put back together, and thought I’d run over there and tell them what I heard last week.”
I nodded once as I pulled back the ax and slammed it back down again.
The shock of the ax hitting the wood reverberated up the handle and into my hands.
My abs tightened and bunched, and a few more droplets of sweat fell off my face and onto the ground.
“Looks like you bitched out to me,” I said, pointing to his woodpile, and then to mine. “And I had to have my face fixed. What’s your excuse?”
My mother went to my father and wrapped her arms around his chest, pressing her face against his heart.
I felt something warm slide through me at the sight of them.
One day, I wanted what they had.
One day, I hoped to have it.
“My excuse is I’m getting old,” Dad said. “And why bother putting so much work into it when you’re young, able-bodied, and in better shape than me?”
My mom ran her hands over my dad’s still-flat belly, slipping it underneath the fabric on one of her sweeps down.
“You still have a six-pack, Jack,” Mom said. “And, just sayin’, but I can’t get enough of this silver.”
She ran her free hand that wasn’t underneath his shirt along my father’s hair that was indeed going silver.
Though, he liked to say it was going chrome.
I guess it sounded cooler in his head or something.
My father curled his arm around her waist and palmed her ass, giving it a very blatant squeeze as he looked down into her eyes with love shining in his.
I curled my lip up in disgust at the two of them.
“Can you please not grope each other when I’m around?” I pleaded.
Dad grinned wickedly at me. “Why? Do you think if you don’t see it that it won’t still happen?”
I gagged. “Gross.”
“Way of life,” Dad corrected, his eyes focusing on something in the distance over my shoulder.
I looked over my shoulder, ax on my other shoulder, and froze when I saw the familiar black curls swaying as someone ran across the parking lot of Free, a compound of sorts that was on the outskirts of Kilgore where my father started living the moment he got out of the military.
My heart started beating in my throat when I realized who it was.
Amelia.
Amelia, the girl I’d been unable to stop thinking about since two days ago when I’d discovered she’d left my bed in the middle of the night.
I watched as she ran until she got to the dog that was laying in the middle of the road—my dog.
King.
King was a two-year-old Corgi.
She was sweet, fat, and lazy.
And, apparently, she was cute enough to warrant Amelia running across the forecourt that spanned between all the houses.
“Ohh, aren’t you just the cutest thing ever?” Amelia cried as she dropped down onto her haunches in front of my puppy and scratched King behind the ear. “Yes, you are. Oh my God. I just want to take you home and love you forever. I’ll bet nobody will notice that you’re gone.”
I heard that as I walked up silently to where Amelia was crouched down.
I hadn’t even realized that I’d moved.
“I’d notice.”