“Thank you,” she murmured, understanding what he was trying to communicate. There was room in their house for her.
“We can have movie parties and entertain back here if you want to. The arcade games actually work.”
“You are too much, Wes Garner. This is wonderful,” she said, hugging him happily.
“The popcorn machine works, too. The sound quality on the theater system is unbelievable. We need to watch a movie together sometime soon so you can see how great it is. Our friend Sam installed it for us and did a top-notch job. He’s wired the rest of the house for theater entertainment as well as sound. He can come back after you get settled and put in whatever you want in the master bed and bath, kitchen, and your office.”
“My office?” she asked incredulously.
“Sure. Why not? I figured you’d want a room for your own personal use. We can build whatever sort of furniture you’d like in it. You can decorate it however you want.”
“Are you asking me to move in?”
“No. Yes. Evan needs to be here for that conversation,” Wes said a little lamely.
Rosemary grinned and said, “I’m not living in sin with you, Wes Garner. I haven’t held out all this time just to become your live-in girlfriend.”
Wes smiled down at her and kissed her, saying, “No one said that was what we wanted, now did they? Patience, princess. Come on.” He led her down to the end of the hallway.
He reached inside the darkened room and flipped on the light switch. The walls were painted in the same neutral taupe and the floors were the same medium-toned hardwood as the rest of the house. What stood out about this empty room was the hanging light fixture.
“I know you like Italian blown glass. I found this at an estate auction. I thought you’d like it. Baby, you’re gonna catch flies like that,” he chuckled, reaching out a finger to close her open jaw.
“Wow.”
He grinned triumphantly. “I guess that means you like it?”
“I—I love it.” Hand-blown colored glass globes held the light bulbs. She saw magenta, light blue, orange, red, electric blue, bright green, yellow, and purple mixed with milky translucent glass and shaped in an artsy, random pattern. “This must’ve cost a mint, Wes!” Rosemary was impressed that he remembered.
“Trust me. It was worth every cent to see the look on your face. Come on, there’s more.”
“More?” she asked.
Wes turned to her and gave her that gorgeous smile she loved so much. “Much more.”
She followed him to the living room. Dark brown leather furniture was arranged around a coffee table in front of the stone fireplace. There were framed prints of family members on the mantle and on the walls. She was in several of the photos and thought it was nice they’d held onto them. Passing into another hallway on the other side of the house, he led her down to the master bedroom suite.
Rosemary sighed when she entered, feasting her eyes. Wes had redone the walls in an oak plank paneling that matched the flooring. There was another blue and red, patterned rug by the enormous bed, which was drop-dead gorgeous. The bed had tall posters and a framework with a filmy drape over it. The headboard and footboard were decoratively hand-carved with a swirling floral pattern.
Around the room were several other pieces of furniture: a dresser and mirror, a tall chest of drawers, a rocking chair, tall mirror on casters, and a tall lingerie chest. Rosemary crossed the room and pulled one drawer after another. They were all empty. She looked back at Wes, questions in her eyes. He smiled and led her past the large walk-in closet, into the bathroom.
Her jaw fell open again. They had redone the shower and floors with new tile and had put in a humungous bathtub to replace the standard tub that had been in there, if she recalled correctly. Standing in the bathroom, she looked at him then out at the bedroom door, feeling like something was off-kilter somewhere.
“Did you knock out a wall?”
“Sort of. Do you like the tile and countertops?
“They’re beautiful. That big window is wonderful over the tub.”
“It’s a double window with a privacy shade inside. You press the switch to lower it,” he said, indicating the switch on the wall by the window.
“Wonderful. It looks like you renovated the suite, but it hasn’t been used. Where are you and Evan sleeping?”
“The bedrooms across the hall. The old master suite and second bedroom.”
“What?—Wait! You added on a whole new master suite? This is all new since the last time I was here.”
Wes nodded. “The master bedroom needed to be bigger anyway. I converted the small bedroom and old master suite into two bigger bedrooms with an adjoining bathroom. When Evan moved back home, he took the second bedroom and helped me finish the addition.”
Wes smiled when Evan slid his bulky arms around her waist. He nuzzled the back of her neck with his soul patch, sending pleasant shivers racing over her skin.
Rosemary looked at Wes and asked, “You did all this, for—”
“You, baby,” Evan murmured as she turned to him, smiling when she saw his dimples.
“You helped with all this?”
Evan replied, “I convinced myself I was just helping him fix his house the way he wanted it. But I knew deep down he was building it for you.”
With a light chuckle, Wes said, “Evan spent as much time in here working as I did. We built the furniture earlier this spring.”
Approaching the largest bed she’d ever seen, Rosemary said, “It’s all gorgeous. That bed is incredible. I really like the carvings.”
Wes pointed at Evan.
Rosemary smiled at Evan. “You did the carving?” He nodded sheepishly.
She brushed his warm cheek with her lips, and he murmured, “You can say it, Rosemary. I was a big dummy. I admit it. All I care about now is that you’re here and you like it. The steaks are done.”
Following them into the kitchen, she ran her hand over the smooth, brown and black marble countertops. She opened one cabinet after another, looking for plates and glasses.
“Well, one thing hasn’t changed,” she said, laughing.
“What?” Wes asked.
“The last time I visited, you’d just finished the house and hadn’t gotten settled yet. That was two years ago, and these kitchen cabinets are still a freaking organizational disaster! An egg beater in the cabinet with the plates. Why?”
Evan laughed as she squatted down, delving into a cabinet to see what else she might find.
Wes replied, “I can’t honestly say, honey. I’m a guy?”
From the interior of the cabinet, her voice sounded muffled as she spoke. “Smarty-pants. Well, now I know what my first priority is. Look at all these nice organizers you installed. This kitchen is going to be awesome after I get done with it!”
Patting her rear, Wes said, “Let’s find what we need for now and sit down and eat.”
Rosemary brought three plates to the table then filled glasses with ice for tea. “What you’ve done around here is really something—it’s beautiful but…”
“What, Rosemary?” Evan asked, casting his gaze away from her. Tension returned to his body language. She’d known him long enough to know he was bracing himself.
Wes looked at him and turned to Rosemary. “What is it, baby?”
“I’m not going to be your live-in girlfriend. Best you know that up front. I can hear my dad over the phone right now.” His unreasoning opinion didn’t mean shit to her, but she was determined to have her dream, which didn’t include a live-in arrangement. She could just imagine how he’d gloat. Then, of course, there was her mom. A totally different type of trouble, that woman would bend over backward to further piss her dad off. Vengeful harpy.
Wes and Evan both relaxed and chuckled a little. Wes spoke first, “We didn’t expect you to move in with us, Rosemary. But if I’m investing in a house, it should be the way that we would eventually want it, right? I thought it was a good idea for you to know
who the extra spaces were for but not because we want you to move in tomorrow. Shoot, crazy as things are right now, we wouldn’t have time to move you in, even if you were willing.”
“Whew! That’s a relief,” Rosemary said, feeling even more relieved as the guarded look left Evan’s face and his dimples returned. She wasn’t the only one who needed time to trust again.
“Besides, we haven’t even proposed yet,” Evan bravely added.
Rosemary stopped chewing her steak and went quiet and still. Wes rolled his eyes and looked like he wanted to plant his booted foot in Evan’s ass.
“Smooth, Evan.”
Rosemary quietly returned to chewing, her eyes bobbing back and forth between Wes and Evan, waiting to see what more would be said.
She took it as a good sign when Evan grinned and his eyes twinkled. “That wasn’t exactly how that was supposed to come out. What I meant, Rosemary, is that you need time and we need time, to sort of…court, I guess.” Color swept over Evan’s cheeks as he continued. “We need to give this a chance to feel normal, being together again. What’s the matter? Were you waiting for us to start fighting?” Evan slid a heated palm over her forearm, raising chills that ran up her arm and down her back.
Rosemary swallowed finally and grinned. “I was waiting for the smackdown.”
Wes laughed and replied, “Really? We haven’t had a fist fight in years, have we, Evan?”
Appreciating the levity, Rosemary looked from one to the other and said, “Look at it from my perspective. We’re going to have issues that need to be worked out. We were inseparable for years. We know each other better than some couples do before getting married, but in some ways, we’re strangers. Evan, you and I especially have a lot of time to make up for.”
Wes rubbed her shoulder. “And that’s where we are right now. There’s no rush to make drastic changes in anyone’s status. We can move forward together, now. But we want you to know, with all that said, that pretty bedroom in there is already yours. You’re welcome to stay here with us anytime you want to. Bring a toothbrush and a bathrobe to keep here, or not. Start rearranging the kitchen tomorrow, or next year. Your options are all open as far as I’m concerned. I want to take one day at a time.”
Rosemary was cheered by that notion, but said, “I feel like there are all these threads of our lives together that were shredded and scattered, and now I’ve got to pick them up and start weaving them back together again.”
“I know, baby,” Evan murmured. “I feel that way, too, and it’s kind of…”
“Overwhelming?” she offered. He met her eyes when she said it, and he nodded. She looked at Wes with misty eyes and smiled. “Remember? This is the moment I was hoping for. A chance to start over.”
Wes gripped her hand. “Yeah. Here we are.”
Chapter Four
Late July, a few weeks later…
Wes groaned as his cock sat up and begged. He walked behind Rosemary as she flounced angrily up the back steps in front of him, completely oblivious to how her cute, little bubble butt swayed with each step. Under other circumstances, he would’ve had his hands all over her right now. Wes could hear her cursing under her breath between sobs as she opened the sliding glass door and stomped inside. She stood in the sunshine streaming in through the door, her creamy skin glowing with coconut-scented tanning oil and the hint of a tan.
“Rosemary, I’m sure Evan didn’t mean to get so pissed off. You know that. He was upset that the customers were ogling you, is all,” Wes interjected over her sputtering anger. Turning her so she faced him, he could feel Rosemary shaking as he held on to her upper arms. Her face was tear-stained and flushed rosy with anger.
“Well, then why did he yell at me? On the one hand he tells me—you both tell me—I can come and go as I please, do what I want while I’m here. He knew I’d be here. I told him I was going to be sunbathing.”
Wes hated trying to second-guess what Evan was thinking and detested being in the middle, again. “Evan thought you’d be in the backyard, behind the privacy fence. It was probably the reason he took David and Steve around to the sidewalk on the west side of the house, so you wouldn’t be disturbed. His heart was in the right place, Rosemary.” He wasn’t looking forward to the coming confrontation, and he hoped Evan cooled down before he returned to the house.
“His heart wasn’t in the right place when he embarrassed me in front of those men. Call me crazy, Wes, but yelling at your girlfriend does not make a good impression on customers. That much I do know,” she said sassily as she wiped her oiled hand across her cheek and let loose a hitching sob. She looked up at him with those brimming, angelic eyes, and he felt that goofy damned flutter he’d gotten in his chest when she looked at him like that ever since he was six years old.
But facts were facts. Wes put his hands on his hips and gestured to the cherry-red string bikini she was wearing. Three little triangles and a bit of string was all that the bikini consisted of. His dick twitched in voracious approval. “Rosemary, look at what you’re wearing. Hell, I don’t want anyone else seeing you dressed that way. I’m not happy David and Steve saw you practically naked, either.”
Rosemary gestured to the thickly treed yard. “But it’s the afternoon. There’s too much shade in the yard. Where else would I be? Evan could’ve called out for me to see where I was. I never would’ve been out there if I’d known people were coming over. He startled me so badly I jumped before I remembered my top was untied. I don’t think they saw much before I got it adjusted. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time they ever saw a half-naked woman.”
Maybe not, but it was his half-naked woman they saw. “That’s not helping your situation, baby.”
Rosemary turned back to him and asked, “Would he really spank me, Wes? He was awfully angry, and I understand why. I can even sympathize with you both. I wouldn’t want any of my girlfriends to see your goodies, either. But so help me, if he ever puts me over his knee, I’ll neuter him,” she said sharply, sparks in her eyes. “He has to sleep sometime. He’d better be joking because that spanking would be the last you’d see of my happy ass.”
Wes wished Evan hadn’t said anything about spanking her. That was a conversation to have when they were all rational, not in the heat of the moment like this. Ethan Grant had been clear with them about that after Evan asked him. He’d evidently forgotten Ethan’s suggestion that they introduce erotic spanking to her first so she wouldn’t be afraid of it. The purpose of a chastisement spanking was to get her attention and motivate her to have a care for her own safety, not to actually hurt her. Now here she stood, thinking Evan intended to hurt her to teach her who was boss.
“I don’t think he really meant he would actually—” Now it was time for Wes to sputter. Fuck a fricking duck, where is Evan? He’d better get his ass in here before she gets wound up any tighter.
“Don’t speak for me, Wes,” Evan said quietly as he entered the front door and closed it firmly.
* * * *
Evan closed his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts as the image of the skimpy G-string she was clad in danced through his mind. Rosemary stood grim-faced, her arms crossed under her generous, round breasts, pushing them up even higher, so they were barely covered by the twin triangles of her tiny, red bikini top. She might as well have been standing in front of him naked, the perfect silhouette of her torso and her supple thighs like a siren song to his lust-soaked brain. His hands clenched at the thought of stroking her perfectly curved ass, and his eager cock twitched in agreement.
He wished he’d kept his damn mouth shut. Then he might be doing something a little more pleasant than arguing with the little spitfire. Evan opened his eyes as Rosemary turned to face him. His heart lurched as Rosemary lifted her chin, and her lip trembled. Her tear-stained cheeks were red, and he could see more tears brimming in her eyes. He was not proud of himself at all.
Praying for wisdom, Evan said, “Wes, I need to talk to Rosemary alone. You reckon you could give us a few min
utes?” Wes gave him a warning glance, and Evan nodded at him. He had no intention of spanking Rosemary now. That, in itself, told him he never should’ve brought the issue up in the heat of the moment.
Evan and Wes had talked recently about circumstances like this at Jack, Ethan, and Adam’s urging. Jack, Ethan, and Adam literally had the whole of their adulthoods to work out how they’d handle problems like this. It was a damn good thing the men had made the time to share their wisdom for dealing with problems and settling priorities. Adding to the mix that Evan and Rosemary’s personalities tended to be volatile at times, Wes and Evan knew they were going to need all the wisdom they could get.
Wes nodded quietly, went in the office, and closed the door. They’d recently agreed between the two of them that in an argument between Evan and Rosemary, Wes had to make himself scarce. Rosemary had the tendency to go to Wes for sympathy, which unfortunately, only made things worse. Reconciliation between the two who were arguing had to occur before she could have any contact with the other brother.
Rosemary stood there looking like she wanted to smack him in the face, but the tears in her eyes told him how much he’d hurt her feelings and embarrassed her. Evan wanted to be careful here and not screw things up more than he already had.
He held out his hand. Hesitantly, she took it, and he led her down the hall to his bedroom. For the sake of his sanity, he reached in a drawer and handed her a white T-shirt. She drew it over her head, after surreptitiously pressing her nose to it, breathing in his scent. That little gesture on her part went a long way toward easing his nerves. Sitting down beside her on the end of the bed, Evan lifted her small hand in his grasp. He played with her fingers, drawing his fingers down the length of each one, before lifting her coconut-scented palm to his lips.
There was a point in their relationship where this would’ve been about the power struggle, pure and simple. Now, he could plainly see the important thing was coming to some kind of understanding and reconciling with Rosemary.
Rainier, Heather - Rosemary's Double Delight [Divine Creek Ranch 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 4
