by Vivian Arend
“Jeez.”
Laurel offered him an upside down smile as she wiggled closer to the edge of his bed. Her head fell back slightly as she reached for him, pulling his hips forward and placing his cock at her mouth. “I want to play.”
She licked her lips, and temptation was too strong. He took control, pressing forward so her tongue passed over the head of his cock, wet heat wrapping around him.
The new angle let him go deeper than expected, and he slowed his stroke. Moving carefully even as his legs shook with need.
Laurel caught him by the hips and encouraged him. She dug in her fingernails and refused to let him stop. Pulling him toward her, deeper than he thought possible. Faster. He reached down and played with her nipples. The countdown to him finishing accelerated at an alarming speed until—
“Coming.”
Rafe pulled out, seed spurting free. He pumped his cock hard to keep the pressure going, long lines of white landing on her breasts and face. A stripe crossing her lips.
She snuck out her tongue and licked it up, and another, harder jolt escaped him as he moaned.
…and the front door slammed.
Jesse’s voice echoed clearly through the open bedroom door. “Hey. Trev? Rafe?”
Laurel didn’t waste a second. She was off the bed and flying for the master bathroom. Rafe measured the distance between him and the door, the bed in his way, and made an instant decision. He dove for his ankles, jerking up his briefs and pants as fast as he could, Jesse’s loud footsteps marching down the hall.
“Be there in a second,” Rafe warned, as if he hadn’t just shoved his semi-erect cock into his pants.
The bathroom door closed a second before Jesse’s head appeared in the doorway. “Hey, you’re back.”
“Yeah.” Rafe dragged a hand through his hair and attempted to force his brain to work. It was tough, considering all the blood in his system was still pooled in his lower body.
“Well, good. I didn’t even have to help.” Jesse scanned the room, and Rafe cursed as both their glances fell on the clothes tossed on the bed.
The T-shirt could have been his. The bra? Not so much.
Jesse met his gaze, his grin widening. “You’ll have to do something special to celebrate moving back in.”
Rafe was going to kill him. “Hey, I was going to ask you about that thing in the living room.”
His cousin went willingly enough into the living room, but he snickered the entire way. Rafe closed the bedroom behind him with a solid click so Laurel would know it was safe to grab her clothes.
“That thing in the living room, eh?” Jesse teased.
“Shut up.” Rafe was usually more on the ball than that, but considering he’d been in the middle of the most brainless moment a man could experience…
“Glad you’re back, though,” Jesse said. “It’ll be good to have company in the evenings.”
“I’m not done tonight,” Rafe warned.
His cousin snorted. “I figured.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Rafe ordered, but this time he couldn’t stop from laughing as well. “I meant I’m headed back out to finish a few more hours haying.”
Jesse plopped onto the couch and reached for the remote. “Well, if you have more fields to do, I’ll find something else to entertain me. House marathon, maybe.”
The bastard was going to make him outright ask. Which was pretty much what Rafe would have done if their positions had been reversed. “You’re such an asshole. Do the decent thing and get out of the house for a while.”
“I hope you don’t plan on making me leave every time Laurel is ready to go home, because I won’t do it.” Jesse got to his feet, though. “She’s your girlfriend. It’s not a walk of shame unless you want it to be.”
“We won’t. I won’t—only give her a little space this time.”
“Sure. I can be a gentleman. By the way, you’re flying low.”
Rafe glanced down involuntarily, hands going to his zipper, which was in the proper position. “You’re such a jerk.”
An evil chuckle escaped Jesse. “Do we really want to discuss jerking or—”
“No,” Rafe snapped.
Jesse seemed to find this pretty entertaining. “Don’t leave me openings like that, cuz.”
Rafe offered him the finger. “Anytime you want to leave…”
“No prob.” Jesse sauntered to the front door, whistling happily. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, the door halfway open. “Oh, hey, just in case. You might want to think about this for the future…”
Rafe waited.
His cousin pulled the door toward himself. “Open,” he said with a grin that grew wider by the second. Then he pushed the wooden barrier the other direction. “Closed. Open—”
“Get out, now,” Rafe said without heat.
Jesse left, obviously entertained, and Rafe returned to the bedroom to let Laurel know it was safe to come out. He hoped she wasn’t too traumatized.
Still, he had to chuckle as well.
Welcome home, indeed.
Chapter Sixteen
Rafe caught himself thinking often about what Laurel had shared with him during the picnic. It wasn’t the bits about Jeff, or even the admission she’d had sex with the guy that bothered him the most, although he wished he could have offered the man a firm kick in the pants to send him on his way back east.
No, it was the fact Rafe was completely unfit to help Laurel deal with her worries about faith that sent his brain through endless loops.
The dilemma teased at him in the quiet moments between tasks. During the mindless repetition of driving the swather, and the baler, and moving the harvest into storage. He didn’t want there to be anything he couldn’t help her with.
The topic got shoved to the top of his attention when a message from Pastor Dave showed up on his phone, asking for a tour. Rafe called back to confirm a time. A couple hours later, he left the fields and headed toward Gabe’s to get some work done there before he met the man.
The school bus was pulling away from the entrance to the ranch, Lance and Nathan Coleman beginning the long walk toward the barns.
Rafe stopped his truck beside his Six Pack nephews.
“Want to drive?” he asked Lance.
The kid’s eyes lit up. “Don’t have my learner’s yet.”
Rafe pushed open the driver’s door and climbed down. “Then you need practice, don’t you?”
Lance swallowed hard then eagerly got behind the wheel.
Nathan was up on the back bumper with a leg over the tailgate before Rafe stopped him. “Sorry, bud. In the cab, with your seatbelt on.”
He got a massive eye roll in response. “You’re not serious? That’s so lame. We’re on the driveway.”
“Not lame,” Rafe assured him, “It’s called self-preservation. Your father would take me apart if he found out I let you do stupid shit on my watch.”
“My dad’s not scary.” Nathan gave him a dirty look, teenage attitude dripping from every word. “He won’t mind. He doesn’t make stupid rules.”
He didn’t have time for this. Rafe shrugged. “Have it your way.”
He got in the cab, locking the doors before Nathan could get in.
Lance glanced over, hands clutching the wheel at ten and two. “You letting him ride in the back?”
“Hell, no.” Rafe rolled down the window. “Don’t even think about it,” he warned Nathan who had one hand on the side of the truck box as if he was about to jump over the edge. “You can walk. We’ll meet you at the far barn, and if you plan to have more trouble with your hearing around me, you can sit yourself down outside and wait for your ‘not scary’ dad to come pick you up early. I’ll be happy to call him.”
Nathan snatched his hand off the truck and backed up rapidly, all trace of rebellion washed away. “You don’t have to do that.”
Rafe closed the window and motioned for Lance to drive, hiding his amusement best he could. His cousin Daniel was a great dad�
�Nathan wasn’t scared of him in a bad way, but he obviously had a healthy amount of respect for the man.
Which is what Rafe desperately wished he felt for his own father.
He shoved his frustrations down as Nathan got smaller in the background. “When can you take your test?”
Lance’s focus on the gravel road never faltered as he drove far slower than necessary. “I’m fourteen in November, but my mom’s making noises about me waiting until the spring.”
“Let me guess. She doesn’t want you driving in the snow?”
Lance sighed, the noise rattling around the cab with the kind of long-suffering intensity only a teenage boy could put into it. “Yeah.”
“I get it. I wonder if she’s nervous because of her accident. She was hurt pretty bad, wasn’t she?”
Lance was quiet for a minute. “I’d forgotten about that.”
Because teenage worlds revolved around a small radius.
“Well, whatever you and your parents decide, there’re always vehicles on the ranch if you want to practice driving in bad conditions. On Coleman land—off the main roads.” Rafe held back a laugh, keeping as straight-faced as possible. “If we have a big snowfall, maybe you can help clear.”
“Can I?” Lance blurted eagerly.
This must have been what Tom Sawyer felt like. “Well, it’s a pretty big machine, the tractor with the blade, but I bet you could handle it. I’ll ask your dad.”
“Sweet.”
They were pulling up to the side of the barn. Rafe pointed to where he wanted Lance to park, then sent him on ahead to get started on the stalls.
He waited for Nathan to join him, ignoring what had happened minutes earlier. “You interested in some digging?”
Nathan made a face, but didn’t grumble out loud. “I guess.”
“I need a pretty deep hole. You’ll have to use the backhoe.”
The kid went from zero to sputtering with excitement in under three seconds. “You’re joking.”
“If you’re not interested I can teach—”
“I’m interested,” Nathan all but shouted.
Rafe smiled as he led the boy around to the back where they needed another burning pit. “I’ll get the backhoe in position then show you how the controls work.”
Fifteen minutes later he left behind a far happier helper. Nathan was eager to make a mess and one hundred percent on Rafe’s side, at least for the rest of that day.
The old backhoe was bombproof. The gears moved slowly, the footing was rock solid, and the only way the kid could get hurt was if he literally threw himself from the seat into the hole he was scooping in the soft soil. Rafe made sure Nathan was belted in tight before promising to check in on him in a while.
He liked kids—always had. Gabe might have joked about him being the annoying little brother, but as his cousins had children, he’d ended up babysitting off and on for all of them.
Laurel likes kids.
The thought hit hard, and for a second he had to shake his head. Except…
He’d dived into dating Laurel because it felt right. They’d been friends forever, and it made sense to take it to the next step.
Kids? That was a step farther than they’d ever talked about.
Don’t you think she’s thinking about more than just fooling around and having fun?
The fact her father was stopping by only added to his sudden mental turmoil. Was this a forever path he was headed down with Laurel?
If his father weren’t an issue, that answer would potentially be a whole lot simpler. Maybe if Rafe knew for certain he wasn’t going to turn into the bastard at some point in the future…
You’re so much like your father.
How many times had he heard that when he was growing up? Not as much lately, but then he’d made a point of not hanging out where too much gossip got tossed his direction.
Lance was hard at work, so Rafe slipped around to the back room, intending on sorting through tack until Pastor Dave arrived. Hopefully sorting out his brains at the same time.
Instead he bumped into another clan gathering, this time with a few of the older generation. He’d caught them during a break. Uncle Mike and Uncle George were peering out the window to where he’d left Nathan while Gabe was sorting through what looked like a pile of maps on the table.
“You spot a sasquatch in the yard?” Rafe asked.
Uncle George twisted to face him. “That kid hasn’t stopped grinning since you plopped him in the seat. What’s he being rewarded for?”
“Being lippy,” Rafe admitted.
A chuckle escaped his uncle. “Interesting system you got going, but if it works…”
Gabe slid the pile of papers into an envelope and passed it to Uncle Mike, ignoring Rafe’s raised brow and offering a slight headshake before changing topics. “They’re good workers. I’m surprised you didn’t want to keep the boys over at the Six Pack land for longer,” he said to Mike.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Mike said, “but Gramma Marion was spoiling them rotten, and Lance has a major crush on Vicki, so it’s time to get them some fresh territory.”
Rafe and Gabe exchanged glances before snickering. “Vicki?” Gabe asked.
Mike shrugged. “She shows up to help out where she can. Lance walked into a barn wall, he was so busy staring at her.”
“How’s Joel handling that?” Rafe managed to get out through his laughter.
“He’s at the still-amused stage, but there’s no use in making any of them suffer for longer.” Mike folded his arms and leaned back on the wall behind him. “Hear you’ve got a new girlfriend.”
“Old friend, new as a girlfriend, yeah.”
“Marion speaks well of her,” Mike said. “Her whole family, in fact.”
Rafe eyed him for a moment. His Aunt Marion went to church, but Mike didn’t—but it didn’t seem to have caused them trouble over the years they’d been together. He wondered if maybe he wasn’t seeing the big picture. “Pastor Dave is coming over, if you want to say hello,” Rafe offered.
Gabe bumped him lightly on the arm. “Sounds serious. Isn’t this a little fast, bro?”
Confusion hit hard. “He’s coming over to see the new lambs. What’s wrong with—?”
Oh.
“You’re an ass,” Rafe said.
“You should see your face right now,” Gabe taunted.
“Jerk.”
“I told you some day it would be payback time for all the teasing you did about me and Allison.”
“Butthead.”
Mike turned toward Uncle George. “It’s so much fun to listen to the children argue, isn’t it?”
George laughed, patting Mike on the shoulder. “They’re quieter at it than my three girls. Of course, Tamara isn’t around as much anymore. And Karen only argues with me, which puts me in closer range. Increases the volume.”
“That girl takes after her old man,” Mike said. “Stubborn, good with horses.”
“Stubborn.” George cracked a grin. “Yeah, she’s that, all right.”
Rafe checked his watch. “I should look in on Nathan before Pastor Dave gets here.”
“We’ll take care of the boy,” George assured him, peering out the window at a car pulling into the yard. “Go on.”
“Yeah, don’t make Laurel’s dad wait,” Gabe deadpanned. “You never know what he’ll do.”
Uncle Mike leaned in closer. “Have him put in a good word for me.”
“With who?” Rafe glanced over his shoulder as he hurried toward the door. All three men were pointing a finger toward the ceiling, angelic expressions twitching into grins.
He ignored the lot of them as he exited the barn and went to meet his girlfriend’s dad.
Pastor Dave got out of the car and looked around, a pleased smile on his face as he took a deep breath before answering Rafe’s hello.
“Thanks for indulging me,” he said as Rafe led him toward the barn.
“Any time. Although, if you stay too long, I
’ll have to put you to work.”
He chuckled. “Seems a fair trade.”
Rafe unlatched the side door and led Laurel’s father in by the back way. “I forgot to ask earlier, but did you want to get out on the horses today, as well?”
“No. Thank you, though. I don’t want to keep you from your work for too long. And my wife would never forgive me if I got to go riding and she didn’t.” Pastor Dave followed closely after him deeper into the barn. “If the invitation still stands, maybe you can take both of us out some other time.”
“How about when Laurel can come along? I could arrange that.”
Pastor Dave nodded, his expression indicating he was thinking hard.
Was he worried about Rafe’s involvement with Laurel? Trying to come up with a polite way to tell him to back off and leave his daughter alone?
Rafe attempted to keep his concerns under wraps as he led the man deeper into the barn to where the most recent arrivals were. The barn was quiet, his uncles, brother and nephews vanished into thin air. Either they were hiding, or they’d high-tailed it for safer ground.
He kind of wished he could do the same.
But if he and Laurel ended up making a go of it—and his brain was still adjusting to thinking beyond simply dating—this man would be involved in his life in some capacity.
Rafe didn’t want to place walls between them. He also didn’t want to invite in a lot of judgment or, well, preaching. Which was probably a bad thing to expect to avoid when conversing with a man who made his living as a preacher.
Fifteen minutes later it appeared Pastor Dave didn’t have much of an agenda other than thoroughly enjoying his visit with the newborn lambs.
“There’s something inspiring about birth and the changing seasons.” Pastor Dave leaned his elbows on the low gate as he checked out a pen that held an ewe with two tiny lambs, barely hours old. “You’ve got a pretty good job, getting to experience this firsthand.”
“It’s great at ten in the morning, and four in the afternoon. It’s a little less exciting when it’s dark and cold and you’re not heading for shelter or supper for another couple hours.”
