“Cartoons?”
“Yep. You like cartoons?”
She nodded and smiled as she peeked over her shoulder at him.
“What are we gonna do for clean clothes though, huh?” Contemplating the newest development, he mulled over in his mind how to get Kimberly some clean clothes and probably Laurel too, even though Laurel could run around in his T-shirt and her underwear and he’d be happy as a clam. “I bet your momma’s keys are in her purse. We could run over to your house, get you both some clean clothes and bring them back to my house. Then she wouldn’t have any reason to have to run home right away.” He looked down at the blonde head in front of him. “What do you think, little pixie?”
When they reached the barn, he dismounted and then pulled Kimmy down to set her on her feet. One of the tame barn cats rubbed against her legs and she squealed in delight.
“Good grief, girl. We need to tone down those squeals or I won’t have any eardrums left before the end of the day.”
Kimmy laughed and chased the cat toward the door with her arms outstretched.
Several minutes later, Kale had the mare unsaddle, brushed down and turned out so he went to find the little scamp, hoping she hadn’t gone far.
Walking out into the blinding summer sun, he glanced around, but didn’t see her. “Kimmy?” Around the back of the barn—nothing. “Kimberly!” he yelled, starting to panic when he couldn’t locate her right away. “Fuck! The pool.” Taking off at a dead run, he skidded around the corner of the house and came to a dead halt. A roar of laughter burst from his lips as the terror calmed and relief took its place. Sitting in the middle of the mud hole he made almost daily for the pigs, sat Kimberly with mud from the tip of her blonde, now dirty brown curls, to the tips of her once white tennis shoes.
The pigs grunted and sniffed at her, but did nothing to the intruder in their midst.
“You are bound and determined to get me into trouble with your momma, aren’t you little girl.”
White teeth flashed amongst the dirt caked on her face when she smiled and clapped her hands, slinging mud everywhere.
“All right little one. Come out of there.”
She shook her head and smiled again.
“You’re gonna make me come in there after you, aren’t you.”
After a heavy sigh and a grin heavenward, he stepped into the pen and waded in after her. By the time he got them both near the backdoor, not only did she have mud caked on every surface of her body, but so did he.
“Off with those clothes, missy. We need to throw both of our clothes in the washer,” he said, pulling her top off over her head and tugging her pants down but left her underwear since they didn’t appear worse for wear. Shucking his boots, socks, jeans and shirt, he grabbed everything up in a pile, herded Kimmy into the living room and plopped her down in front of the television while he put the clothes in the washer and went to find clean ones for himself and a shirt for Kimmy to wear.
Quietly, he pushed open the door to his room and glanced at Laurel sound asleep in his big bed. Her red hair reflected spun gold amongst the strands as the sunlight filtered in through the drawn blinds. Her hands were tucked up under the side of her face and her long eyelashes rested on her cheeks. She looked so peaceful and beautiful lying with her head on his pillow, he had the insane urge to keep her there forever.
With a quick shake of his head, he grabbed clean clothes, a T-shirt for Kimmy and Laurel’s dirty clothes from the floor. He had to wash theirs anyway; he might as well do hers, too.
He returned to the living room after pulling on his and dropping the dirty clothes in the washer, to find Kimmy engrossed in the cartoons, but he had to get her into the bathtub.
“All right my little mud pie maker. Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, taking her hand and heading for the spare bathroom off the hall. Luckily, the mud didn’t reach anything but his clothes so he didn’t have to shower too. “Bubbles?” he asked, grabbing an old bottle of bubble bath from when one of his nieces had been over.
“Bubbles!” she yelled.
“Sshh. We don’t want to wake Mommy.”
“Sshh,” she repeated and covered her mouth with her hand as she giggled.
Once he had the tub partly filled and enough bubbles to probably cover Kimmy up, he helped her into the tub and let her splash. He glanced into the mirror and was surprised at the sparkle of life in his eyes at the girlish laughter coming from the tub. It had been a long time since anyone had him laughing the way the two Hayes girls did.
What would it be like to have her and Laurel in his life all the time? To have this cute button of a girl call him Daddy? To have Laurel in his bed every night?
“Not a good thing to be contemplatin’.”
He parked his butt on the toilet lid to watch Kimmy while she sat in the tub. His nieces had left a few toys over at his house the last time they were there, so she had a few things to play with.
His thoughts drifted to things he shouldn’t be thinking about, but he couldn’t help himself. The saucy red-head had wormed her way under his skin and he couldn’t seem to get her out or want to, for that matter. He liked having her in his life and he loved being between her thighs even if it hadn’t been often enough.
“Okay, little girl. Let’s get you washed up,” he said, coming to his feet and grabbing the shampoo bottle off the shelf.
When he had her cleaned up and dressed in one of his smaller T-shirts, he put her back down on the floor in front of the television and walked to the dining room table where he’d spread out the plans he was working on. He hoped the work would take his mind of the gorgeous woman sleeping in his bed at the moment, but he didn’t hold out much optimism. She seemed to be a major distraction in his life these days and he’d only known her a short time. What would she do to his once orderly existence if she became a permanent part of it?
“Probably give me one hell of a wild ride for the rest of my days,” he grumbled good-naturedly to himself.
“Color,” Kimmy said, climbing up on the chair.
“You want to color?”
Handing her a blank piece of paper and some spare crayons he kept for his nieces, he smiled as Kimberly’s tongue came out of her mouth and she studied her masterpiece. After several minutes, she grinned and handed him the paper.
“Well, what have we here? You’ve drawn a mighty pretty picture, little lady.”
“Horsie.”
“Ah. So you’ve made a picture of the horse we rode today, huh? Very nice. Want to put it on the refrigerator?”
She hopped down from her chair and followed him into the kitchen. A few small magnets hung to the door—advertisements from local businesses he bought supplies from, the pizza place in town and the diner he frequented since he hated eating alone.
“Where shall we put it?”
“There,” she said, point to smack dab center of the bottom door.
Once he proudly hung her picture, she whirled around and walked back into the living room, plopping down in front of the television again. He smiled and went back to his plans on the table, but he found himself watching the sweet little girl more than working on his drawings.
The washer beeped indicating the clothes had finished their cycle, drawing him from his musings.
He hadn’t realized how much work kids were until he’d gotten involved with Laurel and Kimberly and he wondered how she did it alone—working full time and taking care of her daughter. Moments later, he had the clothes in the dryer and returned to the living room, but instead of going back to his work, he sat on the couch and stared out into the yard behind the house.
Melancholy thoughts drifted through his mind. He’d originally built the house with a wife and children in mind, but when things fell apart with Judy, it became a lonely existence. Yes, he had his hired hands, friends like Cade and Natalie, his parents, and his siblings along with their passel of kids, but all in all, the house seemed barren without the laughter of a family.
The pa
t of a small hand on his cheek brought him back to the little girl occupying his space.
“Hungry.”
Kale glanced at his watch and scowled. Noon already?
“Let’s get some lunch then, huh?” He stood and followed his little charge into the kitchen.
Detouring at the sound of the buzzer on the dryer, he walked toward the laundry room to retrieve the clothes and get Kimmy dressed before Laurel woke up. Plus, Laurel’s clothes would be nice and clean, too. After he got Kimberly dressed, she parked in one of the chairs at his table, swinging her little legs back and forth.
“What do you feed a three year old anyway?” he asked himself as he stared into the bare refrigerator. “We have mayo, God only knows how old sandwich meat.” He sniffed the meat and wrinkled his nose, eliciting a giggle from his audience at the table. “We aren’t eating that.” Next stop the cupboard, which didn’t yield much more than the refrigerator. “Hmm. I tell you what. Let me get my boots on and we’ll run to the store. We can get something for lunch and maybe some food for dinner,” he said, shutting the freezer once he checked there too. “We can barbeque and maybe keep your momma here for a few more hours.”
Within a few minutes, he had Kimmy buckled into her car seat and was driving down the driveway toward town. The local grocery had given way to progress a few years ago and now their little town got their very own super grocery store.
Kale pulled into a spot, got Kimmy out and into a cart and walked toward the door. The wide-eyed stares and raised eyebrows brought a frown to his face. Not one to worry about what others thought, he shook it off and pushed the cart down the meat aisle.
“Well, if it isn’t Kale Dunn. Who’s the kid?”
Narrowing his eyes, he glared at the busty blonde standing next to his cart. “None of your business, Michelle.”
“Wow, aren’t we the protective one.” Michelle eyed Kimberly before she gave him a tolerant smile. “You haven’t called me in awhile, sugar. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I see,” she said, staring at Kimberly again. “She can’t be yours, Kale. She’s too blonde and blue eyed.”
“What if she is?”
“I’d be asking where you’ve been hiding her,” Michelle said, tapping her fingernail to her lips. “Doesn’t matter. I still want you even if you have a kid.”
“No, Michelle, you don’t want me. You want my bank account.”
Painted fingernails ran down the buttons on his shirt. “Not true, lover. I want all of you. Every muscled, tantalizing inch buried deep—”
He put a hand over her mouth to stop her words before Kimberly and everyone in the store heard her. “Knock it off,” he hissed. “You’ve got some nerve, you know. You’re screwing half the county yet you think I’m going to play along, well guess what, doll, I’m not interested. Find some other guy to use up and discard. I’m done.”
Throwing one of the packages of steaks in the basket, he pushed the cart on down the aisle and around the corner. Kimberly patted the white knuckled grip he held onto the basket and smiled up at him.
“I think we need to get you home, darlin’. You’re probably starvin’ by now,” he said and then kissed the top of her head. Several more items made it into the basket. Hot dogs, buns, lunch meat, peanut butter and jelly, and anything else he could think of to feed a kid, while he kept a keen eye out for Michelle. He wouldn’t put it past her to cause a scene again to get his attention.
Chapter Eight
Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, pulling Laurel from her wickedly sexy dreams of Kale and what his lips could do to her. Opening her eyes, she glanced around the room, confused for a moment until she remembered him forcing her to sleep in his bed.
His bed.
She rolled over, stretched like a contented cat and then pulled his pillow to her face. The scent of male and the faint odor of his cologne buried in the soft cotton of the pillowcase warmed something inside her she thought dead and buried with Dennis.
Stupid. Getting tangled up with Kale is really stupid.
“Even if tangled and sweaty is what I want, I’ll only get hurt in the long run,” she grumbled as she sat up on the side of the bed and brushed her tousled hair out of her face.
Visions of how she’d found him and Kimberly this morning, sound asleep on the couch, drifted across her mind. He’d taken her daughter and cared for her like his own. How many men would do such a thing? Very few, she knew. One of the thoughts she never contemplated during her pregnancy or any time since Kimberly’s birth was how Dennis would have reacted when he found out she’d gotten pregnant. Dennis had told her he loved her—swore he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. They’d talked marriage, babies, white picket fences and SUV’s, but never once did he let on he already had a wife.
Betrayal and anger slashed through her heart. He might not have lied outright, but he’d lied by omission nonetheless. How could he have done that if he’d loved her?
“Maybe I don’t know what love is? Maybe I need to just worry about me and Kimberly and to hell with men.” Leave things the way they are with Kale. Sex and nothing else. No entanglements, no worrying about whether he cared about her and Kimberly, or whether they had any kind of future together.
“Future?” She released a small snort and stood to retrieve her clothes. No clothes? What the hell? I know they were on the floor when I went to sleep. The long cotton T-shirt covering her essentials would have to do until she could figure out what happened to the rest of her things. The soft material caressed her thighs and her breasts like she wanted Kale to do with his hands. Damn, the man had nice hands, nice lips, nice eyes…she shook her head to clear her wayward thoughts. Going in that direction would lead to other things and right now, she needed to keep her mind clear and her thoughts away from getting him in the bed with her.
Glancing at the red numbers on the alarm clock next to the bed, she cussed under her breath at the stubborn-assed cowboy in the other room, for letting her sleep so late. Rarely did she sleep a full eight hours, but he must have thought she needed to. “I could have sworn I told him not to let me sleep too late.”
You were exhausted though.
“It doesn’t matter. Kimberly is my first priority, sleep comes second.”
Maybe he wants to take care of you for a change.
“Take care of me? I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
What makes you so sure?
“I’ve been taking care of myself for several years.”
And you are doing such a fine damned job of it; you decked your brother-in-law for beating up on your sister. Makes sense, Laurel.
“Shut up. Just shut up,” she grumbled at her inner voice who loved to argue in her head.
The door to his bedroom creaked open as she tugged on it and stepped into the hall.
“I bet Kimberly has him eating out of the palm of her hand.”
The pitter-patter of her feet as she followed the long corridor toward the living room, didn’t display the annoyance running down her back in a sufficient amount. When she walked into the front hall and looked across the space, she caught the devilishly handsome cowboy doing something she never thought she’d see—cooking.
“Hey, darlin’. Did you sleep well?” he asked, catching sight of her from near the center island.
“Why’d you let me sleep so long? It’s going on three in the afternoon,” she said, making sure the irritation could be heard clearly in her voice.
“You obviously needed it, Laurel, or you wouldn’t have slept like a dead person. I checked on you a couple of times—even kissed you and you didn’t move.” He sipped from a spoon and then stirred whatever was in the pot, again, not giving her the satisfaction of a reaction to her bad-tempered snit. “You hungry?”
“Starving.”
His warm chuckle sent goose bumps skittering down her arms.
“By the way, where are my clothes? I could have sworn I left them on
the floor in your room.”
“You did. I washed them.”
“You did laundry?”
The raised eyebrow over his left eye and the smile twitching at his oh-so-kissable lips, had heat pooling in her belly and racing down her legs.
“I had to. Your daughter decided to make mud pies in the pig pen earlier.”
“She did?”
“Yep. Sneaky little thing took off after she and I came back from checking fences. I thought she was chasing the cat from the barn, but when I found her, she had mud from the top of her head to the tips of her tennis shoes.”
Laurel couldn’t help the smile she felt drifting across her mouth at the picture. “I should have told you to watch her close. She likes to chase things and get into everything.”
His shoulder lifted in a nonchalant shrug as he set the spoon on the counter. “No harm done except maybe the pigs are a little put out.”
His steps brought him toward her with a sexy roll of his hips and his eyes held a determined gleam she wasn’t sure she wanted to interrupt. Every inch of dominating gorgeous male, tugged at her insides coiling tight like a spring ready to let loose with nothing more than a single tough of his callused hand. Goose bumps rose on her arms again and a shiver raced down her back, the closer he got. By the time he stood in front of her, her belly quivered and her breathing came in rapid pants. Heat spiraled through her veins on a rush, stopping and centering low in her middle. One finger slid down her cheek as his musky male scent surrounded her. Her tongue swiped over her now parched lips. “What’s for supper?”
“You?” he asked, dropping his voice to a low purr.
Her pussy clenched and cream slid out of her to moisten her panties in a wickedly erotic way. “Somehow I don’t think that will satisfy the hunger making my stomach growl. It would satisfy something else though.”
“Later?”
The question and heat in his gaze reminded her of each time he kissed her, touched any place on her body and heaven help her, when he made her scream as she climaxed right there in his living room. Had it only been a few short days ago? God, it seems like I’ve known him forever.
Before The Night Is Over Page 12
