“I missed you too.”
I let her go, checking the mail piled up, ready for me to go through it when I hear her again. “You wondered why he was barking at you,” she holds up a rawhide bone. “Stop acting like you don’t love Max.”
“It’s so he’ll leave us alone when we eat,” I defend myself.
“Sure, okay,” she keeps going through the bags. “Here’s what I need.”
It’s a bag of rolls. Without her asking, I go get a cooking sheet, spray it, and pull out the butter. The two of us, we work well as a team. “Where’s Syd?”
“Doing her homework. I told her if you weren’t too tired after dinner, we could watch a movie before bedtime.”
“Sounds good to me, let me go shower?”
“This’ll keep warm. Welcome home, Ash.”
She stops what she’s doing, wrapping her arms around me. I wrap mine just as hard around her. “I’m so glad you made it home,” her words are muffled against my chest, but I know what she says. “I love you.”
Against my leg, I feel a tap. Glancing down, I see Syd, her arms wide open. “Get in here,” she laughs when I tug on her braid, pulling her into our hug.
“I love you two, I’m so glad to be home with you.”
“I’m glad you’re home too, Dad,” Syd lets go, standing on her tiptoes, reaching up.
I can still pick her up, although those days are coming to an end. She hooks her legs around my waist, wraps her arms around my neck and hugs me tight. My girl, she gives the best hugs. Kissing her on the cheek, I set her down. “Your homework done?”
“Yup, I’m gonna go play with Max in the living room until dinner.”
Watching the two of them scamper off together, I know we have at least forty minutes. Turning to Em, I give her a look. “What do you say you join me in the shower?”
It’s cute the way she acts like she’s thinking about it, but I know her better than anyone. Her mind was made up as soon as I asked. “Think we have time?”
“You know those two, we have time.”
She looks over, checking in on them. When she’s happy they’re taken care of, she gives me a steamy look. “Race ya! Last one there has to wash the other’s back.”
And this, this is where I let her win. When you love someone, you always let them win.
Epilogue
A Few Months Later
Ash
My eyes follow her as she walks towards the pool table. She’s wearing her sassy shoes tonight, they make her ass shake as she reaches up, grabbing hold of a pool cue, rolling it around in the palm of her hand. Since this woman of mine has taken control of her life and been doing the things she loves, the changes in her aren’t hard to see.
Her cupcake and cookie business is going well, pretty soon she’ll have to hire someone to help her. It keeps her busier than I ever imagined, but seeing her become more confident and teaching Syd how to be more confident in herself is one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Trust me, there’s nothing sexier than a confident woman. She has a waiting list now, and hundreds of thousands of followers on her Instagram page.
“This is the one I want, seems like a winner,” she winks.
“Anyone you pick will be a winner,” I answer with a grunt of annoyance. I still haven’t been able to beat her, even though this has been our chosen date night place since the very first one. I’ve come close a few times, but I still haven’t been able to beat her in a game of pool.
To be honest, I’ve started making sexual bets just so I know I’m getting something good at the end of the night. Losing is damn hard on my pride.
Gunner and his flavor of the week have joined us, and Gunner seriously doesn’t know what he’s in for. Em and I, we tend to keep our date nights just us, but tonight, it’s different, even if she doesn’t know it yet. “Ash says you’re some kind of pool prodigy.”
“I know my way around a stick,” she answers, tilting her head as she gives me a smile as sassy as the shoes she wears.
Curling my arm around her neck, I pull her into me, teasing her in a low tone. “You sure do know your way around my stick.”
“That’s enough Casanova,” she smacks me in the stomach. “Who am I playing?”
“Gunner offered to give you a run for your money,” I point at my best friend. “But know this baby, my money is on you.”
“It better be. Otherwise, you’re gonna be hanging out by yourself tonight,” she blows me a kiss.
Right as I’m about to say something, I get a text from Syd. She’s spending the weekend with Courtney, which she’s done more of in the past few months. There’s been a lot of changes around our house since the night Em, and I said those three words. Courtney is trying, and I’m willing to give her a shot with her daughter. As long as Syd doesn’t get hurt in the process, I’ve been accommodating. I hope we all get to have a happy life together, but that will totally be up to Courtney, and she knows it.
S: Hey Dad, I want to get my ears pierced. Mom says I have to check with you and make sure it’s okay?
She recently turned seven, and now she thinks she’s more grown than ever. My girl though, she’s close to all the ladies in her life. My mom, Courtney, and now Emma. They all fulfill something she was missing, and I’ve never seen her be so confident in herself.
“Babe,” I yell to Emma. “Come here for a sec.”
She says something to Gunner that makes him laugh before she sets her cue down, sashaying over to me. “Yeah?”
I show her the phone. “What do you think? Think Syd is ready for it?”
She takes a moment to read the text, then looks at me. “I think the better question here, is, are you ready for her to start growing up? Today it’ll be getting her ears pierced, tomorrow its crop tops ripped jeans, and boys in fast cars.”
“Fuck no, but with all this feminine representation around now, she’s going to start being her own woman soon enough. Which is why I’m asking your opinion, do you think she’s ready?”
“Yeah, yeah I think she’s ready. Plus after her ears heal we’ll go get some super cute earrings,” she seems excited about it. “She and I can make a day of it, then you won’t have to realize how old your little girl is being.”
Jokes on her, I see it every day, and honestly, I’m not handling it well. Syd will always be my baby girl, no matter how old she gets.
A: Sure Syd, if your Mom is cool with it, then so am I.
S: Thanks, Dad! Have you asked her?
I glance around, hoping like hell Em didn’t see the second text. Luckily for me, she’s back to laughing with Gunner.
A: About to, wish me luck!
S: Good luck! Tell her I love her.
A: We’ll call you, and you can tell her yourself.
S: I’m waiting!!!!!
Shuffling back over to the pool table, I notice Gunner and his date have left Emma. “What happened?”
“She wanted one more drink before he loses all his money,” she laughs. “This chick has total trust that I’m better than him.”
“Smart cookie, that one. Speaking of smart cookies, Syd said she’s ready to get her ears pierced.”
“I figured she would be, it’s good of you to let her.”
“And what about you?” I ask the question that’s been eating at me for weeks.
“What about me?” She shakes her head slightly, the curls moving in her face.
“Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
I laugh at her confusion before I set my beer down on the felt of the table, reach into my pocket, and go down on one knee. Out of nowhere, my guys have appeared with their girls, and Gunner’s videoing the whole thing so Syd can see later.
“Are you ready to be a fixture in my life? I wanted to do this here since it was our first date, and to be honest, it was the place I realized I could never see myself without you. You made yourself comfortable pretty quick. Both Syd and I love you for that. You include her in little things, your business is starting
to grow, you know I want you to move in with me, but I’m more than ready to make things more permanent. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? Are you ready for that Em?”
Tears pool in her eyes, one streams down her face as she nods. “I’m so ready for that Ash!”
The crowd erupts in a cheer the likes of which I’ve never heard before. There are noises, maybe someone’s breaking something in their exuberance, but I don’t care. I’ve got everything I need right here to make my family complete, and I know without a doubt, I’m never letting go.
The End
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Also by Laramie
RENEGADE
* * *
PROLOGUE
Whitney
“Ryan, I’m tellin’ you, I need my hair pulled, I need a red handprint across my ass, I need someone paying attention to my nipples, a dick in my treasure cove. I need it all.”
Drunk. I am drunk. Like way past the legal limit – otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here spilling all of my secrets to my baby brother’s best friend. The baby brother that had been totally unplanned by my parents. Ten years my junior, baby brother. He and Ryan are the same age; twenty-five to my thirty-five. Makes me feel so much older, just thinking about it. Not only by age, but by life experience too. And dear Lord, I think I sound like Julia Sugarbaker. I’m three sheets to the wind, and nobody stopped me.
I see him try to suppress a grin as he brings his bottle of beer up to his lips, taking a nice long pull off of it. I am mesmerized by the way his throat muscles move when he swallows, pushing the liquid down his throat. No denying he’s a man. The palm of his hand completely covers the label on the bottle, the one drink he takes, almost drains half the bottle. For a second he focuses on my face, squinting as he watches me. “How many of those have you had to drink?” He points the neck of his bottle to the wine glass in my hand.
His voice is as smooth as the wine I swirl in my glass. I tilt my head to the side, realizing that the whole room tilts too. Counting back, I try to think how many I had before he took the seat next to mine, and I can’t remember. “Five or six?” I ask him, like he should know.
“You think maybe it’s time you quit for the night?” He gently tries to take what I have left away from me.
His fingers are soft as they try to pry my fingers from around the stem, but I resist his attempts, and pull it closer to my body. I’m like a two-year-old with her blankie. This glass of wine is my security and nobody’s taking it away from me.
“Quit?” I ask, and run my tongue over my dry lips, trying to make them so that they can speak easier. “Quitting is not something I do. That’s what my ex-husband did. My mama did. That’s what my former boss did,” I shake my head, and try to stand up on four-inch stilettos. He reaches out and grabs my elbow, steadying me, being a rock when I haven’t had one in a very long time. “Whitney Trumbolt is not a fuckin’ quitter.”
I can see Ryan try again to keep the smile from his face. The corners of his lips twitch, and it pisses me off. Not because I’m mad, but because he thinks it’s funny. He thinks this is a joke, and it’s my life. The life I’ve been trying so desperately to get out from under or save. I’m not sure which yet. All I know is I haven’t been living.
“You think this is funny?” I take another drink from my wine glass. It’s a big one this time, I drain it down.
“No, Whit, I think you’re having a bad night.” His tone is one someone would use with a kindergartner, talking them down from a temper tantrum. It pisses me off too.
A bad night? Try a bad decade. If I could do anything, it would go back to the night I turned twenty-five, and be the age that Ryan is again. I would do so many things different, I would change so much about the choices that I made back then. “You know nothing about me, other than the fact that I’m Tank’s sister.”
He grabs me by the wrist, locking his fingers around the skin and bone. I never realized until this moment how much bigger he is than me. Never really paid any kind of attention to it – oh I’ve paid attention to him off and on through-out the years, but never like this.
Ryan “Renegade” Kepler rises to his full height, towering over me as I do my best to keep my footing and ignore the way my skin tingles where he is gripping my wrist. He leans in close – so close I can feel his breath on my skin.
“I know a lot of things about you that you don’t think I know.”
His voice is hard and soft at the same time. I close my eyes to savor it. This is the closest I’ve been to a man in a very long time. My body is at attention, as is my libido.
“I know that you love your mama’s fried chicken, your grandmother’s homemade mac and cheese, Alabama football, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. I know that you have a soft heart. Hallmark movies make you cry, you pick up strays on the side of the road, and you always buy that homeless man near the Starbucks a morning coffee,” he tells me.
I’m wrapped up in his voice, in the things he does know about me. Things I never knew that he’d paid attention to. I’m swaying, but it’s because his voice is doing weird things to my equilibrium. His other hand wraps around my hip and I can feel the heat of his body through the material of my skirt.
“I know that your ex-husband was a piece of shit. I know that your ex-boss didn’t know what the hell to do with the creative genius that is your mind, and I know that your mama will never forgive you for giving up pageants, but she’ll never forgive herself for pushing you that damn hard,” he stops and pulls back, giving me his eyes and face to stare at.
Our eyes meet and I realize with clarity that I’m breathing hard, hard enough that it feels as if I’ve run a marathon.
“You wanna know what else I know?” The question is asked in a way that says he’s not sure if he wants to answer tonight. There’s a string of awareness stretched between us, and it’s pulling me closer.
I’m captivated by the way the dim lights of the bar make his brown eyes seem darker, I’m enthralled by the fact that it looks like it’s been a few days since he shaved, and I’m even more fascinated by the cut he has on his cheek. He and Tank went out on a call last night, and I can’t help but wonder if that cut is the result of it. I shake my head and then nod, because I do want to find out what else he knows. I step forward, put my arms around his neck, and lean up so that now I’m the one in his ear. “Tell me what else you know.”
I see him look around the bar, checking to make sure that we’re not being paid any attention to. He bends with his knees and grips my ass cheeks in his hands. “I know I’m the one that can put my dick in that treasure cove. I know I’m the one that can pull that hair, I can pull on those nipples, and I can smack that ass. The question is – will you let me?”
It’s not a question I can say no to. The way the air cackles between us, and the alcohol I’ve consumed. There’s not any way that I can say no nor is there any desire on my part to deny it. I’ve denied myself a lot of things in this life, and this right here, is not something that I want to brush off.
“Yes,” I breath out….adding on a “please.”
“Oh baby, you don’t have to beg. I’ll do whatever you need me to,” Ryan says as I find my hand in his and stumble to keep up as he pulls us out of the bar.
In mere minutes I’m in his truck, and we’re headed towards my house. I will myself not to pass out, because for the first time in years, I want to be here and present for this experience that’s about to happen. I want to remember every damn detail. If it’s only going to be for this one nigh
t, I don’t want to miss a thing.
Inflame: Midnight Cove #1 Page 11
