Games of the Heart

Chapter Eight Way Past Curfew

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Jerra, honey, Mike’s gonna be here in a couple of minutes.”

Suffice it to say, I shouldn’t have taken my girl Jerra’s call while in the midst of preparing to meet Mike’s kids and go out to dinner. And I definitely shouldn’t have shared that I’d driven myself and my babies up to my childhood home and then approximately three and a half hours later reconciled with the guy I fell for who broke my heart, both happening in the expanse of two weeks.

She was not as happy as Rhonda was when I told her Mike and me hooked up that morning after the boys went off to school. Rhonda was kind of a prude but definitely a romantic and clearly Darrin had shared his dreams about Mike and me with his wife. So I left out all the juicy stuff and definitely the Mike being a dick stuff. And I told her the whole thing cautiously because she’d just lost her husband and I didn’t want to rub my new relationship in her face however crazy it might be (not that I told her the crazy parts).

I also didn’t share with her I knew she gave Mike the diaries or that Mike shared them with me. I probably would never go there. It shocked the shit out of me she had the gumption to take them to Mike in the first place. She was delicate always, now extremely. I was there to try to patch her up, not shatter her.

But she was ecstatic about what I did tell her, like, off the wall, whacked out ecstatic. I’d been around her three times since Darrin died and she hadn’t been even close to that animated any of those times. Or, actually, pretty much any time I saw her in the twenty years she’d been with my brother.

I thought this was good.

Jerra, who had had several drunken orgies with me since Mike broke up with me, was understandably the opposite. She’d been riding my high that we hooked up then she rode my uncertainty when he closed me down then she plummeted with me when I lost him. She’d then commiserated with me when Fin called to let me in on what was going down and I had no choice but to put my life on hold and haul my ass up to Indiana to sort out Rhonda’s shit, help Fin with the land and prepare to go head-to-head with my bitchface sister. All of this on a farm that was a hop, skip and a jump from Mike Haines’s back gate.

Now she thought I was crazy.

“Hunter! Get this! Dusty has been back up in Hoosierland for about a day and she’s hooked up again with that fuckin’ Mike guy!” I heard her shout.

“Jerra, please, I have to get ready,” I told her, sitting on the bed, holding my phone between my ear and shoulder and yanking on my kickass fawn suede cowboy boot. They were boots that I bought six years ago to wear on my babies but I loved them so much they never saw a stirrup. They might not have ridden the range but they did see a lot of barroom dance floors.

“You’re fucking shittin’ me!” I heard Hunter shout back.

“I wish I was but no!” Jerra shouted to Hunter.

“Can you guys have your conversation when I’m not freaking out about meeting the two teenage kids of my on-again, off-again boyfriend? This being his title even though I’ve been with him in person for approximately thirty-two hours and who, incidentally, has not once introduced one of his women to his kids.”

Jerra’s attention came back to me and I knew this when she asked sharply, “You’re freaking out?”

“Uh…yeah,” I answered.

“You never freak out.”

“Honey, hello? I’ve been in love with this guy since I was twelve. And he’s never introduced his kids to any of his women,” I stressed. “And I think I told you how hot he is.”

“Yeah, in detail,” she agreed.

“Ergo, he’s had a lot of women.”

“Wow, that’s kinda big,” she muttered, I fell back on the bed in exasperation and she went on, “Right, just at least tell me he had a good excuse for being a huge jackass.”

“I can’t seeing as he didn’t have a good excuse, he had a bunch of them. I can’t even enumerate them. What I can say is that for a hot guy, he not only has awesome command of his hot parts, he also has awesome command of the English language. He used it and it worked on me. Mainly because he meant every word.”

“He’d have to,” she kept muttering.

Right, I had to give her something.

So I did.

“He told me every sign he was getting from me was that I was his dream.”

Jerra perked up. “Oo, that’s good. What else?”

My eyes went to the digital display of the alarm clock Rhonda had next to the bed in the guest room and my heart spiked as I shot to sitting on the bed. “Jerra! I can’t! He’s going to be here in five minutes and I have only one boot on.”

“Oh, he’ll be late. They always are.”

“Mike won’t.”

“He will. They always are. The hotter, the later. Hunter was always at least half an hour late for every date. No other man would I put up with that but because Hunter was pretty and Little Hunter was big and pretty and Big Hunter knows how to use him, I put up with it.”

I didn’t need for Jerra to start waxing poetic about “Little Hunter”. I knew all about “Little Hunter” and Big Hunter’s Olympic-class skills using “him”. If she started, she could go on for hours. I knew this because she’d done it. Often.

Instead, I skirted that topic and informed her, “He was never late for a date with Debbie.”

And I knew this because, back in the day, I paid close attention.

“Euw, that’s just weird,” Jerra mumbled.

“It was twenty-five years ago.”

“No, I mean that he’d date Debbie.”

I was with her on that one.

“Back then, she didn’t dress like a scary lesbian and have one of those blue tooth thingie-ma-bobbies surgically attached to her ear,” I explained. I knew Jerra knew what I was talking about since Debbie had been down to my house in Texas (once), Jerra met her and it didn’t go well. Not the visit and not Debbie’s meeting with Jerra. Then again, this was Debbie. She’d rub the Pope the wrong way even if he was in a great mood. “She was actually really pretty.”

“Beauty comes from within, sister,” she reminded me.

She was right about that too.

“Right, then he was a teenage boy, she was really pretty and she put out,” I told her.

“That explains it,” she murmured.

“Can I go now?” I asked.

“Only if you promise a first thing in the morning phone call explaining the reconciliation and details about the meet the kids dinner.”

“Done,” I agreed.

She said nothing.

“Jerra, I have to go.”

“Are you sure about this, baby?” she whispered and I pulled in a soft breath.

Then I let it go.

Then I said softly, “He’s been unhappy for eighteen years, a bad marriage, babe. Really bad. And last night he told me I’d made him happy for the first time in those years. Truly happy without it being fucked up. He had issues. He took those out on me. He regrets it. And he apologized and explained them. So, yes, I’m sure about this.”

“Okay,” she said softly back.

“Now can I go?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“Love you, honey,” I whispered.

“Love you too and miss you already.”

“I miss you too, Jerra, babe. Later.”

“Yeah, later.”

I touched the screen and sighed.

Then I bent and pulled on my other boot.

Mike, having been married to a designer label whore of the worst variety, knew to phone me to give me the all important information that tonight was casual. We were going to The Station. Not the police one, the semi-nice restaurant that had popped up in one of the semi-nice shopping areas that popped up at the north end of town in the years after I’d been gone from The ‘Burg. I’d been there once before. The food was excellent. The dress code was jeans.

So I had on a pair that were in the middle of my Jeans Fade Spectrum, a spectrum that was wide considering I owned a lot of jeans. Not nearly white with lots of fraying bits. Not dark either.

I added a slash neck cream top that had a hem that smoothed over my hips and very long sleeves that had a small opening in the seam that hooked over my thumb. Over that I wore a drop belt made of a wide expanse of fawn suede that had a big, round silver buckle that hung low on my hipbone. I added a bunch of silver over the shirt at my wrists as well as at my neck and ears. I did subtle makeup and earlier that day I’d changed my finger and toenail color to a dusky, near sheer pink. I left my hair long at the back but pulled a hank of it away just at my forehead and pinned it about an inch back with little bobby pins painted cream, rose and brown. And last, I’d spritzed on perfume.

I got up, went to the mirror over the dresser and surveyed myself.

I was ready to meet Mike’s kids.

“They’re here!” Rhonda shouted sounding as ecstatic as she had that morning.

Okay, no. I wasn’t ready to meet Mike’s kids.

But I had no choice.

I pulled in a deep breath and exited the guest room telling myself kids liked me. Finley and Kirby liked me and they were Mike’s kids’ ages. And Hunter and Jerra’s kids liked me and they were six and eight. So there. Kids of all ages liked me. Mike’s kids would like me too.

Shit.

I started to walk down the stairs and saw Rhonda had the door open and Mike and his kids were coming through. Kirby was standing in the big front foyer. And Finley, my hot boy, cucumber cool older nephew, was leaning a shoulder against the double-wide pocket doors that led to the living room.

Finley was killing me. Like his brother, he got his mother’s coloring, dark hair, blue eyes (though Kirb’s eyes were dark brown, like mine and Darrin’s). But he got his father’s everything else, tall, built, strong. The expressions on his face, the way he held his body, the way he moved were all his Dad.

But I wasn’t thinking about that.

I wasn’t thinking about anything, not even Mike’s kids, both of whom looked directly up the stairs at me coming down them.

No, my eyes were glued to the handsome blond man in the foyer as I walked down the stairs of my childhood home to go out on a date with Mike Haines.

I’d wanted this was a ferocity that was consuming when I was an adolescent girl. I’d seen my sister do this time and again and I coveted it so much, seeing her do it was like a form of torture. I’d daydreamed of it day after day and night after night before falling asleep.

And now, thirty-eight years old with my dead brother’s family and Mike’s kids by another woman looking on, I was doing it.

And even with that time and our audience, finally having it, it was no less beautiful than I expected it to be.

Because Mike was standing there wearing jeans as only Mike could wear them and that fabulous brown leather jacket. His gentle, warm, dark brown eyes were tipped up at me with a gentle, warm look on his face saying he liked what he saw. Not only that, we had an audience and I knew they’d melted away and I was the only person Mike could see.

“Hey,” I said when I had one step to go.

“Hey,” he replied then his arm came out my way as an invitation and I took it. I moved into its curve, it wrapped around my waist and my arm returned the gesture.

This, too, came naturally.

I was at his side, my neck twisted, my head tipped back to see his neck twisted and his head tipped down.

“You look good,” he muttered.

“Thanks, you do too,” I muttered back and his mouth twitched.

Then he turned his head, I followed suit and I finally took in his kids.

I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I wasn’t about his boy Jonas. Jonas looked a lot like Mike. He wasn’t the spitting image but he had his father’s coloring and his build. In fact, he was only maybe an inch shorter than Mike. And he had a lot of Mike in his face.

I was surprised about his girl Clarisse. She had Mike’s coloring but either she looked like her mother (which would be disappointing since Audrey, in my head, looked like a she-demon with horns, fangs, acid green eyes and matted hair) or she was all Clarisse.

She was out-and-out beautiful. So much so I’d never seen a girl her age that striking.

“Dusty, this is my son, Jonas. He likes to be called No,” Mike started to introduce, I pulled my eyes from the beautiful Clarisse and looked up at No who was offering a hand to me.

I took it, squeezed and smiled up at him. “Hey, No. Cool to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” he replied, grinning an easy but lazy grin that I was certain the high school girls all creamed their pants over. Then he let my hand go, looked to his sister and declared, “Told you Dad would nail a hot babe.”

Clarisse’s eyes got big and her face flushed in a way that was so becoming I felt the desire to find a camera immediately and capture it on film. Then daggers formed in her eyes as she glared at her brother. I wasn’t certain what this meant. I was certain the daggers were imaginary because her brother wasn’t felled instantly.

At the same time I heard Rhonda gasp and Kirby and Finley chuckle.

Mike just said in a warning low, “No.”

He was using that word in two ways and No’s playful gaze went unrepentantly to his Dad then to me.

I winked at him.

His easy, lazy grin turned into a bright, easy, lazy smile.

Yeah, the high school girls creamed their pants for this kid. Totally.

“Right, that’s No and this is my daughter, Clarisse,” Mike carried on.

I stopped looking at No and turned my gaze to Clarisse.

“Hey, honey,” I said softly and put my hand out.

She looked at it then at me, took my hand and murmured, “Hey.”

I squeezed her hand and said right out, “I’m into your Dad so you gotta know I want you to like me but I’m not blowing sunshine when I say you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

Mike’s arm got tight around my waist. Clarisse’s hand spasmed in mine as her cheeks again got pink, her eyes got round and not in a pissed off way and her perfect, full lips parted endearingly.

Finally, she visibly and audibly forced out an, “Uh…thanks.”

“Just saying it like it is,” I told her.

Her chin dipped slightly and she looked at me under her lashes, watchful but bashful and it was then I figured, even at fourteen, nearly fifteen, that girl made the high school boys cream their jeans.

If Clarisse didn’t fly right off the rails and become a goth or get a fake ID and a tramp stamp, Mike was just about to enter approximately five years of his life that would include a world of hurt. And this hurt didn’t mean wondering where he went wrong but lamenting that he went very right including the fact he passed on excellent genes.

I dropped her hand and Mike shifted us.

Then he spoke but not to me or his kids, to Rhonda.

“Brought the kids in so they didn’t have to sit out in the cold while we had a chat. Dusty and I need to talk to you and the boys about something quickly before we go.”

I’d forgotten about this. That was how freaked out I was about meeting Mike’s kids. But when he’d phoned me to tell me where we were going for dinner, he’d also told me when he showed he wanted a minute to talk not only to Rhonda but to Fin and Kirb about Debbie.

Weirdly, I did not think of this as Mike horning in on family business. It could be because he’d been around so long, in our lives, Darrin talking about him, Debbie dating him, him meaning what he meant to me, that he kind of felt like he already was family. It could be that after Fin told me what was going down with my bitchface sister and Rhonda not snapping out of it, for the first time in a long time I felt overwhelmed. And Mike not just taking my back but ready, willing and able to wade in to help me shoulder the burden took some of that weight off me. Better, he wasn’t going to delay and I knew this the instant he slid my phone from my fingers last night when bitchface Debbie had the audacity to call me. And then, he didn’t even know what was going on.

“Can we talk in the living room?” Mike asked and I looked to Rhonda to see she looked confused. I looked to Kirby to see he was looking at his brother. And then I looked to Finley to see, not surprisingly, he had his eyes glued to Clarisse.

That was when I looked to my boots and grinned.

“Of course,” Rhonda said softly then moved toward the living room.

Finley shifted, following his Mom. Kirby moved after them. With his free arm, Mike swept it around as an indication to his kids to precede us.

Finally, Mike moved us that way and I looked up at him. The farmhouse was not small, the rooms big and stuffed with years of family accumulated, well…stuff. But still, I didn’t want anyone overhearing anything I had to say. Like payback for Mike helping me take care of my family was going to take a variety of forms he would enjoy.

So I communicated this with my face.

Mike didn’t miss it, his eyes dropped to my mouth, his arm tensed around me and the tip of his tongue came out to wet his full, lower lip.

It was hot.

“Little Dusty” spasmed.

We hit the room and I pulled my shit together. Rhonda was seated on the couch. Kirby was sitting next to her. Finley standing by the arm, strong, tall, keeping his feet, the new man of the family. No and Clarisse were huddled to the side, probably uncomfortable, not knowing what was going on and never having been to the house, not sure of what to do or how to behave.

Mike didn’t delay.

Eyes on Fin, he asked, “Do you still have your mother and brother’s phones?”

“Yes, sir,” Fin answered immediately.

“You talk to them about why?” Mike went on.

Fin nodded.

“Good man,” Mike muttered and looked at Rhonda. “Dusty has shared with me that Debbie’s been in frequent touch to discuss her plans for the future of the farm. She’s also shared with me that Fin has expressed his desire to carry on the family tradition. I know things are very raw right now and, for you, it isn’t the time to be making decisions about your sons’ futures, decisions you can’t unmake. So I’ve asked Debbie not to call you for two weeks.”

Relief washed through Rhonda’s face and I was glad to see it. Contradictorily, I was also pissed because the relief was so keen I knew Debbie had been crawling right up her ass. I knew this already but her expression told me just how bad it was.

But for some reason my eyes went to Fin and he was grinning toward No and Clarisse. My gaze shifted to Mike’s kids and I caught Clarisse’s return smile before her eyes dropped to her shoes.

I looked back to Fin to see he was now looking down at the arm of the couch.

But his grin had not been the grin of a hot boy junior toward a beautiful freshman he thought was a beautiful freshman. It was intimate, knowing and triumphant.

Hers was the same.

Oh my God, something was going on between Mike’s daughter and my nephew.

Mike popped my sister’s cherry. Decades later, we hooked up. And now it seemed like Holliday/Haines history was setting up to repeat itself.

Oh boy, I didn’t know what Mike was going to think about this mainly because he was the one who had the penis in the last teenage scenario and he knew what he did with it.

Before I could think further on whether this was awesome or a complete catastrophe, Mike kept talking.

“Debbie is likely not going to do what I’ve asked, so –”

“She already hasn’t,” Finley cut in and I looked to him to see his eyes on Mike. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Haines, but you should know she called Ma three times last night, four today and left five voicemail messages.”

I clenched my teeth and my arm around Mike’s waist got tight.

“Did you take any of those calls?” Mike asked Fin.

Fin shook his head.

“It’s rude not to take a call,” Rhonda put in and I looked at her.

Seriously, no backbone. I loved her to pieces but she had two boys. I didn’t know how but I had to plant a backbone seed in my sister-in-law and coax it to grow. She only had a year and a half with Fin. He was mostly man already, Darrin saw to that like my Dad saw to the same with Darrin. But there was still a ways to go. She had to help me with that. She had to help Fin with that.

I opened my mouth to speak but Fin got there before me.

“It’s rude to call a woman who’s lost her husband and get in her face about important stuff, Ma.”

Rhonda looked up at her son. “I guess so, honey, but –”

“No buts,” he cut her off. “It’s just rude. She shouldn’t be callin’ you about that stuff. Not now. Not next week. Not the week after. Mr. Haines is right. You need a spell. She isn’t givin’ it to you. But you need it and you’re gonna take it.”

Okay, maybe there wasn’t still a ways to go to make Fin a man.

“Fin’s right, Rhonda. It’s rude and you need some time. I asked for that and she didn’t give it. That’s rude too,” Mike stated and Rhonda looked back at him. “If you think you can’t do that because you’re polite then you let your son keep your phone and you let Dusty or the boys answer the one in the house. Finley will give you any messages you need and Dusty or the boys will pass the phone to you if it isn’t Debbie.”

Rhonda’s eyes were working and I settled in because I was used to this and it took time. I didn’t know if we had a reservation or if Mike’s kids were hungry but I hoped the answer was no to both because we were going to be late for the first and his kids were going to have to wait to assuage the last.

Mike, being a good guy, waited. Finley, I saw, was less patient with his Mom and I saw this because he was staring down at her and his impatience was barely concealed.

This was beginning to concern me because I hadn’t been around for long but I’d already noted this on several occasions not to mention during Fin’s phone call.

With Darrin there providing guidance on how to deal with Rhonda, neither of his boys showed frustration with her quirks. Kirby definitely not. Whereas Finley got everything about my brother that screamed man! Kirby got the gentle, sweet parts of him. Kirby had all the time in the world for his Mom. Finley, without his father there to show the way, was losing it.

Finally, Rhonda came to a decision, “I’ll let Fin keep my phone.”

Finley heaved an audible sigh.

Mike muttered, “Good call.” His eyes moved to Kirby and he asked, “You on board, Kirb?”

Kirby looked to Finley, Finley gave him a nod then he looked back at Mike and mumbled, “Yes, sir.”

“Right,” Mike murmured. Then his arm gave me a squeeze and he said, “Thanks for giving us time and now we probably should go.”

“I know!”

This was Clarisse piping up and Mike shifted, taking me with him so we could look at her.

“Why don’t the Hollidays come with us?” she suggested like this gracious thought just popped into her head when in absolutely did not. I nearly burst out laughing.

She didn’t want Rhonda and Kirby at our dinner table.

She wanted Finley there.

“We couldn’t,” Rhonda murmured politely.

“I already had a sandwich,” Kirb stated which wasn’t exactly the truth. He’d had three. Still, he could probably consume a four course meal but he was taking his mother’s lead.

“I could eat,” Fin said nonchalantly and I couldn’t help it. I made a sound like I was being strangled.

Mike looked down at me and raised his brows. I shook my head. He tipped his to the side. I grinned. He shook his head and looked back at Fin.

“Get your coat, Fin.”

Fin tipped up his chin and moved, shooting a quick glance Clarisse and No’s way but I knew his eyes hit Clarisse.

Mike missed this because he was moving us to the door.

“Make sure you get her home at a decent hour.”

This was Kirby, following and being what he was, cute and dorky.

I turned to him and asked, “Am I grounded if I’m not home by midnight?”

Kirby’s eyebrows shot up and he said, “Midnight? Your curfew’s ten.”

“Not fair, Kirby,” I shot back.

“Okay,” he grinned, “Ten thirty.”

I rolled my eyes. His grin got bigger and I liked seeing that from my Kirby. He’d lost his Dad, the shadow of pain was in his eyes even with that grin but it mingled with humor and I was pleased as hell I put it there.

We were in the foyer. I disengaged from Mike, moved to my nephew and payback was me grabbing his cheeks like I did when he was a kid and kissing him back and forth until he shouted, “God! Stop! Gross, Aunt Dusty!”

“Honey, you shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Rhonda muttered distractedly and it was Kirby’s turn to roll his eyes and he did this to me.

I grinned at him, playfully shoved his face away then moved to the chair in the hall where my kickass sheepskin coat was. It hit me at the waist, had a slant zip and built-in belt, a super high collar and wide sheepskin cuffs. I shrugged it on, zipped it up and grabbed my huge slouchy suede bag.

Finley met us at the door and Mike, doing a macho Dad move that was still hot, stood with his hand high at the side of the door holding it open for all the kids to wander through. Then his eyes came to me as I was about to wander through too and I stopped. He grabbed my hand, let the door go, I went out calling farewells to Rhonda and Kirby and he followed me out.

The kids were already at Mike’s car in the lane and Mike dug his keys out of his pocket, lifted his arm, the lights flashed as the car beeped and they started piling in.

“Hmm…” I muttered under my breath, eyes on the car watching the kids arranging themselves. “Clarisse is climbing in the middle. That means she’ll be pressed next to Fin in the back.”

“Caught that?” Mike muttered under his breath back.

My eyes slid to the side and up, “You did too?”

“Hard to miss,” he was still muttering just like me.

“Yep,” I agreed.

“Shit,” he kept muttering and I chuckled.

“History repeating,” I also kept muttering.

“Over my dead body.” He was still muttering but there was something else in it and I burst out laughing.

“Actually, I wasn’t being funny,” he told me as he walked me slowly around the hood to the passenger’s seat.

“I know you weren’t but you still were.” I looked up at him and finished softly, “And, seriously, babe, being funny and all hot guy, protective Dad, I want to kiss you right now.”

I watched his face shift to a look that was sexy as all hell even as he murmured, “Don’t give your nephew any ideas.”

“I think the ideas would be Clarisse’s.”

“That earned payback.”

“Bring it on, gorgeous.”

Mike grinned at me then opened my door.

I climbed in and he didn’t close it until I was settled.

I twisted in my seat to look in the back and announced, “I’m hungry. Who’s with me?”

“Totally,” No stated on an easy, lazy grin.

“Yeah, Miz Holliday,” Clarisse answered.

“I’m always hungry,” Finley muttered the God’s honest truth.

“I’m Dusty, honey,” I said to Clarisse as Mike angled in.

“She’s Rees,” No offered as Clarisse studied me.

“Yeah, that’s my nickname,” she confirmed softly.

“You cool with me calling you that?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m cool.” Again with the soft. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Finley looking out the side window but he was doing it with a grin playing at his mouth that said he was listening to Clarisse’s quiet words and he liked how they sounded.

“Excellent,” I said to Clarisse but I was also thinking about my nephew.

He was a teenage boy which meant that in normal circumstances, he had one thing on his mind. In the current circumstances, he had everything on his mind and most of it was no good. Going out with the girl who had to be the most beautiful girl to hit The ‘Burg’s high school in the last century would give him good things to think about while I (and Mike, obviously) took most of the other shit away that he had to think about.

“Angel, you wanna quit yammerin’, turn around and buckle up so I can feed these kids?” Mike asked and I rolled my eyes at Clarisse then turned around.

“Sure,” I agreed readily.

I buckled in. Mike started her up.

And away we went so Mike could feed a car full of teenage kids and me.

Mike tore his mouth from mine.

Using his hand curved around the back of my head, he shoved my face in his neck and in my ear, growled, “Shit, fuck, honey.”

I knew what he was saying.

He’d dropped off his kids at his house with Finley graciously offering to walk out Mike’s back gate, through the frozen field in the February night cold to get home. He’d done this under Mike’s suspicious gaze but Clarisse’s excited one. Mike, surprisingly, agreed. Then, following my directions, he drove us to what Dad and Granddad called “The Back Forty”. It was more like “The Back Two Hundred”, a lane that cut through our land that was far from a hop, skip and a jump from our house. At the end of the lane was a stand of trees that surrounded a creek fed mini-pond that was really the bend of the creek where it widened and deepened significantly. It was an old-fashioned watering hole that even had a tire hanging from one of the trees that you could swing out, jump off and land in the water. Growing up, Darrin and I, my girlfriends, his guy friends (but never Debbie) frequented it regularly in the summers.

Now, like two teenagers, Mike parked his truck there so we could make out.

This escalated dramatically and the way it did, what with our make up, break up, long separation, great phone sex and fantastic real sex, I decided I needed room to move. So I found the controls and maneuvered the back of Mike’s seat to near full on recline. I was out of my jacket, Mike out of his, I was straddling him and we kept making out with my hands up Mike’s sweater and Mike’s hands feeling me up in ways that made me press down and rock against his hard crotch.

I wanted him inside me.

And by his words I knew he wanted that too.

“We can do this,” I whispered into his neck.

“Honey –”

My hand slid down his belly then pressed in deeper as it slid over his groin and that got me an unintelligible growl that was so hot I felt it heat my entire body.

I lifted my head and caught his eyes in the moonlight.

“We can do this.” This time the words were breathy.

He held my eyes.

Then he whispered, “Get ready to climb on me, Angel.”

That was all I needed.

I rolled off him to the passenger side and made short work of tugging off my boots, my socks and my jeans, multitasking by taking my panties with them. Then I shifted and rolled back noting in my foreplay haze that Mike had got out a condom during my disrobing.

He was ripping it open. I was yanking at his belt. He slid it out of the packet. I was unbuttoning his jeans. Then I was yanking them down his hips and he was rolling it on.

By this time, my legs tucked into his hips, my head bent watching his hand work, I was breathing so heavy I was panting.

His hand went to my ass. I lifted my head, my lips went to his and I felt him position himself so I had the tip.

“We need to find a bed,” he muttered against my lips but it was rumbling, low and so hot it was scorching so that didn’t heat me. It burned straight through me.

“This’ll do,” I muttered back.

“We need to find a bed.”

I ground down, filling myself with him. His fingers clenched in the flesh of my ass, his other hand went from between us to drive into my hair, he groaned and I whimpered.

“You’re right, sweetheart, this’ll do,” he whispered against my lips then pressed my head down so he could take my mouth in a hot, wet kiss.

I rode him, slow, sweet, glorying in having Mike back inside me as he kissed me in his hungry way that I liked a whole lot and I did this a while.

Finally Mike stopped kissing me and ordered, “Go faster, Angel.”

“I like this.”

“Go faster, Dusty.”

“I –”

His hand went from my ass and his thumb found my clit.

I went faster.

“That’s my girl,” he muttered and I felt his smile against my mouth.

I didn’t care he got what he wanted because I freaking loved how he went about getting it. He was pressing, twitching, rolling. God, I’d never felt that before, not from a man except the times I’d been with him, of course. The pressure, the movement, it was better than any vibrator. It was the best.

I went faster.

Somehow, Mike shoved his body up the seat taking me with him so his long legs could clear the steering wheel. With knees cocked, his heels dug into the seat, his hips thrust up to meet my glides, his hand at my head became an arm wrapped around my waist and he drove me down as he powered up.

God, that was beyond the best.

“Baby,” I whimpered.

“Faster, Dusty,” he growled, his thumb pressing deeper and I gasped.

“Mike,” I breathed.

“I need you to ride me hard, honey.”

I did what he told me to do, it was beyond the beyond of the best and in no time it built until it exploded and scored straight through me. My head shot back, the moan slid up my throat and I came. Hard.

Mike was still powering up and driving me down but he’d switched arms, the thumb at my clit was now an arm around my waist and his other hand was back in my hair, shoving my face in his neck.

“Fuck, I wanna flip you,” he groaned.

I kept moving, hard, fast, meeting his drives, working to take him there. I’d learned in our earlier encounters Mike liked letting me take him in my mouth, climbing on top but he always ended things in complete control.

I moved my lips on his neck as I drove my hips into his.

His head came partially up and twisted, his fingers fisting in my hair, his lips at my ear. “Missed you, honey,” he growled.

Oh God, I liked that.

“Missed you too, Mike,” I whispered against his skin, riding him and licking his neck from his ear to his throat.

He shoved his face in my neck, ground me down on his cock and groaned.

I let him have it, my lips moving on his neck then his hold relaxed and I started gliding.

His hand slid up my back to join his other one in my hair and he gathered it away. I slid down on him and did what he wanted but didn’t ask for verbally. I lifted my head and gave him my mouth.

He held my hair in his hands and he kissed me the way I really liked it. Even though we were done, even though we gave each other the burn, he started the kiss slow like he had all the time in the world to explore then he built it and built it until I felt I’d be consumed by the heat.

Then he unfortunately ended it and moved my head so my face was again in his neck. His hand slid through my hair, pulling it to the side as his other arm wrapped around me.

“You warm enough?” he muttered.

“Mm-hmm…” I mumbled into his skin, pressing deep. His truck was on as was the heat. Environmentally unfriendly. Sexually necessary.

Suddenly, his arm around me tensed and he grumbled, “Fuck, I can’t believe I fucked my woman in my car by the side of a creek.”

I lifted my head and smiled down at him. “I know. Wasn’t it awesome?”

I saw the white flash of his teeth before he agreed, “It was but what it wasn’t, was what I wanted to give you after I dicked around with you.”

“Am I complaining?” I asked.

He was silent a second and the word was loaded with goodness when he whispered, “No.”

I dipped my head, aimed for his mouth in the dark and my aim proved true so I kissed him softly and whispered back, “Then don’t worry about it.”

He kissed me softly back, tugged my hair gently, I took the cue, lifted my head away an inch and he said, “You don’t have a used condom to find some way to dispose of without Finley riding the land on his tractor, finding it and getting ideas about this spot.”

I burst out laughing.

Mike repeated his words from earlier that night, “I wasn’t being funny.”

“I have a baggie in my purse,” I offered.

“You have a baggie in your purse?”

“Honey, I’ve been through airport security four times the past month. And I don’t clean out my purses when I change them. I just dump everything from one into the other. I’m collecting baggies. I probably have three.”

“Excellent news, sweetheart,” he muttered and I chuckled again. Then he asked, “How often do you change your purses?”

I blinked, suddenly feeling we were in dangerous territory because I had a lot of purses. I changed them to go with my outfits and shoes so I did this often. And I figured I was in Indiana for the long haul so I’d not packed light, ergo, I brought my horses and kilns and about six suitcases of clothes.

I was worried we’d hit a Mike Flashback considering he told me his ex had over two hundred pairs of shoes and that didn’t scratch the surface of what she bought so I shuddered to think what her handbag collection was like.

Hesitantly, I shared, “Uh…a little more than not enough, a little less than too many.”

Mike was silent a second then his arm gave me a squeeze and he said softly, “Angel, you work and you earn your purses. I was just asking.”

“Okay,” I said softly back.

“Now kiss me, climb off and find me a baggie,” he ordered.

“For a good guy you’re pretty bossy,” I informed him and got another arm squeeze.

“Dusty, kiss me, climb off and find me a baggie.”

“Whatever,” I muttered then did what I was told.

I’d donned and readjusted my clothing and was yanking on my boots when I heard the whir of Mike’s seat readjusting so I twisted my neck to look up at him.

“I think we missed Kirby’s curfew.”

“I hope Darrin didn’t teach his boys how to use his shotguns,” Mike muttered.

I grinned and went back to my boots. “That would be a hope hoped in vain.”

“Lucky I keep a gun in my car. Though, not sure I want my first date with you to end in a shootout with a fifteen year old.”

“This would be bad,” I said through a chuckle as I straightened. Then I found my coat, shrugged it on and turned to him. “Dinner went okay, don’t you think?”

I thought it did.

No was funny, engaging and interesting.

Finley was quiet and watchful, taking things in. I thought this was partly because he was trying to be cool around Clarisse (or maybe he just was cool) and partly because his Dad just died, he had a lot on his mind so he wasn’t at that place where he could be his normal self. His normal self being a lot like No, funny, engaging and interesting but in a more laidback, confident way. No still had more boy in him than man. Even before his Dad died, Fin had more man than boy.

On the other hand, it took a while for Clarisse to warm up. She was a little standoffish and I didn’t know if she was being aloof for Finley’s benefit or because she wasn’t certain what to think of me. This took some time to melt away and eventually she became warmer, more animated. She was still wary but I began to get the impression that it was less that she wasn’t certain what to think of me and more worried about what I was going to think of her.

To help her with this, I didn’t fawn over her. There was only one way for me to be so that was what I was. I was me. Mike, too, didn’t make a big deal of things and was just Mike. She finally settled into it and gave us what I suspected was a hint of the real Clarisse. I wasn’t sure but I didn’t think we got all of Clarisse but what we got of her was sweet.

Confirming my assessment, Mike stated on a thoughtful mutter, “Reesee wasn’t Reesee. She was getting there but I think Fin being around put her off. You and Fin, it was too much for her.”

“They’ve got something going on,” I informed him.

“They do. And this is unfortunate since that’s not going to happen,” Mike informed me.

I blinked.

Then I asked, “What?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Mike mostly repeated.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why?” he asked back.

“Yeah, babe. Why?”

“How many reasons do you want?”

“How many do you have?”

Mike was looking at me but when he spoke again he twisted his torso so he was fully turned to me and he started counting them down, “First, he’s too old for her. She’s fourteen.”

“I learned tonight her birthday is tomorrow, Mike, so she’s very nearly fifteen.”

“Right. Then, he’s too old for her. She’s fifteen.”

“Mike –”

“He’s also had himself some. My guess, not a little. My guess, a goodly amount. And he’s not going to get any from my fifteen year old daughter.”

I felt my eyes get round.

“He’s had some?” I asked.

“Definitely,” Mike answered.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “How do you know?”

“A seventeen year old boy that hasn’t had any acts like No. A seventeen year old who’s had a go or two acts like No. A seventeen year old boy who’s seen some action acts like Fin.”

“Holy crap.” I was still whispering.

“And he’s not going to get any action from my daughter,” Mike finished.

“Holy crap,” I repeated.

“Dusty?” Mike called and I realized I was staring unfocused through the moonlight at the column of his throat.

So I focused and blurted, “I fed him baby food peas.”

He leaned into me and I felt his hand wrap around my knee as he murmured, “Honey.”

“He spit them out at me,” I continued.

“Dust –”

“I changed his diapers. He teethed on my silver hoops while they were in my ears. I laid on my back in the living room while he used my body as a jungle gym. He sat in front of me on my horse when they were down visiting me in Texas. I jumped into the ball pit with him at that stupid pizza place that smells like puke but still, every kid has to have one crappy birthday party there. He beat me at video games.”

I stopped talking when Mike’s hand left my knee, it cupped my jaw and I saw he’d leaned deep into me.

“He’s grown up,” he said softly.

“Holy crap,” I whispered.

“I should have shared more carefully. I didn’t know you were that close.”

“I want kids, Mike, and the only kids I’ve had are those two boys. I’m tight with both of them and when I say that I mean tight. They’re my boys. And he’s…he’s…” I blinked, the tears stinging my eyes as the information sunk in, I shook my head once then finished, “a man.”

“Yeah,” Mike whispered, his hand shifting back into my hair, he pulled me to him and touched my mouth to his before setting me back. His hand dropped to find mine in my lap and curl around tight, pulling it to him and resting it on his thigh. “That shit happens, sweetheart, and there’s no stopping it,” he reminded me gently.

I pulled in breath, nodded then said gently back, “It’s happening to Clarisse too.”

His hand tightened in mine and his voice was a rumble when he replied, “Oh no, it’s not.”

“Mike, it is. I’m not saying it’s going to happen but just noting that you took Debbie’s virginity at fifteen. She was an older fifteen, nearly sixteen but she was still fifteen.”

“Dusty, a warning, do not go there.”

I held his hand and leaned into him. Still talking gently, I said, “Again, I’m not saying anything is going to happen. But kids grow up fast, case in point what you shared about Fin. And you need to be prepared not to mention prepare her. And my point is, this isn’t news. Kids have been growing up fast for a while considering you took my sister’s virginity at that age decades ago.”

“I did. And Debbie was and never has been like Reesee and you’ve known my girl only for a night. You still know that. Debbie was probably a baby once. But the minute she started walking and talking, I’m sure she started bossing and manipulating. A boy like Fin would chew up and spit out a girl like Reesee.”

I leaned back sharply and stated, “He would not.”

“You ever been a teenage boy?”

“No, but my sister had one who didn’t do that to her and she deserved to be chewed up and spit out.”

Mike had no reply because I was right.

I kept going. “It’s clear they like each other and something is already going on.”

“Yeah,” Mike cut in. “She’s been getting calls and texts. Now I know who they’re from.”

“Right, so, he gets down to the business of asking her out, you sit him down and lay it out. And I’ll sit down with him and lay it out too. He doesn’t have a Dad anymore. Rhonda’s checked out. That’ll be down to me. We’re tight; he’ll give me that time. He needs to get girls think differently about intimacy than boys do and he needs to start thinking about them and their feelings and not just getting himself some. And he respects you, I could tell. And if he respects you, you talk to him, don’t treat him like a stupid kid or an asshole you don’t trust, he’ll respect Clarisse.”

“She’s not dating until she’s sixteen,” Mike declared.

“Your call, honey, but he lives right next door and dates don’t have to happen in cars. They can happen in front of TVs with Dad and/or Auntie Dusty watching like hawks.”

Mike again had no reply.

So I pulled out the big guns.

“I like her. She seems sweet. She seems a little unsure of herself, but sweet. And, babe, a girl who looks like your daughter should in no way be unsure of herself. And a good thing for a girl who’s as beautiful as your daughter and is still unsure of herself is to have a handsome, popular boy show her she’s beautiful. And a good thing to happen to a handsome, popular boy and a good kid who just lost his Dad and had a world of weight settle on his shoulders is for him to remember that he’s in high school and he should enjoy it by having the opportunity to show a sweet, unsure girl how beautiful she is.”

Mike said nothing.

“Babe –” I started at the same time he said, “Fuck.”

I gave his hand a squeeze and assured, “It’ll be okay and –”

He interrupted me with, “No.”

“No?” I asked cautiously.

“No. Not about Fin and Reesee because you’re right. He’s a good kid and she’s not dating but it’d be stupid for me to stand in his or Reesee’s way because it’ll only make them want to be together more which means they’ll find ways to do it when it isn’t in front of my TV. I’m saying no to you reassuring me. You don’t have to. I said ‘fuck’ because you’re smart, you’re rational, you’re caring and I wish like all hell my kids had that in their lives for the length of them, something they never got from their mother, and they didn’t just meet it tonight when they’re almost grown up and gone.”

What he said meant so much to me I stopped breathing.

Mike wasn’t done.

His hand came back to my jaw, he leaned in again and told me, “You’ll make a great Mom, Angel. Just here, sittin’ in this car, I’ve seen it all. Your grief at the loss of Fin’s childhood, your sharin’ with me how you spent that childhood with him then you shift right into havin’ his back. Supporting him through where he is now, who he’s becoming. Makin’ sure he has what he wants in a controlled way where no one gets hurt. And lookin’ out for where he is in his head after losin’ his Dad and a load of shit going down that he shouldn’t have felt but he did.”

I stared through the moonlight into his eyes.

Then I punched him weakly in the chest and snapped, “Stop making me cry!”

Then I started crying. Luckily, Mike was close and he pulled me across the seats and into his arms.

I let it all hang out for a couple minutes then gulped and muttered into the skin of his neck, “I don’t cry like this normally.”

“You got a lot goin’ on.”

He could say that again.

I didn’t respond just rested in the safety of Mike’s arms as I pulled myself together.

When I did, Mike teased, “Rivera says you take boot camps and, seriously, sweetheart, it’s good you aren’t wastin’ your money on that shit anymore. That punch?” I felt him shake his head.

“I can totally kick your ass,” I muttered into his neck and his arms gave me a squeeze as I felt and heard the rumble of his chuckle in his chest.

I liked that. A whole lot.

“Right, the kids are at their mother’s next weekend and all weekend you’re in my bed with me provin’ that wrong.”

Nice. Something to look forward to.

“You’re on.”

He gave me another squeeze.

Then quietly he asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I quietly answered.

“I need to take you back and get to my kids.”

“Yeah,” I repeated.

I felt his neck bend then I felt his lips on my hair then I felt him make a move to shift away.

I tipped my head back and caught him before he could, my hand curling around his neck.

“I have something to say,” I whispered.

“So say it,” was Mike’s whispered invitation.

“I lived a dream, walking down to you tonight.”

Even in the moonlight I saw his face get soft. He knew exactly what I was saying.

“Honey.”

“And another one, steaming up a car by the watering hole.”

He burst out laughing.

I watched through the moonlight and even if I saw it only through the silver glinting his skin, it was still beautiful.

When he sobered, my thumb moved on his jaw and I whispered, “Thank you, Mike.”

His mouth came to mine and he whispered back, “You’re welcome, Angel.”

Then he kissed me, slow and sweet. Then he planted my ass in my seat, let me go, settled in his and took me home.

Way past curfew.