Games of the Heart (The 'Burg #4)(59)

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, f**k, 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.