Moonlight Road (Virgin River #11)(37)

Luke laughed heartily at that. “You are so full of shit,” he said too loudly. “You have a boy bike and a girl bike and a f**king picnic basket in your car!”

Aiden stood still and glared at Luke. Aiden might not be the oldest, but he was very good at affecting a superior expression. “This camp isn’t going to get five stars in the AAA brochure if you wake the guests at dawn with your asinine guffawing,” he said.

“I would’a loaned you the Harley, Aiden, so you could take your woman on a manly ride,” he said, grinning widely. “All you had to do was ask.”

“Those manly rides crack heads and break femurs,” the doctor replied.

“Yeah? Wait till one of those logging trucks tries to pass you while you’re on one of those pu**y things. You’ll wish you had my Harley under you.”

“You about done?” Aiden asked.

“Not even getting started,” Luke said with a laugh. “Come on—who is she? What did you find over on the coast? And how long ago? When do you expect to be home? We have a curfew around here, you know.”

Aiden walked around Luke, lifted the hatch and reached inside to pull out his nifty new basket. He closed the hatch and went back into his cabin. “Don’t wait up, ass**le,” he said over his shoulder. He slammed the cabin door. For someone who advocated quiet for the guests, he wasn’t being particularly considerate.

Luke laughed again with delight—Aiden had a female somewhere. Big surprise—Riordan men didn’t have dicks so much as divining rods. And they had always taken great pleasure in their brothers’ conquests, provided they weren’t total nutcases. Unfortunately, there had been some memorable ones.

Luke heard a sound and looked over his shoulder to see his wife come out on the front porch of the house, her belly preceding her. Her long hair was messy from sleep and she wore a pair of his boxers with the waistband rolled down under her belly and one of his T-shirts pulled over the top. How, he asked himself, can she look so pregnant and so sexy at the same time? He just shook his head and went to her. With one hand holding his mug, he slipped the other arm around her and pulled her against him. He kissed her forehead and his son kicked him.

“You get any sleep?” he asked her.

“Uh-huh. I feel pretty good. I feel huge, but good.” She looked down. “I have ankles.”

He looked down. “I see that. Nice.” He backed up a step and sat on one on the chairs, pulling her onto his lap. “Come here. Sit on my lap and if you’re sweet, you can have a little sip of my coffee.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, grabbing his mug. “What was all that noise? I heard you laughing.”

“Aiden’s got himself a summer girl,” Luke said.

“A what?”

“A summer girl. He found himself a woman. He’s got bikes in his car and—” Luke stopped as the door to the cabin opened and Aiden emerged with his basket. He balanced it on a hip and gave Shelby a wave. Then he got in his car and backed out of the cabin compound.

“What?” Shelby asked again, once Aiden’s car was gone.

“Aiden’s chasing tail,” Luke said.

Shelby shook her head and sighed. “You are so delicate,” she said, running her fingernails through the short hair at his temple. “Remind me, you are not allowed to train our son in the manly pursuits. I’ll take care of that. You’re crude, rude and socially unacceptable.”

“What? Aiden’s chasing a woman! How mysterious is that? I hope he gets lucky, that’s all. But knowing Aiden…”

“Knowing Aiden, what?”

Luke shrugged. “He’s kind of, I don’t know, not exactly after it. You know?”

She laughed at Luke. “My dear husband, Aiden is totally hot!”

“Aiden?”

“Oh, yes. If I weren’t married and seventeen months pregnant, I would so be after him!”

“Aiden?”

“Luke, you really have no idea.”

“Baby, he’s got bicycles in his car! I told him he could have the Harley, but he’s got bicycles! How hot is that?”

“He is completely and totally sexy.”

Luke was quiet for a minute. “I don’t want to hear this.”

She laughed at him, kissed his neck, and his baby kicked.

“Bet he can’t do that,” Luke said, rubbing a hand over her big belly. “Bet he can’t make one like this. This kid is going to come out half-grown.”

Shelby just shook her head and moaned. “Oh, Luke, you are such a comfort to me. I don’t know how I resisted you as long as I did.”

Seven

Aiden drove up the road to Erin’s mountaintop and was relieved to note her SUV was still there—she hadn’t run. He got out of his own SUV, leaned against it in the opened door and hit the horn. He had to hit it again and again before she appeared, standing in the cabin door, a plush robe wrapped around her. Her feet were bare; she rubbed the top of one foot with the toes of the other. Her hair was mussed and he got a little turned on. She was without makeup; she’d been asleep and she woke up pretty and sexy. He counted that as a very good sign. “Oh, good,” he said. “You actually got some sleep and the bear didn’t eat you.”

She squinted at him. “Aiden?” she asked. “Aiden?”