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"Yours are behind the counter and for display only. I'm not giving them up."
"I like that." I leaned forward and pressed a kiss against the top of her head. "But there's more where those come from, so long as you stick around."
"You're going to have to scrape me off like ice on a windshield."
•••
Predictably, I woke up with morning wood. We'd moved into the spoon position in the middle of the night, and my hard-on was nestled right in the crease of her ass. The big guy liked it there, but after kissing Winter's shoulders for a few minutes and getting no response, I figured the decent thing to do was to let her sleep. There'd be plenty of time for action later, I scolded my dick and went to take a cold shower.
It was only four in the morning, but I'd always woken before the sun. My dad and I would often grab breakfast at our favorite greasy spoon, and be back before Mom rolled out of bed. It was a habit I couldn't break even in college, much to my roommate and occasional overnight guest's dismay.
On the counter in the kitchen was a bowl of apples. I snagged a few and went outside to put the horses on the electronic walker. The four nickered with excitement when I held up their treats.
"Going to introduce you to my girl," I told them as I rubbed their velvety noses. I hooked a lead rope onto each of their halters and led them out one by one to the walker. Dad and I had installed the walker the summer before I left for college when the number of horses in the barn went from eight to four. It was round and accommodated four horses. Instead of clipping the horse's harness to a rope on a pole that rotated, the new design created a moving stall by inserting a chain fence wall at the end of the pole. It was like having a gate at the front and rear of the horse. The idea was that the gate pushed the horse and that because the horse wasn't tied to any pole, he or she would have more room to move around, particularly if there was a failure.
The motor was set for a walk, and I left the horses enjoying their morning exercises to go inside and make coffee. The smell of breakfast reached me before I'd even opened the back door.
"Winter?" I called out, but it wasn't a curtain of black hair that I saw at the stove. It was a short bob of blond. My mother. I stilled in shock.
> "Good morning, Finnegan," she answered, seemingly oblivious to how unusual it was for her to be standing in the kitchen. She’d been hiding in her bedroom suite for the last three months. "Your friend isn't up yet."
If she didn’t want to bring it up, then I wouldn’t either.
"Thanks. Can I help?" I hung up the barn coat and toed off my boots, then went to wash my hands.
"Yes, would you chop the onion? I thought I'd make omelets. Does this…Winter girl like mushrooms?"
I riffled through my memories of eating at the Donovan house. "Yeah, I think she does."
The fact that I didn't know for certain bothered Mom. Her shoulders tensed, and she paused in the whipping of the eggs.
"The name Winter is very unusual. Didn't you date a girl whose sister was named Winter?"
Now it was my shoulders that were tense. Since I planned to have Winter around for a while, it didn't make sense to deny it. "Yeah, Winter Donovan. I dated her sister Ivy back in high school."
The look my mom shot me was full of pain and anger. "What are you doing, Finnegan? Dating sisters? That's a recipe for disaster, and you know it."
I dragged a hand over my mouth to keep a million bitter things out. Mom and I were all that was left of this branch of the O'Malley family tree. It didn't make sense for us to constantly be at odds.
"If I had planned on spending the rest of my life with Ivy Donovan, I would have asked her to marry me. I didn't. We broke up. End of story." I tried to change the subject. "You look good."
It wasn't a complete lie. She was upright, and that was a positive. Her hair was brushed, and while she was wearing a long, fluffy floor length robe, it was still early in the morning.
"Don’t change the subject. What are you doing?” she snapped.
I took a deep breath and then another and reminded myself of all the times my dad came home smelling of someone else's perfume. "Sorry. I’m spending time with Winter because she's interesting, smart, and talented. That she happens to be related to someone from my past isn’t relevant. I like her a lot, so I hope you'll be kind to her."
She pressed her lips together and gave me a short nod. I went back to cutting the onion. After a few long moments of uncomfortable silence, she spoke again. "I talked to Henry yesterday. He said you were having some problems with the subs."
"Mom, really? I'm trying to establish some leadership down there." I rubbed a hand around the back of my neck to ease away the irritation. “I can handle it. I am handling it. When you call, you give Henry a reason not to trust me.”
"Are you going to hate me forever?" she whispered quietly.
"I don’t hate you now," I replied to her quicksilver change in direction. My stomach churned as I dreaded what she was going to say next.
"I feel like I killed him." She started sobbing. Was there any way I could escape without hurting her feelings?
"Given that he had clogged arteries, I don't think anything you or I did could be responsible for the heart attack." If anything contributed to his demise, it was the stupid Riverside project. That thing was going to give me a heart attack.
