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“See you later, sexy,” she said with a cute little wave as she sauntered out of the stable.
I shut my eyes and breathed out hard. When that didn’t work, I put a hand down on my hard cock. “Down, boy. You heard the lady. Later.”
And I was left to try to walk off my damn stiffy as I cleaned up my work tools and made my way back up to the main house. Charlie’s car was gone and I breathed out again, my body finally back under control. Mostly anyway. As long as I did not think of a certain curvy red-headed siren who could tempt the saintliest monk. And I was far from saintly. Ha.
I pulled open the door to the house and heard voices from beyond the foyer in the kitchen. Since we’d redesigned the house, we’d made this door the front door since we all used it as one anyway. Except now, instead of opening right into the kitchen, I walked into the foyer. The bottom floor was fairly open concept except for the one-bedroom suite in the back, so even from here I could see everyone congregated in the area off to the side of the kitchen.
We didn’t have flooring in here yet, so it was still just a concrete base with basic drywall up on the walls. Hardly the most welcoming, but it was clean, and we’d managed to scrounge up a big picnic table that Charlie had covered with a big plastic gingham tablecloth.
And really, who cared what the table looked like when you had catering from a premiere restaurant in the hill country? Reece had stopped off and gotten the meal earlier, with instructions to reheat and serve. It smelled fucking delicious and I couldn’t wait to dig in.
In addition to the rest of the usual ranch chores—which on their own were enough to keep a man working all day—I’d been finishing up restorations on the barn. And that after staying up till an ungodly hour in the morning last night finishing up this place so it’d be not just adequate accommodations for Charlie’s parents, but luxury, since apparently, they were some kinda hoity toity who couldn’t handle any sorta rough living.
“Oh, look.” Reece jumped up from where he was sitting like a damn jackrabbit and started my way. “It’s my twin brother I’ve been talking your ear off about. Jeremiah,” he said, clapping me on the back after loping over to me, “come meet Charlie’s mom and dad.”
I walked forward, my brother’s arm heavy around my neck. As I got closer, I was wondering if maybe I should’ve run by the bunkhouse and changed—especially when Mrs. Winston’s nose wrinkled in distaste like she could smell me. Mr. Winston sat beside her, eyes on her instead of me, and it was obvious where he took his cues from.
A weight sank in my stomach.
People used to look at me like this. Like I stank. Like I was street trash it was better for their eyes to skim right past.
“Sorry, it’s my bad manners,” I said, wiping my hands on my jeans even though they weren’t exactly dirty. Well, not in the way this uptight lady imagined. I’d just had them all over Ruth’s soft skin.
I looked to Reece. “Why don’t I go change and I’ll be right back?”
His face was apprehensive, glancing between me and his in-laws, and he gave a sharp nod. “’Kay. Be quick.”
But then Charlie stood up, looking appalled. “What? No. You’re perfectly fine. Have a seat. We understand you’ve come in after a hard day at work. Don’t we, Mom?”
Her mother held a handkerchief that she’d materialized from somewhere to her nose and shot a glance my way. “Of course,” she said in the falsest voice I’d ever heard. “Please. Sit.”
Charlie looked mortified as I sat across from her, the furthest away from her mother I could manage.
“I’ll serve you up some grub,” Reece said with a smile, grabbing my plate from in front of me and hurrying over to the kitchen where the trays of food sat with their tops peeled back.
“So,” I looked across the table at Charlie and her parents. “How was the trip? Not too bad, I hope?”
Her mother put the fork she’d been poking at her food with and lifted her nose. “It was absolutely appalling what they’ve allowed air-travel to become. What happened to the days of customer service, that’s what I want to know?”
Charlie nodded along, as if a lack of customer service was the real problem with the world.
Mrs. Winston picked up her fork and speared a single pea, and then another and another, until she had five on the tines of her fork, and then she proceeded to eat them without ever letting her lips touch the fork. As if she was preserving her perfect lipstick or something equally ludicrous.
