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“Is Marcus on the porch with his surgically implanted phone?” she asked.
“Yep, but he’ll be here to get his hug in a minute. Julie’s going to call tonight. It’s pissing her off she’s going to miss the holiday with us. You know how much she loves getting up for Easter sunrise service.”
A chuckle passed through the kitchen. While she did love joining them for holidays, getting Julie out of bed early on a rare day off was like digging Carolina clay out of the ground.
“She said she won’t schedule performances on Easter weekend ever again,” Elaine said. Thomas intercepted her before she could lift the breakfast casserole, bringing the heavier dish to the table himself. Les suspected the one she’d sent with Brick had been equally large. Elaine gave Thomas a fond look.
“Can I help?” Les asked.
“Go ahead and put ice in the glasses,” her mother said. “You know what everyone drinks. The tea and juice pitchers are in the refrigerator.”
Daralyn removed biscuits from the oven while Elaine put a covered bowl of milk gravy on the table. Thomas returned to holding up the wall by Rory, staying clear unless they needed help again.
The kitchen table could seat up to a dozen people, evidence of how often her mother anticipated neighbors and family friends dropping in. It was the same size as the one Les had grown up with, though then it had been a large picnic style table with two free standing benches her father had made.
The current table had been made by a local woodworker, Mr. Connelly, in exchange for a year’s supply of free eggs. Instead of benches, her mother had found rustic wooden chairs from an estate sale. The new arrangement allowed Rory to bring his wheelchair to the table in a way the benches hadn’t.
The sound of a familiar truck pulling up to the house had Les’s heart skipping a beat. Rory cocked a brow at Thomas. “She blushed. Did you see that?”
“Shut up,” she said. But she slipped out the kitchen screen door. She wanted to take a moment together, just the two of them. Even if they could be seen from the kitchen windows.
Today Brick wore the black Fairhope fire station T-shirt with his jeans. His gaze covered her, lingering on places that made her warmer. She quickened her step. His eyes lit with pleasure at her obvious gladness to see him.
He cupped the back of her head, gripping her waist with the other hand as he kissed her. His restraint showed his awareness of their potential audience, but what she sensed beneath the gesture wasn’t restrained at all. He drew back. “You look less tired this morning.”
“Someone kissed me in my dreams,” she said, shy with the poetry, but glad she’d used it when his gaze warmed further. “Who said that?” She rested her hands on his chest. He had a coffee and new shirt smell, telling her the one he wore wasn’t from his high school years.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne. In a letter to his wife, Sophie.”
“We. Are. Starving.”
Brick grinned as Rory tossed the emphatic comment through the screen door. Brick plucked a shirt out of his truck before they started toward the house. He put his arm around her waist, fingers curved over her hip and through her belt loop. He showed her the shirt, a far more worn version of what he wore.
“In the spirit of nostalgia, I wore my old shirt to the station, but the guys noticed it was a little tight. So they gave me a new shirt.”
“They had G-for-giant size?”
“They did.” He gave her buttock a discreet pinch, but sharp enough to have her biting back an ouch. “But if you don’t want the old one...”
She grabbed it from him before he could hold it out of reach, and that sexy smile crossed his face. He opened the screen door for her. As she stepped inside, she discovered Marcus had joined them in the kitchen.
There were no words to adequately describe Marcus Stanton. Mrs. Mayflower, an elderly neighbor who routinely flirted with Marcus, summed it up at a church picnic. “Those looks may come from an angel or a devil, but I don’t find myself much caring, long as we get to look at him.”
Green eyes, black silky hair to his shoulders, and a body undeniably some god or devil’s best work. He was leaner than Thomas and taller by an inch or so. Les had seen him stripped down to jeans, and he had the muscles of a street fighter. When riled—and holy crap, he did have a temper—he had the lethal look of one in his eyes.
If Thomas’s well-being was at risk, the wolf crouched beneath Marcus’s cynical New York urbanite polish would make itself known. Les had seen that firsthand, during the time Thomas had come home to run the store and farm.
Thomas was just as protective of Marcus. Her brother’s anger was far slower to rouse, but when it did, he was a pit bull. Rory was very much the same about Daralyn.
It was what you did when you loved someone. You took care of them, watched out for them. Like Brick had done for her. He’d stayed with her for the M&M and brought her home. That could have made her feel too needy, yet the things he compelled from her, Master to sub, balanced that. She’d given back to him as well. Because she wanted to, and because he demanded it.
She liked that. The crazy little tingle inside just from the thought said so.
Seeing Marcus brought back the conversation she and Brick had had. It can run in families sometimes… Her attention brushed over Thomas and Marcus, Rory and Daralyn. Both couples were a part of the world she was discovering, Doms and subs.
Though she couldn’t imagine ever talking to Rory about any of this, next time she and Daralyn were alone, or—even better—she, Daralyn and Julie, girls’ night was going to get interesting.
Marcus hugged her, bringing her up close and personal to that overwhelming gorgeousness. A targeted smile from him could fluster any woman. It helped that he was family. Somewhat. Les recalled Julie’s matter-of-fact comment on it, long before she married Des.
