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“I am.” She didn’t move, but he continued holding her shoulders to start massaging them. “I ordered them. And for the life of me I don’t know why I’m taking it out on these nice people.”
“I would think that it’s fine, right?” He nodded, and each of the others nodded, too. “Where are these towels supposed to be going?”
“There should have been a different color for each bathroom. But they’re all this light gray.” He asked the young man what the problem was then. “The missus, Brandy, your missus usually has a different color for each room. But they’re all this color and none to put in the other bathrooms.”
“Okay. Good information.” Brandy turned in his arms and laid her head on his shoulder. There weren’t many women who could reach his shoulder, so he was thrilled—he didn’t know why—to have her there. “Let’s do this so we don’t have to send them all back. Each bathroom will now have gray towels. That way, I’m assuming that they won’t have to be divided by colors all the time to be put away. Correct?”
“That’s what your missus said she was going to do.” Brandy nodded but didn’t lift her head off his shoulder. “She said that it would make it easier to sort things. We were agreeing with her when you showed up. But then she started to cry, and it threw us off. Ms. Brandy never cries. I think she might be ill.”
“I think that she’s been under a lot of strain, and I’ve not helped. I can be depended on from now on to take over some of her load. If you guys could point me in the direction of the master bedroom and then take care of this little issue, I’ll talk to her about things.” They were very eager to help, and just as he was opening the door to the bedroom with her at his side, the towels were cleaned from the hallway, and he’d bet nearly sorted to each bathroom. As soon as he pulled the door shut behind him, she moved across the room to the furthest wall.
“I didn’t handle that very well.” He laughed. She was— “Why does me admitting to you that I fucked up funny to you every time? Or do you get your jollies when you find out that I’ve fucked up again?”
“No. What I think is funny is that you are the only person in the world that admits freely that you’ve fucked up. And to me, ordering the wrong color towels? That’s not anything that would be considered a fuck up. More like a…Like a fortuitist mistake. They’ll be easier to sort like you said, and so much easier to order the next time. Why are you suddenly out of towels anyway?” She told him why she’d ordered towels. “Oh. You know, that makes good sense. Ordering new towels every four years would certainly keep them thirsty and new-looking. To be honest, I don’t know that I’ve ever used a brand-new towel. Are they thirstier, you know, so that the water on your body is gone rather than having to scrub hard to make them absorb?”
“Thirstier? You know, I’ve never thought of that before but that’s when I get it in my head that the house needs new towels. Sort of a reminder.” She cocked her brow at him, and he found himself wanting to see her do that more often. It was sort of sexy. “I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk to me about towels. Did I have an appointment with you or something?”
“No. We didn’t have anything scheduled, no. But we could. A date of sort.” He asked her if they could talk in here or if they needed to go to an office. He also had business things to talk about. “I called several of the camera places to get an estimate. I handed it all to…I didn’t catch his name when I came in. But I gave them to him.”
“We don’t have to go to the office, but I was about to have lunch. Would you like to join us?” He asked who would be joining them as they made their way down the hallway. “Dad usually comes over and we have like a power lunch. It’s to catch up on the day before and talk about business meeting. By doing it at lunch, which I love, by the way, we can still take care of things that need attention in the same day and not have to talk about it at dinner. No business at dinner unless it’s important. It’s usually just him and me for dinner, and I don’t want to miss dinner with him if you don’t mind.”
“You mean if I were to move in here.” She nodded. “Moving in with you, just moving in, is on my list as well. I have about a dozen things that I need…well, I really need to talk to you about. There are a few things that aren’t all that important, but I think we need to clear them up. Lunch, if that’s what I smell, is what we’re having. I am thrilled to eat with you and your father.”
As if he’d summoned him, Alan came into the kitchen with them as they were sitting around an old but well-loved table. After giving him a huge hug, he told him that he was glad to see him. Donald, the butler he was told, brought him the file he had and he was as ready to join in conversations as they both were. He noticed that both Brandy and Alan had a list to tick things off of, and he pulled his own out. Glad not to be embarrassed for being old school and not pulling out a computer. Donald brought in several boxes and laid them between him and Brandy, and she said they were for him.
“The larger box is for you and your brothers. They’re cell phones. I know you can talk to just about anyone you wish without one, but this will help when a client needs to get in touch with you. I was also thinking that instead of having the pack reach out to you when they need you if they were to use the phone to do that, it might well save you some time. You could ignore them too if you’re busy with something else. But that’s entirely up to you.” He said he liked that idea. “Like I said, it’s only a suggestion. Also, being delivered to the ranch house are computers. I wouldn’t have gone ahead and ordered them if I wasn’t certain that the six of you have been sharing the same computer for the last eleven years. It’s going to be better if you all can work independently instead of waiting until your turn.”
“Thank you. That actually knocked several things off of my list, too.” She smiled at her dad, and he laughed. “Something wrong?”
“No. She told me that you’d want to come to this century, and I thought you’d not want to spend the money.” Lica laughed too and said he hadn’t looked up how much computers cost but knew that they were expensive. However, he knew, too, that they did need them. “Good man. I love working with you and your family.”
They talked about what was on each of their lists. There wasn’t any kind of order to what they talked about, nor was any subject on all their lists taken care of. He was going to go with the middle bid on the cameras for the ranch, and he was told to order the cattle from Texas to increase the herd that he had now. He was actually excited about being a huge landowner and ranch owner.
Alan left at two, telling them that he had things to do for his wife. She didn’t join them for this meal, but she was usually there when they had lunch. Most nights, too, they would come to dinner. He was told that when his brothers could make it, they’d really like to have them nightly for dinner, too. It sounded good to him. After her dad left, he waited to see what she’d bring up next. She had asked him to stay for a bit longer.
“Two things that I want to bring up to you. Your mother has been pestering the household. Nothing they can’t handle, but she seems to think that since you’ve married into money, you can put some cash into her account. I asked what that meant, and it was things like toothpaste and essentials that she would need to have shipped to her, or she could get them out of the prison store. I hope that it’s all right, but I told the attorney to not help her out in any way and to demand that the prison not allow her to call here again.” He thanked her and told Brandy that was just what he would have done. “Thank you for that. She will have to get a job, which the prison warden thought was a good idea as well.”
“Great.” She got up and poured herself some more tea, and did the same for him. He didn’t know why, but he thought that she was like that all the time, fending for herself even though she had a full staff to take care of her every whim. “I’d like to move in here.”
Just like they’d been told to do so or something, every other person in the room left them there. He asked her if he’d said something wrong. Shaking her head, she asked him if they could go to the office. She had some things to go over with him, too.
As soon as they were in the office, she closed the door behind him. He had no idea why, but he felt the need to kiss her, taste her. Pulling her into his arms, she turned her head away from his kiss, and no matter what he did, she wouldn’t allow him to kiss her. That pissed him off so much that he wanted to pound his fist into the wall beside her.
“Do you love me?” He said no, too fast, he realized when she ducked under his arm to walk across the room. She kept her back to him so he couldn’t see her face. “You said that kissing was too intimate for you. That you didn’t love me, so you said there would be no kissing.”
Chapter 6
“I don’t like Lica, Mom, but I have fallen in love with him.” Debra asked her if she’d told him. “No. But I did ask him if he loved me. He told me no. In fact, it was as if he’d been thinking about it, and he said no really fast. I’ve fallen in love with him, and I don’t even like him. What am I supposed to do with this? Especially with the fact that he does not love me.”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” She’d been surprised that they’d not had sex yet. The way that Lica looked at Brandy made her embarrassed at how much he seemed to want her. “This is beyond my knowledge of anything having to do with love. I mean, I’ve spoken to other shifters that work for us, but they actually thought that any day you’d be announcing that you’re breeding. What they call being pregnant.”
“It’s doubtful that we’ll ever have children. I mean, he was all right with us having sex the one time to bond with each other, but the chances of me conceiving from that have to be so low that I just don’t see it happening. I couldn’t care less about the magic. I’ve not used what I have, so I don’t even know how much I’ll get or have when we do.” Debra’s heart hurt with the knowledge that she had gotten from Brandy about not having children. But to her, it was still early days yet. “We only speak when it has to do with business information when we need something. He’s done so well in learning how to run the business with me. I spent the entire day with Ivan when he was out at the ranch the other day. He’s almost ready to take his boards to be a veterinarian. I’m really proud—and I love them too, of the way that they’ve accepted me and have made me feel welcome.”
“Of course, they would do that. They’re all good men, and I don’t think that there is a bad egg in the lot of them.” She thought about Lica. “Lica is odd, I’ll say that. But I’d never believe it if you didn’t tell me that he is so stubborn about things. When he’s around us, he is never anything but polite. But to hear this about him? I’m not so sure that I even like him all that much now.”
“You aren’t to hold this against him, Mom. I’m the one that put up such a fuss about sex with him.” Debra asked if she regretted it now. “With all that I am.”
Debra made her way home after making plans with Brandy later in the week. They’d talk more about Lica and her non-relationship with him, she was sure. But what could she do to help both of them along in this? Nothing. She could talk to Lica about Brandy loving him, but she’d made a promise that she would not. Unless he brought it up with her. Smiling, she thought of something else she could talk to him about. And made her way to the ranch where she knew he was working today.
