This time, there were a few more men with them. A tall guy—well, they were all kind of on the tall end, to be honest—was playing airplane with Wolf. Another one stood nearby with a definite familial resemblance. Both men were enamored with the very happy child. A pretty dark-haired woman was filming on her phone as Wolf went for another zoom.
“There they are.” Kellan kept an eye on his kid as he spoke. I was pretty sure Wolf was his anyway. Everything had gotten jumbled after I’d been sideswiped by the Rory information deluge.
So many things made more sense now, but it was still a lot to digest.
“Hey. Sorry about that.” My chest, neck, and face had to be blazing.
“No worries. If Ian isn’t tossed out of the barn at least twice a visit, then something’s wrong.” The woman who spoke made me feel like an Amazon. Her voice was husky and filled with humor. She was leaning against Ian’s chest as his arms encircled her. He was lightly tapping some internal beat on her rounded belly. She had silvery hair gathered in an intricate braid I’d only ever seen in YouTube videos. She wore overalls and a sunny yellow tank top splattered with paint.
“Hey.” Ian pouted.
She batted his hands away and came across the grass to me. “I’m Zoe Manning.” She pointed behind her. “Those are my brothers. Hayes is the spotter and the pilot is Justin.”
I shook Zoe’s hand. “Thanks for letting me crash the rocker club.”
“Please crash it. These guys get going and all we do is play audience.”
“You love my music, Magic.” Ian came up behind her and kissed her neck. “She likes to pretend we’re a pain in the ass.”
“Oh, you are.”
Ian snaked a hand around her belly. “But I’m your pain in the ass.”
She rolled her eyes, but put her hand over his. “Yeah, you are.”
“Ugh, we’re leaving if it’s going to get all couple-ish in here.” Justin swung the toddler through the air and handed him off to Kellan. “Flight’s over, little dude.”
Wolf’s gleeful laugh filled the air. “More!”
Kellan sighed. “Now I’m going to be playing airplane all day.”
The dark-haired woman came up beside him. “As if you don’t do it already.” She waved. “I’m Maggie.”
Justin motioned his brother over. “Give them the keys.”
Ian perked up. “Keys?”
Justin’s tanned face was a mass of beard and wrinkles. He seemed young, but there was a lot of hair going on, so I wasn’t sure. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans covered in…tree sap, maybe? But he was definitely on the manly-woodsy end of the spectrum. It was quite appealing. Especially his bright blue eyes that gave me an appreciative once over.
He glanced at Rory and cleared his throat.
I looked over my shoulder. Rory’s face was set in that reserved, blank expression again.
So, he’d been right about the Manning brothers swarming about.
“Right. Keys.” Justin clapped his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “We finished the little stage in the distillery. If you guys want to try it out, we’d appreciate it.”
As Hayes dug a set of keys out of his pocket, Ian rushed over and tried to snatch them.
“Hey, try it out, not trash it, rockstar.” Hayes thumped Ian’s forehead with with his middle finger.
“Bloody hell.” Ian snatched them just the same. “If you didn’t want me in there, you wouldn’t have offered.” His eyes were bright with excitement. “They’ve been teasing us with that stage for months. I can’t believe my band’s not here to try it out.”
“Handily, we are,” Kellan said.
Rory frowned. “We have work to do too.”
“We’ve got all day, right?” Kellan handed off Wolf to Maggie and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m going to get my guitar.”