Damn. That kind of easy camaraderie could get a man in trouble. Big trouble.
Especially when he’d gone out of his way to avoid anything with any woman that smacked of domesticity.
Still, logic made him question how AJ’s thoughtfulness was a fault. She’d been raised that way. No different than her baking cookies and serving coffee to him and his folks at her mom’s place. Cord knew if his ma had been here after supper, she would’ve run a sinkful of soapy water and cleaned up too.
So why did it seem so much…more?
Because you could want more with AJ. She knows you, your son, your ranch, and your family. It’d be easy for her just to slip into your life, swoop into your house and want to play house for keeps.
“Like hell,” he said out loud. “She’s leavin’. End of story.”
When he returned home that night to a message from AJ telling him she wouldn’t be over for a couple of days, he was relieved.
As Kade pulled up in front of his house after another fantastic date with Skylar—
albeit, another date in which he hadn’t told her who he really was, Kade, not Kane, the blue and white lights of the TV flickered on the big picture window. Kade parked in his spot at the Boars Nest. Four other cars he didn’t recognize lined the drainage ditch. Colt’s truck was there. Kane’s was not. Dag’s was there too.
He kicked off his boots at the door and looked around. Jasmine and Colt were buck nekkid and passed out on the couch. The place was dirtier than ever. More beer cans.
Liters of the hard stuff, vodka, rum, whiskey, tequila, more whiskey, Jägermeister—all empty.
Pizza boxes were stacked on the floor. Bags of garbage overflowed in the kitchen.
Stinking clothes were piled on top of the washer. He sniffed and smelled pot smoke.
Fuck. Enough.
He tiptoed down the hallway to Colt’s bedroom—tiptoeing not out of a need to be quiet—but tiptoeing because of the bags of shit piled everywhere. Plus the hall light had burned out so he couldn’t see where the hell he was going.
The door to Colt’s room was cracked open and Kade poked his head in.
Holy f**king Christ.
Kade blinked because he couldn’t believe his eyes. If he’d imbibed tonight he’d blame it on booze, but he hadn’t had a single glass of wine or beer with dinner.
So what he was witnessing wasn’t a weird-assed dream. But his cousin, Dag, on his hands and knees, bare-assed, with another guy, spreading his cheeks wide and riding Dag’s ass like Dag was a pony.
Right then he knew the skinny guy he’d seen getting hammered the other night was Dag. And he knew it hadn’t been a damn dream.
A Goth kid—tattooed, hair dyed jet-black, couldn’t have been more than nineteen and resembled a girl more than a boy, but the big c**k shuttling in and out of Dag’s butt definitely belonged to a guy.
And if that image wasn’t bad enough, another guy was on his knees in front of Dag, sliding his c**k in and out of Dag’s mouth, holding Dag by the ears as he f**ked Dag’s face.
Not that Kade wanted to look, but sweet Jesus, that wasn’t all that was going on. The crew-cut dude was in on it too. He’d somehow contorted himself to noisily suck Dag’s dick while the other two guys were doing their thing.
To his cousin.
His straight cousin.
Shit. Maybe Dag was drugged. He was blindfolded. Maybe he had no f**king clue what he was doing.
Kade made up his mind to break up the foursome, when the guy with his c**k in Dag’s mouth whined, “I wish I could come on your face. You’ve got such a pretty face.”
Dag pulled back and slurred, “You say that every f**kin’ time, Max, and you know I’ll never blow you again without wearin’ a f**kin’ condom.”
“I’m blowing you without a condom,” crew-cut guy said, then returned to Dag’s cock, twisting his hand firmly from root to tip as he suckled the knob.
“Fuck him harder, Leroy. Dag’s a bad boy who likes to pretend he isn’t one of us.
We all know he likes it hard. And rough.” Max rammed his meat back into Dag’s mouth with a childish pout. Dag groaned his approval when Leroy started hammering his hips harder into Dag’s ass.
Kade retreated.
He knew Colt was out of control, but to see Dag like that? Totally out of control too?
Maybe Dag was drugged, or drunk, or maybe he just liked being f**ked and blown by a guy and sucking c**k once in a while. Didn’t change the bottom line: Kade couldn’t live here anymore. The thought of moving back in with his folks at age thirty was more than a little humbling. Yet he preferred it to knowing what was going on down the hall.
Preferred it to wondering what the hell kind of kinky scene he’d stumble across in his living room in the middle of the night the next time.
He threw his clothes, boots, hats, CDs, electronics, and the few toiletries he owned in three suitcases. After grabbing his bedding, he stormed out, slipped on his boots, climbed in his truck and didn’t look back.
Two days later Cord clapped on his hat, loaded his pickup and drove out to check cattle before he started the dirty, daylong chore of haying.
But once he settled on the tractor, the problems of the day melted away. He focused on his task, allowing himself the secret joy of witnessing another cycle of Mother Nature.
Months back the winter snows melted, leaving what looked like barren ground. Then tiny shoots of grass poked up through the brown earth to make a living sea of green. Now he was cutting the first field of hay. He inhaled the pungent scent of alfalfa. Of hot dry dirt.
The smell of diesel and oil and overheated machinery and his own sweat.
This chunk of land was heaven on earth.
And the view. Lord, he’d never tire of the scenery displayed before him. White tufts of prairie asters and clumps of silver-green sage interspersed with cheat grass. The big sky ranging in hues from powdery blue to sapphire. The crested mountains in the background—towers of gray and black rock, shadowed stone. Ominous. Unyielding.
Constant. Comforting.
His gaze encompassed the treeless horizon only broken by scattered clouds and disappearing fences. This place was home. The only home he’d known, in truth, the only place he’d ever wanted to hang his hat. Took two long years of working on a fishing boat in Seattle to swallow his pride, mend fences with his dad and admit he longed to return to Wyoming where he belonged. The workdays were long. The winters were harsh. He’d never be rich even when he slaved every damn day. But he wouldn’t trade this life for anything.