“Thank you,” she said, which left him irritated.
“Damn it, would you quit that? I live here with you, I have time on my hands and I’m decent enough to spend time with the kids. That doesn’t make me a saint, and it’s sure as hell no reason for you to be grateful.” He stalked away without giving her a chance to respond.
Decent. Was he really? He’d been standing there with a damned hard-on imagining taking her from behind, and she was apparently oblivious and probably eager to get back to pulling weeds.
Conall growled a few obscenities under his breath, just to get them out of his way, then commandeered the boys and dragged them out to the barn with him.
There were spiders in the bin, but he brushed them off. Grinning at the boys who’d leaped back in obvious horror, Conall said, “These are nothing. You ever see a tarantula?”
“My third grade teacher had one,” Brendan said cautiously. “He brought it to school a couple of times. In an aquarium.”
“They’re all over in Mexico and farther south. I was taking a shower one time and when I reached for my towel my hand brushed this black, hairy tarantula. Had to be this big.” He made a circle with his hands. “Scared the…uh, crap out of me.”
They giggled.
“Like I said, these itty-bitty spiders are nothing.”
Walker broke into a sing-song. “The itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout…”
They all laughed.
Conall found mitts that fit their hands pretty well, and one for himself, too. Lia had baseballs, softballs and a variety of bats. Not to mention soccer balls in a couple of sizes, ditto basketballs, even what looked like, when he partially untangled it, a net for badminton. Hey, that might be fun. He hadn’t played it since he was a little kid. Yeah, when he dug deeper there were rackets and shuttlecocks buried at the bottom. He dragged them out and set them aside.
Then he and the boys threw the ball for a while, with him making a few suggestions and watching their aim and velocity improve. Brendan, it developed, had played Little League for a couple of years, Walker T-ball when he was really young.
“Lots of the kids at school are playing Little League right now,” Walker said, sounding envious.
“Next year, I bet you can, too,” Conall said. “In the meantime, we’ll work on your skills. What do you say?”
They thought that sounded fine. When their arms started to get tired, he brought out the bats and created a makeshift home plate from a piece of plywood he found in the barn. Lia had damn near everything in there, although some order might make it easier to find things. Maybe while he was here he’d offer to put up some racks for tools, clean up a little. Make himself useful. The boys could help. Helping would be good for them, and learning some basic construction skills wouldn’t hurt, either.
Brendan had a good eye, and popped up some nice fly balls and one line drive that got by Conall, to the boys’ delight. Conall began to wonder whether Walker was seeing the ball very well, but he didn’t say anything.
“We’ll try you out as pitchers tomorrow,” he suggested. “Nope, not today. We don’t want to wear out your shoulders. Come on, why don’t you help me set up that badminton net? I’ll bet Sorrel would like to play, too.”
They decided to set it up at the side of the house, so as not to get in the way of their baseball field in front. Lia came to see what they were doing and helped.
“I think I hear the school bus,” she said. “Girls against the boys.”
Conall mostly coached from the sidelines, but a few times he got talked into substituting for one of the boys. Lia played with vigor if not a lot of skill. She got pink-cheeked and sweaty and stubborn, refusing to lose. Lucky for her, Sorrel was good with the racket.
“We play in P.E. sometimes,” she admitted. “I like to win.”
“Me, too,” her partner declared.
Conall was in at match point. He blasted the shuttlecock over the net and laughed aloud at the sight of Lia diving for it. Somehow she scooped it up and it fluttered weakly over the net where he was waiting to slam it back at her. He hadn’t paid enough attention to Sorrel, though. She blocked it and dumped it over the net and to the ground on the guy’s side before either Walker or Conall could get to it.