Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
“Mr. Cam, did you know it’s almost my birthday?”
Cam glanced at Rachel, who was twirling around the kitchen like a mini dervish while he attempted to make a new recipe.
Sausage and cheese bread looked like it would taste a lot like sausage balls, but without all the squeezing meat and sticking to the sheet pan.
“I think your daddy told me that, yes, ma’am. ”
“He’s going to get me a bike.” She did a split, very cheerleader-like. Just watching it made his balls protest.
Five-year-olds were very flexible.
“So you’re going to start school, too, in just a few weeks?”
She nodded and shot him a grin. “I’m going to be in kindergarten. I get to go buy school supplies.” She glanced at him, hesitating. “Bekka says that maybe we don’t get school supplies this year. Will they still let me go to school if there aren’t any school supplies?”
“There will be school supplies, sweetheart. I promise.”
“Yay! Good. I like school supplies. I like colors and backpacks.”
Rebekka worried too much, and then she shared it with her sisters, making them worry.
But, one way or the other, he was going to have to get these kids school stuff, from clothes to pencils and paper and shit.
It was only another two or three weeks before Mitch was supposed to go back to work at the roofing company.
Cam had to admit he hated the idea of Mitch up on the roof. He was stiff still, and every so often it was as if the man’s feet and his body didn’t know quite how to hook up with each other.
“Sarah says you’re a cowboy.” Rachel’s words shocked him back into stirring the goopy batter.
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I am a cowboy.”
“Cool. I want to be a cowboy and a ballerina. Sarah says I can’t be both, but she’s wrong. I’m going to be both. I’m going to do ballet on top of a horse. Maybe I’ll dance ballet with a horse. That’d be fun, huh? I’d be like a cartoon.”
Lord have mercy.
He was going to have to figure out an appropriate way to answer that, because the last thing he needed was for this little girl to be out there on Fire, trying to do ballet on him, have him trample her to death.
“I know a lot of people who are trick riders. It takes a long time and a lot of practice. You have to start small, just with normal things like riding, and then you build up to it.”
“I like to ride. I mostly ride with Daddy only, though. Bekka doesn’t ride. Sarah can go by herself, though—” She stopped, her eyes went wide, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “I—um. I gotta go potty.”
“Okay, kiddo, well you run along.” He knew she wasn’t supposed to talk about Sarah doing anything by herself, but he was going to let it go. He would talk to Mitch about it later.
He might also talk to Sarah about it when she was out with him in the barn. But right now, he was just going to put this bread in a pan and stick it in the oven.
Mitch came into the kitchen to go to the fridge and grab a Sprite. Cam observed him carefully, making sure he was walking all right. In fact, he did look a lot better than he had when Cam had first shown up, so that was great.
“Hey, you. What smells so good? Sausage?” Mitch gave him a grin, and that smile went right down Cam’s spine into his balls.
He’d been noticing it more and more over the last week—that Mitch was beginning to get his weight back, was beginning to move around, to function, to fix things around the house that were in disarray, and to spend more time with the girls.
He had to admit that was one of the sexiest parts of Mitch. The way he loved those girls and went out of his way to ensure they had what they needed. Maybe not as much money-wise, but time and energy.
Mitch did crafts with Bekka, and he read every single book Sarah read so she could talk to him about it. He watched cartoons and learned about gymnastics and could talk about all sorts of strange and unusual things that Rachel showed even the slightest interest in.
“I’m making sausage bread. It’s supposed to be like sausage balls, but just a bread.”
“Guh.” Mitch closed his eyes and made this amazing noise that sounded like sex. “That sounds like heaven. Have you made it before?”
“No, but I figured why not try? The girls like all the parts of it, right?”
Mitch snorted at him, eyes rolling. “Absolutely, but let’s be honest, the girls are just so happy to have you here cooking. They haven’t turned anything away that I know of.”
Well, Cam wouldn’t tell Mitch about the terrible bean soup incident they’d had one night when Mitch had been poorly and had gone to bed early. That had been a disaster. Not one of those three girls cared for kidney beans in the least.
But he could make up a pinto bean skillet with just pantry food in a second that all three of them inhaled.
He’d fed the kidney beans to Rosie. That had also been something of a mistake, but luckily Rosie was happy to go sleep in the barn if necessary.
“Yeah, they’re pretty happy with food, I guess most kids are, as long as it’s not liver and onions or tons of broccoli.”
Mitch popped the top on the Sprite, and sucked part of it down, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Cam had to admire the length of his throat, although it wasn’t like Mitch could tilt his head back too far. He kind of had to lean his whole body on the counter.
After a little sharp breath, Mitch grinned at him. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed all the frozen broccoli in the freezer, though. You’re not a bull rider. Why are you eating like one?”
“Oh, I don’t eat that much chicken breast and broccoli, but I do like to add it to things.
I’ve been sneaking it in to a few things after I whazz it up in the mini chopper the girls don’t seem to notice.
” Honestly, the vegetable matter was more for Mitch’s health than anything else.
He thought Mitch needed to eat a better-balanced diet.
“I noticed that the only fish-type thing you eat is shrimp,” Mitch teased. “I know a lot of rodeo guys who eat salmon by the pound.”
Cam allowed himself to make loud, obnoxious gagging sounds. “Yeah, no, I don’t like salmon. I figure I don’t eat anything that doesn’t swim where I live. Okay, so shrimp don’t swim here, but they’re closer than the salmon.”
“That’s some mental gymnastics, man. You’re a piece of work, Cam Halley.” Mitch took another drink of his Sprite.
“I can be. Hey, can I ask you something real quick?” He got the batter into the pan and whacked it in the oven clean as you please. He was happy he’d remembered to spray the damn thing with Pam, too. If this worked, he might never make another sausage ball as long as he lived.
“Sure, ask away.” Mitch rinsed out the can and put it on the drain board.
“Rachel was talking about her birthday.” He saw Mitch’s shoulders stiffen, but he was going to forge on anyway. “She wants a bike.”
“I know, and if I hadn’t had to have the surgery, I might have been able to get her one. I was pretty determined, but I haven’t even been able to find a used one I can afford.” Mitch wouldn’t quite meet his gaze, and he could see a muscle flexing in the man’s jaw.
“I’d like to get her one.”
Mitch’s head snapped up, and he met Cam’s eyes now with a furious glare. “That is not your job.”
“No, I know that. Just like it’s not my job to get them school supplies, but I’m going to anyway.”
“The hell you are.” Mitch stepped right up into his space, poking him in the chest. “These are my kids. I am not going to make them into charity cases, too. It’s bad enough that I am one.”
“I am not making them into charity cases. I just know that you need time to get back to work before you have to lay out that kind of money, and it’s only a couple weeks until school starts.
” Cam knew keeping his voice calm, like he was, was probably just going to poke the bear.
But he couldn’t help it. He wanted Mitch to understand he wasn’t doing this out of some sort of meanness. He wanted to help.
“Goddamn it, Cam. I don’t need you to—”
Now it was his turn to invade Mitch’s space.
He loomed a bit because he wasn’t a tiny little bull rider, and he was a big boy with broad shoulders.
“I never said you needed it. I said I was going to do it. That way you have a little grace, so you can pay a few bills with your first paycheck back on the job. I don’t like the idea of you getting up on a roof again at all, anyway. ”
“Well, it’s a good thing you don’t have to like it, then, isn’t it?” Mitch growled the words out, his face flushed, his eyes narrowed.
“I reckon it is, and if you fall off the roof again, I’m not coming back.”
“Well, why the fuck don’t you just leave now, you stupid son of a bitch?” Mitch started to turn and walk away, but Cam grabbed his arm. He didn’t jerk hard because he wasn’t about to put some kinks in that freshly surged back, but he did dance Mitch right around to face him again.
And then he did what he’d been thinking about for the last week, ever since Mitch had started to recover nicely. He bent, stuck his face in Mitch’s face, and said, “I reckon this is why.” And then he kissed the man.
Mitch went stiff as a board under his hands, sucking in a surprised breath.
His mouth was as if somebody had sprayed it with superglue for a minute, it was so still.
Then he moaned and wrapped an arm around Cam’s neck, pulling him down so that they could kiss for real, Mitch practically devouring him.
Goddamn, he had wanted this for so long.
He’d dreamed about it when he was on the road sometimes.
He’d even turned down a willing mouth or more every so often because Mitch had been on his mind.
Not that he would fucking admit it to anybody, but it was hard to know the one who got away was happy without you.
They kissed for who knew how long, until they were both panting, and until his lips tingled. They changed angles at least three or four times, broke for air a couple of times, then dove right back in. It wasn’t until Mitch slammed both hands against his chest and pushed away that Cam let him go.
Mitch stared at him, eyes like holes in a blanket, and heaved for breath. “You didn’t set a timer for your damn bread.”
“Shit. That’s all you can think to say to me?” He did grab the kitchen timer, though, and set it for fifty minutes.
“What else am I supposed to say?” Mitch staggered back to lean against the counter, but at least he didn’t smack up on it, which was good. “Am I supposed to say that was a mistake and don’t ever do that again?”
“I sure as fuck hope not.” Because Cam’s cock was hard in his jeans and he was revved up all to hell. His balls were half pulled up already. He didn’t want to not explore this. In fact, he kinda wanted to get down on his knees and suck Mitch’s dick.
But they were in Mitch’s kitchen, and his three daughters were in the house somewhere. So he kept his fucking hands to himself.
“I gotta— We’ll talk about this again later.” Mitch eased himself away from the kitchen counter, shaking his head as much as it would move anyway. “I can’t do this right now.”
“You don’t have to, but I want you to think about it because I mean it. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“You always did fuck up my whole world.” Mitch turned on his heel and left the room about the same way he’d breezed in. Although he looked a lot madder now.
Cam adjusted his fly and washed his hands, figuring he’d have to hang around close enough to the kitchen to hear the timer go off.
He checked the time and it was too early to get a beer, so he grabbed himself a Coke out of the fridge and sat at the kitchen table to contemplate his circumstances.
That kiss had been a revelation, and he didn’t know whether he was even able to handle that right now.
One way or the other, he was going to have to talk to Mitch again pretty soon because he had a shopping trip to plan, and he had a feeling Mitch wasn’t going to be any happier about it the second time around in a conversation than he had been the first.
That didn’t matter because nobody had ever said Cam was anything but stubborn, and he was going to do what he was going to do for those kids no matter what.