September 2025 #3
Five minutes later we were back in the car, Shelby Reynolds was unpacking in her suite, and the world was good once more.
I called and spoke to Aja, and she said she would take care of everything.
I then called Hannah, told her she and Jake didn’t need to babysit, and she was happy we were coming home.
“I like spending Dad’s birthdays with him,” she cooed.
He agreed, rumbled happily, and then I called Aaron and thanked him for the gift of the black-tie whatever it was, and said we would reimburse him.
“No,” he sighed, distracted, “I’ll call and have them use it as a donation, which I was meaning to do anyway. It all works out.”
“We’re coming home so Sam can have his birthday with everyone he loves.”
“Love is laying it on a bit thick, but I expect you there,” Sam told Aaron.
“You do?”
“Of course I do,” Sam groused at him. “Stop thinking we’re not friends, that just you and Jory are. It’s not true.”
Aaron was quiet on his end.
“Hello?” Sam snapped. “Are you mad about the black-tie thing?”
“Of course not,” Aaron replied hoarsely.
“He’s just emotional over you saying that you two are friends.”
“Oh for crissakes,” Sam grumbled. “I’ve said it before. How can you be Aaron Sutter out there in the world and then worry about crap like this?”
“Because I don’t have a lot of true friends, Sam, so when you’re telling me that––”
“It’s what I’m telling you,” Sam said with a huff. “We’re not friends because of Jory or Duncan. Somewhere in the course of—Jesus—like, almost twenty years, you’ve grown on me.”
“I feel the same,” Aaron said stiffly.
“The only reason I don’t invite you to the sporting events that I invite your husband to is I know you hate them and I’m doing you a favor.”
“Thank you.”
“But you like baseball, so we can go do that.”
“It’s a lie,” Aaron assured him. “I don’t. Not really. I like polo.”
Sam groaned.
“But again, thank you for not inviting me, and I will no longer worry that you’re not fond of me.”
“Good, because it’s stupid.”
“Yes. It’s Friday now, so are you partying tomorrow or Sunday?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Duncan and I shall be there. Any specific time?”
“Whenever you want.”
“Yes, Sam.”
Once he hung up, I turned and looked at my husband.
“What?” he asked as he drove, knowing I was staring even though he had to keep his eyes on the two-lane road as we headed for home. He was taking a shortcut out of town.
“You’re a nice man.”
He grunted.
“You are. You’ve never needed to be nice to Aaron.”
“Yes, I did,” he countered, pulling over near, but still a bit away from, a fruit-and-vegetable stand.
Turning off the car, he took off his seat belt and then swiveled in his seat to face me.
“You love him, my daughter loves him, my son has learned to love him, so he’s family.
I never thought, all those years ago, when I was planning the best way to kill him, that we’d be friends. ”
“Sam!”
He gave me a dismissive wave, got out of the car, walked around the front and then opened my door for me.
I looked down into his face. Sam's SUV is big.
“He’s a billionaire, and I got home from being gone, because I’m stupid, and there you were, in love with a nozzle.”
I tried so hard not to smile.
“I followed and plotted, and then one day fuckin’ Miguel Romero comes darting across the street to me and holds out his hand like we’re old friends.”
I had never heard this story and so stared at my husband.
“He said that he didn’t want to hurt me, which I thought was ridiculous at the time, but he went on to say that you and Aaron, that was not bedrock. That it wasn’t gonna last and was nearly out of juice. Not on his side, but on your side. He read it all over you.”
“Miguel did?”
He nodded.
“Also, off topic, you think Miguel could have hurt you?”
Quick scoff. “Once I became chief deputy, I read up on everyone I know, and Miguel Romero could kill me, like, ten different ways and then get rid of the body like I’d never existed.”
I reached for him, and he took me into his arms to put me on the ground. But I was not ready to be released, and so wrapped my legs around his hips. He was chuckling as he closed the door, one hand on my ass, and then locked it and wrapped a strong arm around my back.
“Don’t worry, I was not about to push Miguel then, or now. Though I think as we all age, our fuses get longer, our desire to tangle with others recedes, and basically, we mellow. That’s why Miguel is just about ready to let George take over the day-to-day with Aaron and sit in his cushy office.”
I held Sam tight. “So Miguel could see that I was not really into his boss.”
“Yep,” he rumbled into my ear. “He said it won’t be long, and he was right. I hated waiting, but killing Aaron Sutter would have hurt a lot of people, so I’m glad I held off.”
“Samuel Thomas Kage, you would not have hurt––”
“Killed,” he corrected me. “I was gonna kill him.”
“You would not have killed Aaron Sutter.”
“He was standing between me and my love, so the hell I wouldn’t.”
I pressed my face into the hollow between his neck and shoulder and first kissed him and then bit him.
“Oh, hey now, don’t get feisty or a mile down the road from here, you will be attacked in the back of my vehicle, which has, as you know, blackout windows.”
“How is that a threat?”
He chuckled and carried me to the stand and then set me down. I was surprised to see three young women and a young man, all the same ages as my kids, smiling at us.
“Hello,” I greeted them.
“I want this love,” the cute blonde girl said to me, pointing at both Sam and me. “I want it to find me right now.”
“Speak it into the universe, Heather,” a brown-haired girl with freckles and glasses told her. “You have to fill the space with your intentions.”
“Our daughter’s a witch too,” I told them, and all four gasped.
“She’s a good witch,” Sam said, starting to look at the corn.
“I want a man who’s obsessed with me too,” the adorable boy with red hair told us.
“I’m not obsessed with him,” Sam grumbled, but then turned and looked at the gorgeous Black girl who had her arms crossed, who had scoffed loudly. “Something to say?”
“You’re obsessed,” she assured him. “Who are you kidding?”
“Do I know you?”
She shook her head.
He glanced at the others in overalls, jeans, T-shirts, and flannel, and then at the girl in her leggings tucked into Doc Martens, a T-shirt that said Allegedly, and a cropped vest. “Why’re you here?”
Her face scrunched up.
He pointed at the corners of the stall. “There are cameras up there, and you have your phone ready to record. Talk to me.”
She shook her head at the same time he pulled his badge out of the back pocket of his shorts. It was cute how they all exhaled at the same time.
What we got, from the overlapping voices, was that they all went to college together.
Tessa, the one in charge, who challenged Sam, was the project leader.
They were working together, as a collective, running a farm for their marketing class.
One grew fruit, one veggies, one had chickens that provided eggs, and Tessa managed the finances and tracked their profit.
Unfortunately, there were some guys who had been picking on them, taking fruit and vegetables from them, who were, Blaine—the boy—thought, friends with others in their class who were not at all working as hard as they were.
“Well, we’ll just see,” Sam said.
He left to return to his monster SUV.
“What’s happening?” Tessa asked me.
“He went to get chairs for him and me. Tell me you all have water and perhaps fruit salads in some kind of refrigerator here.”
“Yes, we do,” she said, beaming at me.
The watermelon that Evie, she was the fruit girl, had tweaked a bit and engineered, was both sweet and juicy. It was excellent. Heather, the vegetable girl, who spoke to the universe, began packing corn for Sam because, as he told her, it was his favorite.
An hour later, here came some guys in a pickup truck, three in all, to take what they wanted from the stand without paying.
I asked who they were, once Sam had them all sitting on the grass beside his very fancy fishing chair that Kola had bought him last Christmas.
They had been hired by someone named Kent and another guy named Brad, to disrupt the business at the stand.
Everyone knew Kent and Brad, whose project was sort of a hostess bar idea that they had, as of yet, not been able to get off the ground.
Sam explained that if Tessa, Blaine, Evie, or Heather saw them again, that he would alert the local police department and trespass them and they would be hit with a TRO.
“You don’t want any of that on your records.”
They did not. They did, however, want to buy corn, as the first guy had taken it to his mother and she loved it.
Sam turned to the kids. “I say if they come with cash, then it’s okay. But they have to show you their wallets when they drive up before they get out of the car. They have to hold them out the window.”
Everyone agreed that this was an excellent plan.
Sam gave each kid his card, two of the boys bought corn, the third one, watermelon, cantaloupe, and cherries and left.
We then shopped, and even though the kids wanted to give it to us for free—Heather really thought the corn wanted to come with us at no charge—we didn’t allow that and paid the excellent prices.
We also bought all their eggs, because they were free-range chickens and we went through a lot of eggs in our house.
I explained about the katsu and fried rice from a few days before.
“Can you bread portobello mushrooms in panko?” Heather wanted to know.
“Yes,” I assured her. “You just have to watch your cooking time, as mushrooms have liquid in them that’s released as they simmer.”
We had a long chat where I hit the high points for her.
Once Sam and I were back on the road, I couldn’t stop smiling.
“What now?” he groused at me.
“You. You’re a knight in shining armor wherever you go.”
He grunted.
“You are. It’s one of the many reasons I love you.”
“Yeah, but knights need to be taken care of. That’s why a billionaire was never gonna do it for you.”
“Oh?”
“You’re a caretaker at heart. You dote on me and the kids, our friends, just everyone, and what the hell kind of attention does a guy like Aaron Sutter need?”
“A lot. Ask Duncan.”
“Whatever.”
I laughed at him.
“I’m funny?”
“Yes. It was always you, Sam Kage. Don’t be ridiculous.”
We were quiet for a few minutes.
“Those kids back there—they all wanted a love like ours,” he said nonchalantly, paying close attention to the road, not even glancing at me.
“Yes, I heard. I think it was the carrying that did it.”
“Well, you better enjoy it now, because when I’m old and feeble, I won’t be able to––”
“Yes, you will,” I soothed him. It was one of his worries, that as he aged, and through no fault of his own, when his strength waned, that I would, or could, lose interest in him because he would not have the same body.
“You’ll always be able to carry me. But if for some reason you could not, you have to know I’m in love with your great heart first and foremost.”
He grunted, but I noted the tender smile.
“So, about that stopping on the side of the road?”
“Absolutely not,” he told me. “We are not teenagers who––”
“Pull over, and make sure we’re hidden by the trees. I have lube in my bag, and that back seat is nice and wide to accommodate your long legs.”
“One of these days you’re gonna stop being hot for me,” he said, slowing down so he could do as I asked.
“It’s doubtful,” I purred, unhooking my belt the second he stopped and climbing over the console to reach him. “I’ve had it bad for you for quite a long time.”
“Yes, you have,” he husked, taking me into his arms. “I’m so lucky.”
Turned out, we didn't even make it to the back seat.
That’s it, all. Have a wonderful rest of September, stay safe, take care of each other, and I will see you in October. I can’t wait for fall.