Sugar Fiend
LILA
My family’s Thanksgivings were nothing like this.
That’s the thing I keep coming back to as I look around the wreckage of Rosemont’s dining room: the decimated turkey, the empty dishes and wine glasses, everyone now thoroughly stuffed and equally thoroughly relaxed.
My mother had our staff cook and serve and clean while the family sat in the formal dining room drinking heavily and eating sparingly and sniping at each other with increasing passive aggressiveness as the evening wore on.
This is two dozen people crammed around a table that seats half that and everyone talking over everyone else and laughter and noise from every corner.
We cooked all day. We ate everything.
At one point Slade had Jonah balanced on one knee and then Walker handed him both baby girls, one in each arm, and Slade took them without hesitating, adjusting his grip with a competence that suggested this wasn’t new to him.
I watched as Jonah was explaining something very seriously to his uncle while Lucky pressed her head against Slade’s knee and panted up at him adoringly.
“Get in there, Lila,” Sadie told me. “We need an auntie and uncle picture.”
So I draped myself behind my gorgeous, serious, incredibly adorable cowboy husband, my hands on his shoulders. And then a teeny little baby fist closed around my finger and my heart melted all the way through the floorboards.
That’s the moment Sadie snapped the picture of us, me no doubt looking besotted and deliriously happy as I smiled into the camera.
Now the sun has set and Lucky is passed out on the couch, very pregnant and content and snoring. And somehow I’ve ended up sitting on my husband’s lap on an armchair by the fire while he plays with my hair and we both stare idly at the football game playing on the flatscreen.
Slade’s body heat warms me from beneath while there’s a fuzzy blanket draped over me on top. It’s heaven.
“You sleepy?” he murmurs, lips brushing my ear.
“Post turkey tryptophan coma,” I sigh. “And the pie. So much pie.”
A kiss pressed to the sensitive skin behind my ear. Below earshot, he says, “Can I have you for dessert next?”
I shiver at the sensation of his stubble against my neck. “Thought you didn’t like dessert.”
“I do now. Can’t help it, when my wife goes around smelling like marshmallows. With that pretty candy pink hair. Lips tasting like cinnamon. You’ve turned me into a sugar fiend,” he whispers in my ear. “You got me craving my fix.”
He kisses my cheek. Beneath the blanket, out of view of anyone else, his hand slides to cup my ass.
“Don’t expect much,” I tease, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I don’t have an ounce of energy left.”
His fingers squeeze me. “I’ll take care of you,” he says. Like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Like he would love nothing more than to do just that. “Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about sneaking you back home since at least noon.”
“Oh yeah? To do what, Mr. Rhodes?”
Before he can answer, Tanner appears in the doorway rubbing his hands together.
“Sutton’s,” he announces.
A chorus of immediate agreement goes around the room, except from Slade, who makes a dissatisfied sound under his breath as his hand tightens on my ass. I have a feeling my husband’s plans for the next few hours included me in his bed, and not a detour to Marble Falls’s notorious dive bar.
“Why Sutton’s?” I ask.
“Another sacred Rhodes family tradition,” Slade says to me dryly.
“That’s right,” Tanner says. “We spend all day being wholesome and family-oriented and giving thanks and whatnot, and then we go to the worst bar in Marble Falls and undo all of it.”
“The worst bar?” I ask.
“Lovingly,” Sadie clarifies. “He means it lovingly.”
“It’s got a pool table and a jukebox and John Sutton knows everyone’s name,” Walker says. “That’s all a bar needs.”
“And endless whiskey,” Tanner adds. “Ladies, the Rhodes brothers will be your designated drivers this evening, so feel free to get rowdy tonight.” He points to Cassidy. “You’re coming.”
“I can’t,” Cassidy says. “I promised Leo we’d watch a movie at home.”
Tanner calls out, “Yo, Leo!”
Cassidy’s brother pokes his head in from the kitchen. “What’s up, T?” he asks.
“How about we all head to Sutton’s for a little. Then I come for movie night with the fam?”
“Sure.” Leo grins at Cassidy, who’s glaring at her brother now.
Tanner give his most charming smile to her parents. “Mr. and Dr. Monroe, if that’s all right with you, of course?”
They fall all over themselves to assure him it’s perfectly all right, which only makes Cassidy glare harder.
He gently tugs on her ponytail as he passes by her. “I’m in charge of the popcorn. I’ll butter you up, darlin’, that’s a promise.”
Cassidy rolls her eyes.
While Daryl and Cassidy’s parents agree to watch the kids and Lucky, everyone starts pulling on jackets and looking for keys.
“Where’s Josie?” Sadie asks, looking around.
“Where’s Rafe?” Tanner adds.
“Rafe went back out to check on the heifers in the calving barn,” Daryl says, already heading back to the kitchen. “One of them’s been acting off all day. He wanted to check her temperature before it got too late.”
Walker shrugs. “Josie probably went down to the stables. You know how she gets when she’s home. Always wants to hang out with the horses.”
“I’ll go look for her,” I say. “Tell her we’re heading out.”
I grab my coat and slip out the back door.
The night air is cold and sharp and smells like woodsmoke. The stables are lit from within, a warm amber glow in the velvety autumn darkness.
Before I can walk through the entrance to the stables, Josie emerges. Her hair is down when it was up before, loose around her shoulders, and there’s a gleam of sweat on her forehead as she fastens the last few buttons on her blouse.
Rafe follows a beat behind, still working his belt buckle back into place with one hand, the other holding his Stetson.
They both see me at exactly the same moment.
Nobody moves.
Yeah. I wasn’t reading into things.
“Everyone’s heading to Sutton’s,” I say, as brightly as I possibly can. “Were you two saying goodnight to the horses?”
Josie lets out a breath, eyes darting from me to Rafe. “Something like that.”
I look at Rafe. He glances at me with those unreadable coal-black eyes, giving me absolutely nothing, before pulling his hat low on his head. “I gotta get to work,” he mutters.
We both watch him mount his horse and ride into night towards the calving barn.
Josie closes her eyes briefly. “Lila—”
Carefully, I pull a small piece of straw from Josie’s hair. “You must have really missed the horses,” I say with a smile. “Going for a roll in the hay like that.”
Her eyes open. She looks at me for a second and then laughs, rueful and breathless. “I love you. Please, just… don’t say anything to my brothers about this.”
I blink innocently. “About what?”
She gives me a grateful look.
I gently nudge her arm. “So are you coming to Sutton’s with all of us?”
“Guess I have to,” she sighs. “It’s not a trip back home without a raging hangover courtesy of the roughest bar west of the Rockies.”
We’re halfway across the yard when I hear the back door. Slade comes down the porch steps, jacket on, scanning the dark until he finds me. He crosses straight to me and cups my face briefly in one hand, like he just needed to confirm I was there.
“Missed you,” he murmurs, kissing my cheek.
“Found your sister,” I say, leaning into him. And a little more than just that, I think. But Josie asked me to keep it quiet, and I’m not about to blow up her spot. Not when nothing’s changed since our wedding, not really: I’m not really part of this family, and it’s not my place to cause drama.
Slade’s arm comes around my shoulders. “Ready?”
Josie falls into step beside us, looking between us with a smile spreading across her face. “Two out of three of my grumpy-ass big brothers have now turned into giant softies,” she says, shaking her head. “Love does strange things to us, doesn’t it?”
Slade gives her a look. “Mind your own business, Josie.”
She laughs, easy and unbothered, and loops her arm through mine on the other side. “I’m just saying I love my sister-in-law,” she says. “Slade, don’t you dare mess this up for me. Lila’s a keeper.”
He doesn’t answer Josie. His arm just pulls me closer, and I feel his lips press briefly to the top of my head as we walk back to the house together.
I resolve to put Josie’s words—and Slade’s subsequent silence—out of my head as we all pile in various trucks and head down the road.
Love does strange things to us.
Love. I don’t know if Slade will ever let himself feel that for anyone new ever again.
As for me, I’m just going to live in the moment. Enjoy this for what it is. Heartbreak can wait for another day.
“I’m so ready for this,” I tell him.
“Don’t expect much.” Slade keeps a hand on my knee as he drives. “Get ready for sticky floors. The smell of weed and cigarette smoke floating around. Probably a bar fight or two by the end of the night.”
My post-Thanksgiving sleepiness wears off as the excitement builds. “I’ve never seen a bar fight,” I tell him. “Nobody ever gets punched at a country club. And trust me, there are more than a few faces that could really use it.”
An eyebrow raise. “Didn’t know I was getting such a bloodthirsty bride.”
“I’m all about justice,” I say sagely. “Rough Justice, you might say.”
And then my gruff, stern, unsmiling husband starts to laugh.