Chapter 23 Colt #2
The splashing stopped, and Ben waded over to me while Angus struck out to swim in deeper water.
“I’m going to get the inner tubes,” David said, wading out and walking toward the pile Angus had set by the truck.
Ben took to floating pretty quickly once he got the hang of arching his back while keeping his legs straight and parted. He practiced for a while, then looked for rocks and creatures in the shallow water while I had a swimming contest with Angus.
“That’s too far!” Ben yelled at us when we reached the big rock we’d set as our goal.
I saw that Ben was floating on an innertube but was still close to the shore.
“We’re making him nervous,” Angus said to me.
We set off and swam back to him.
“Sorry,” Angus said when we reached him.
“It’s okay. Sorry I got freaked out.” He sighed, leaning his head back and looking at the sky. “It’s so beautiful here. I love how rough and rustic everything is. So different from the east coast.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Angus said, hanging on to one side of the innertube, which had floated out into deeper water. I hung on the other side, my chin propped on the rubber float.
A few yards away, Maddox tried to join David on the float and toppled them both into the water. They surfaced laughing.
While my attention was on them, Angus took the opportunity to jerk me underwater. I arose, spitting, and lunged for him, giving him a good dunking himself. When we finished our little play-fight, we noticed Ben had drifted into deeper water and hurried to pull him back.
“Sorry about that,” I said to Ben.
“You two act like twelve-year-olds,” Ben said, shaking his head. His stomach growled.
“Time to eat,” Angus announced, and we pushed the float with Ben in it to the shore.
Leaving the water, we grabbed towels and dried off before spreading the blanket we’d packed and bringing the food out of the cooler. Maddox and David had managed to successfully balance both of them on the float and were making out.
“Come and eat or miss out!” Angus shouted to them.
Ben said something unintelligible from behind a huge bite of roast beef sandwich.
I laughed and shook my head.
Eventually, Maddox and David joined us, and when the meal was over, I was surprised to see the sun so low in the sky.
“We’ll have to get home soon so David can feed Ollie, and we can feed the animals at the ranch,” I said lazily.
Angus hummed from where he lay behind me on the blanket, eyes closed.
“This has been so fun,” Ben said. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
Eyes still closed, Angus shook his head. “You don’t have to thank us. We wanted to do this, and we can do it several more times before summer ends. The fly-fishing, too.”
“Are you looking forward to meeting Laura’s omegas?” I asked. We’d taken to calling the seven omegas under her care Laura’s omegas over the past couple of months.
“Yes! It will be so cool to know more omegas and compare stuff with them. I know they’ve been through a hard time, but I’m so excited to meet them.”
“Me, too,” David said, swallowing the last bite of his piece of chocolate cake.
I was glad for Ben and David, though I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Laura had told us that the young men were fairly well-adjusted, as five years had passed since they were kidnapped, even though those years had been spent in hospital facilities under the care of SOS therapists and physicians For that reason, they had a hard time in crowds or certain social situations.
She felt sure that Ben and David would be able to help them with that over time.
“Gramps, this really was the perfect place for this. It feels like we’re all alone here. How did you find it?”
“Your grandmother and I used to come out here a lot,” Angus said, opening his eyes and sitting up.
“David, you look a little sunburned,” Ben said. “You obviously didn’t have two alphas slathering you with goop every fifteen minutes.”
“He doesn’t have skin as fair as yours,” I said. “And we only put it on you once, Mr. Exaggeration.”
“Okay, but it was, like, half a bottle,” Ben said.
“Did I tell you guys that I talked to Carter last night?” Maddox suddenly said.
“What did he have to say?” Angus asked.
“He told me that he sold out his half of the business to Jackson’s father. He’s tired of it and wants to spend all his time with Jackson and the kids.”
“Really?” I asked. “Wow, he can afford to do that?”
“He’s independently wealthy, so yeah. From what he’s told me, he’s just always been somewhat of a workaholic—at least before Jackson came into his life. Since then, he’s been cutting down on hours until it seemed kind of pointless to work at all.”
“I can understand that,” Angus said, kissing first Ben’s bare shoulder and then mine. I wondered if I was blushing as hard as Ben was.
“I also got the feeling he wants to devote more time to working for the SOS,” Maddox added.
“Jackson works there a lot, too,” David said, and Ben nodded.
We sat enjoying the view of the sunset, and then David said, “Sorry, guys, but we’d better go. Ollie will want to eat. Soon, I’m going to introduce him to solid foods. That will be nice.”
“It’s fine. The animals need to eat, too,” Ben said.
We began to pack up. Now that the sun had dropped, it was getting chilly.
Having dried completely while we ate, the five of us eagerly put on our clothes.
As we headed back to the ranch, the last rays of the sun cast reds, oranges, and yellows over the vast landscape as the rugged mountains receded into shadow.