Chapter 28
Gunner
Gunner
After the night before, waking up with a honker was totally expected.
Waking up alone wasn’t. I thought that maybe I could give Cassidy another taster of the mind blowing orgasms that I offered.
She, however, was nowhere to be seen. I waited a couple of minutes wondering if maybe she was in the bathroom, but when she didn’t return I knew she’d left my bed.
Who knew how long she’d been gone because her side of the bed was cold.
Turning on my side, I picked up my phone where it was charging on the nightstand. It was a little after seven-thirty. Saturday was the day me and my brother’s took off, but we were still usually up and about by seven.
I quickly dressed in last night’s clothes, which I noted had been folded neatly on the armchair by my window and left my room.
When I checked the kid’s rooms all I found were empty beds and a chaos of toys and books, the remnants of two happy, well-loved tiny humans.
The bathroom was empty, only a couple of damp towels hanging over the side of Lily’s beloved free standing claw foot bath that Nash had installed for her.
Still no sign of Cassidy, my blood went cold.
Had she thought that last night was a mistake?
Would she really have taken the time to fold my clothes if she’d been desperate to get out of there?
Running down the stairs, I felt a nervous sickness in my stomach, the like I’d only felt once before.
It was the day Mom died and Sheriff Donnelly, Sheriff Jackson’s predecessor, knocked on the door and said he needed to speak to Dad.
It was only when I reached the bottom step that my heartbeat righted itself.
I could hear Cassidy talking to Lily in hushed tones followed by Lily’s laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, standing in the doorway and drinking in the sight.
Cassidy turned her sparkling eyes on me and clutched her mug of coffee to her chest. A chest covered in one of my t-shirts. It was way too big, falling past her knees and off one shoulder but I didn’t think I’d ever seen a more gorgeous outfit on a woman.
“Morning,” she said, her voice all breathy.
“Morning, sweetheart.” I pointed a finger up and down her body. “I see you borrowed my tee.”
“Yeah, is that okay? Lily told me to grab it out of your pile in the laundry. I spilled milk down my sweater.”
“Rather Billy did,” Lily chipped in, drying her hands on a towel. “Cassidy brought the kids down for breakfast at six to give us some more sleep.” A smirk licked at my sister-in-law’s lips. “Wasn’t that kind of her?”
“Hmm,” I mumbled walking toward Cassidy, the smell of coffee and laundry settling around me.
“She shouldn’t have.” I took the mug from her hand, placed it on the island counter and then wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her hard against me.
“I missed you.” Before she could reply, I dropped my mouth to her and kissed her hard, making it clear just why she shouldn’t have got up with the kids.
After what could have been seconds, minutes or hours, I wasn’t sure, Lily cleared her throat. “Just so you know, Bertie is already asking questions about why Miss. Turner was here for breakfast.”
Slowly removing my mouth from Cassidy’s I looked at Lily, my arms still wrapped around my prize. “What did you say?”
“I told her that you and I were friends and so I’d had a sleepover,” Cassidy answered the question.
I turned back to her. “I thought we agreed we would say you were my girlfriend, and you stayed the night.”
Lily made a funny little noise, a cross between a gasp and a snort of laughter, and I wondered whether she was about to choke.
“You okay, Lil?” I asked, giving her a raised eyebrow.
“Ah ha. All good,” she replied through a cough. “I’m just going to find Nash and Wilder, they’re outside playing football with Bertie and Billy. They both owe me fifty bucks.”
I frowned. “Did you all have a wager on us getting together?” I asked, pulling Cassidy closer.
“Lily!” Cassidy sighed. “You’re my friend.”
“Exactly.” Lily patted Cassidy’s arm. “Which is why I won the bet and they didn’t.
They had Summer break and Thanksgiving.” She threw the towel on the side and then went out the back door leading to the small pasture where Nash had made a jungle gym for the kids.
Before she closed the door I heard her yell.
“Hey guys, guess who won the bet, that’s right, not you losers. ”
Cassidy and I started to laugh and my hold on her grew tighter as we watched each other.
“I thought you’d gone,” I told her, feeling unnecessary anxiety.
“I had to get out of bed, you my friend are like a furnace.” She patted my chest. “I thought I was going to melt into the mattress.”
“You should have woken me.”
She shook her head. “No, you needed your sleep. I know Saturday is your day off. Besides, it was nice to get some sleepy squidges from Billy. And then of course Bertie woke and came down and found us, so I just gave them their breakfast.” She inhaled. “I’m sorry if I worried you.”
“It’s okay, but next time wake me.”
Hesitancy flashed through her eyes. “So, there will be a next time?”
“Of course there will.” I dropped a kiss on her lips. “How the hell else do I show you my full repertoire of orgasms if I don’t get to have you all night? And to be honest when you have a dick as beautiful as mine, it’ll be hard for you to say no once you get a look at it.”
She smirked and rolled her eyes. “Is that so?”
“Absolutely.” I was about to kiss her again when the back door burst open and Nash barreled in.
“Sorry to interrupt guys but I’ve just had a call from Nate Jenkins. He’s in town and wondered if we could meet him in a couple of hours.” He looked at Cassidy. “You think we’re ready with the documentation?”
“I do, but I’ll need to go home and get the printouts I did on the school computer and the pen drive of some other stuff it’s saved on. My laptop is still being repaired, can we take yours, Gunner?”
“Sure sweetheart.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. “I’ll need to shower and change if you want me to come.”
“Of course we do,” Nash and I both said at the same time.
“If I go now I think I can be back here in an hour and a half. Or I can try.” She looked at me with a little trepidation in her eyes. “I feel like we need to have one last check-in to make sure we’re all prepared, because this could be important.”
Blowing out a breath, I nodded and turned to Nash. “She has a point.”
“Okay, I’ll call him back,” Nash’s reply was immediate. “I’ll ask if he can make it after lunch instead. He pulled out his phone and then looked at us both. “Let’s hope he’s a good man underneath the suits and the money.”
I hoped so, too, but something told me the fight for our town’s land wasn’t going to be that easy.
When Nate Jenkins asked us to meet him at Rafferty’s bar in Clementine Hill I thought he was joking.
The man was a multi-millionaire. I expected to at least be seated in the library of his huge mansion, assuming he had a huge mansion.
As we were meeting him in a bar I was surprised to see him walk in wearing a suit, albeit without the tie at the neck of his crisp white shirt.
“He looks very serious,” Cassidy whispered next to me.
He was also a good looking bastard and instinctively I placed a hand on her thigh. As he approached our table we all stood to greet him. Nash was first to hold out his hand.
“Nash Miller, good to meet you.”
“Hey, Nash, great to meet you, too.” Jenkins flashed us all a smile and then held his hand out to Cassidy. “You must be Miss. Turner, the one who provided such an impassioned and well-thought out argument as to why I shouldn’t develop the land.”
Pride for my girl had me grinning until my cheeks ached. He was right it had been well-thought out and impassioned.
“Wilder Miller.” My youngest brother hung one hang from his hip while Jenkins shook his other.
“And so, you must Gunner. The middle brother.”
“You’ve done your homework.” His handshake was strong and his palm cool. They were two positives at least.
“I’m a great believer in knowing who your opposition is.” He smiled but it was flat and that was a negative.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Nash said in a low voice.
“Exactly,” Jenkins agreed. “Now, shall we sit. I asked Milo, the owner, to reserve us a table out the back where it’s quieter.”
I looked around the bar, with that familiar odor of beer and cleaning products, to see there were only two other people in there. One of them was the barman counting bottles of beer. It couldn’t be any quieter unless it was closed.
Jenkins moved past us, and as he did Cassidy shrugged her shoulders as if she was asking me what I thought. I held out my hands, palms up, silently telling her I didn’t know what to think.
“Let’s keep our powder dry folks,” Nash said quietly as we followed to the back of the bar. “Only discuss what we’ve documented and don’t be drawn into any other conversation about any other part of the land. And do not lose your tempers.”
Wilder smirked and saluted him. “Sir, yes sir.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, Nash followed our host to a room with a pool table and three or four other tables dotted around. One of them had a jug of water on it and five glasses. There were also five glossy booklets.
“Looks like he’s come prepared, too,” Cassidy whispered.
“Yep, sure does.” I took her hand in mine and gave it a squeeze. “We’re ready for him, though, sweetheart.”
A little while later my personal impression of Nate Jenkins had changed somewhat. The man was passionate about his work. More importantly he was passionate about the environment. Which begged the question why he was building a damn meat packing factory. A question that I was about to ask.