Page 81 of Brett and Rowdy
They leaned on each other, foreheads pressed together, panting. Both of them stayed silent for long moments, and he couldn’t say he didn’t understand why. They had been damn furious the way they had gone at it.
“Damn, honey.” Brett licked his lower lip, and he imagined it was all sweat there. Salty and good. That was something else.
“Did you ever get the sink working in here?” he asked, because, yeah, he needed to wash up.
“I did. I won’t make us go up to the house without washing up first. Is it going to sound weird that I need to finish up what I was working on before we go?”
He shook his head, a little thrill filling his chest. “Oh, darlin’, if you want me to stay and listen to you work, I think that would be the best thing ever.”
It wasn’t like he didn’t have his phone, if he needed it.
That earned him another hard kiss. “You make me feel ten thousand feet tall, man. I swear to God.”
“Good.” Then Rowdy was doing something right.
It was about damn time.
Chapter Eighteen
“So what are you actually doing here?”
Brett glanced up at Maddie, totally confused. “Pardon me?”
“Well, okay. So like, you’re here, living in Daddy’s room, but you never really say that you’re here, here. Are you moving in? Should we go get your stuff? We could totally have your stuff just packed up and delivered, and then you could be living here.” She tilted her head, and Brett realized all of a sudden that she didn’t even look like South Carolina money anymore. Dewy skin and long, loose curls had become a French braid and lip gloss, gingham had become jewel tones, and the manicured nails were gone. “Or, if you’re just here visiting, this is the longest visit known to man. And we’re fixing to get into the busy hunting season.”
“Does your dad rent out part of his house when it’s hunting season?” He didn’t need this shit.
Brett was happy. He was working. He had done more art pieces in the last three months, than he had in his entire life. He was absolutely over the moon.
Her eyes went wide, and he could see it, the flash of temper, the snap of a woman who was used to getting what she wanted. “You sort of missed the whole point of my little conversation, Brett. The whole conversation was for you to understand that I like you, and Daddy’s really in like with you, and maybe you should just go get your shit and move in. It’s fixin’ to be the holidays in a couple of months. You need all of your stuff from your house.”
Good Lord and butter. “Do you deal with your Kyle like you deal with me?”
She shrugged, not an ounce of hesitation on her face. “Pretty much. Although he’s a little quicker on the pickup.”
“And what about you?” He could push too. “Are you two going to get married?”
“No. Not yet. I’m too young.” She put one hand on her hip. “We’re talking about it. We’re talking about maybe in four years.”
He stared at Madison, who was just as straightforward and logical as all get out. That young lady might not be genetically Rowdy’s, but there was no doubt—none—that she was her daddy’s girl. “Four years. What happens in four years?”
“Well, in four years, we’ll have been dating for six years. We’ll know whether or not we’re going to be all, you know, bored. He’ll have his house paid off so that he doesn’t feel as if he’s coming into this family with nothing. And by then, he thinks that he’ll probably be retired from bulldogging, which is handy because I just can’t travel as much as a bulldogger’s wife needs to travel. So, he’ll be ready to work the ranch with me and Daddy and Pappy, and we figure we’d live here and have his place be a bunkhouse or rent it out. I’ll be twenty-five when we get married, have a baby within two years, have our second baby three years after that.”
“Man plans and God laughs,” he muttered, then spoke louder. “Are they going to be boys or girls?”
Madison gave him the raised eyebrow. “Well, preferably they’d both be girls, but I don’t really get a say in that. That has to do with the man’s sperm. So you’d have to talk to Kyle.”
He started laughing. “You are something else. Do you plan your whole life this way?”
“I do, and for the most part, it works out pretty well. It also gives me some spare time to plan Daddy’s life.”
Smart-assed girl!
“And so, it’s time for you to shit or get off the pot. We would love to have you. Rose likes you. Daddy likes you. Even Pappy likes you.”
“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up. “Well, let me think about it.”
“Do it, because I want my daddy to be happy. He’s a good guy, my daddy. You know, he didn’t have to take me.” She pierced him with a stare, her face still and serious as a heart attack. “He didn’t have to love me. He didn’t have to do anything, even if he just put his name on the birth certificate. He didn’t even have to do that. But he did. He did all of it, and then he loved me too. Those kind of people are rare, and when you find one, it’s stupid to lose them, and it’s like super stupid to lose them twice.”
