Calendar Girl: November: Book 11 Page 8

  Her eyes widened. “I have an Uncle Wes?” Her words were tinged with shocked excitement, befitting her four, almost five, years of age.

  I shifted her weight onto one hip. “You do.”

  Wes walked up and tugged on her hand. “Hello, Isabel. I’m Weston.”

  “What a silly name.” It came out of her mouth with crooked smile.

  “Bell!” Max scolded instantly, but I shook my head and gave him a dirty look. She was a child, and they were innocent.

  Wes chuckled approvingly. “You know what’s even sillier?” He got close to her face.

  She pinched her lips and looked up at the sky. “Hot dogs?”

  That had both Wes and me laughing. Max just stood there with his hand over his mouth, trying not to encourage her with his laugher.

  “What?” Her little face scrunched up into one of indignation. “It’s food, not a dog that’s hot. Silly.” I had to give it to her. The logic was sound.

  “That is true. But what I was referring to that was silly is that my name has a number in it!”

  Isabel’s mouth made the shape of a surprised O and her eyes widened. “No way!”

  “Way. My official name is Weston Charles Channing the Third.” He held up three fingers, and she looked at them as if they were about to shoot off of his hand like little rockets into the sky right in front of her eyes.

  “Wow. That is…so cool! Daddy, can I have a number in my name? I’d like to be five.”

  That time, Max did laugh. “Darlin’, you have already been named, and no, you cannot have a number in your name. But you will be five in April. Can you wait until then?”

  “No, Daddy, I really can’t. It’s forever long.” She pouted and I kissed her sweet little cheek. She smelled like maple syrup and crayons.

  “Go on in, Bell, and tell your momma your auntie and uncle are here. Okay?”

  She wiggled her feet so I set her down, and she was off like a shot. Man, kids moved fast. Everywhere they went had to be at a dead run, even if it was only twenty feet away.

  I walked over to my brother and face-planted against his chest. Wrapping my arms around his large frame, I hugged him as tight as I could. He smelled of leather and laundry detergent. Familiar and comforting.

  “So good to see you, sugar. Having you here for Thanksgiving means uh, you know…” He let the words just fall off, his voice sounding rougher than normal.

  And I did know what it meant to him. Maxwell Cunningham was a family man above all. Rich as the sky is vast, but he’d say it was the love of his family that made him a rich man, not the millions in his bank account.

  “Maxwell Cunningham, I want you to meet my fiancé, Weston Channing.”

  Max grinned wide, held out a hand, and the second Wes clasped his, Max brought their bodies into one of those man-hug-smack-the-back holds. “Real good to meet ya, partner. Mia was damn near sick about you being missing. I’ll bet you’re glad to be back in the States and with our girl.”

  I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t have seen it with my own eyes, but Wes’s cheeks pinked up. He shook his head, shuffled his feet, and nodded. I also noted that he did not ream Max for saying “our girl” like he did when Anton had said it. Interesting.

  “So good to be back. All I thought about was this beautiful woman and making her mine.” He looped an arm around my waist and crushed me to his side.

  Max’s eyes went soft, crinkling at the edges. “Sometimes a man has to fight his way through hell to know how good he has it. I reckon you learned that the hard way, and I’m damn sorry ’bout that, but happy you're back in the land of the free and home of the brave. Welcome to my ranch.” Such a cowboy thing to say, and I loved my brother even more for it.

  Wes tipped his head and tightened his hold. He eyed the land around him, his eyes a startling green. “Amazing land. You own all these acres?” Wes asked, pointing to the trees and beyond.

  Maxwell pointed to the areas where he wanted us to look. “Not as many as Cunningham Oil does, but I own a good lot here. You see that barn over there with the J on it? That’s the Jensens’ place. You know Aspen.”

  Wes lifted a hand to look at the barn. “Holy shit, I totally forgot. I was here for Aspen and Hank’s wedding a couple years back.” Then Wes eyed Max. “Dude, we’ve met before.”

  Maxwell laughed and nodded. “Yep, at the wedding, briefly. Come on in. Let me reintroduce you to my wife, Cyndi.” He started up the steps, but Wes stopped him.

  “What about the land over there?” He pointed to a long wide expanse of tall grass and trees galore.

  “Own that, too. The land on the side of the Jensen farm I sold to Aspen and Hank when they got married. They swore not sell to land munchers. I also own the acres surrounding my property. There’s a couple vacant farm houses that I’m not sure whether to break down or keep in the family.”

  Wes pursed his lips and gripped Max on the shoulder. “I reckon you should keep it in the family.” Wes’s voice dipped into a lousy imitation of a southern drawl, mimicking Max’s.

  “I reckon you got that right,” Max said, something crossing over his face as he silently communicated with Wes. “Houses will need some work, some serious elbow grease,” he said randomly.

  I was totally starting to lose the conversation and moved ahead of the guys talking houses and land. Boring.

  “No stranger to hard work,” was the last thing I heard Wes say. It probably should have worried me, but frankly, I was too interested in meeting my nephew to care about ranches and land.

  “Come on, guys. I want to meet baby Jack!”

  * * *

  It was official. There was nothing sweeter than holding a baby only weeks old. The really cool part was that his eyes seemed like they were green, just like mine, Maddy’s, and Max’s. His hair even had brown tufts at the crown of his powdery-smelling head.

  “I think he could end up a brunette,” I said out loud to no one in particular.

  Cyndi plopped down next to me. “Really?” She smoothed her hand over his head. The second Jack felt or smelled his mamma, his lips puckered and his mouth started working in a sucking motion. Next came the head rooting around. “Oh, someone’s hungry,” she cooed at Jack.

  Instead of going out of the room, Cyndi grabbed the blanket hanging over the couch, covered her shoulder and arm, wiggled something under the blanket, and I could hear Jack nursing. Life of a super mom.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked, glancing down to where she was feeding her child.

  “Not gonna lie, Mia. It hurts like hell the first few days, and your nipples can end up cracking and bleeding, but the connection you feel to your child, the nourishment he gets from your milk gets you past those first few days of torture.

  “Torture?” I gulped.

  She smiled. “Promise it’s worth it. Speaking of, congratulations are in order, I see,” she said, looking down toward my left hand.

  I frowned. “Max didn’t tell you?”

  Cyndi shook her head. “Sure he did. Are you kidding? That man waited all of two seconds to tell me. Basically the time it took for him to hang up the phone before he was screaming my name through the house to tell me that both his sisters were getting married. He woke up Jack and Isabel from their naps."

  Glancing around the room, I made sure nobody was around. “If my Pops doesn’t wake up, I’m going to ask Max if he’ll walk me down the aisle.”

  Cyndi’s eyes filled with tears, and she started to sniff. “You don’t know how much that will mean to him.” A tear fell down her cheek, and she swiped it away.

  “Don’t cry.” I cringed, worried I shouldn’t have said anything.

  “Honey, its hormones. I cry over everything. Hell, yesterday I was watching TV, and a commercial for Tums came on. The pregnant woman was pressing her hand to her heart. Yeah, that made me cry. Remembering the heartburn I had with Jack and I was a bundle of tears. Really, I’m fine.” She laughed.

  Wow. Pregnancy jacks up a woman. Big time.


  How would I handle it? Did I even want to? I thought of Weston holding our own son or daughter and decided, yeah, I’d go through just about anything to have a child with Wes's eyes staring up at me one day.

  “Are you guys done? Having kids?” I asked as she pulled a sleepy Jackson out from under the blanket, readjusted her shirt, and put the blanket back over the couch as if nothing had happened. Yep, super mom.

  “Nope. I think we’ll have another two children.”

  My eyes widened to the size of Olympic pools. “Four kids!”

  She grinned. “Max wants six! I compromised at four. He wants a big family around him at all times. Says it makes working hard worth it, and he loves coming home after a full day’s work to the sound of children. Plans to name one of them after you and Maddy, too. And I agreed.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Cyndi, you already did that with adding Saunders as Jackson’s middle name. You don’t have to do that. At all. Really.”

  She shook her head. “We want our kids to know their aunties and grow up with them in their lives. Know that the names we chose were given because good people loved them. Who better than their aunties?”

  Um, I could think of a hundred more deserving people, but it would just fall on deaf ears. I’d found out the hard way that when Max and Cyndi made decisions, they were a hardcore team and did not break for anyone. They were the type of people anyone would want in their family. People always willing to have your back, love you no matter what, and put you first. Another reason to be thankful.

  The sound of tires crunching on the drive and Isabel’s little feet plunking down the stairs in a mad dash announced that Maddy and Matt had just arrived.

  * * *

  Hand in hand, Wes and I walked through the trees on my brother’s property.

  “Max is a great guy,” Wes said, maneuvering around a giant log.

  I smiled and squeezed his hand. “He is. The best.”

  “And your sister, wow. It’s like meeting the exact opposite of you, yet somehow not.” The little lines on his brow became more visible when he pinched his lips together.

  I chuckled. “Maddy is love. Everything about her exudes it. She’s a free spirit that way. Only instead of having the hippie nature a typical free spirit has, she’s the intelligent, nose-stuck-in-a-book type who doesn’t let anything bring her down. I think that’s what draws Matt to her. He’s more reserved, conservative, but his family is really kind and completely committed to him and Maddy sharing their life together.”

  Wes nodded. “That’s good. It’s probably nice to know that you don’t have to take care of everything for her anymore.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. You’d think that, but I’ve spent my life taking care of her. Making sure everything was as perfect as I could make it. It was kind of my purpose. Now, she’s killing it in school, close to getting her bachelor's. Max has already paid off the next few years of schooling so that she can get her master's and doctorate. The Rains pay for her and Matt’s apartment so they don’t have to work and can focus on school. And now that she has money, again because Max made sure of it, she doesn’t need me for anything.”

  Wes stopped in the middle of a clearing. We’d walked a good quarter mile or more from Maxwell’s ranch house. I could barely see it off in the distance through the copse of trees.

  “Does it make you feel useless?” Wes tipped his head and waited for me to respond.

  I thought about the word useless and how it pertained to the situation. “Not exactly. More un-needed. I’m not used to being unnecessary to my sister.”

  He scoffed. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re unnecessary to your sister. I could tell from the second she arrived that you're her touchstone. Even though she knew everyone in that room aside from me, it was you she immediately went to, you she sat next to at dinner, you she hovered around. Mia, I think you’re far more than just her sister. You’re the center of her world. Just like you’re the center of mine.”

  Man I loved him. He knew exactly the right thing to say to make me feel better. “I know she’s growing up and things are changing. It’s just hard. I’ve been responsible for her since she was five years old.”

  Wes’s jaw hardened, and a muscle ticked in his cheek. “You had no business being responsible for your sister. You were only ten years old. Your mother and father made some bad choices, and although things worked out for you and Madison in the end, you still shouldn’t have had to give up your own childhood to make it so. That’s not how we’re going to raise our children,” he said with a hard edge.

  Perfect timing to bring up the topic we’d hadn’t really ever discussed. “So you want children then?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. As much as I’d have liked to have a child or two, I wasn’t dead set on the idea like some of the people I knew, breeder Cyndi for one.

  Wes’s head snapped up. “Of course I do. Don’t you?”

  A breath I didn’t know I was holding while waiting for his answer left my lungs in a plume of mist into the Texas sky. “With you, I do.”

  He came over to me and loosely grasped my hips. I was glad he did. A conversation like this needed to be had while touching the other.

  “I’d never really thought about it before you, which I think says a lot about our relationship.”

  He grinned one of those heart-stopping grins that left me wanting to crawl up his body and take him right here, out in the open field.

  “Me either. Well, not seriously. When I thought about life during my captivity, I kept imagining you swollen with my child, carrying our son and holding hands with our daughter someday in the not too distant future. It gave me hope. Something to wish for and dream of during the darkest times.” Wes cleared his throat. “Sometimes I’d have my eyes wide open, but all I’d see was you and a future I was worried we wouldn’t have. Again, that’s why I don’t want to wait to marry you. I want us to live each day to the fullest and accept anything that comes our way together.”

  I swept my fingers through his dirty blond hair. “I like that idea very much.” I rose onto my toes and took his mouth in a kiss. We stood there out in an open field and kissed like we’d never get another opportunity. Fierce. Untamed. Wild.

  The kiss turned heated, and there was nothing and no one around to stop the fire building. Wes got frisky, hands running up and down my back and then molding to my ass. He easily lifted me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist and plunged my tongue deeper into his mouth. Before I realized what was happening, we were on the move, his strides long and purposeful.

  Within twenty feet, we were back in the thick of the trees and my back was up against one huge trunk. The branches reached stories into the sky, the trunk wider than our bodies. Wes let my feet drop to the ground where he made quick work of the button and zipper on my pants.

  “Here?” I looked around wildly, making sure there really wasn’t anyone around.

  Wes’s knees hit the ground. He tugged off each tennis shoe, pulled down my jeans and underwear, leaving me in nothing but my sweater and long coat. He got close to the wet heart of me and inhaled. “Christ, I love the way you smell when you’re turned on.” His gaze rose to mine as his tongue went out and flicked delectably against my clit. I moaned and gripped his hair.

  “You’re crazy,” I whispered.

  “And you’re tasty. Now lean back and enjoy.” He spread my labia with both thumbs, licking me from the entrance to the tip of my slut button.

  It took Wes exactly one minute to have me pressing his head against my center, grinding shamelessly against his lips, desperately searching for that spot that would send me over the edge. He palmed my thigh, lifted it up, and laid it over his shoulder, giving him better access.

  “Oh, Jesus, Wes. I’m gonna come.”

  He lapped long and deep, sticking is tongue as far as he could go in this position. My body was alight with tingles, my orgasm right on the edge.

  “Baby,” I warned again, in case he wanted to stop an
d take me with his cock.

  He growled, pressed me open wider, and sucked hard on my clit. That was all it took. Every pore screamed. Each neuron fired. My entire body sizzled with heat as a beautiful wave of pleasure rippled through me. I fucked his face like a prized jockey riding a racehorse.

  The orgasm went on and on until his lips left me right in the middle. I cried out. I was not done with him or his talented tongue. “No!”

  And then all was right in the world again when somehow he’d unbuttoned his pants, pulled out his fat cock, and slammed home in one brutal thrust. With a swift lift, he hefted my legs up, and I wrapped them around his waist, wanting him closer. My back hit the tree, and his hand protected the back of my head from crashing against the tree with the force of each thrust.

  “Gonna fuck you until you come again. Want to swallow this orgasm from these lips.” He spoke into my mouth and then dipped his tongue in to tangle with mine. He tasted of my arousal, salty and sweet at the same time.

  I groaned, lifted my head back while he bit and nipped at my exposed neck. “Love you, Wes. God, I love you so much it hurts sometimes.”

  The man played my body against that tree as if he were a lumberjack cutting wood. Only it was my pussy he pierced with his thick cock the same way I imagined an axe pounded into a tree. Hard. Relentless. Ruthless.

  “Get there,” Wes ground out through his teeth, picking up the pace of his thrusts.

  “Honey, need you to shift,” I begged.

  He rotated his cock in a circular motion, and I moaned. When I gasped, signaling he’d hit the right spot, he grinned wickedly. Then he backed his cock out to the tip and rammed home, the crown of his dick hitting that special spot in me that had my o-trigger singing halle-fuckin-lu-ya.

  “Oh, yeah, you’re gonna come again for me.” He thrust repeatedly, not letting up. Sweat misted against his brow, and his breath came in harsh labored puffs against my face.

  Wes’s hips moved so fast I couldn’t keep up with his rhythm. His cock punched at my g-spot over and over until my entire body turned to liquid and I howled my release to the darkening sky.