Love Under Two Kendalls (7 page)

She’d brought Samantha’s cell phone down with her when she’d left their room heading for the beach. Ginny hauled herself out of the chair and then reached into her pocket and pulled the device out. She looked at it for a long moment, recalling the simple instructions Samantha had given her on using it.

She didn’t know if it was a bad sign, or not, that Adam and Jake hadn’t, either of them, called her. Maybe they were just giving her some space. Lord, she hoped that was it. She hoped they weren’t so mad at her that they didn’t want to have anything more to do with her.

Ginny shook her head. That was Deke-era thinking. She’d never doubted her self-worth before that man had conned his way into her life.
He conned me
. Yes, she understood now that’s exactly what he’d done. Maybe he’d thought she’d be an easy mark because she was a young, single mom. Of course, she’d proven easy to manipulate. She knew now that all he’d wanted to do was to dominate her sexually as well as make her slave for him in other ways.

Virginia Earline Rose was finished with Deke Walters and all the emotional crap that had come with him. It was time she finally flushed it all away. As long as she stayed afraid to move forward, whether he was with her or not, he was still controlling her. Controlling her, and basking in his victory.

By God, she’d had enough of that! She’d had enough of
him
.

And if those two Kendalls thought for one moment they could toss her over just because she’d needed to take a step back from a dangerous situation, well, they had another think coming.

She didn’t let herself consider what she was doing. She just selected speed dial and hit the number beside the first name that came up.

As she listened to the phone ring, she watched Benny building his second sand castle, and began to have self-doubting thoughts all over again. It wouldn’t have hurt her to call Adam and Jake and let them know where she was, and that she was all right. They really had every right to be pissed with her.

“Ginny.”

The sound of Adam’s greeting, soft and deep, pulled a sob out of her, a sob she didn’t even know was there.

“Sweetheart, are you all right?”

His gentle question, brimming with concern, unlocked the gate inside her. The words came flooding out, one after the other in a nonstop apology. “I’m sorry. I should have called you, should have told you how I was feeling. I was afraid, so afraid I couldn’t think, couldn’t sleep. I was afraid he’d find me and make me go back there, to that dark place where I was before. I had to stop that from happening. I had to leave. But I should have called you and Jake and told you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.
Oh, please
.”

“Hush, sweet baby, it’s all right. We’re the ones who need to apologize to you. We never even stopped to ask you how you were feeling, or what you wanted to do about the situation. And we really should have done that. We hope
you
can forgive
us
. Can you, Ginny? Can you forgive us?”

Adam’s words became a balm for her shattered emotions, soothing her and making her yearn all at the same time. Oh, God, she needed them! She needed them both so much. She needed to feel their arms around her, holding her. She needed to feel the beat of their hearts under her ear. She needed the heat of their bodies to come into her own and warm her where she’d been frozen for so long.

“I…yes. Oh, yes. I…I need you. I need you both so much. I wish—”

“Ginny, turn around, baby.”

His words sounded strange and didn’t make any sense at all. Turn around? Turn around how? She blinked as her mind tried to understand what he was saying to her. “I…what?”

“I said, turn around.”

Aside from the laughter she could hear in it, Adam’s voice sounded different, almost as if there were two of him. Understanding became a lightning strike that shot through her, galvanized her. Her heart thudded once, then twice, joy warring with disbelief as she spun around on the sand.

And saw them, the two most wonderful men in the entire world, not fifty feet away from her and headed her way.

Adam closed his phone and tucked it into his pocket just a couple of steps before he reached her. He was wearing the most appealing smile. Ginny felt herself mesmerized by it. She blinked when Jake reached out, laughing, and took the cell phone from her hand.

Then Adam gathered her in, gathered her close in that slow, deliberate way he had and wrapped his arms tight, wonderfully tight, around her.

“Shh, sweet baby, don’t cry, Ginny. Please don’t cry.”

“You’re here. You’re both here. I needed you so much and you’re
here
.”

“Of course we are, love. Because here is where you are.” Jake’s words sounded so very close in her ear.

Adam must have known what she needed because he eased back, ever so gently, and placed a sweet kiss on her lips. He wouldn’t push, and she loved him for that. But she needed more than that little peck.

Feeling bold and daring, she pressed close to him and laid her mouth on his. She needed to taste him.

His flavor unlocked a door within her, and she went wild.

His arms banded around her as his tongue swept out and in, showing her that he needed to taste her, too. Sweet, wonderful arousal flowed through her, a seductive call to her inner woman, and she wished for one wild moment that they were all three of them naked and horizontal. Her pussy grew damp and began to tingle, and wasn’t that an amazing thing?

Adam once more eased back. The fire in his gaze thrilled her. Then he smiled, a slow and seductive smile that tickled her arousal. And then he relinquished her to Jake.

Jake pulled her in just as Benny’s shout reached her from the water’s edge.

“Hey, Mom, look at what…oh
yeah
! Adam! Jake!”

Ginny savored the taste of Jake, sucking him in, using her tongue to gather all that she could, and then burrowed into his embrace. He turned them slightly so she could watch as her boy ran fast, oh so very fast, laughing and calling the names of the two men who’d become his heroes over the last several months.

Then Benny leapt, mid-run, and Adam caught him, laughing himself, and held his small body safe and close.

Ginny looked at them then,
really
looked, and finally saw the love on Adam’s face, and Benny’s. How could she have not seen that love before now?

In the next moment she found herself turned loose as Benny literally launched himself from one brother to the other. Oh, yes, these two Kendalls both loved her son more, far, far more than she’d realized.

Adam, grinning wider than she’d ever seen him grin, stepped closer and slid his arm around her. He hugged her tight to his side.

“Did you come all the way from Lusty to have a vacation with us?” Benny asked.

“You bet we did. We couldn’t let y’all have fun without us,” Jake said.

“Ahem.”

Ginny—and everyone else—turned at the sound. She hadn’t even noticed her aunt approach, and tried not to blush as she realized the woman must have seen both of those very arousing lip-locks. Maggie just stood there, a bemused smile on her face, her gaze going from Adam to Jake.

“Aunt Maggie, this is Jake and that’s Adam. They came to have a vacation with us. Isn’t that cool?”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

Ginny couldn’t help but laugh at Benny’s enthusiasm. “Adam and Jake Kendall, meet Margaret Morrison, who prefers to be called Maggie.”

“Ma’am,” Adam didn’t release Ginny as he shook hands with Maggie. Jake shifted his load of Benny to accomplish the same task.

“I suppose it’s a fortunate thing for everyone that the room next to yours is available,” Maggie said to her. Ginny tried, but failed, to stop her blush.

Maggie just laughed and turned her attention back to the men. “If you gentlemen planned to stay, that is.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Adam said. “We’ll be staying for as long as Ginny and Benny are. And yes, we’d like the room next door to them.”

Maggie waved her hand. “Just Maggie, please. I doubt I’m much older than either of you.”

“I’d have said younger,” Jake said.

“Oh, aren’t you sweet?” Maggie smiled as she said that. “Well then, how about if one of you comes up to the office, and we can do the paperwork on that unit?”

“I’ll go,” Jake said. “My guide, here, can give me directions.”

“Why don’t we all go?” Adam reached out and ran his hand down Benny’s back. “Then we can get our bags out of the car, settle in, and see about having lunch.” He turned to look at Maggie. “Will you join us?”

“I’m on duty here until seven, when my night manager comes in. But I’ll let you take me out to dinner. There’re a couple of pretty good steak and seafood restaurants in Wildwood.”

“Dinner it is.”

Ginny felt herself relax in the easy camaraderie between her aunt and the Kendalls. She already knew that Maggie had a way of making a body feel at ease, which she imagined came in handy, in her business.

As for the brothers Kendall, she didn’t think there was a woman or child alive who could resist their charm.

At least, she and her son sure hadn’t been able to.

“Is that all right with you, sweetheart?”

Adam’s voice, pitched in just that way, sent delicious shivers down her spine. She decided that she loved the way he called her sweetheart. She loved it a lot.

“That sounds wonderful,” Ginny said. “And because y’all didn’t even have a reservation, I think we should go to the most expensive restaurant on the island.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Since both Adam and Jake said that at the same time, Ginny reckoned it was a done deal.

* * * *

It didn’t happen very often that Adam liked a person right off the bat. But he liked Maggie Morrison. He’d never tell Ginny, of course, that he’d had the woman checked out when he first learned of her existence a few months back. And because Adam was a sheriff with connections in interesting places, he’d learned more about the woman than, say, would be available to the average person running a credit check—or even the average private investigator hired to do a deep background search.

He knew that Ginny’s aunt had never been married, and that she’d cared for her severely ill mother—Ginny’s grandmother—for the last six years of that woman’s life. He knew she ran her business well, made a moderately good income, paid her bills on time, and had never been in trouble with the law. She’d had a few speeding tickets, but none serious.

He knew one more thing, too, something that for him was easy to see. Maggie Morrison genuinely liked Ginny and Benny Rose, and they liked her right back.

“These two units are the only ones that face the ocean on this floor,” Ginny said as Jake unlocked the door.

“So that means we’ll have privacy,” Adam said, and enjoyed the blush that statement brought to Ginny’s pretty face.

“Well now.” she sent him a smoldering look in return that heated his blood and made his cock begin to harden. “Privacy is a relative thing, isn’t it, Sheriff?”

“Oh, wow, it’s almost exactly like our room!” Benny raced into the space, and Ginny grinned. Adam couldn’t decide if she smiled at Benny’s enthusiasm or his own inability, because of little eyes and ears, to respond the way he wanted to.

However, their woman did have a point. They’d have limited privacy, because Benny would be with them every waking moment.

Adam mentally shrugged. He certainly wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s like our room only backwards,” Benny said. “It even has that weird door that goes nowhere ’cept to another door!”

Jake looked at Adam and then Ginny and raised his eyebrows in a comic gesture. Then he opened the door in question and looked down at Benny. “This door actually goes to your room.”

“It does?”

Could anyone invoke a tone of wonder like a curious child? Adam didn’t think so.

“Go on over to our room and open that door, Benny,” Ginny said.

Almost super excited, Benny raced out one unit, and then right into the next. It took the little guy only a few moments to fumble with the lock and then open the connecting door.

“Hi Jake! Hi Adam! This is cool. It’s like we’ve got one big room and we’re all staying together!”