Second Chances (8 page)

Guilt slammed into Grey’s chest and nearly squeezed the blood from his heart. What the hell was she doing in Sarah’s kitchen? And why the fuck was his dick inflating like a goddamn parade float on speed.

“What’s wrong, Grey, honey? You eat something for lunch that didn’t agree with you?” His mom discarded the pie she was putting away in the fridge and reached up to place a hand on his forehead l
ike he was still a fucking two year old. Grey jerked away from his mother’s ministrations and glanced at his brothers, and then back to Claira.

“Yeah, bro.
You look like you’ve been suckin’ on a sack full of lemons all day.” Matt knew Grey was pissed. He knew what he was pissed about, too. He also knew he was done walkin’ on eggshells around Grey. It was past time his big brother got over it.

“Daddy Greys home!” Two small but loud voices called from the hall.
The twins slammed into Grey’s legs with unabashed excitement. “Daddy Grey! Daddy Grey! Papaw Jake says he likes the grey puppy, but…but Papaw Nate says we should pick the white one.” Car pulled at Grey’s pant leg and reached up to tug at his hand. “I want you to help us decide, daddy.”

“I like the black one.” Con sniffled and wiped at h
is runny nose with the back of his shirt sleeve.

“Here, Con.” Hazel ripped
a paper towel from the roll on the counter. “Blow,” she order and Con complied without complaint. She gently dabbed at his face and wadded the towel in her hand then tossed it in the trash. “What did the pediatrician say about his allergies, Grey?”

Claira looked up from Con’s dirty face and found herself pinned down by Grey’s icy
, green stare. Besides her embarrassment over their first meeting, she also began to feel like Alice in Wonderland. Specifically the part where she would drink the potion and shrink to the size of a thumbtack. Or was that when she ate the cookie? Either way, Claira felt as though she had been reduced to the size of a bug and Grey loomed over her with his big foot poised above her head, about to crush her to smithereens. The look on his face told her that was exactly what he thought of her. A parasite that had invaded his home.

And clearly, he had also been married to Sarah. Matt’s words came back to her with a
haunting rush of understanding she hadn’t had before.
‘In our hearts we all belonged to her.’
Even though she didn’t fully understand Grey’s surliness toward her, she couldn’t help but think what an incredibly blessed woman Sarah had been. And what an incredible idiot she had been to think she had any business here.

“Grey?” Hazel
prodded. “Con’s allergies?”

Grey snapped his focus to his
mom and scrubbed a heavy hand over his face. “They’re running tests, ma. Doc Jessop said we should probably keep him out of the barn during haying season.” He looked down at his sniffling son. “Which, other than being grounded, is another good reason for both of them stay out of the barn.” He ruffled Car’s hair and gave them a both a pat on their rumps. “Go brush your teeth and get ready for a bath. Then it’s bed time for both of you.” He barked.

“But,
daaaad! I’m not sick!” Car whined.

“I’ve had enough of your arguing, boy!
Do what you’re told! Now! Or you can kiss you’re puppies goodbye!” Grey snapped back. The boy’s excitement deflated instantly and they sulked their way up the stairs without any further arguments.

Grey’s
burning glance shot to Mason and Matt, clearly daring them to confront him, then bounced up to her again. She felt it hit her square in the stomach like an invisible force. The tension in the room was thick enough to stir with a wooden spoon.

“Grey,
” Mason cleared his throat. “This is Con and Car’s new teacher. Miss Claira Robbins. She’s going to be helping Con a couple nights a week during the summer break.” Mason’s gaze held the same challenge Grey’s had as he narrowed his eyes.

Grey nodded and snapped his
sharp stare back to her. His nostrils flared as his breaths deepened. Something shifted in his expression but Claira couldn’t quite make out what had changed. “We’ve met.” He finally said in a clipped tone.

Claira cleared her throat and nervously pushed her purse strap higher onto
her shoulder. “I should be going.” She momentarily glanced at Josiah, and then to Matt and Mason who jumped to either side of her.

“No, honey.
You finish up with the boys here.” Hazel patted her arm and winked at her. What that was about she wasn’t exactly certain, but she was sure that she couldn’t stay here under the torturous stare that Grey seemed determined to wield like a knife to her soul.

“Butt…”
She started.

“Butt, nothin’.”
Joe insisted. “I parked the truck behind your car anyway, so you can’t leave until we do. Tiny little thing that it is, I damn near ran over that contraption before I figured out what it was. Don’t see you makin’ it up this driveway in that thing come winter. You might ought to be thinkin’ about tradin’ it in for an adult version before the snow sets in. Maybe somthin’ with four wheel drive and a motor, instead of a hamster.”

“Josiah! Stop teasing the poor girl
!” Hazel slapped his arm and pushed him past Grey, out of the kitchen and down the hallway.

“I’m just sayin’!
” Joe went on as he made his way down the hall. “Hamsters tend to freeze up around here about mid-November. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if she got stranded out in the middle of a storm because her hamster died of hypothermia.”

Shaking their heads,
Matt and Mason took Claira’s hands and pulled her past a fuming Grey to follow their parents to the door. Claira felt the heat rolling off Grey as she ducked past him in retreat without looking back. “Goodnight, Momma, Poppa Joe. Thanks for the left overs.” Mason helped Hazel slip on her sweater and she leaned in to give him a peck on his cheek.

“It was nice to meet you, Mrs. McLendon
, Mr. McLendon.” Claira allowed herself to hug the woman back when she had pulled her into her arms with an unexpected strength. It felt strange, yet somehow right.

Hazel gripped her shoulders in her hands and leaned back to look at her.
“Now I’m only going to say this one more time, then I’m going to have to unleash Joe on you again. It’s just Hazel. You make a young woman feel old when you start in on that
Mrs
. business.”

Claira laughed and shyly nodded. “Sorry. I’
ll remember that.”

“You do that, honey.” She patted Claira’s arm and then swatted Matt and Mason on their back sides
as she tipped her head toward the kitchen. “Don’t be too hard on your brother, boys. I imagine he’s had a rough time of it today and he’ll need some time to sort it all out.”

Matt
nodded but he had full intentions of giving Grey exactly what he needed. An all-out, old fashioned ass whipping. It had been years since they had gone at it, but that dry spell was one he would damn well be putting an end to tonight. Being a giant fucktard to Claira was bad enough, but he’d be damned if he was going to let him use their boys as a whipping post for his emotional problems.

Seeing her opportunity to escape, Claira ducked out the door behind Hazel. Matt and Mason followed her out onto the porch and captured her hands, putting a halt to her determined strides toward the steps. She tugged at her hands in attempt
to free them but they tightened their grip, tugging her back to them as they leaned back against the wood railing that surrounded the porch.

“Wait,” Mason said as he pulled her against him and snuggled her to his chest. “Sorry, sweetheart. That kind of got a little out of hand in there.”

A little?
Since their kiss—which was exactly how Claira had come to think of it, as if she had kissed them both—her head hadn’t stopped spinning and her stomach was in knots. All she wanted to do was go home, hope that her water heater had had second thoughts and decided to play nice and take a hot shower. Then crawl into bed and bawl her eyes out.

“Hey,” Matt said as he gently cupped her cheek in his palm. “What’s that look
for, darlin’? What’s wrong?”

Where did she begin?

“Don’t close down on us, darlin’.” Usually Mason was the one that could read people like a book, but even Matt could see she was shutting down on them.

Claira let out
a frustrated sigh and rubbed her aching temples. The psychology lover in her wanted to list, catalog and self-analyze all of the feelings that were eating away at her. A few off the top of her head made their way to a mental checklist; overwhelmed, scared, excited, horny, sad. The one that she scrawled in big, bold letters at the top was
TIRED.
Going with that one was definitely her safest option.

“I think I’m just really tired. I need a long
, hot shower and some time alone to think, but even that won’t be possible tonight.” She tried to keep the whine out of her voice but even she could hear it.

Mason pulled back and
placed a soothing kiss to her forehead then turned her until her back was to him. He gripped the top of her shoulders and began a smooth, slow massage of her tense muscles. “Why’s that, sweetheart? It sounds like a good plan to me if you’re that tired. It’s Friday. You don’t have class tomorrow. Get all warm and toasty, snuggle into bed and sleep in tomorrow.” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words ‘
long’
—‘
hot’
—and ‘
shower’
together in the same sentence. He had nearly choked on the word ‘
bed’
.

“That’s just it.”
The things Mason was doing to her shoulders felt so good that she had to focus all her inner strength into breathing, putting those three words into a coherent phrase and keeping her knees locked so she didn’t melt into a gooey mess at their feet.

Standing in front of her,
Matt knew Mason had found a weakness when her head fell forward and she relaxed against his chest. “What’s it, darlin’?”

“My water heater.”
She answered in almost a slur.

Matt groaned to himself. He could imagine her husky v
oice, in that lazy tone, moaning his name as he licked her cream from her pussy, her pink lips milking his tongue as she fell from her climax.

“What’s wrong with it?” Mason asked, snapping Matt from his entranced
state.

“
Mmm.” She moaned as Mason found a particularly tender spot. “It’s broken. I have to call the landlord tomorrow. It will probably take him a few days to get it fixed so I won’t be…ahh…taking any hot showers for a while.”

“Who’s your landlord?” Matt asked, reaching down to covertly adjust his raging hard on while she wasn’t looking. Much more of this and he’d need a cold shower, not that the last three he’d taken had helped any.

“Uh…Dillon, I think. Drummond?” As long as Mason kept doing what he was doing, she had no hope in hell of pulling the right name from her deep fried brain cells. “Frank Somethingorother.” She hissed as he found another tender spot.

“Frank Dryson?” Matt asked? “You rented his place over on Harvest Lane?”

“That’s it.” She nodded. “You know him?”

“He’s our cousin?” Mason chuckled.
“Small world. We did the remodeling work on the kitchen for him.”

“So you’re the ones I have to thank for that.”

“You like it?” Matt asked, sliding his hand up between Mason’s to caress the back of her neck. He loved the silky feeling of her soft, curly hair. It wasn’t those frizzy, kinky type of curls that women paid to get with those perms. Hers were warm, fat, soft curls that fell around her face and flirted with her shoulders, giving her an angelic appearance.

“Do I like what?” She slurred again, and slumped further against Mason, trapping Matt’s hand against his
brother’s chest.

Mason chuckled this time, moving his hands f
rom her shoulders and wrapping his arms around her waist, holding her up as she relaxed against him.

Claira shook off the lethargy his talented hands had induced and nodded. “It’s my favorite room. I’ll have to make you some fudge one day. The counters are perfect for it.”

Call him a sexist pig if it fit, but Mason pictured Claira, bare feet and all, bending over to peer into their oven, the smell of something delicious filling the air as he and his brothers came in from a hard day on the ranch. Her hair mussed around her face and her cheeks flushed from the heat rolling from the oven. His chest ached as his picture of Claira mingled with memories of Sarah, but it wasn’t the painful squeeze he had expected. It was a fullness the likes of which he had never felt. Not even when his boys were born. Immediately he realized that it wasn’t just Claira. It was the hope that she brought to them. He had never let himself believe they would ever find what they had with Sarah, but now….

Grinning
what he knew was a stupid, silly grin, he pushed away from the railing and took Claira’s hand, pulling her toward the end of the porch. “Come on, I have something I want to show you.” Claira looked back at Matt, but he stayed where he was, waving them on.