Golden Trail (12 page)

“
Keira Winters
needs your undivided
attention, you mean,” Tripp retorted and looked to Layne. “Jasper’s
got the hots for the prettiest girl in school and she’s also the
only one who doesn’t know he exists.”

The muscles in Layne’s neck contracted and
his eyes sliced to his older boy.

“Keira Winters, Joe Callahan’s
stepdaughter?” Layne asked.

“One in the same, Dad,” Tripp answered for
Jasper. “Jasper’s hot on the trail of the Lone Wolf’s hottie
stepdaughter, and getting nowhere, I’ll add.”

Oh fuck. This was not good. Jasper went
through girls like water, he was cocky, he was confident, he was
assertive and he expected to get him some. Jasper did not need an
angry Joe Callahan on his ass and Layne didn’t need an angry Joe
Callahan on his hands.

Cal was a friend and he was a good guy but
everyone in that town knew he’d bonded with his new wife’s
stepdaughters and, by that, Layne meant he’d
bonded.
Layne
already slept with a gun under his pillow, mainly because people in
about twenty-seven states wanted him dead. In that ‘burg, he slept
with it under his pillow because he figured fathers county-wide
wanted his son dead. Cal would not be like any other father who
went berserk because some hotshot football star got in their
daughter’s pants. Cal would go commando on Jasper’s ass.

“Tripp, sort out your gear and take Jas’s
with you, I need another word with him,” Layne ordered.

“Dad, his gear stinks like all get out,”
Tripp complained and Layne’s eyes cut to him.

“Do it, Pal.”

Tripp stared at him. Then he slunk off,
grabbed all four bags from the floor and trudged them up the
stairs.

Layne looked at Jasper and, the second time
that night, he laid it out. “Lay off Keira Winters.”

“What?” Jasper whispered, the good, warm,
golden light flashing out of his eyes, the warning, red, volatile
asshole teenaged kid one taking its place.

Layne shook his head and leaned toward him,
settling on his forearms. “You like her, Jas, go for it. You wanna
get in her pants, lay off.”

Jasper started to make a move off his stool,
muttering, “This is none of your fuckin’–”

“Her father was murdered,” Layne cut in,
Jasper’s body jerked and he froze on the stool. “Her uncle, the
same. Her mother was kidnapped, her stepdad too. She almost lost
her entire family, Jas. A girl like that, you handle with care.
Yeah?”

“You think I’m a dawg,” Jasper whispered,
disappointment he couldn’t hide scoring through his features.

Quietly, Layne replied, “Bud, you go through
more condoms than the offensive line of the Colts after a win.”

Jasper locked eyes with Layne and kept them
locked long enough for Layne to get it without Jasper having to say
it.

“You know about her family,” Layne
stated.

“Everyone does,” Jasper returned.

“You like her,” Layne concluded.

It took some time but he finally dredged it
up and, when he did, Jasper grunted, “Yeah.”

Layne smiled at him and straightened off his
arms, saying, “Then good luck, Bud.”

Released, Jasper made a break for it,
muttering, “Whatever.”

Layne watched his boy move from the room and
it hit him that from the minute he lost his virginity at fifteen to
Cindy Stanley, a junior with a great rack and a broken home and a
need to get whatever attention she could no matter what form it
came in, he’d been like Jasper. No steady girl. No one special. The
field wide and open and he’d played it. His mother called it
“gathering lipstick” (though she did this while muttering and
shaking her head) and she was not wrong.

Until Rocky.

He found himself wondering what Keira
Winters was like when he heard a car on the street.

His eyes went to the clock and then he
walked to the window in the front room, saw Rocky swinging her Merc
into his drive and he went straight to the door and out of it.

As he strode down his walk toward her car,
he looked across the cul-de-sac of which he was on the southern
edge of the curve. Natalie Ulrich lived on the northern edge of the
curve. Natalie Ulrich never parked her car in her garage so it was
now in her drive. Natalie Ulrich had a huge fucking mouth and ran
it as often as she could. And Natalie Ulrich was a surgical nurse
at Presbyterian.

She might have missed Layne backing Rocky
into her car the morning before. She might not see what Layne was
going to do now.

Then again she might.

And if she did, yesterday was all over
Presbyterian Hospital and what he was going to do right now would
be all over the hospital, and town, before his head hit the
pillow.

His eyes moved to Rocky who’d rounded the
trunk of her car and met him where the drive met his walk. She’d
changed out of her tight skirt and high-heeled shoes and now she
was wearing tight jeans, a light, also tight, sweater and a pair of
high-heeled sandals.

Layne stood smack in her way so she stopped
and tilted her head back to look at him.

“Is everything –?” she started but he lifted
both his hands to curl around her jaws and he pulled her up to her
toes. Her body instantly got tight. “Layne, what –?”

She didn’t finish because he dropped his
head to kiss her like he did that afternoon. He did it hard but,
this time, he did it long. Long enough for her fingers to curve
around the sides of his waist and he pulled her close enough and
high enough for her to lose balance so her chest was resting
against his.

Her lips tasted like mint and he released
her when the urge to find out if her mouth tasted the same
threatened to overpower him.

He released her mouth but he didn’t release
her jaw and he kept her close with his two hands there.

“What on –?”

“Natalie Ulrich ever work with your dickwad
ex?” Layne whispered and saw her face pale. She misunderstood him.
Natalie wasn’t hard on the eyes. “Sweetcheeks,” he kept whispering,
“she lives across the street and the woman has a big mouth.”

He kept her where she was but his eyes slid
to Natalie’s house. He was right, he could see her silhouette in
the front window.

Fucking brilliant.

Layne looked back at Rocky and finished,
“And she’s watchin’.”

“She is?” Rocky whispered back, her fingers
flexing into his waist.

“Yeah, can’t see her well but I’m pretty
sure she’s got her phone glued to her ear.”

“Oh boy,” Rocky was still whispering.

Layne grinned and didn’t move.

When this lasted awhile, Rocky asked, “Are
we going to stand out here all night and pretend we’re
kissing?”

“Maybe,” Layne replied.

“That would be bad since I’m starving,” she
returned.

“No, Roc,
that
would be bad because
you’re about to enter a testosterone zone and no one in that house
has the first clue how to cook.”

“Then I’ll cook,” she offered and his hands
slid down her neck to her shoulders and then around her back and he
pulled her closer.

“Nope, you cooked last night. We had a
huddle before you arrived and Jas has decided he’s going to amaze
you with his culinary brilliance.”

He watched her eyebrows go up. “You had a
huddle?”

“Yeah,” his arms gave her a squeeze then he
dropped one, slid the other one to her shoulders, he moved to her
side and walked them forward, “they’ve been briefed.”

She slid her arm around his waist and turned
her head to the side, tilting it up to look at him and he felt the
soft hair of her ponytail glide across his forearm at her
shoulders. “They okay with, um… everything?”

Layne nodded. “They’re good.”

She looked to the house as they took the two
steps to the small, white fenced, cement front porch and whispered,
“Okay.”

She didn’t sound okay. She sounded tentative
and scared as hell.

He pushed her forward, opened the storm door
and held it over her head as he shoved the front door open and she
preceded him.

“Hey Mrs. Astley!” Tripp shouted, sliding
across the wood floors on his tube socks with his greeting and
Layne decided that lessons in cool were definitely in order for his
younger son.

“Hey Tripp,” Raquel replied and then was hit
dead on with a frontal assault from Blondie that rocked her back on
one of her slim high heels.

“Down, Blondie,” Layne ordered, closing and
locking the door and Blondie ignored him for the first time in her
life, pawing at Rocky’s fancy-ass sweater and aiming repeated
lashing of her tongue on Rocky’s neck like Rocky’s perfume was eau
du bacon. “Tripp, get her off Roc.”

“Blondie! Come here, girl, come on!” Tripp
called, slapping his thighs and Blondie’s head jerked back and
forth between Tripp and Rocky in excited indecision as to who was
her favorite person in the world. It didn’t take her long to decide
on Tripp and she shoved off Rocky and ran at Tripp who tackled her
and wrestled her to the rug in the living room.

“Hey Mrs. Astley,” Jasper said and Layne’s
eyes went to where he was standing, leaning against the wall, arms
crossed on his chest, foot crossed at the ankle, face set in a look
of amused indifference and Layne wished Tripp wasn’t wrestling with
the dog and instead was paying attention to his brother because
Jasper, unlike Tripp, was the master of cool.

“Hey, Jasper,” Rocky replied. “I hear you’re
cooking for me tonight.”

“Pasta bake,” Jasper returned.

“Pasta bake? What’s that?” Tripp called from
the floor in the living room while still wrestling with the
dog.

“I don’t know,” Jasper answered. “I’m gonna
make it up as I go along.”

“Great,” Layne muttered and then his world
collapsed.

It did this because Rocky’s head twisted to
look over her shoulder, her ponytail flying, and she smiled at him.
Directly at him. Her eyes hitting his and her dimple hitting her
cheek.

He could kiss her, hold her in his arms, pin
her to the wall, lie on top of her on a couch and have a
conversation and he felt it and knew he liked it but he could take
it.

But he couldn’t take that smile aimed at
him. That smile that twenty-one years ago promised a beautiful life
and then three years later it reneged without any explanation.

It was then he realized he hadn’t fully
thought through this plan.

Before he recovered, she turned back to
Jasper and said, “I don’t know, it sounds good to me and I’m so
hungry, I could gnaw off my own arm.”

“I bet Jas’s pasta bake will at least taste
better than your arm,” Tripp noted.

“Shut up, Tripp,” Jasper returned and looked
at Layne. “You want a beer, Dad?”

Layne stopped staring at the back of Rocky’s
head and looked at his boy.

“Yeah, Jas,” he replied.

“You want one, Mrs. Astley?” Jasper
asked.

It was then Layne got a good look at her
sweater. He avoided shopping like the plague but he reckoned just
her sweater cost more than every stitch of clothing he and his boys
were wearing. It came to him that when he was at the grocery store,
he probably should have bought her wine or, alternately, a two
hundred and fifty dollar bottle of champagne.

“Beer sounds good but I’ll get it,” she
answered Jasper, her heels clicking on the tiles as she moved into
the kitchen.

Layne followed her and rounded the corner
right when her head came out of the fridge. She had two bottles
between her fingers and she handed both to him.

“Can you do mine? Those twist tops hurt my
hand,” she said quietly.

“I can do it!” Tripp offered loudly and
Layne heard thundering, tube sock covered feet.

“I think I got it, Pal,” Layne said,
twisting off the caps and flicking both into the garbage before he
handed Raquel her beer. “Get your brother a soda to keep him
hydrated while he slaves at the stove.”

“Gotcha,” Tripp grinned and pushed through
Layne and Rocky to get to the fridge.

She shifted out of Tripp’s way. Layne looked
toward Jasper who was standing in the middle of the kitchen
surveying the scene exuding ice cold teenage football hotshot
badass cool.

“Jas, you gonna pull together this pasta
bake or what?” Layne prompted.

“I’m on it,” Jasper muttered and headed to
the pantry.

Layne got close to Rocky and touched the
small of her back with his hand. She was lost in thought even
though she was looking right at him so when his fingers hit her,
she jumped and her head tipped further back.

“Have a seat at the island, Roc,” he
invited.

“Right,” she whispered and moved to the
island.

She took a seat, Layne leaned against the
end closest to her stool, Tripp leaned forward on the island in
front of her with his own soda and Jasper re-entered the room with
his arms filled with a variety of groceries.

“So, Mrs. Astley –” Tripp started but she
interrupted him.

“How about, if we’re not in a building with
lockers in it, you call me Rocky?” she suggested, “That work for
you?”

“Cool!” Tripp shouted, “And since you and
Dad are gonna be an item, can I tell my friends I call you Rocky
when I’m not in a building with lockers in it?”

“Tripp,” Layne used a warning tone.

“Dude, you don’t have to tell them shit,”
Jasper advised, standing at the stove and dumping pasta in water.
“They ask questions, you just say, ‘Dad says I’m not allowed to
talk about that,’ or, ‘we had a family meeting and we decided not
to talk about home time’. That way, they have no clue what’s goin’
on and they make everything up in their head. That’s way
better.”

Seriously, if it ever was in question, Layne
knew for certain in that moment Jasper was definitely his son.

Rocky laughed before she agreed with Jasper.
“You’re right, Jasper, imagination is a powerful thing.”

Jasper threw Rocky an arrogant grin and then
ordered, “Tripp, dude, get me a package of hamburger.”