Page 89 of Claimed By my Father's Enemies
I reach for the truck door. I can’t wait to get home and take one long hot bath.
A horn sounds behind me.
I turn around.
Carter's Range Rover is pulling up at the roadside. I stand there with my hand still on the truck and watch it park. The doors open and all three of them get out.
"What are you—" I stop.
Adrian gets to me first. He cups my face in both hands and kisses me. Hard and deep with nothing shy about it.
He pulls back. His thumbs are still at my jaw. "Are you surprised?"
I open my mouth to answer yes.
William is already there.
He doesn't wait. He just pulls me in for a kiss. Hot and heavy. Like he's communicating something I can feel but can't fully read.
Carter steps forward. He doesn't hurry. He gets to me, tips my chin up with one finger, unhurried, and then he kisses me slowly. His other hand settling at my waist.
I can’t believe that they are here. And that they all kissed me. In front of each other, like it wasn’t a big deal.
I look at him. At Adrian, who has mischief all over his face. At William, with his hands in his pockets watching me with patient intensity.
"You two were supposed to be back tomorrow," I say.
"Charlotte told us where you were. So we came to get you." Adrian says.
Right. Eight months ago, late at night, Charlie called me from a parking garage where she'd walked to her car alone and I didn't like the sound of her voice. We set up location sharing. I forgot it still ran both ways.
"Get me," I say. "For what?"
He grins. He glances at William, then at me. "We've been planning a surprise. If you're finished here, we can go now.If you're not—" he tilts his head, "William volunteers for any remaining manual labor."
William flips him off without breaking eye contact with me, but then he looks at the truck bed and says, genuinely, "I'll do anything that gets you into the car sooner."
I look at myself. Mud at the knees. Boots well past the point of apologizing for. The shirt.
"I'm almost done. I just need to load the last of the tools." I hold one arm out slightly so they can see the full picture. "But I can't go anywhere like this."
Adrian says, "It's been handled. Come on?"
I look at the truck. Gated road, private property. The truck will be safe here tonight.
I look back at the three of them. They are all leaning slightly forward, a collective barely-suppressed impatience, like they have been waiting for this specific moment and cannot quite keep it fully contained.
"Let's go," I say.
Inside Carter’s car, the back door barely closes before William reaches for my hand, fingers threading through mine. His thumb makes one slow pass over my knuckles. Then it stills.
Adrian has taken the front passenger seat and is turned just slightly sideways, so he can talk to me.
The canyon opens as we come down toward the valley. The light is going golden and the city is visible below through the afternoon haze, the flat grid of it, the tall buildings downtown going pale in the distance. I have no idea where we're heading.
William's thumb moves again. Once.
We talk about this and that during the drive. Carter and William about their trip to New York.
