Chapter 44

Kelly

“Kelly, watch this.”

Lucas came running from somewhere behind me and launched his body through the air onto a pile of hay, and then lay there laughing. I hadn’t seen him so happy in a long time. Not that he was sad, I just hadn’t really seen him happy. I guess the same went for me as well.

I looked at Hunter, sitting across the barn and had trouble turning away from him. He was hunched over, smoking his ever present cigarette. A single ray of sunshine danced across his face from a hole in the roof. That man, that bad guy, had taken my life and changed it in one day. He had saved me from a life I didn’t even know I’d been living and, even though he brought hell with him, it was exactly where I needed to be.

This moment, this peace wouldn’t last forever. I knew it couldn’t. But as I watched his eyes dart around the barn, I felt more than ever that I was being looked out for, that I could completely let go and he would make sure that I would be just fine. He may be the bad guy, but he was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

“Hey, you,” I called over to him. “What are you thinking about, all serious over there?”

He turned his head back to me and smiled, pointing the two fingers holding his cigarette at me. I knew he had more things on his mind than just me, but I could feel myself blushing because I knew I was a part of whatever was going through his head.

Lucas stood up and continued to throw himself around the barn, squealing with laughter the whole time, and Hunter just sat there, nearly oblivious, staring deeply into the end of his cigarette.

I made my way over to him and put my hand on his shoulder.

“Hunter? What’s wrong? Is it me?”

He looked up at me with an almost furious anger in his eyes.

“Now, what in the fuck would make you think that anything about you was wrong?”

I smiled down at him and put my hands to his cheeks as he stared up at me. His eyes softened.

“Darling, you are about the only thing that is fucking right in my life. The only thing that has ever been right.”

I could feel his hands behind my knees, slowly moving up the backs of my thighs. I gazed down into his beautiful blue eyes and saw all the pain. Both the pain he had caused and the pain that had been brought on him. There was no regret in him, just the look of a man who had seen all the terrible things this world had to offer. A man who had lived. A man who had made an awful world his instead of giving in to it. There was nothing wrong. This was just his life and I was now part of that.

“Hunter? Kelly? Are you watching?” Lucas called from the other side of the barn.

“Fuck no,” Hunter said flatly as he stared up at me.

I slapped his shoulder and turned back to Luke.

“Sure am. Let me see your best jump,” I called out.

With a look of determination in his eyes, Lucas took a few steps back and ran full speed before throwing himself through the air and onto a pile of hay.

“Whoa. Look at you go.”

Lucas stood up, proud of himself, and yelled over to us.

“Hunter, did you see that?”

I looked down at him as he called over.

“Sure did, pal. You got some decent air that time, you know? For a little kid.”

“Who are you calling little?” Lucas said as he came charging over. “And what is air?”

Hunter smiled and shook his head as he stood up and put out his cigarette.

“It means you can jump, punk ass,” he said as he blew out a stream of smoke. “Now listen, your sister and I have to get the house ready and you’ve made a hell of a mess in this barn.”

He walked over to the corner and grabbed a broom.

“Now, if you’re such a big man, you can get treated like one. Take this broom and sweep up all this hay that you’ve been throwing around. When you’re done doing that, gather it all up and pile it over there,” he said, pointing to a corner with the broom as Lucas listened intently. “And when that’s all done, make sure this floor is swept up. I’ll be back to check on this shit and it better be as clean as I expect it to be. You got it, pal?”

Lucas looked around the barn, at the massive task Hunter had just given him.

“This is going to take forever. I thought you were going to teach me how to throw a football?”

Hunter looked down at him and shoved the broom in his hand.

“Hey. Football is a man’s game, and men take care of their goddamn work before they have any fun. Are you a man or what?”

He grabbed the broom out of Hunter’s hand and stared up at him.

“I’m a man.”

“All right, that’s what I thought. Now, clean this barn up and don’t come out until it’s done. Got that shit?”

“Got it.” Lucas turned immediately and started following the orders Hunter had just barked at him.

“Wow,” I said. “I can barely get him to clean his room.”

Hunter turned to me and brushed the hair out of his face.

“He just needs a man to tell him how it is, is all.”

I put my hands on Hunter’s chest and slid them down to his waist.

“Don’t we all?” I sighed as I hooked my fingers through his belt loops. “Now, what were you saying before about my dress? There was something you were going to do.”

He reached up and put his hand in my hair, tugging it and forcing my eyes up at him.

“Get your fucking ass inside. Right now.”

I laughed and took off out of the barn, looking back every so often as Hunter slowly made his way toward me.

He pointed at the window upstairs.

“Inside. Now”

I ran inside and up the stairs. I knew what was coming this time, and I could feel myself already wet for him.