Page 91 of What I Should Have Known

Chapter 29

BERNIE

Ford and Emma stood behind me as I knocked on Kat’s front door. Back that afternoon after I’d reached out to Emma, there was something I wanted to do that I’d never had the chance to do before. And it was something I no longer wanted to do without her.

Footsteps neared the entrance, and then the handle spun. Kat’s dad’s face appeared in the entranceway. His brows furrowed, the tips dusted with gray. “What do you want?”

“To see if Kat wants to go out for a bit. With all of us,” I replied, gesturing to the two behind me.

“Who’s that?” her dad asked, nodding at the big man I called best friend and brother.

“Ford. My buddy,” I said.

“We were also wondering if we could borrow a couple ATVs?”Emma added with a smile.

Kat’s dad glanced around us, squinting through the darkness. “Quite a storm.”

“Quite some deep mud,” I replied.

A twinkle danced behind his eyes as he returned his focus to me. “Rumor has it, you’re from the city. So, how do you know about mudding?”

“I’ve traveled quite a bit. And it’s not something I’ve been able to do for fun yet.” I kept my gaze locked with his, hoping beyond hope he really had as poor of eyesight as Kat said and didn’t notice the outline of my dog tags beneath my damp shirt. Nor Ford’s.

He crossed his arms. “She can if Levi and Beau are good to join. I don’t need y’all doing something too stupid. Plus, Sawyer’s out with Wyatt, and this would let me have some time with their mom,” he said, offering me a condition.

And clearly supervision whether he totally knew it or not.

“No problem,” I replied.

He nodded curtly. “Emma, you know where the four-wheelers are. Take these two men to grab them from the barn, and I’ll send Kat with her brothers to meet y’all. Be smart, and if I get so much as a whiff that someone ended up in the fucking hospital, one of you will be six feet under and someone else will be behind bars. Don’t care who.” His gaze narrowed on me.

“Understood.” I rolled my shoulders. “My mom said something similar when Raiden left with his girlfriend a bit ago.”

Kat’s dad stared for a moment longer, and then slammed the door shut in my face. I glanced over my shoulder, raising a brow at Ford and Emmaas my eye caught sight of Wyatt jogging across a pasture. Parked alongside the fence line was a truck with passengers I couldn’t quite make out.

Something rumbled with suspicion in my stomach, but the door creaking open tore my attention away.

Kat.

With my legs draped on either side of her, I twisted my palms tighter around the black metal bars, stabilizing myself as she gunned the four-wheeler. Her laughter echoed through the pouring rain as mud sprayed up on either side of us. Emma followed us next, driving one ATV with Levi holding on to her waist, and Ford brought up the rear, letting Beau be in charge of the throttle on his ATV—mostly.

Kat’s hair stuck to her cheeks and back; what little modesty the black T-shirt offered her did nothing to hinder my wandering thoughts. Every roll, every curve, every sweep of her body as she muscled the four-wheeler through feet of mud and brown sludge had me dripping with more than water.

The clouds still dark above let loose with torrential rainfall. One that hadn’t ceased in the past hour or so. Adrenaline flooding thick in my veins kept the cold at bay as we careened around another corner. My grin widened, watching this woman outdrive even me. She might possibly give Mikey a run for his money too, and I took a mental note to have Mikey and Scottie out the next time it rained like this. Just to see.

As Kat straightened the ATV, having lost Ford and Emma in the sheet of thick mud spraying up around us, I reached forward and took advantage of our momentary solitude. Snaking my hand up her soggy shirt, I found her breast and squeezed. Her giggle permeated the air, sweet like honey and warm apple pie on a chilly autumn afternoon.

She shook her head, whipping the four-wheeler around another corner, and I used her boob to help keep me steady along with the metal bar still clutched in my other hand. Peppering her wet neck with kisses, the serenity surrounding us heightened as we broke through a band of trees into this small, secluded meadow.

Pines reached toward the sky, scraping the black clouds with Aspens swaying against the storm. They encircled this solitary meadow where a field of small, short, wild sunflowers had once been growing. Most of the stems were missing the heads, and the yellow petals had all but blown away.

Except for one.

Within the center of this small, secluded grove, resting on the ground, was the last broken sunflower. I slid my hand out of Kat’s shirt and tapped her on the waist. She let her thumb off the throttle as I raised my finger and pointed at the singular sunflower head, cradled at the bottom of the flower bed.

“Wait here,” I said, sliding my legs out from around her. The four-wheeler bobbed as I jumped off the back and raced around the front. Kat waited, seated on the ATV behind me as I sloshed through the thick field; mud caked my boots that had been untouched by any machine.

Pausing, I stood above the final slice of yellow amidst such dull colors. Dampened by the rain and storm, everything but this flower looked to bea pale shade of gray. What were bright greens and browns on a typically sunny day, had turned cold.

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