Page 1 of Greater than the Heart
Chapter One
Cade
Kincade and Jax were racing in the pool. They’d started swimming together in the afternoons, and when Cade beat the big man, the brunet performed a celebration dance with trash talk included. “Schooled old man!”When Jax swam over to him and jerked down Cade’s Speedo, they both laughed.
The penalty for losing the race was fixing dinner, which consisted of heating the food left for them in the fridge. Sela was at a photo shoot out of town, and Carlotta was staying with them while her mother was gone.
Miss Winnie had taken over as a nanny for the girl, so the three men hired a friend of Brady Jones’, who was enrolled in culinary school, to cook and shop for them. They still had the cleaning service, which Cade now supervised because Winnie spent most of her days at Sela’s home, taking care of the two women.
“Fine, you win. I’ll go upstairs and start the grill. Where’s Ford?” Jax asked as he looked at the clock over the hot tub.
“I talked to him this afternoon as I left the club on the way to help Father Paul make sandwiches. He’s working late tonight because he went to the doctor this morning. He mentioned something about getting a complete physical. I didn’t think it was time yet, did you?” Cade pushed himself up to the pool deck.
Their first wedding anniversary and the anniversary of Cade’s adoption was fast approaching. Ford still ran the club, and Cade worked with him as a man Friday, doing anything that needed to be done short of dancing. Jax and Ford had demanded he not hit the stage again after the bubble party the previous year. Cade laughed as he remembered the looks on their faces that night when he stepped out of the shadows in the bubble bikini.
Jax had ended his time working for the Chicago football team, having finally found a location for his gym. It was a rehabilitation and training facility, and Jax was proud of what he’d accomplished so far.
A lot of the guys he worked with at the rehab were injured athletes who were recovering. There had been talk of teaming up with the military to assist with their rehabilitation efforts for service personnel injured during active duty, but nothing had been solidified.
Cade knew Jax could commiserate with the athletes due to his own recovery from his broken leg, and he was sure that was part of the reason the business was so successful. Cade and Ford supported Jax in his work wholeheartedly and busted their buttons with pride at his latest accomplishment.
The Chicago team had begged Jax to stay on and accept the permanent position of defensive coordinator for the club, but Jax refused to hide the fact he had two husbands, so working for the club wasn’t an option.
It hadn’t been easy for the Cajun to walk away from football, but Cade thought Jax enjoyed working with the various athletes from multiple sports disciplines. Colby Napier, the Chicago QB, had so much confidence in Jax’s business that he sent his younger brother to Jax after he had surgery for a torn ACL.
Jax was enthusiastic and passionate about getting the athletes back to one hundred percent if at all possible, so he’d hired three of the best licensed physical therapists he could find to work with him. The center was coming along, but much like the three of them, the business was a work in progress.
“Can I get in? I finished my homework,” eight-year-old Carlotta, their niece, asked as she walked toward the pool in a ruffled red, white, and gold two-piece swimsuit.
The girl was a strong swimmer, taking lessons at their pool the previous summer after she and Sela had moved to Chicago. They’d been able to convince her mother to stay with them for a few months until she found a townhouse for herself and Carlotta about three miles from the Greystone.
Their niece, the gorgeous little charmer, was spoiled, but she wasn’t a brat about it. Most of the time, Cade, Ford, and Jax did or bought things before the girl had a chance to ask, getting them into hot water with Sela on more than one occasion.
Fortunately, her bark was much worse than her bite, so the three took the requisite ass-chewing like champs and continued to do as they wished with agreeable smiles. Everyone was happy with the outcome.
“Come on,mon petit ange.Uncle Ford should be home soon, I hope,” Jax said as he held out his strong arms. Jax had lost sixty pounds total, but he was still fit and sculpted. The three of them enjoyed a very healthy, happy sex life.
The girl jumped into Jax’s arms, and he tossed her into the air where she pulled her legs up against her chest and cannonballed with a large splash in the deeper end of the pool. It was their game to play, so Cade hopped up and grabbed a towel from the bucket to wrap around himself.
“Carlotta, would you like a juice box? Lucky? Some adult juice?” Cade grinned. Jax’s deep, sexy laugh reminded Cade of the night before.
“Bix, you feel so good inside me,” Cade whispered, pulling Jax’s thick cock out of his mouth to offer encouragement to the hot blond. It had been a week since Ford had wanted to participate in the sexcapades Cade and Jax got up to on a very regular basis. Ford had been under the weather and chose to either watch or give them their time alone. It was unusual because, since the wedding, the three of them had been celebrating their newlywed status on a nearly nightly basis. Ford hadn’t seemed interested until the night before, so the three of them made up for lost time.
“Oh, I bet Ford went to the doctor because of that stupid bug he’s had. I’ll get you two some drinks and start the grill. I’ll beback. Be careful, but have fun,” Cade told Jax and Carlotta as he slipped on his flip-flops and went upstairs to the main floor.
He heard a commotion in the kitchen, so he hurried to the large room to find Winnie standing at the stove with Connor Bay, their personal chef. They were arguing over an iron skillet, and as Winnie reached for it, Cade slid between the two of them, afraid she was going to whack the twenty-two-year-old with the heavy black pan.
“What’s going on? Miss Winnie put down the skillet. You’ll kill him if you hit him with it, and you’re much too pretty to go to jail,” Cade insisted.
She sighed. “I was trying to explain to this young pup how ya don’t put a seasoned skillet in the dishwasher. I’ve had this skillet since I started working for Jackson and Ford. I put love and care into seasoning it just so, and it wasperfectlyseasoned when I left this house to work for Miss Sela. Look at it now? It’s ruined,” she complained.
Cade saw the large, black skillet appeared to have an ashen finish he’d never seen before. He’d used the skillet a time or two while making breakfast for his husbands, but he always hand-washed the pots and pans. The cook his parents employed when he was young always washed the pots and pans by hand, so Cade assumed it was the way in which things were done.
“Connor, man, what happened?” Cade asked, seeing Winnie hadn’t given the guy the chance to explain himself.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Oakes. I’ll replace it if you tell me where to find one. I, uh, I used it to sauté onions and mushrooms for the stuffing for the beef tenderloin I’m going to make tomorrow, and then I remembered Cade told me you used it to make biscuits and cornbread, so I wanted to make certain it didn’t retain the taste of the onions. I’ve never used an iron skillet before, and I had no idea it couldn’t go into the dishwasher,” Connor explained.
Cade walked over to Winnie and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, happy to have someone shorter than him aside from Carlotta. The girl was going to be tall like her mother and uncle.
