Page 22 of The Run Home
My head popped up from where I was practically inhaling the mashed potatoes no one could make like Mom. “Shae said that?”
Mom nodded. “Yep. I didn’t have any doubts about my girl.” She patted Kinsley’s hand on the table, and I watched my daughter glow from her praise.
“I love Ms. Fletcher,” Kinsley gushed. “She’s really nice and somehow also knows how to talk to teens.” She lifted her head and glared at me, like I was clearly the opposite.
“Ms. Roberts said the Wolfe boys are delicious,” Georgia announced, forcing the table into a shocked silence. Ms. Roberts was the young female principal at the elementary school.
“Oh, really? I’ll have to have a chat with Rosemary,” Tully said ominously.
I lifted a brow over the unspoken threat. Tully was short, but scary. She once thought Rosemary was going after Colson and it took my brother some convincing to get Tully to back down. Personally, I’d have let the two women go at it. Nothing like a catfight to make a night interesting.
The chatter around the table moved on. I stood up at one point to grab more mashed potatoes, asking if anyone else wanted some. In the kitchen, I spotted the lights on at Shae’s house. As luck would have it, she moved across the window, looking cute as shit in sweatpants, an oversized T-shirt, and her hair up in that high bun she liked to do when she was home alone. She had her thick glasses on, reading a book as she moved about the house.
I shook my head, grinning. The woman couldn’t even put the book down long enough to do what she had to do around the house. Laughter from the dining room filtered into the kitchen. I watched Shae flop onto a couch, her knees tucked up under her chin as she kept reading.
She looked nerdy and gorgeous and someone I’d like to sit in silence with.
She also looked lonely.
Instincts were something I’d elevated to an expert level over the years in athletics. In baseball you didn’t have time to know where the ball was going. The crack of the bat had a particular type of sound when it was coming to me at third base. If I waited to logically parcel out where the ball was going based on what my eyes saw, I’d never catch those line drives. Finely honed instincts were what made me an excellent player.
And those instincts were telling me to go over there and get Shae.
So I did.
I slipped out the back door quietly, checked both ways for evil farm animals, and ran over to her property. I jumped the fence and bounded up her porch. The knock seemed loud in the quiet of the night. She answered a few moments later, glasses pushed to the top of her head, but the book still in her hand like she couldn’t bear to part with it.
“Boon?”
I hitched my thumb over my shoulder. “We’re having family dinner and you came up. Figured I’d invite you over for dessert.” I looked down her body, taking in the bright pink toenails. “If you’re not doing anything.”
She cleared her throat and my gaze flew back up to her face. “Thanks for the invite, but I’ll have to pass.”
She went to close the door, but I stopped her with my shoulder. “Why?”
She tilted her head, button nose scrunched up adorably. “What do you mean why?”
“Why won’t you join us?”
She scoffed, the hand holding her place in her paperback going to her hip. “Because I’m not dressed. Because you’re having a family dinner and I’m not family. Because I’m enjoying my quiet evening. Is that enough of a reason for you?”
I made a regretful noise. “Sorry, no.”
And then I stooped, picking her up like her house was on fire and I was the man intent on saving her. She shrieked, but didn’t kick me in the balls. Her book fell to the porch, pages bending. I had her over my shoulder and settled in a split second, the delicious fruity scent of her surrounding me.
“What the fudge sticks are you doing?” she hollered, making me laugh.
“I really want to know what it would take to make you say fuck out loud.” I moved down the steps, and she started beating on my back. It felt good. Like a massage when they slap your skinand loosen your muscles. What didn’t feel good was my shoulder screaming at me.
“Keep this up and you just might!”
That made me guffaw with laughter. I’d actually pay money to hear her utter the f-word. I bet she’d whisper it, making it sound sexy as hell. She was currently fighting me, turning from massaging my back to kicking her feet. I clamped my arm down on her thighs so she didn’t kick anything I’d regret later.
“Calm down, woman.”
“Don’t. You. Dare…” Shae sounded so angry, she couldn’t even finish her sentence. She squirmed even more, and holy fuck, I almost dropped her on her damn head. I regained control and then smacked her right on her luscious ass. I felt her flesh on my palm and instantly went hard inside my tight jeans.
She froze.
