Page 32 of Coal
My cheeks flush with colour at his words, and there’s no stopping the smile that breaks out over my face as we watch Coal walk towards us.
“Hey, baby,” Coal says through my open window, leaning in to kiss me quickly before greeting his dad, “Hey, Dad, what are you all doing here?”
“Thea needed to see how close she was to home because there’s no bathroom in the barn. And your princess was demanding to see you.”
“Yeah,” he grins, looking pleased, and peers into the back toward Shea, “Hey, princess.”
“Da,” Shea shrieks loudly, “up.”
Coal chuckles and walks around to her side,unbuckling her and taking her out, much to her delight.
“There’s a cool box with sandwiches from Maggie in the back and some drinks if you guys want to take a break,” Tinman calls out to the other brothers.
Before he’s even stopped speaking, they’re downing tools and beelining to the back of Tinman’s vehicle. Assuming we’ll be here for a while, I open my door and get out, walking over to Coal and Shea. He holds his arm out for me, warning, “I’m pretty sweaty, baby.”
“Oh, I know,” I smirk up at him, getting closer and wrapping my arms around him. I don’t care about the sweat, not with how hot my man looks holding our baby.
“Mmh,” Coal rumbles huskily, pressing a kiss to my lips, “I noticed you watching me.”
“It was hot. You’re hot,mo ghrá.”
Coal’s just about to kiss me again when Copper interrupts us. “Give me my niece before you two corrupt her with the amount of eye-fucking you’re doing,” he says, plucking Shea out of Coal’s arms and walking off with her.
I laugh as I watch them go. “I love it when you speak Irish to me,” Coal admits. “Are you evergoing to tell me what it means?”
“Maybe,” I smile happily up at him, “one day.”
“Damn, baby, happy looks good on you.”
“Thank you,a ghrá. It feels good to be happy and safe. I wish I knew if my sisters and Aiden were feeling the same way.”
Coal sighs and rests his cheek against my head, watching his brothers messing around while they devoured whatever food Maggie had sent them. “I know, baby. You can take comfort from the fact that your brother has been planning for this for a long time, and he’s got plans in place. I don’t know where he sent your sisters, but I gave Kara my number before they left us in Ireland and told her to use it if she needed to.”
Emotion fills me to the brim, and I can’t stop the words as they tumble from my lips as I raise to my toes, whispering “A ghrá mo chroí,” I kiss him with all the feeling that I have bubbling up inside me. What he’s done without me asking cements the feelings that have slowly been creeping up on me over the last few days with every little thing he’s done to ensure that not only are Shea and I safe but that my sisters know they have other options. Eventually, we have to come up for air. I’m not ready for the world tointrude on us yet, so I tuck my face into his neck and breathe. Coal doesn’t say anything, as if he knows I need a minute. He threads his fingers through my curls and rubs my head. When I feel like I can speak without crying my eyes out, only then do I lift my head.
My “thank you” is heartfelt. Coal’s eyes soften. He presses a soft kiss to the side of my mouth. “You’re welcome, baby.”
I wipe at my cheeks and turn towards where the others are standing near the back of Tinman’s vehicle. They’ve all turned away from us to give us a semblance of privacy. Shea is standing in the open back, bouncing and shrieking happily, with Copper keeping a close eye on her. Although I think they’d all be rushing to catch her if she even looked like she was going to fall out. Turning back towards Coal, I tell him, “Mo ghrámeans my love anda ghrá mo chroímeans love of my heart.”
Coal pushes his dark glasses up on his head, his eyes soft, “I love you too, Thea. Never expected you when we rode to Ireland, but I’m glad that we did because I can’t imagine not having you and Shea in my life.”
He’s quiet for a bit before he grumbles, “But we couldn’t have picked a worse time or placeto declare our feelings. All I want is to take you home and spend hours loving your body. Adulting and being the Pres sucks big time some days.”
Laughing, I hug him one last time before turning towards the others. Slipping easily under his arm, I tease, “Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you. In the meantime, you can vent your frustrations out on the trees you still have to remove.”
“So mean,” Coal mutters, but he’s smiling, so I know all is good. And I’ve got a warm feeling thrumming through me that has nothing to do with how much I want this man, but more to do with how he’s not shy of showing me how much I mean to him. He promised that I’d grow to trust him, and I have.
When we get to Tinman’s vehicle, he helps me up onto the open tailgate and then sits next to me. Shea straightaway climbs into his lap to share a sandwich with us.
We spend the next hour with the brothers, going over what I thought of the barn and what I would need to make it work.
“We need steel doors on there. And a digital lock of some sort. Plus, we need to up the security—cameras, alarms, etc. I can booby trap some of it, but I’d rather not if I can help it. I’ll need a solid metal table to work on, plus a few other things, but I’ll make a list and get it to you by Church tonight. Some of what I’ll need, I can tell you where or who to get it from.”
“Okay, baby, sounds like a plan,” Coal agrees. “We’ll work on the road for another couple of hours. We’ll do Church at around five. Opal is going to look after Shea, and Mom is going to cook us supper at the clubhouse. We’ll eat together after Church.”
“Okay by me,” I answer as I scoot down off the tailgate, taking Nickel’s hand when he offers it to me. Turning, I take a now sleeping Shea from Coal. Reaching up, I give him a quick kiss before stepping back, “I’ll see you a bit later.”
Coal slides off the tailgate to stand next to me, the rest of the brothers ambling away to continue with whatever job they’ve been given. Tinman walks away, leaving me alone with Coal. “Damn,” Coal mutters, resting his forehead against mine. “I wish I was going home with you.”
