Page 32 of Brett and Rowdy (Gomillion High Reunion #5)

Chapter Eighteen

“ S o what are you actually doing here?”

Brett glanced up at Maddie, totally confused. “Pardon me?”

“Well, okay. So like, you’re here, living in Daddy’s room, but you never really say that you’re here, here.

Are you moving in? Should we go get your stuff?

We could totally have your stuff just packed up and delivered, and then you could be living here.

” She tilted her head, and Brett realized all of a sudden that she didn’t even look like South Carolina money anymore.

Dewy skin and long, loose curls had become a French braid and lip gloss, gingham had become jewel tones, and the manicured nails were gone.

“Or, if you’re just here visiting, this is the longest visit known to man.

And we’re fixing to get into the busy hunting season. ”

“Does your dad rent out part of his house when it’s hunting season?” He didn’t need this shit.

Brett was happy. He was working. He had done more art pieces in the last three months, than he had in his entire life. He was absolutely over the moon.

Her eyes went wide, and he could see it, the flash of temper, the snap of a woman who was used to getting what she wanted.

“You sort of missed the whole point of my little conversation, Brett. The whole conversation was for you to understand that I like you, and Daddy’s really in like with you, and maybe you should just go get your shit and move in.

It’s fixin’ to be the holidays in a couple of months.

You need all of your stuff from your house. ”

Good Lord and butter. “Do you deal with your Kyle like you deal with me?”

She shrugged, not an ounce of hesitation on her face. “Pretty much. Although he’s a little quicker on the pickup.”

“And what about you?” He could push too. “Are you two going to get married?”

“No. Not yet. I’m too young.” She put one hand on her hip. “We’re talking about it. We’re talking about maybe in four years.”

He stared at Madison, who was just as straightforward and logical as all get out. That young lady might not be genetically Rowdy’s, but there was no doubt—none—that she was her daddy’s girl. “Four years. What happens in four years?”

“Well, in four years, we’ll have been dating for six years.

We’ll know whether or not we’re going to be all, you know, bored.

He’ll have his house paid off so that he doesn’t feel as if he’s coming into this family with nothing.

And by then, he thinks that he’ll probably be retired from bulldogging, which is handy because I just can’t travel as much as a bulldogger’s wife needs to travel.

So, he’ll be ready to work the ranch with me and Daddy and Pappy, and we figure we’d live here and have his place be a bunkhouse or rent it out.

I’ll be twenty-five when we get married, have a baby within two years, have our second baby three years after that. ”

“Man plans and God laughs,” he muttered, then spoke louder. “Are they going to be boys or girls?”

Madison gave him the raised eyebrow. “Well, preferably they’d both be girls, but I don’t really get a say in that. That has to do with the man’s sperm. So you’d have to talk to Kyle.”

He started laughing. “You are something else. Do you plan your whole life this way?”

“I do, and for the most part, it works out pretty well. It also gives me some spare time to plan Daddy’s life.”

Smart-assed girl!

“And so, it’s time for you to shit or get off the pot. We would love to have you. Rose likes you. Daddy likes you. Even Pappy likes you.”

“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up. “Well, let me think about it.”

“Do it, because I want my daddy to be happy. He’s a good guy, my daddy.

You know, he didn’t have to take me.” She pierced him with a stare, her face still and serious as a heart attack.

“He didn’t have to love me. He didn’t have to do anything, even if he just put his name on the birth certificate.

He didn’t even have to do that. But he did.

He did all of it, and then he loved me too.

Those kind of people are rare, and when you find one, it’s stupid to lose them, and it’s like super stupid to lose them twice. ”

Ouch.

“I hear you.”

“I would hope so. I wasn’t being real subtle.”

He rolled his eyes. “No, no you weren’t. You are the least subtle Southerner I’ve ever met.”

“Daddy says that’s because I’m a cowgirl, not a debutante, although I was, you know?”

He vaguely remembered hearing Dan bitch about that a few years ago. “Were you?”

“Yep, wore the whole white dress and everything, but I had cowboy boots on underneath.”

“I bet you did. And who was your date?”

She gave him a sparkling grin. “Who else would have been my date? That was my daddy.”

Lord, have mercy.

She wandered off, leaving him sitting in the kitchen drinking his coffee.

Rowdy was giving an interview online to some magazine on the West Coast. His dad was at some auction in Texas picking up cattle, and Brett figured he had some decisions to make.

Thing was, they shouldn’t be hard decisions.

He loved Rowdy. He always had, and he knew it now. He loved the forge, he loved this place, he loved the mountains. He loved the idea that there was going to be snow. Hell, he even loved that smart-assed kid. So why was he hesitating?

Maybe it was because Rowdy hadn’t actually asked.

Sure Rowdy had talked to him about how he was perfectly happy if Brett stayed, and he knew that Rowdy wanted him.

There was nothing wrong with their sex life, especially after Rowdy had made it known he was neglecting that just a little bit spending all the time he did down at the forge.

And he knew that Rowdy was just as practical as Madison. His cowboy wasn’t one for great declarations, but he wasn’t one hundred percent sure the guy was in love with him. What if he was just in deep like?

Brett wasn’t sure if that was something to hang a relationship on, and he didn’t want to be a user. He didn’t want anyone to say he loved Rowdy for his forge and his ranch.

He didn’t, but sometimes it probably felt that way.

He glanced down at Mr. Mann, who was lying on his foot on the floor hoping that he dropped something besides coffee.

Everyone should have someone who looked at them the way that Mr. Mann looked at toast or potatoes.

“I don’t know, buddy. What do you think? Do you think we ought to live here full time?”

Mr. Mann’s tail flapped on the floor, and he panted. It wasn’t a no…

“Yeah, I know. You would hang out and eat Rose’s cooking twenty-four seven here.” He leaned down to rub Mr. Mann’s ears, and then suddenly he was surrounded by two or three of the German shepherds, pushing right in. “Y’all wanting your scritches too?”

Brett sucked down the rest of his coffee. “Come on, you lot. Let’s go find your dad.”

He would go see if Rowdy was done with his call or meeting or whatever the heck it was.

It was time to find out if Rowdy would be all right with him hitching his wagon to Rowdy’s and moving his stuff here. He could either hang on to his own land and rent it to Crystal, who would really love to be able to move out of her own crappy place.

Something about just selling it outright didn’t sit well with him—not because he wanted to be able to go back there, but because it had belonged to his family for so long.

Who knew? If Madison had tons of kids, they might want it someday. They would have half their family from there, right?

Or maybe he’d sell it to Crystal for her kids and do some sort of rent-to-own kind of thing.

He blinked at himself.

Maybe he’d been thinking about this more than he thought he had…

He got up and padded in his socks to Rowdy’s office, needing some input. If he was gonna make this kind of plan, they needed to be making it together.

Rowdy’s head was down, the man adorable in a plaid shirt and old jeans, Rowdy’s office was pristine—the desk holding a laptop, a Braille book, and a squishy hand exerciser shaped like a rainbow cattle brand. This was another room that needed art on the walls, dammit.

He knocked lightly on Rowdy’s doorframe, and that dark head came up, Rowdy searching with those eyes even though he couldn’t see Brett.

“Hey, you got a minute?”

That smile was warm as a thousand suns. “I do. I was just filling out paperwork.”

Rowdy sat back in his chair, laughing when one of the German shepherds jumped up and put his front feet on Rowdy’s lap. “What’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking.” He sat in the office chair across from Rowdy’s desk.

“That explains the smoke I smell.”

“Hush now. Do you think I should stay?” It came out quieter and more hopeful than he really had planned on. He was afraid it was maybe a little desperate, which he didn’t like, but he wanted to know what Rowdy really thought.

Rowdy’s head tilted, and he would swear those eyes were watching him. “Darlin’, I’ve been ready for you to stay ever since we got back here. You’re the one who seemed to have one foot out the door while you were enjoying the hell out of being here.”

Fuck him.

He shook his head, knowing he had to look all hang dog, “If I made you feel like it was because of you, I’m sorry. I just don’t trust things. You know that.”

“I do.” Rowdy just seemed like a duck with water rolling off his back, calm as shit. “So, I’ve been giving you plenty of time to make up your own mind, but if you’re ready? I say we go get your shit.”

This huge grin broke out on his face, pulling hard enough on his cheeks that it hurt. “It really is just like that with you?”

Rowdy nodded, leaning back in his chair, and that was when he could tell how tense his lover had been in that second.

He was going to have to get better at catching that.

“It really is just like that. I figure we’ve been given a second chance to get to know each other.

We’ve done that. We had to figure out if we can live together, so we did that too.

My family adores you, my dogs like you, I…

” Rowdy trailed off, and Brett held his breath because there were three little words he needed to hear.

Then again, maybe Rowdy needed to hear them from him.

“I love you, you know.” Brett just came right out and said it. “I really do. I mean, I always kind of have, but after we came out here, and I got to be with you… I realized that I still did, and it’s not just the boy who I used to know that I’m in love with. I love the man you are now.”

Rowdy shook his head, and for a second, Brett’s heart just crashed down into the pit of his belly and stayed there.

Then his lover grinned. “Shit, darlin’, if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t spend all this time getting past your squirrely weird worries and your prickly nature.

I wouldn’t be spending a fortune on your metal-working supplies every week, and I wouldn’t be sharing my bed with you at night. ”

“Are you saying I’m a kept man?”

“Brett, I will kick your gigantic, broad-shouldered ass.”

Rowdy was just smoking hot like this. Brett stared him, his heart hammering in his chest. “You’re going to try, short stuff.”

“You and I both know that I’m toughest son of a bitch you’ve ever met in your life.”

He nodded and stood so he could walk over and loom over his cowboy who was leaning in toward him. “I don’t know, man, I think that might be your daughter. She is a stone-cold bitch.”

Rowdy’s grin was like the sun coming out through the clouds. “I’m so proud of her.”

He leaned down and took the kiss that he wanted, just mashing their lips together. “The rumor is, you always get what you want.”

Rowdy nodded. “You bet your sweet ass I do.”

“And how do you manage that?”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Rowdy drew him down to where he was straddling Rowdy’s muscled thighs on the desk chair. It rolled a little bit, but it didn’t go over. “Super simple formula that. Patience, hard work, and faith. Works every time.”

“Does it now?”

Rowdy’s hand curled around his hip, squeezed his ass. “You tell me.”