“What are you grinning about?” Laura asked, coming up behind me and looking out the window. “Oh, I see.”
Shaking my head at her, I went and walked onto the deck.
I called out to the guys. “Come in this way!”
When they trudged in a few minutes later, Angus wrapped me in a hug, and it took a second for me to hug him back; he change in our relationship was all so new. Angus gave me a smile that seemed to say he understood before stepping back.
We showed the Cheevers around and talked about a game plan.
“I think the porch has to be first,” Laura said.
“That’s sensible,” Angus said.
“Much of the wood in the porch is rotted,” Andy said. “We might as well build a new one. Think Mr. Hawkins still has all that lumber he was trying to get rid of last month?”
“Only one way to find out.” Grant pulled out his cell phone.
“There’s still some left here at the side of the house, too,” I told them.
It took us all day, but we finished reconstructing the porch.
“I wish we could have at least started on the fences,” Angus said on our way home.
“Me, too, but there’s so much to do. With our own work on top of it, it’s going to take a while.”
“How in the world did Nova and Eric think they would get it all done by themselves?” I asked.
“I got the impression yesterday they hadn’t had time to think about it before we showed up yesterday,” Angus said.
Nova had been so grateful after seeing the new porch, she’d loaded us and the Cheevers down with smoked whitefish and bottles of homemade maple syrup that she’d brought from their old home.
As I turned into Angus’s driveway, the Cheevers blew the horn of their truck before continuing up the road to their ranch, and I returned a couple of toots.
“Nice of them to help,” Angus said. “We never would’ve gotten that porch done today without them, and I would’ve hated for one of the kids to get hurt again.”
When we walked into the house, Ollie was crying while David struggled to get the baby’s clothes off so he could bathe him. I walked over and made goofy faces at him while talking baby talk to keep him entertained until David was finished. It was odd; I’d always thought Oliver was cute and paid attention to him, but since mating Angus and Ben, I felt a whole new level of interest. To think this time next year I could have a kid of my own blew my mind.
Angus motioned to me and Ben to follow him into his portion of the house. “Let’s get cleaned up. Then we need to have a chat about our living arrangements.”
“I’ll take a shower in the hall bathroom. That’s where my stuff is,” Ben said.
Once naked and under the warm spray, Angus and I took a moment to kiss and run our hands over each other’s bodies.
“I love you,” I told him, emotion unexpectedly welling up within me as I looked into his pale blue eyes. Their color reminded me of sun-bleached denim.
“Ah, Colt.” Angus pushed me back against the tiled wall of the shower, his eyes roaming over my face as though he couldn’t believe I was really there with him. Then he kissed me hard, pressing his bare body against mine.
When his mouth moved to my neck, sending chills throughout my body, I said, “It would be nice to have Ben in here with us, but this is really good, too.”
Raising his head, Angus said, “I guess we should wash. He’ll be waiting for us.”
By the time we’d gotten clean and into our pajamas, Ben was in the sitting room with three cups of hot tea.
“It’s chamomile,” he told us, handing us each a cup.
I’d never seen Angus drink a cup of tea as long as I’d known him—I was pretty sure he thought tea was a woman’s beverage—but he docilely did it for our omega mate.
After we’d all taken a few sips, Angus set down his cup and looked at me and Ben.