Getting to the Church On Time (7 page)

He gripped her butt and pulled her firmly against his fly. “I never give you less than gold-medal stuff, Madam Mayor.”

He still called her his favorite nickname, even though his brother had taken her title a few months ago.

Ty cupped the back of her head and tipped it back, exposing her neck. He kissed his way up the soft length until he got to her mouth. “You better be nice or I’ll cut you off until the wedding night.”

She laughed at that, making kissing her difficult. But he managed it for several long, delicious moments. Then she pushed him back and slid to the floor. “Yes, that’s better. I like the fire and focus. Keep that up.”

He shook his head. She sounded like a coach. “How about we go upstairs and I show you some real fire and focus.”

She gave him a peck on the cheek and then headed for the cupboards across the room. “We’ll lose our advantage.”

She started pulling things from her shelves.

“We have an advantage?”

“Several. We have this kitchen all to ourselves while they’ll have to share the one at your house. And we’ve got at least an hour, I’d say—okay, maybe less with Tucker.”

“We’ve got an hour for what?”

“They all went back to the other house to strategize,” she said, turning to grin at him. She held a gigantic canister of hot cocoa mix. “But they’ll probably go up to their rooms to talk so that no one overhears their plans.”

“Okay, so?”

“Tucker and TJ get those girls in their bedrooms for more than two seconds and they aren’t coming out for a while.”

Ty chuckled but said, “You don’t know that for sure. They’re serious about this.”

Hailey lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve been around. You really think that Hope needed TJ’s help putting laundry away the other day? For forty minutes? Or that Delaney needed Tucker to go with her down to the barn to check on the chairs she was refinishing? Or that she should have hay in her hair if all they did was check on the chairs?”

Ty moved closer, backing her up against the countertop behind her. “You’ve been paying a lot of attention to Hope and TJ and Delaney and Tucker.”

“And Lauren and Travis. Lauren doesn’t even like the barn. Or the cows. But she went to ‘help him’ with the calves the other night when we were all over there for dinner.”

“She does like cows now, remember?” he asked, setting the cocoa can to the side and putting his hands on her hips.

“No. She likes your brother.”

Ty smiled at that. He really was so happy that his brothers had all found their true loves. Lauren, Delaney and Hope were all amazing women and he was proud to call them sisters.

But then he looked at Hailey’s face. She wasn’t wearing her usual heels so he had to dip his knees to look into her eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

She sighed. “Nothing.”

“You want to go out to a barn and make out? We’ll have to drive a little ways but I’m sure none of the guys would mind.”

She looked a little alarmed by that. “I do
not
want to make out in a barn.”

“Then what is it?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. It’s silly.”

“Hails, come on.”

“Okay, I—we have lots of sex and it’s amazing.”

He couldn’t argue there. “Right.”

“But we…don’t sneak off and fool around. We don’t even really kiss or anything in public. And I know Bryan told you to work on making things more private and meaningful since you’re such a…” She trailed off, as if not sure how to finish that sentence.

He grinned. Or as if not sure she
should
finish that sentence. “Attention hog? Spotlight whore? Center of the universe?”

She seemed to be pondering those and he wanted to pinch her ass.

“I like attention whore.”

He tipped his head in acknowledgement. He was working on it. He was trying to grow past the need to always be the best, the most noticed, the center of attention. But it was pretty engrained. Thank God for Hailey to keep him grounded.

And his brothers. Lord knew they didn’t let him get away with thinking he was too important. Being away from them in Colorado all those years had let his ego get a little big.

They were bringing it back down to size.

“But?” he asked. “You were going somewhere with all of that.”

“I guess all those years of pretending we
weren’t
involved has carried over now that we want everyone to know. We’re pretty low-key on the displays of affection.”

Ty thought about that.

They had indulged in a long-distance affair for three and a half years. One of the “rules” of that affair had been keeping it a secret from Sapphire Falls. Ty hadn’t lived there but he’d of course visited several times a year. During those visits, they had not just downplayed their involvement—they’d even put on a show of disliking one another. He supposed the habit of not touching her or letting on how he really felt about her in public had maybe subconsciously carried over.

They were a very physical couple. They made love nearly every night. It wasn’t uncommon for them to have sex twice a day. They were also very verbal. Knowing each other so well for so long had made them extremely comfortable, not only with the fun dirty talk but also in general. They could tell each other anything. Opening up and being completely honest about who they were, how they felt and what they thought had been a big part of them finally getting to this point, where they knew they wanted to be together, every day, forever.

Maybe that felt like enough. They were both physically satisfied. He was very emotionally satisfied. But maybe Hailey needed more.

For years she’d kept herself closed off from others. A childhood of trying to measure up and never quite getting there, along with her attention deficit disorder, had made her feel as if she had to put on an act of being cool and confident and always in control.

Now though, those walls had come down and she’d realized that the town still respected her and she had many friends who loved her.

Maybe now she was ready to be more open and less private about their relationship too. Everyone knew they were together and how they felt about each other. But maybe she needed everyone to
see
how much he loved her. That had never occurred to him.

Dammit. He’d thought they were getting better at this communication thing.

“I’m in,” he told her. “I will happily touch you and kiss you and say amazingly hot and romantic things to you in public every chance I get. It’ll be like high school all over again.” He gave her a grin.

Her eyes widened. “Um…never mind. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Unlike the years of pretending he wasn’t sleeping with her every chance he got, in high school, Ty had been shameless about letting Hailey—and everyone else—know how he felt about her. His crush on her had started when he was fifteen. He had never gotten over her.

And she’d loved it. He knew she did. Even then he’d known.

“Nope. I want you to know that I heard you, I’m listening, and I promise you that you will be the most doted-upon woman in all of Sapphire Falls.”

She groaned. “Ty, you’ve got to learn that there’s a
lot
of ground between all and nothing.”

He grinned and put a hand to her cheek. “I’m teasing you, babe. But I did hear you and you’re right. We’ve probably both been holding back. We’re not used to being out about everything yet. It’s only been a few months. But I will very
happily
kiss you and hug you and even sneak off to get lucky once in a while.”

“Well, we don’t have to sneak off to have sex around every corner or anything,” she said.

Clearly she was still thinking that Ty was going to go overboard. Which was, he could admit, his MO.

“Maybe not sex, but I’ll be giving you a few orgasms around a corner or two.”

She rolled her eyes. “Making out for a few minutes, Ty. That’s what we’re talking about.”

“I can totally give you an orgasm in just a few minutes.”

She laughed. “It doesn’t matter if I have an orgasm. I’m just saying—”

But Ty had heard the challenge.

Not that it took much for Ty to hear a challenge in things. Exceeding people’s expectations of him was his thing.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“What? Where?” she asked as he started tugging her out of the kitchen.

There was a powder room down the hall between the living room where his parents and nephews were and the kitchen. He pushed her into it, stepped in behind her, and shut and locked the door.

“Ty, we’re not—”

“Oh yes, we are. Part of doing this in semi-public or when other people are around is learning to be
quiet
about it.”

“But—”

He pulled her shirt up, and started to unbutton her pants.

“And not getting fully undressed,” he said with a grin as he peeled her pants over her hips and exposed her panties.

“Ty—”

“And learning something new—like you being quiet during sex with me—will take some practice,” he said with a wicked grin.

And, as he knew she would because she was, after all,
his
girl, Hailey lifted her chin and met that challenge head on.

Levi & Tucker & TJ & Ty &…almost everyone

“We’re going to need the Andersons to open up the hardware store too,” Tucker announced as he strode into the foyer.

Levi’s eyebrows went up. “So I’ve been told.”

TJ and Ty were standing with him as well, and Ty had already mentioned a need for the hardware store.

“I just called Eli and he said he’d meet us down there,” Levi said.

Tucker scowled at his brothers. “What do you need at the hardware store?”

TJ frowned in return. “None of your business.”

“Okay, okay.” Levi held up his hands. It wasn’t the last moment he was probably going to wonder what kind of can of worms he’d opened.

He turned toward the door, but Hailey came through the front door as Delaney came running down the stairs, wrapping a scarf around her neck.

Levi looked around at the crowd. “
Everyone
is going?”

“Of course. Teamwork,” Tucker said, putting an arm around Delaney. “That’s the key.”

TJ didn’t look worried about being on his own.

“Hope isn’t coming?” Ty asked him.

“No. She’s going to get started here,” TJ said. “Take advantage of the empty house.”

Tucker’s eyes narrowed. “Laney, maybe—”

“Oh, come on,” she said, grabbing the front of his coat and pulling him toward the door.

But before they were all through, Travis came striding into the foyer.

“You’re coming too?” Levi asked.

“Are you kidding? Watching my brothers race through the grocery store and try to be stealthy at the same time? I wouldn’t miss this.” He held up his phone. “And neither will anyone else.”

Levi liked his spirit. He also had to admit that he was looking forward to the Bennett boys making asses of themselves in the grocery store. Because it was inevitable.

“Lauren’s staying here?” Ty asked.

Travis nodded. “She didn’t want to get Whitney all wrapped up.” Whitney, their daughter, was only a few months old.

“Then maybe she could keep an eye on Hope,” Ty said. “You know, make sure there’s no cheating going on.”

Both of Travis’s eyebrows went up. “Cheating? Hope? First of all,
how
would she cheat in the first place? And second, this is
Hope
. She’s easily the sweetest one of any of us.”

No one could argue with that.

“Okay, fine,” Ty said.

“But she better not be
helping
Hope,” Tucker said. “That would also be cheating.”

Travis laughed. “Which thing would Lauren
help
Hope on? The craft or the cooking?”

They all laughed at that. If someone needed to talk to a stubborn politician about an environmental policy or convince a billionaire to donate millions of dollars to an aid program for third-world countries or negotiate with an irate village leader in Haiti about the farmland they needed to use for that aid program, Lauren Bennett was the girl.

Making desserts and handmade Christmas decorations, not so much.

“I’ll drive,” TJ said, pulling his keys from his pocket.

“I’ve got this,” Tucker said, shouldering his way in front of his older brother.

“We’re
not
drag racing pickups downtown,” Delaney said, grabbing the back of Tucker’s coat as he passed her. “We can all fit in two trucks.”

“I think we’ll drive separately,” Ty said.

Levi rolled his eyes and started after everyone. He was definitely driving separately.

The snow was still coming down hard as they headed downtown, but the huge four-wheel drive pickups didn’t have any trouble handling the roads.

They pulled up in front of the grocery store first.

Levi saw Jim Conrad, the store’s owner, standing inside the door waiting for them. He was in sweatpants and a heavy coat and he’d cleared a narrow path up the front sidewalk with a push broom. Levi didn’t feel too badly about asking him to come to the store. He lived in the house directly behind the store so didn’t have to drive in these conditions.