Shayanne falling in love with Luke forced us to heal some of it, but for me, it was mostly Willow. She healed everything. She healed me.

  And now, it’s my turn to return the favor.

  I’ve seen it on her face, in her slowing movements, in the moments where she thinks no one is watching… the exhaustion, the worry, but also, the happiness that tugs at her tender heart. This life we’ve created together is better than either of us ever dreamed it could be, but it’s also a lot of responsibility, a lot of work, and there’s a lot of time where I wish I could simply hold Willow in my arms.

  And for a moment, right now… I can.

  Bend and bow, my pretty little Willow. I’ll hold you steady, like the strongest oak.

  I close the door to our bedroom and spin Willow around.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she purrs. It could be an argument, but her arms wrap around my neck easy enough and her smile is a tempting devil.

  “Exactly what you think. I only have a minute before the boys track me down to get back to work, but I can take care of you.” I press a line of kisses along her jaw and down her neck.

  Her lashes flutter as her eyes close. “Take care of us both,” she counters dreamily.

  “Yes ma’am,” I say politely one second before tossing her to the bed.

  She laughs as she bounces on the soft surface, but after months of practice to not wake Juniper, she quickly covers her mouth to stifle the sound. I arch a brow. “Think you can come for me silently?”

  I can see the glint in her eye. She wants me to make it hard on her, make her want to scream my name to the rafters of our big bedroom, make her come so desperately that her cries echo. Well, challenge fucking accepted.

  We both rush to strip as quick as possible. We need this. Desperately.

  Morning quickies are too soon interrupted by either a waking toddler or baby, and night time lovemaking too often loses the battle to the pull of sleep for my bride. But a lunchtime afternoon delight? One with family to intercept any cries for Mommy? Hell yes.

  Clothes throw haphazardly and looming over my wife on the bed, I take a moment to look her over. I know she wonders if I still find her as sexy as I did the first time I laid eyes on her behind the bar at Hank’s, but her body has grown two entire human beings, so it’s not the same as it used to be. It’s better. I see the lines where her body stretched to accommodate our daughters growth. I see the way her hips are wider now, giving me a better grip when I pull her onto my cock. I see the past, present, and future in her, and she’s the most beautiful, sexiest creature I’ve ever had the pleasure to fuck. As she is now… as my wife, as the mother to our children.

  “Are you ready for me?” My voice has gone gritty and though she nods in answer, I knock her knees apart and check for myself. Two fingers slide into her easily, her pussy already soaked for me. “Fuck, Willow.”

  I move my fingers in and out of her, hitting that spot deep inside that drives her wild with every stroke. With my other hand, I trace every inch of her body… up her thigh, a squeeze of her hip, across her stomach, even higher to cup her breast and tweak her nipple, until I get to her jaw. I run a gentle thumb over her lips, reminding her to be quiet, then thread my hand into her hair, gripping the back of her head firmly. My forehead to hers and my feet planted firmly on the floor at the bedside, I make her mine, fucking her with my fingers hard and fast and rough.

  Her cries get a bit louder and I hiss in her ear, “Shhh. Come quiet for me. Just for us.”

  Truth be told, the sound of my fingers in and out of her wetness is louder than she was being, but that’s part of the point. I want to hear the sound her body makes for me, how much it wants me, wants us, wants this life we’ve made together. Because fuck, I want this life with her too.

  With her lips pressed together, the cries become whimpers and I reward us both by swiping my soaked fingers across her pussy, coating her clit with her juices. When her breath hitches, I know she’s right there and I don’t give any mercy, not that she wants it. The moment stretches and then her body spasms as she comes. Her legs try to slam closed, but I force them apart, giving her more and more, wanting this to be the release she’s needed.

  But I need it too. Need her.

  She’s still quivering when I slam inside her, balls deep on the first stroke. Her walls grip me so tight, like the heaven I’ve been missing. This is home. Not the stage where people yell my name like they know me, not the fancy house we live in, not even at Willow’s side. Home is inside her, us connected the way we were always meant to be.

  But that’s the sum total of my sweet thoughts. Urgency is riding me hard and I ride Willow just as hard, pounding into her roughly. Her legs wobble and I push them up, putting her knees toward her shoulders so I can get even deeper inside her. “You good?”

  She smiles beneath me, knowing I want more than that as an answer.

  “Tell me, Willow. Tell me what you want.”

  Her throat bobs as she swallows and I have half a mind to pull out of her pussy and let her swallow my cock instead, but trading one heaven for another feels greedy. “Fuck me. Hard, deep, fast.”

  Goddamn, this woman. She knows I come undone when she talks dirty. The filthier, the better. So I do what she says, same as I always do. I slam into her, bottoming out with every thrust before repeating it again and again, giving her the rough fucking we both need.

  It only takes a moment until I’m on the edge, but I do my best to hold it at bay, wanting more of this… more of her.

  “Give me your cum, Bobby. All of it. Fill me with it until it’s too much for me to even hold, and it runs out of me for the rest of day, reminding me that I’m yours with every trickle down my thigh.”

  My cock goes even harder inside her, the painful pleasure of ejaculation frozen right on the cusp of explosion. And then Willow does the one thing she knows will send me flying.

  She whispers tightly, “Please. I want it.”

  Fuck me. Fuck her. Fuck us both. Because I will give this woman any damn thing she wants. And if all she’s asking for is my cum, it’s hers. It’s all hers. Always. Forever.

  I jerk as pulses of cum explode from my cock, filling her sweet pussy. I think I grit out her name, or maybe I grunt in pleasure. I must make some noise because she shushes me, and when I manage to peel one eyelid open, she’s grinning at me like she’s proud of herself.

  “Oh, you think that’s it?” I taunt.

  Her grin falters the slightest bit, but I don’t give her time to worry about my meaning. I pull out of her and slide my fingers back inside her. Gathering our combined cum, I spread it over her mouth and then follow it with a kiss, tasting us together on her lips as I tease over clit again.

  She tries to fight me, her hands wrapping around my forearm as she murmurs that she can’t go again. Still kissing her, I tell her, “Yes, you can. You need it again. I need it again.”

  She relents, her hands relaxing for a moment while I work my magic on her body. I know her, every inch, every reaction, every thought that runs through my pretty girl’s mind, and I use that to my advantage to get her back to the edge quickly without overstimulating her. In seconds, her hands are gripping my arm again, but this time, it’s so I won’t stop. And when she comes again, I muffle her sounds with a kiss, tasting us on her lips once more.

  “Beautiful,” I tell her as she floats back to awareness and her smile makes her even more so.

  “Thank you.”

  It could be for the compliment, it could be for the orgasms, but I think it’s for so much more than that. It’s for everything, for our life together, so I say the same back to her. “Thank you.”

  And with a happy sigh, we make our way to the bathroom. There’s still work to be done for us both, in the fields and here at home with the kids, but we’ll tackle our afternoons feeling more connected and significantly happier. “Want me to take Juniper out with us? I can teach her all about melon crops,” I offer.

  Willow shakes her head, smiling. “No, we’re good. I’m going into town to get Aspen later and I think we’re gonna stop by the grocery store so I can make something for Saturday’s lunch.”

  Our older daughter gets out of preschool at two o’clock. By the time I come in from the fields, Willow will have entertained the girls for a few hours, while making dinner and simultaneously taking photos that would make a grown man cry. It’s me, I’m the man that cries every time she shows me a picture of our girls.

  I can’t help it. This life is one I never dreamed I’d have. But through the magic of the woman in my arms, I do.

  “Okay, I can bring in a few melons too. I’ll cup them up so we can take them.”

  “Perfect,” she tells me. Hair fixed and clothes back on, we go to rejoin our family on the back porch.

  Bruce holds up a sandwich. “Take it with you. We’ve gotta get back to work.”

  As we pull away in the Gator, leaving Shayanne and Willow waving behind us, I can’t help but grin. Willow put her panties back on and she’ll be remembering our fun all afternoon. The thought of her walking around the grocery store and making dinner for our family while our cum is still in and on her does dangerous things to me.

  It makes me want to turn this Gator around and go back for another round. But the melons won’t harvest themselves, so we keep driving back to the fields.

  “Lucky fucker,” Brody scoffs as he backhands my shoulder. “Rix is in town at the shop. No noon’ers for me.”

  “Yeah, lucky me,” I answer, meaning it with my whole heart.

  3

  MARK

  “There they come,” I grumble.

  It might sound like it, but I’m not mad. Hell, I’m glad the whole gang is coming to lunch today, but when they arrive all at once, the Tannens are a lot. Doesn’t help that behind the three big trucks coming up the drive that belong to the various Tannen brothers and their families, there are two more speed demons cruising toward the house. One, Sophie’s old beater truck and two, Shayanne, who’s riding a horse alongside the driveway.

  I huff and roll my eyes. That Tannen girl… well, Bennett girl I guess now, is actually racing a truck on a stallion? Of course, she is. To be fair, it’s one of Luke’s thoroughbreds, so it is fast, but against a truck? We all know who’ll win… Shayanne. Because she doesn’t stop when Bruce parks his truck. Nope, she keeps right on riding past the front drive, around the house, and we can hear her hollering as she makes a loop.

  “Girl’s lost her marbles,” I mutter, mostly to myself.

  “I think she found herself is more like it,” Katelyn corrects.

  She may be right, but I’m not sure Shayanne was ever unsure about herself. She’s always been an unapologetic hellion. She’s just a little more free-range and feral about it these days with my brother backing her up.

  As everyone gets out, greetings are thrown about, with handshakes between the menfolk and the women hugging like they haven’t seen each other in ages even though it’s only been a few days for most of them. Hell, some of them saw each other this morning. But that’s how they are. Kids start to scatter like roaches - here, there, and everywhere.

  But everyone pauses to hug Mama.

  “Mama Louise! How’re you doing?” Bobby asks, pulling her to his side.

  I watch as Mama’s eyes sparkle at the affection. “Good as God wants me to be,” she answers, hugging him back before moving on to welcome Willow and tickle Juniper’s toes. Aspen’s already run off, chasing after my boy, Johnny. She’ll do her best to get him in trouble before the day’s over, mark my words.

  As Mama hugs Cooper, Bruce and Allyson’s boy, who is more man than kid these days, she oh-so-casually tells him, “Mindy’s in the house. She didn’t have plans this weekend, so I roped her into helping with the little ones today.”

  Mindy is the granddaughter of one of the ladies in town and Mama is doing her damnedest to matchmake her and Cooper so that the boy won’t leave Great Falls for college. I haven’t told her that Cooper’s already talked to me about an official apprenticeship to learn the business side of cattle ranching as well as he already knows farming. He’s the literal culmination of the Bennett-Tannen partnership, becoming a Tannen his younger days when Bruce married his mother and then mixing with the Bennetts when we all became one big happy family.

  “Oh! I’ll go see if she needs any help,” Cooper says, aiming for equal casualness, but as he trots off, we all bust out laughing at his hustle to go see the pretty young thing he’s already got eyes for. Mama’s matchmaking won’t take much beyond creating some opportunities for them to spend time together.

  “Hopefully, the herd of kids will be good birth control for them,” Allyson muses worriedly.

  “If not, he’s got condoms,” Bruce declares. Allyson turns eyes wide with horror to her husband and he chuckles. “What? He’s grown, Mindy’s grown, they’re literal adults. And if seeing Mother Nature run her course on the ranch isn’t enough, I’ve had the talk with him dozens of times.”

  Allyson frowns, but we all know Bruce is right. Cooper is a man, and while we’re all fairly stupid at his age, the kid has his head on straight. Bruce made sure of it.

  Mama clears her throat and asks loudly, “Is that the potato salad?”

  Allyson’s attention drops to the big bowl in her hands, exactly how Mama knew it would. “Yes, where should I put it?”

  Mama leads her toward the table, ending the conversation and Bruce lets out a whoosh of relief. “Gonna owe Mama Louise for that one,” he tells the rest of us.

  I clap him on the back. “She won’t let you forget.”

  Back from putting the horse in the barn, and catching just enough of that conversation to get the gist of it, Shayanne offers helpfully, “And don’t worry, Mindy has Leo and Riley, so her and Cooper will be too busy keeping them out of the chicken coop to sneak off to the hayloft.” Her two boys are nearly as feral as their momma is.

  “And there goes Ford,” Brody adds, pointing to his son as he disappears through the front door.

  “Shit,” I hiss. “Do you think we should send them some backup?”

  That’s a lot of children to corral. Ford is trouble with a capital T, and Leo and Riley would ride right along to hell with him. My boy, Johnny, won’t be any trouble, and Aspen will stay out of trouble by shadowing him. Cindy Lou and Maisie, James’ girls, will just boss anyone (read: everyone) around, but still… seven kids under ten? I would need backup for that.

  Bruce shrugs. “Cooper will yell if he needs help.”

  That decided, we make our way to the table to check out the spread, and mostly to see if we can sneak a bite without getting caught by Mama.

  “I just checked the ribs,” I inform everyone. “Should be ready shortly.”

  “Dibs on the first rack,” James shouts, his hand thrusting into the air.

  “Ain’t it supposed to be guests first?” Brody grumbles.

  “You’re no guest,” Luke laughs. “You’re family.”

  “What about ladies first?” Shayanne quips.

  “Do you know any?” Brody taunts right back, in that sibling way where they don’t mean anything by it but there’s still every possibility they’ll end up tussling in the yard over the things they’ve said.

  Rix steps up and barks, “Lady, present and accounted for.” Of all of the wives, she’s the least ladylike of them all, but no one dares to tell her that. She’d probably shoot us, or tinker with our trucks and leave us stranded out in the back forty.

  “Why don’t we worry about the food when it’s ready,” Mama Louise suggests. “For now, how about a bit of horseshoes?”

  We have two horseshoe pits already set in place, but we have more people than usual so the math ain’t mathin’. “Brackets?” I offer.

  “Men versus ladies,” Shayanne says pointedly, daring me to say she’s not a lady like her brother did. I’m not that stupid though. I know all too well the sharpness of her claws and bite of her canines, figuratively not literally, but even that was enough for me and I always give her a wide berth. She fights dirty.

  “Choose your teams,” I say instead.

  That settled, we make quick work of partnering up. Mama looks over us proudly as we pair a Bennett brother with a Tannen brother for each of our three teams. And as we line up to play, Shayanne declares, “Winners get first dibs on food.”

  “You have to leave some for the rest of us though,” Bruce reminds James, who throws his hands wide like ‘who me?’ as he tries to look innocent.

  “Your plates are getting piled higher and higher,” Sophie reminds him.

  “I’m a growing boy,” he quips, patting his flat belly.

  We’re all big eaters. We’re hard workers, and the two go hand in hand.

  “Deal,” I agree for all the men. It won’t matter anyway. We’re gonna win, then we’ll each let our wives go first. They’ll make kid plates, and once that’s done, the women will get food. And last but not least, we’ll make plates. We all know this already, despite acting like this is a high stakes game we’re playing.

  Bruce and James take their position against Allyson and Katelyn.

  This’ll be an easy win for the boys, I think as James throws his first horseshoe and gets a ringer. His next one goes wide, and Katelyn makes both of hers in the dirt, but the inning settles with the boys earning four points.

  That’s when the ladies start whispering and giggling like a pack of plotting hyenas.

  Bruce is up next and his first shoe is a leaner. We clap and cheer him on. “You got the next one, man.”

  And he probably would’ve, except right as he’s lining up his shot, Allyson strolls on over, casual as you please, and grabs a handful of Bruce’s ass. His aim goes squirrely, sending the shoe in the grass and missing the dirt pit completely. Hell, it might as well have landed in the next county.

  “Woman,” he growls. “That is cheating.”

  “You mispronounced strategy,” she sasses back.

  “It’s interference, at least!” Bobby grumbles.