Page 49 of Long Hard Road
“Lucky and I raised the kids all the same. Didn’t matter that Harp was a girl. She had chores on the ranch just like the boys and they all had chores inside the house.” Tom pointed to where Ronan was rinsing the dishes. “And we added him to those chore lists the day he moved in. Everyone in this family contributes.”
“On that note, what can I do to help out? I want to contribute.”
“Next time,” Tom said, waving his hand. “You are a guest tonight but if you make a return appearance, you’ll be part of the family. We’ll put you right to work.”
“Hey.” Nate was smiling when he reappeared. “I’m going to steal my girl away and give her a tour of the rest of the house.”
Harper let out a happy little sigh when he called me his girl and Tom and Lily exchanged a knowing look. “Don’t keep her too long. We need to indoctrinate Madison later,” Tom said.
“What does that mean?” I looked at Nate as he pulled back my chair while I stood.
“Don’t worry about it.” He took my hand and started walking. “I thought you might like to see the upstairs. All of the bedrooms have a unique layout and design. Mom was really good at that sort of thing and I tried to incorporate it into the house I’m building.”
The grand staircase in the center of the house leveled onto a landing before redirecting in the other direction to take us to the second floor.
“Will I get to see your old bedroom?” I bounded up the last couple of steps with eagerness.
Nate’s chuckle was deep and sexy. “It will be the highlight of the tour, angel.”
“Your brother calls Lily sweetheart. You call me angel. Is that a Sullivan territory-marking thing?”
“Neither you nor Lily are territory and neither Evan nor I are dumb enough to think we could mark women like you.” His arm went smoothly around my shoulders. “Dad never called Mom by her name. He always called her Lucky. I can’t answer why Evan calls Lily sweetheart, but I call you angel because I always liked that Mom had a special name that only Dad used for her. I liked the way she had a smile she only ever used when he called her that name.”
“It’s too bad I didn’t get to meet your mom. I wish I could’ve seen that smile.” I knew that Penny Sullivan had likely been an incredible woman given the way her children had turned out.
“Sometime you should look in the mirror when I call you angel. You’ll see the smile.” He pressed his lips to that special spot on my temple where only he had ever kissed me.
Nate gave me a quick tour of the many bedrooms upstairs. He was right that each one had a distinctive setup and it almost felt like we were at a touristy bed and breakfast rather than a family home. The last room we entered was his childhood bedroom.
“You won’t find any embarrassing mementos from my youth,” he said as I began scouring every inch of the room. “I stayed here for a while after I moved back home and made sure to burn anything remotely mortifying.”
That was disappointing. I was hoping to find at least one embarrassing teenage photo of Nate to prove to myself that he wasn’t actually perfect. “What about that bed? How many teenage girls did you deflower on that mattress?”
“That mattress? None. It’s new.” He grinned and cupped my chin in his hand. “Do you want to be the first?”
“We can’t… do that while everyone is downstairs.” The heat in my cheeks was matched by the heat building low in my belly.
“No, we can’t,” he agreed. “Because if we’re gone too long, they’ll come find us, and when we do that we’re going to need a few hours.” His hand moved down until it was curved around my neck. “But we could do other things…”
“Like?” My pulse pounded beneath his hand.
His nose skimmed my jaw as he pressed a kiss to my neck. “I have some ideas. We can start by watching the sunset.”
“Um… okay.” That was not where I had expected him to go with his suggestion.
“You sound disappointed? Did you have something else in mind?” He nipped at my earlobe and then grinned wickedly at me. “I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
“Your house, your rules.” I would do almost anything he asked me to do when he was smiling at me like that.
Nate steered me to the window that faced toward the west where the mountain range in the distance was highlighted by the last streaks of orange and pink before the sun would disappear completely.
“That is all Sullivan land,” he said, wrapping himself around me from behind. “All the way to the mountain ridge.
The ranch was huge. Much larger than I had originally guessed. “Who would have expected the sexy town bartender to be an heir to a ranching fortune?” I teased. “Maybe I’ll seduce you into marrying me for your money.”
“Says the multimillionaire celebrity.” He was back to kissing my neck. “But feel free to seduce me anyway. I wouldn’t mind being a trophy husband.”
His tongue traced the shell of my ear and I moaned while moving one hand up to grab his forearm. “Do you want me to tell you what we are going to do next, angel?”