Before The Night Is Over (19 page)

The pigs grunted and sniffed at her, but did nothing to the intruder in their midst.

“
You are bound and determined to get me into trouble with your momma, aren’t you little girl.”

White teeth flashed amongst the dirt caked on her face when she smiled and clapped her hands, slinging mud everywhere.

“
All right little one. Come out of there.”

She shook her head and smiled again.

“
You’re gonna make me come in there after you, aren’t you.”

After a heavy sigh and a grin heavenward, he stepped into the pen and waded in after her. By the time he got them both near the backdoor, not only did she have mud caked on every surface of her body, but so did he.

“
Off with those clothes, missy. We need to throw both of our clothes in the washer,” he said, pulling her top off over her head and tugging her pants down but left her underwear since they didn’t appear worse for wear. Shucking his boots, socks, jeans and shirt, he grabbed everything up in a pile, herded Kimmy into the living room and plopped her down in front of the television while he put the clothes in the washer and went to find clean ones for himself and a shirt for Kimmy to wear.

Quietly, he pushed open the door to his room and glanced at Laurel sound asleep in his big bed. Her red hair reflected spun gold amongst the strands as the sunlight filtered in through the drawn blinds. Her hands were tucked up under the side of her face and her long eyelashes rested on her cheeks. She looked so peaceful and beautiful lying with her head on his pillow, he had the insane urge to keep her there forever.

With a quick shake of his head, he grabbed clean clothes, a T-shirt for Kimmy and Laurel’s dirty clothes from the floor. He had to wash theirs anyway; he might as well do hers, too.

He returned to the living room after pulling on his and dropping the dirty clothes in the washer, to find Kimmy engrossed in the cartoons, but he had to get her into the bathtub.

“
All right my little mud pie maker. Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, taking her hand and heading for the spare bathroom off the hall. Luckily, the mud didn’t reach anything but his clothes so he didn’t have to shower too. “Bubbles?” he asked, grabbing an old bottle of bubble bath from when one of his nieces had been over.

“
Bubbles!” she yelled.

“
Sshh. We don’t want to wake Mommy.”

“
Sshh,” she repeated and covered her mouth with her hand as she giggled.

Once he had the tub partly filled and enough bubbles to probably cover Kimmy up, he helped her into the tub and let her splash. He glanced into the mirror and was surprised at the sparkle of life in his eyes at the girlish laughter coming from the tub. It had been a long time since anyone had him laughing the way the two Hayes girls did.

What would it be like to have her and Laurel in his life all the time? To have this cute button of a girl call him Daddy? To have Laurel in his bed every night?

“
Not a good thing to be contemplatin’.”

He parked his butt on the toilet lid to watch Kimmy while she sat in the tub. His nieces had left a few toys over at his house the last time they were there, so she had a few things to play with.

His thoughts drifted to things he shouldn’t be thinking about, but he couldn’t help himself. The saucy red-head had wormed her way under his skin and he couldn’t seem to get her out or want to, for that matter. He liked having her in his life and he loved being between her thighs even if it hadn’t been often enough.

“
Okay, little girl. Let’s get you washed up,” he said, coming to his feet and grabbing the shampoo bottle off the shelf.

When he had her cleaned up and dressed in one of his smaller T-shirts, he put her back down on the floor in front of the television and walked to the dining room table where he’d spread out the plans he was working on. He hoped the work would take his mind of the gorgeous woman sleeping in his bed at the moment, but he didn’t hold out much optimism. She seemed to be a major distraction in his life these days and he’d only known her a short time. What would she do to his once orderly existence if she became a permanent part of it?

“
Probably give me one hell of a wild ride for the rest of my days,” he grumbled good-naturedly to himself.

“
Color,” Kimmy said, climbing up on the chair.

“
You want to color?”

Handing her a blank piece of paper and some spare crayons he kept for his nieces, he smiled as Kimberly’s tongue came out of her mouth and she studied her masterpiece. After several minutes, she grinned and handed him the paper.

“
Well, what have we here? You’ve drawn a mighty pretty picture, little lady.”

“
Horsie.”

“
Ah. So you’ve made a picture of the horse we rode today, huh? Very nice. Want to put it on the refrigerator?”

She hopped down from her chair and followed him into the kitchen. A few small magnets hung to the door—advertisements from local businesses he bought supplies from, the pizza place in town and the diner he frequented since he hated eating alone.

“
Where shall we put it?”

“
There,” she said, point to smack dab center of the bottom door.

Once he proudly hung her picture, she whirled around and walked back into the living room, plopping down in front of the television again. He smiled and went back to his plans on the table, but he found himself watching the sweet little girl more than working on his drawings.

The washer beeped indicating the clothes had finished their cycle, drawing him from his musings.

He hadn’t realized how much work kids were until he’d gotten involved with Laurel and Kimberly and he wondered how she did it alone—working full time and taking care of her daughter. Moments later, he had the clothes in the dryer and returned to the living room, but instead of going back to his work, he sat on the couch and stared out into the yard behind the house.

Melancholy thoughts drifted through his mind. He’d originally built the house with a wife and children in mind, but when things fell apart with Judy, it became a lonely existence. Yes, he had his hired hands, friends like Cade and Natalie, his parents, and his siblings along with their passel of kids, but all in all, the house seemed barren without the laughter of a family.

The pat of a small hand on his cheek brought him back to the little girl occupying his space.

“
Hungry.”

Kale glanced at his watch and scowled.
Noon already?

“
Let’s get some lunch then, huh?” He stood and followed his little charge into the kitchen.

Detouring at the sound of the buzzer on the dryer, he walked toward the laundry room to retrieve the clothes and get Kimmy dressed before Laurel woke up. Plus, Laurel’s clothes would be nice and clean, too. After he got Kimberly dressed, she parked in one of the chairs at his table, swinging her little legs back and forth.

“
What do you feed a three year old anyway?” he asked himself as he stared into the bare refrigerator. “We have mayo, God only knows how old sandwich meat.” He sniffed the meat and wrinkled his nose, eliciting a giggle from his audience at the table. “We aren’t eating that.” Next stop the cupboard, which didn’t yield much more than the refrigerator. “Hmm. I tell you what. Let me get my boots on and we’ll run to the store. We can get something for lunch and maybe some food for dinner,” he said, shutting the freezer once he checked there too. “We can barbeque and maybe keep your momma here for a few more hours.”

Within a few minutes, he had Kimmy buckled into her car seat and was driving down the driveway toward town. The local grocery had given way to progress a few years ago and now their little town got their very own super grocery store.

Kale pulled into a spot, got Kimmy out and into a cart and walked toward the door. The wide-eyed stares and raised eyebrows brought a frown to his face. Not one to worry about what others thought, he shook it off and pushed the cart down the meat aisle.

“
Well, if it isn’t Kale Dunn. Who’s the kid?”

Narrowing his eyes, he glared at the busty blonde standing next to his cart. “None of your business, Michelle.”

“
Wow, aren’t we the protective one.” Michelle eyed Kimberly before she gave him a tolerant smile. “You haven’t called me in awhile, sugar. I’ve missed you.”

“
I’ve been busy.”

“
I see,” she said, staring at Kimberly again. “She can’t be yours, Kale. She’s too blonde and blue eyed.”

“
What if she is?”

“
I’d be asking where you’ve been hiding her,” Michelle said, tapping her fingernail to her lips. “Doesn’t matter. I still want you even if you have a kid.”

“
No, Michelle, you don’t want me. You want my bank account.”

Painted fingernails ran down the buttons on his shirt. “Not true, lover. I want all of you. Every muscled, tantalizing inch buried deep—”

He put a hand over her mouth to stop her words before Kimberly and everyone in the store heard her. “Knock it off,” he hissed. “You’ve got some nerve, you know. You’re screwing half the county yet you think I’m going to play along, well guess what, doll, I’m not interested. Find some other guy to use up and discard. I’m done.”

Throwing one of the packages of steaks in the basket, he pushed the cart on down the aisle and around the corner. Kimberly patted the white knuckled grip he held onto the basket and smiled up at him.

“
I think we need to get you home, darlin’. You’re probably starvin’ by now,” he said and then kissed the top of her head. Several more items made it into the basket. Hot dogs, buns, lunch meat, peanut butter and jelly, and anything else he could think of to feed a kid, while he kept a keen eye out for Michelle. He wouldn’t put it past her to cause a scene again to get his attention.

Chapter Eight

Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, pulling Laurel from her wickedly sexy dreams of Kale and what his lips could do to her. Opening her eyes, she glanced around the room, confused for a moment until she remembered him forcing her to sleep in his bed.

His bed.

She rolled over, stretched like a contented cat and then pulled his pillow to her face. The scent of male and the faint odor of his cologne buried in the soft cotton of the pillowcase warmed something inside her she thought dead and buried with Dennis.

Stupid. Getting tangled up with Kale is really stupid.

“
Even if tangled and sweaty is what I want, I’ll only get hurt in the long run,” she grumbled as she sat up on the side of the bed and brushed her tousled hair out of her face.

Visions of how she’d found him and Kimberly this morning, sound asleep on the couch, drifted across her mind. He’d taken her daughter and cared for her like his own. How many men would do such a thing? Very few, she knew. One of the thoughts she never contemplated during her pregnancy or any time since Kimberly’s birth was how Dennis would have reacted when he found out she’d gotten pregnant. Dennis had told her he loved her—swore he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. They’d talked marriage, babies, white picket fences and SUV’s, but never once did he let on he already had a wife.

Betrayal and anger slashed through her heart. He might not have lied outright, but he’d lied by omission nonetheless. How could he have done that if he’d loved her?

“
Maybe I don’t know what love is? Maybe I need to just worry about me and Kimberly and to hell with men.” Leave things the way they are with Kale. Sex and nothing else. No entanglements, no worrying about whether he cared about her and Kimberly, or whether they had any kind of future together.

“
Future?” She released a small snort and stood to retrieve her clothes.
No clothes? What the hell? I know they were on the floor when I went to sleep.
The long cotton T-shirt covering her essentials would have to do until she could figure out what happened to the rest of her things. The soft material caressed her thighs and her breasts like she wanted Kale to do with his hands. Damn, the man had nice hands, nice lips, nice eyes…she shook her head to clear her wayward thoughts. Going in that direction would lead to other things and right now, she needed to keep her mind clear and her thoughts away from getting him in the bed with her.