Blood & Rust (Lock & Key #4) (69 page)

“
BABY, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS
.”

Butler’s eyes flashed at me. “Tania.”

He lifted me in his arms, climbed the porch steps, and swept us through the front door of my great-grandmother’s Victorian house in Pine Needle.

Our new home.

“Welcome home, Scarlett.”

“Welcome home, Rhett.”

We kissed.

After we’d gotten back from California, Butler had moved into my mother’s house, and we’d used my old room. However, along with my mother, we’d decided that instead of knocking down a wall to create a large bedroom and bath suite, we would instead spruce up the house and put it on the market. We had, and we’d ended up getting a good price on it.

In the meantime, we’d also put our resources to work in my great-grandmother’s house. I’d brought Butler and my mother to see it, and Butler had fallen in love with the house.

We’d hired Willy to oversee the contracting and to take care of the finer details. We’d transformed the large formal dining room on the ground floor into a bedroom and bath for my mother and converted the large living room and kitchen—which Mom and Penny and I’d had fun modernizing—into a single great space that was open and airy. The area was easy for Rae to maneuver in, especially once she would have to use a wheelchair full-time at some point in the future.

Along the way in this project, I’d found lots of architectural motifs from my and Butler’s sporadic pick travels for us to use in the house and in the large garden. Willy and I’d soon realized that we had a good thing going and put our heads together. I’d amped up those sorts of salvage picks and found him a hell of a lot of one-of-a-kind pieces. He’d used them to create unique furniture and home accents, combining wood and metals, like antiqued bronze and copper and iron. I’d featured his work in my store, and they’d become wildly popular with many professional interior designers from all over the country.

The house had been in good condition, and our renovation had only taken about four months to complete. Up next was building an extra garage for Butler’s bikes and our two snowmobiles. We were all moved in. At last, we had our own family home.

Today, a beautiful warm spring day, was housewarming party day. Today was also Thunder’s first birthday.

Butler set me down in the entryway, and I peeked over his shoulder. Boner had my mother’s arm in his and helped her up the ramp that he’d installed himself by the front steps. Becca came up behind them, holding Thunder’s hand. Grace’s son toddled through the great room, his tiny feet stamping in the new red high-tops I’d bought him, his eyes wide as he took in the house. He let go of Becca’s hand and laughed as he tore around the kitchen island, his long black hair swinging behind him.

“Becca, go get him. Keep him out of the kitchen, so he doesn’t see his birthday cake!” Grace laughed, her eyes on her son, as he zoomed past the corner where Butler’s acoustic guitar stood on a stand alongside a new electric guitar in between a pair of leather armchairs.

“Thunder! Wait!” shouted Becca, chasing him.

“I already feel the spills coming on,” Grace said. “I’m going to get out more paper towels to be ready.” She opened the pantry closet.

“They’re on the bottom left,” I said from the sink where I washed a serving platter. “There should be three jumbo rolls.”

“Tania?”

“What is it?”

My gaze darted to the pantry closet where Grace gestured at the ten large containers of Ghirardelli sweet ground chocolate and cocoa gourmet powder.

“What the heck are you doing with so much sweetened cocoa? Have you been baking? You hate baking.”

My face flared with heat. “Rae really enjoys a good cup of cocoa, and she got me and Butler addicted. I found a huge sale online. You know me and a sale. I couldn’t resist stocking up.”

“I’ll have to try it.”

“Very tasty. Very high quality.”

“Uh-huh.” Grace eyed me as she ripped open a new roll of paper towels.

I dried the serving platter and handed it to Alicia.

Alicia and Ronny, who were now living together, set up the truckload of food they’d brought from a friend’s restaurant in Deadwood. Jill and Boner and Dready had brought the beer from Miner Brewery, a local craft brewery in Hill City, and the wine from its sister company, Prairie Berry Winery. We loved supporting our local businesses.

Aunt Charlotte and Penny had baked an endless array of pies and cakes and beautifully frosted cupcakes for the kids that were spectacularly laid out on the old oak dining room table that Willy had restored.

I cornered Jill by Aunt Charlotte’s blackberry buckle.

“What’s going on with you, hmm?” I asked, slanting my head.

Her eyes slid to mine. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t touched any booze at all today. Highly unlike you. Highly suspect. I noticed this the other night at Pete’s, too.”

“I was the designated driver!” She threw her hands in the air.

“And you hate being designated driver, and yet this time you volunteered. Spill.”

Jill bit at her lip, putting down her glass of iced tea. She leaned into me. “We’re trying to get pregnant.”

“Honey!” I grabbed her in a huge hug. “I’m so excited!”

A huge smile blazed over her face. “We talked about it a while back, but I think Boner didn’t want to pressure me. He can’t wait though, and frankly, neither can I. The timing feels right, especially with Becca acclimated to school now. The business is on steady feet, too, right?”

“Very right.”

“We started trying over a month ago. So far, nothing yet, but we’ll see. I didn’t want to say anything yet.”

“Of course.” I hugged her again. “Good for you.”

“Look at him.” Jill picked up her iced tea and gestured across the room with it, toward where Boner sat with Lock on our long sofa, Thunder in his daddy’s lap.

The boy screeched as Boner tickled and teased him.

“You see that light in his eyes?” Jill said softly, a wistful tone in her voice. “That’s a special kind of joy, and I want him to feel that every day, in his own home, with his own child in his arms. I want to give him that.”

“You will. Give it time.”

My gaze fell on Wes, his arm around his mother, talking with Butler. “Can’t believe that boy is off to college next week.”

“University of Arizona, watch out,” murmured Jill.

“Amen.”

Jill let out a breath. “This is going to be hard on Alicia.”

“I know. Butler and I are going to go down to Tucson with her and Wes, help set him up, hold her hand.”

“Oh, that’s good. Because I can’t imagine Ronny can get away now, right?”

“Did she tell you that she finally got him to open a second tattoo shop after all these years, and in Meager?”

“Ronny just told me. I’m so excited.” Jill smirked. “There’s no stopping her. Ever.”

The party ran on. My brother and Nina arrived with their son, Joe. Becca immediately took her little brother in hand and brought him to sit in his grandmother’s lap.

“Grandma misses you. You need to come visit more often.”

Joe only stuck a finger in his mouth.

Boner brought out Thunder’s birthday cake that he’d gotten from the Meager Grand—a double layer chocolate cake decorated with blue and green fondant for wild grasses with two horses grazing on the very top. Thunder was obsessed with horses.

I lit the single sparkly candle and Lock held his son as we all sang Happy Birthday to our favorite little one year old boy in the whole wide world.

Thunder’s eyes widened and he hopped up and down in his daddy’s arms.

“You ready, Thunder?” Lock asked, his wet eyes glimmering. “Did you make your wish?”

The boy nodded and together with his mommy and daddy, he blew out his birthday candle, and we all cheered.

The party started to wind down once my mother gave sloppy kisses and big hugs to her grandchildren and Thunder and retreated into her room.

An hour later we said our good-byes to our guests. Grace and Lock were the last ones to leave.

Grace and I hugged each other tightly.

“A perfect day in a beautiful house.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“Are you crying? Why are you crying?” I whispered.

“Because I’m so happy that you two found each other. So happy for you both. And I’m glad that we’re all here together. I found out the hard way—”

“Shh.” I hugged her again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Grace planted a kiss on my cheek.

Lock held his son in his arms while Thunder leaned forward and planted a juicy kiss on Butler’s cheek.

“Oh! Thank you,” said Butler. “Bye, Thunder.” He held out his hand to the birthday boy.

“Bye!” Thunder high-fived Butler, and my husband smiled at him.

“Later, man.” Lock shook Butler’s hand, his son’s arms wrapped around his neck.

Butler rubbed a hand down Thunder’s back. “He’s tired, huh?”

“Best party ever,” said Lock.

“Yes, it was,” murmured Butler.

Lock and Grace descended the porch steps, fastened their son in his car seat, got in their truck, and took off, waving at us.

Butler slung an arm around my waist. “Mrs. M, we should hit the hay. We got an early start tomorrow morning on that bike of mine.”

“I’m looking forward to Montana. An early night sounds very good. Now with the house totally done and the party down, I am so ready to relax under your magic spell.” I squeezed his ass.

“Who said anything about a spell? My magic cock, you mean.”

“Your magic cock has me under its spell, baby.”

“You’re not too tired, I hope.”

“Me? No.”

“That’s good because I didn’t have any desserts today. I saved my sweet tooth for you, Scarlett.”

I leveled my eyes at him. “Did you?”

He let out a laugh, his tongue lashing out at my lips. “Get upstairs. I’ll lock up, put the alarm on, and then I’ll bring us some dessert we can share in bed. That was chocolate ganache in that cake, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hmm. Get moving.”

I darted up the stairs, a huge grin on my face, and I waited for my old man in our brand-new king-size bed.

“Scarlett, it’s a ’32 Roadster.”

“A what?”

“A 1932 Ford Roadster—the inspiration for the Beach Boys hit ‘Little Deuce Coupe’?” My pulse raced as Tania’s face struggled to register. “Baby, you remember John, the cool dude, in
American Graffiti
?”

“Yeah, of course. He was the ultimate cool dude. Very sexy.”

“This is cool dude’s hot rod.”

Her eyes popped open wide. “Oh my God! That car is an icon.”

My hand passed over the rusted hood of the ancient vehicle. “This is so fucking rare. Jesus.”

We were in a dilapidated garage piled high with all manner of goodies and junk belonging to an elderly man, a die-hard collector of everything under the sun, in the middle of Montana where Lock had asked us to go and look at a ’67 GTO and a ’51 Mercury for Eagle Wings. Lock didn’t want to leave home so frequently anymore, so he’d asked me and Tania to take a look for him.

In between my many duties as VP of the One-Eyed Jacks, I had started going along with Tania on her out-of-town picks because I really enjoyed it. Also, I didn’t want her out there on her own, and we wanted to spend as much time together as possible. We both loved road-tripping, either on my bike or in her Yukon. My old lady enjoyed learning a vast amount about cars and car parts, and bikes and bike parts, and even bicycles from her old man. We worked well together. We zinged together. We also played a mighty round of Good Cop, Bad Cop when cutting deals and negotiating prices with the owners.