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  “Dad, the thing she wants is six-foot-two, and he works for Kingston Construction.” Jude forced a smile at me now. Cole relaxed back and shook his head. He was already bored with the whole thing. Usual for Cole, who was truly only interested in Cole. Sometimes I wished Jude was the same.

  “Fin,” Dad said sharper than I’d expected, “take me off speaker phone.” I pushed the button and walked into the kitchen area. “What is Jude talking about?”

  “I’ve met someone, and I really like him.”

  Only strangers’ voices came back through the phone at first.

  “Dad?”

  “Finley, I don’t think a relationship is what you need right now. I thought you were going to volunteer at the animal rescue.”

  “I am but I think I can handle both. I’m not a knucklehead, Dad. I’m twenty-two years old. All of you have to let me come out of my bubble wrap. Otherwise, I’ll suffocate.”

  “Why don’t you hold off on seeing this boy, and we’ll talk about it more when I get home.”

  “So, I’m supposed to put my life on hold until you’re done traipsing around the world? Dad, I really like this guy.” It was time to turn off the little girl pleading and start reminding my dad that I was an adult. “I’m not going to stop seeing him,” I said in a tone that gave no place for argument.

  He fell silent again and then I heard his manager in the background letting him know the private jet was ready to go. “Fin, just be careful. This is new territory for you, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Dad, it’s all right. I can handle hurt. I promise. Have a safe flight. I love you.”

  “Love you too, Fin-Fin.”

  Jude looked up from the television expectantly.

  I straightened my shoulders and slid my phone into my pocket. “All cleared up. So you can just get your bossy man panties out of your butt. I’m going to keep seeing Barrett.”

  Jude slumped down, but the tension in his shoulders was still obvious. “Fine, just don’t come running to me when it blows up.”

  “Fine, I won’t,” I said confidently, but deep down the thought of not having Jude to run to if I was troubled terrified me. But I wanted to be treated like an adult, and I needed to stop relying on him so much. This was my chance to prove to my dad and my brothers that I was leaving behind my earlier problems and that I could handle anything life threw my way. Of course, that notion seemed completely daunting.

  CHAPTER 13

  Rett

  The old truck creaked as it climbed the long driveway to Finley’s house. Santa Ana winds kicked up a purple snowstorm from the trees lining the road. It was the first time I’d pulled up to the house to pick her up, and it still felt awkward. She and her brothers and father had made peace with the whole thing . . . for now. Cole and I had returned to a boss and worker relationship, which, in the long run, was probably better anyway. With as much as we had in common, there was so much that we didn’t have in common it would have eventually put a strain on our friendship. Of course, I had little in common with Finley too except that I thought about her all the time, and when we were together we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.

  The massive front door opened, and Finley stepped out looking like just a sliver of a girl in front of the mansion’s sprawling facade. She had on faded jeans, a flannel shirt and boots. She always half-skipped when she walked, another habit I’d come to love. She climbed into the truck.

  “Hey, Farmer Finley, it looks like you were made to ride in this old truck. You’re just missing that red bandana of mine.” Instantly my mind went to sex. Not unusual for me, but it seemed to happen a lot more since I’d met Finley. “I’m thinking we need to stop by my bedroom and tie you up with that bandana.”

  “Mandy and Joe are expecting us at the barn.” She scooted next to me. “I love that these old trucks have bench seats.” She stretched up and kissed my cheek. “Much cozier. I just hope I can keep my hands off of you while you’re driving.”

  “Not a problem. I’m pretty good at multitasking, especially when one of the tasks has to do with kissing and touching you.” I drove around the circular driveway and headed down to the gates.

  Finley reached forward and pushed the buttons on the old radio. Jimmy had replaced the speakers, but the original radio remained in the dash. She settled on a rock station that her dad’s band happened to be playing on.

  “Is your dad still on tour?”

  “Technically, but they stopped off to rest at my dad’s country estate in England.”

  “Why did you say rest like that?”

  She leaned her head against my shoulder, and I realized she was right about the bench seat. “My dad never rests. He still parties like he’s in his twenties. He collapsed at practice a year ago, and I thought it would scare him enough to slow down. But he’s just as wild as ever. And the people around him don’t give a shit about his health. They just want to party and have a good time and make big bucks off my dad.”

  The freeway was packed for a Sunday. I pulled the truck into the slow moving sea of cars. “I guess you don’t see him much.”

  She shook her head. “That’s why Jude is always so controlling. For some ridiculous reason my dad put him in charge back when Jude turned nineteen, and the power has gone to his head. At least when it comes to me. He pretty much leaves Cole alone.

  I laughed. “We really need to get Jude and Jimmy together. They are so damn similar it’s eerie.”

  She leaned forward and switched stations. “I can’t sit next to my hot new boyfriend and listen to the voice that sang me lullabies when I was a little girl.” She swiveled in the lap belt, lifted my arm and tucked her body next to mine. The word boyfriend took a swirl around my brain. I’d rarely stuck with any girl long enough to be considered a boyfriend, but this time the label felt good. I was settling on the idea that I was going to be in Finley’s life, and I wanted her in mine. Everything about it seemed completely far-fetched and completely right.

  “Enough talk about brothers and dads.” Her hand smoothed over my jeans and stopped at the top of my thighs. “I haven’t seen you in two days, and I missed you . . . a lot.” She said the last words so suggestively I grew hard at the sound of it, and it didn’t escape her notice. Her hand moved to my cock, and she rubbed her palm over the fly of my jeans. I gripped the steering wheel and swallowed hard.

  “Fin, we’re on the freeway.”

  Her fingers undid the top button on my fly, and I took a deep, unsteady breath.

  “Yes, a freeway that is moving ten miles an hour.” She unzipped the fly of my jeans and slid her hand inside my pants. “Besides, what happened to multi-tasking?”

  I held my breath as her fingers wrapped around my cock. “Holy shit,” I muttered. I switched lanes and pulled off the exit. “To hell with multitasking. There’s only one task I want to concentrate on right now.” She peered up at me and ran her tongue across her bottom lip as her fingers teased the slick tip of my cock. I turned down the first quiet street and found a small park that was fairly deserted. I parked under a tree in the corner. “Shit, Finley, two days is too fucking long.”

  Her hand moved up and down along my cock as she stretched up and kissed me. “Couldn’t agree more,” she sighed into my mouth.

  “Slide off your jeans, Baby, please,” I pleaded.

  Her lips split into a smile, but she didn’t stop kissing me. “Why, Rett Mason, it sounds like you are begging me.”

  “I sure as fuck am.” I reached up beneath her flannel shirt and tugged down her bra. My fingers reached blindly for her breasts and found her taut nipples. She rubbed against my calloused thumb.

  Then she pulled her mouth from mine and moistened her lips with her tongue. She leaned down and I sucked in a breath as her wet, lush lips wrapped around the tip of my cock. Her fingers moved up and down the base as her mouth slid over the tip. She moaned softly as she tasted me. I relaxed my head back and wrapped my fingers in her silky hair.

  I moved my
pelvis up and my cock went deeper into her mouth but she didn’t back off. “That feels so fucking good.” My pulse pounded in my ears, and I wanted her to take in all of me. She seemed to sense my need and lowered her lips farther while her hand still moved up and down. My fingers tangled in her hair, and I held her tightly against me. Her tongue and lips moved skillfully and purposefully over my throbbing erection. I clenched my muscles tightly. “God, Baby, I’m going to come,” I warned, but she did not shy away as my seed spilled into her mouth.

  She straightened and ran her pinky across the side of her mouth to dry it. She sighed happily. “That was fun. I think it might have been a bit more adventurous on the freeway but a park works.” She rubbed her hand along the edge of the seat. “Let your brother know that I love his truck.”

  My heart rate was finally returning to normal as I buttoned up my fly. “I’ve grown to like it more too— just in the last few minutes.” I looked around. It was a nice day but the park seemed to be one of those grand ideas thought up by city council where the location and lay out of the park just weren’t enough to attract visitors. “It’s pretty quiet here. Are you sure you don’t want to slip out of those jeans. Might take me a few minutes to recover,” I reached up and brushed my thumb over her bottom lip, “from having that beautiful mouth wrapped around my cock, but I’m sure I can manage it.”

  “We’re late already.” She snuggled back against the seat and put on her seatbelt. “But I will expect something in return.”

  “Then I’ll have to start thinking of a creative way to repay you.” I started the truck and we headed back to the freeway. The traffic had cleared some during our erotic little detour. Again, she rested her head against my shoulder, and it felt so right having her next to me, it was starting to get hard to imagine being without her.

  “Finley,” I stared straight ahead, but she had turned to look at me. “I’m glad you walked out and took away my ham sandwich.” I glanced over at her. She was like a diamond, rare and flawless, and I was blown away by how much of my heart she’d already managed to steal.

  She smiled and wrapped her arms around mine. “Maybe it was Some Pig who determined our destiny. Lilly Belle will be disappointed when I tell her though.”

  We drove along the unpaved road that led to the property of the Barn Angel’s Rescue Facility. Three large red barns and a long row of outdoor stalls, that Finley called the mare motels, dotted a large piece of land. There were three other pens with every variety of farm animal. Two burros looked up from a lump of hay as we stepped out of the truck. One brayed loudly when it saw Finley.

  “That’s Dilly. He thinks I’m his personal masseuse.” Finley walked to the pen and reached over. Both burros left behind their pile of hay and trotted over to the fence. We rubbed their necks until they decided that their hay was more tempting.

  “Most of these animals look really well cared for. Were they all rescued from slaughter like Lilly Belle?”

  “A lot of them came from lives of abuse and starvation like Some Pig. People get the animals and then neglect them.”

  I followed her to a pen with three goats. One was sitting on the top of a kid’s plastic play set, and the other two were lounging contentedly under the tree. Just as with the burros, the goats trotted toward us for attention. It had moved so easily, I hadn’t noticed that one of the goats was missing a front leg until it reached the fence.

  Finley reached over and patted the goat’s head. “Cooper’s owners never took proper care of his hooves, and they curled in on his feet. The infection was so bad the leg had to be removed. But he has adjusted beautifully.”

  I looked around at the yard full of content animals. “It’s terrible to admit but I know this kind of shit is happening.” Cooper pressed his head against my hand for attention. “I guess sometimes it’s easier to pretend it’s not. But damn, just look at this little guy shuffling around on three legs happy to have found decent humans to take care of him.”

  One of the goats got up on its rear legs, and it pressed two tiny hooves against the fence. Finley leaned down and rubbed its nose. “I know it sounds weird but I’ve always found it easier to relate to animals than to people.” She stroked the long black stripe on the goat’s head. “Sometimes I think too much about what happens to some of these animals, and I know I can’t help them all. It overwhelms me, and I have to force myself to stop thinking about it,” she said quietly. “I plan to start one of these places too with my trust fund. My dad doesn’t know it yet,” she tapped her temple, “but I’ve got the whole idea stored up here in my head. I’ve even signed up to take some online courses for animal husbandry and first aid. I just need to find the right piece of property. Does that sound crazy?”

  I pushed her long bangs back out of her face. “Not at all. Some of my only good childhood memories came from time I spent on an uncle’s farm. My parents rarely supervised us, or gave a damn what we were up to. My brothers and I did some crazy shit during our summer visits. We were so damn wild, and being the youngest, I was completely psycho. I once jumped from the loft straight down to the barn floor. Not even sure why I did it. I just remember the horses sticking their heads out of their stalls and staring down at me as I lay writhing in pain on the floor. I think they might have been laughing. My foot was sideways. My dad was so pissed, I was sure he wasn’t even going to take me to the hospital.”

  Her eyes rounded with surprise.

  “Yeah, he was that big of an asshole, and I was that big of an idiot. But he took me and I was on crutches for six weeks. And those crutches didn’t slow me down much either. Where was I going with this embarrassing story?” The goat made a sound like a sheep. “Oh yeah. So even though I pulled some stupid stunts at the farm, I loved feeding and taking care of the animals. With the exception of the evil rooster.”

  Finley laughed. “They can be diabolical. That’s for sure.”

  A tall thin girl with red hair came out of one of the barns. She slipped off her work gloves as she walked toward us. Finley waved. “That’s Mandy. She runs the barn, and she’s one of the coolest people I know.”

  “Hey, Mandy, this is Barrett.”

  “Nice to meet you, Barrett.” Mandy leaned down and brushed some straw from her jeans. “I’ve been trying to get that calf we brought in yesterday to take a bottle but she won’t drink. I’m worried we’ll lose her soon if we can’t get her to nurse.”

  Finley glanced down at her pants. “I’m covered with Lilly Belle’s smell. Why don’t I try?”

  “I was hoping you would,” Mandy admitted. “The animals always seem to understand what you’re saying.”

  “How do you think I earned the nickname Doolittle from my brother?” We headed into the barn that Mandy had just come from. Several horses and cows stuck their heads out of their stalls to check out the visitors. Halfway down the aisle, there was a stall with a net across the opening. There in the corner, splayed weakly on a pile of straw, was a calf that couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old.

  Even opening its big brown eyes seemed like a chore as it lifted its head and then dropped it back onto the straw. “Poor baby,” Finley said. “Its mom died two weeks after giving birth. She doesn’t want anything but her mom.”

  Mandy returned with a giant bottle, and Finley walked into the stall. She turned back and motioned me inside. She sat near the calf’s head, and I sat behind its back.

  Finley rubbed the calf’s ear and it responded to her touch by lifting its weary head. “Hey, sweetie pie, you hungry?” She stroked the calf’s muzzle. “Rett, push your hands beneath her body so she’s more upright.”

  I shoved my hands into the straw bedding and placed my palms against the calf’s side. I could feel its rib cage as I pushed gently against it. It moved its long spidery legs, but every struggle was too much energy.

  Finley moved her fingers beneath the animal’s chin and scratched it. The calf lifted its head in response to her touch. While its tiny muzzle was in the air, Finley tipped the bo
ttle with her free hand and a drop of milk popped out and coated the rubber tip. She rubbed the milk over the calf’s mouth a few times. A long, pink tongue slid out and licked the milk and then the baby sat up a bit more attentively.

  “Good girl. Want some more?” Finley prodded the nipple against the calf’s mouth, and after a few good tries, the animal opened its mouth and drank greedily from the bottle.

  Mandy peered over the net on the stall. “Thank goodness,” she said quietly. “I must have tried that same thing ten times.” She looked over at me. “I swear she talks to them and they understand her.”

  I smiled over at Finley but she was in her own world, playing nursemaid to a half-starved calf. Her face couldn’t have looked more pleased or more beautiful. She was unearthly in every sense of the word. She lived in a mansion, drove a Porsche and no doubt had a trust fund that she couldn’t spend in a lifetime, but she looked completely right and content sitting in straw with a calf in her lap. Sometimes it was hard to believe that she was real, and sometimes it was even harder to believe that she was a part of my life.

  CHAPTER 14

  Finley

  I’d taken an absurd amount of time picking out a sundress to wear out to see how the barn was coming. But truthfully, it didn’t seem to matter what I wore anymore. I’d never felt so confident about myself as I did with Barrett.

  Some Pig pressed his snout against me to hurry me along. He’d only recently discovered that he preferred to hang out with Lilly Belle rather than in front of the television with the dogs. It made me a little sad to think that he’d suddenly decided he was a farm animal instead of a house pet.

  My bedroom windows only afforded me a view of the pool area, but in the distance, I could hear the sound of wood being moved. Instantly, nerves fluttered through me at the thought of seeing Barrett. I’d discovered that just hearing his voice on the phone made me tremble. I was in deep and I was thrilled. Cole’s deep voice drifted up the staircase. He’d obviously stayed home to help with the barn assembly.