He floated back to work as if he’d won the lottery, and didn’t bark at anyone for the rest of the day.
Chapter Twenty
Owen loved Thanksgiving.Seth always flew south for it, and this year the plan was to make a whole weekend out of it. Seth would fly in Saturday morning and they were going to rent four-wheelers for a brother-bonding day that Adam kept threatening in the group chat to “make epic.” Owen worried that meant it would end with them rolling up at the strippers in Owen Sound.
Adam: Chill. We know Kerry has you on lock.
Owen couldn’t argue with that.
Owen: I invited her to Thanksgiving.
Will: I should hope so.
Owen: It’s a significant step!
Adam: For emotionally stunted people, maybe.
Seth: Shots fired.
Owen: Shut up. I don’t see any of you cooking your women a feast for the ages.
All the dots on the screen appeared then, all three of them writing at the same time.
Seth: Your woman?
Will: Your what?
Adam: YOUR WOMAN!
Why couldn’t he erase text messages? But he’d said it, and he wasn’t taking it back. He grinned, grateful he was alone in his office so nobody could see just how wide his smile spread. His heart thumped heavy in his chest.
Owen: I have to get back to work.
Adam: Epic, I say.
But before the epic-ness could commence, Owen had the pre-holiday week to get through, and it was a busy one. The week before Canadian Thanksgiving saw a big turn in the season. The nights got colder, the leaves started to change colour at a rapid pace, and after the quiet of September, suddenly the peninsula ramped back up for tourists. One final rush full of retirees doing day trips to see the colours and then, on the long weekend, cottagers flooding back to their weekend homes to close everything up for the winter.
Which meant emergency services had to work overtime to keep everyone safe and respond to the greater volume of accidents that inevitably happened.
On the Thursday, Owen spent the last of five twelve-hour shifts in a row helping police untangle a traffic jam of more than eight hundred people all trying to get into a picture-perfect corn field for some social media challenge. So when he handed off the weekend supervisor responsibilities to Dani, his newest recruit for the leadership stream, he was damn glad to be done with people.
He already had everything he needed for the family feast on Sunday. He was going home for some much needed peace and quiet. And the house was actually going to be all his. Hayden’s parents had just left for a two-week Mediterranean cruise, so Becca and Charlie were staying with him at their house—a trial run of them living together.
Owen had even driven the baby swing over there himself the night before. And then he’d arrived on Kerry’s doorstep unannounced, and she’d taken him to her bed. They didn’t talk. He had an early morning for his final shift in a row, and she was on a baby countdown for a client. Time was a precious commodity.
And then the corn field happened. Idiots with drones and tripods and a complete lack of safety comprehension.
Owen was bone-fucking-weary by the time he pulled into his driveway. Absolutely done with the world. He headed inside, got the laundry sorted, and then threw himself into a hot shower. As the steam worked its way into his muscles, he thought about the night before. How good Kerry tasted. His cock thickened, his balls pulled tight, and he closed his eyes. His fist wasn’t the same as her body, his memory of her laugh not the same as actually hearing it. The joyous way she giggled at the funny parts of sex, the husky note her voice took on when she got really serious about his pleasure.
If he didn’t think he would fall asleep mid-act, he’d invite her over. Maybe tomorrow…
He stroked himself a little harder, enjoying the squeeze of his fist. But even coming by his own effort sounded like, well, too mucheffort.Fuck it. He was going to bed—and that was a good call, because his head had barely hit the pillow before he was asleep.
The next thing he heard was a knock at the door. He bolted upright in bed and blinked in confusion at the window—it was sunny out.
How the fuck long had he slept?
The clock told him at least twelve hours. And the knock sounded again. Annoyingly chipper. Definitely Adam. He rolled out of bed and stalked through the house, stretching and shaking off the stupor he’d apparently been taken over by last night. He was mid-yawn when he opened the door and found Kerry standing there instead of his brother.
