Roxy shrugged, lifting the red solo cup to her lips. “I think his dad’s uncle’s kid married my mom’s second cousin or something. It’s confusing. I’d have to draw it out to explain it better. We didn’t even know about the connection until after I’d met Freeman—who is Kasey’s first cousin on their mom’s sides—it’s weird.” She turned then. “Travis, this is Shaun, Jodi’s sister and Kasey’s wife.”
Refusing to let go of her hand, he simply nodded at the woman that stepped up beside her. “Nice to meet you.”
Shaun knocked her shoulder into Roxy’s and grinned up at him. “Hello, handsome.”
“Woman—” Kasey’s dark growl cut through the air and he finally relinquished his chokehold on Freeman, straightening.
Shaun rolled dark, sapphire blue eyes, still grinning widely. “Oh please, do you not have eyes? Good lord, Roxy, please tell me you’ve—”
Kasey’s menacing growl turned feral and then she was being swept up in her husband’s arms and carted off, her barking laugh bouncing around them. As Kasey hauled her away, Travis heard him growl at her, “I’ll turn this ass pink,wife.”
“Promises, promises,husband,” she purred back as he set her down on the opposite side of the fire, looping her arms around his neck and pressing her rounded belly against his abdomen. Travis swallowed and looked away. This family was certifiably insane.
It was amazing.
Having grown up the way he did, the life he’d lived, he didn’t have any experience with a big, loud family such as the Kendall’s. It was bizarre and overwhelming, but damn was it entertaining, and the love and caring he could sense pouring outof all of them for each other was a welcome change from the solitary life he’d always led. And they had just absorbed Roxy into it, no questions asked, as if she’d been part of it forever.
“Shauntelle and Kasey, we have company,” Serenity’s voice cut through, chastising lightly, but the two just laughed. “You’ll scare poor Travis off.”
“I doubt that,” Roxy laughed, looking up at him. “If I haven’t scared him off yet, I don’t think it’s possible.”
“I don’t scare easily,” he responded, winking down at her. She shivered, curling her fingers into the long sleeves of his hoodie and holding the red solo cup between her material clad hands. Draping his arm over her shoulders, he pulled her against his side. “Are you cold?”
“A little,” she admitted, but lifted her hands—swathed completely in the long sleeves—and took a drink from her cup. “I’ll just move closer to the fire. Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” he murmured quietly against the shell of her ear, and when he felt her shiver against him, he knew it wasn’t from the cold. His cock jumped in his jeans. Fuck. Groaning into her ear, he husked, “We’re surrounded by your family and all I can think about is how badly I want to eat this pussy as my meal.”
“Travis,” Roxy hissed under her breath, but her eyes met his and he recognized the hunger in them. It matched his own.
A hard slap to his back startled him, and he looked over to find Levi Kendall had sidled up to the both of them, his blue eyes twinkling in the firelight. He leaned down close to both of them and rumbled roughly, “Didn’t anyone ever teach you kids to eat your dinner first, and then dessert?”
Thirty-Eight
By the time eleven o’clock rolled around, Roxy was an icicle, despite sitting as close to the fire as possible without being physically in it. Travis sat next to her in one of the handcrafted Adirondack chairs that she knew Levi himself had built. She’d tucked her feet up on the chair she sat in, pulling her knees to her chest and then sliding the extra-large hoodie over them clear to her feet so she was a big ball inside the hoodie itself.
“Are you ready to go in for the night?” Travis asked from beside her, and she shook her head. He was in jeans and his usual cutoff t-shirt, but he seemed perfectly comfortable. The other men were dressed similarly in jeans and t-shirts, though Levi had on a long sleeved Carhartt with the sleeves pushed to his forearms. Serenity and Shaun had gone inside, while Jodi had fallen asleep curled in Free’s lap.
Travis’s thumb stroked across the backs of her knuckles. He had been deep in conversation with Levi and Kasey, but his hand held hers captive where they rested together on the armrest between them. He’d hardly let her go throughout the evening. If anyone had doubts of what was going on between them before, there were none now.
“No, I like being out here with everyone. I’m just chilled.”
“Do you want me to go grab a blanket from the house?” Free asked from where he sat with Jodi curled in his lap in another chair.
“No, don’t get up,” Roxy said, indicating the sleeping Jodi on his chest.
Travis unfurled his fingers from around hers. “I’ll go get it.”
“No, Travis, you’re in the middle of a conversation. I can walk across the yard to get a blanket,” she muttered dryly, pulling her legs from beneath the hoodie. Leaning over to him, she pecked a quick kiss to his bearded cheek. “You got me here safely, Travis. Neal isn’t here to hurt me.”
He nodded, though those honey brown eyes searched hers for a long heartbeat. They looked almost golden in the firelight, so beautiful it sent an ache deep into her chest. This gentle, kind, beautiful man had stolen every single piece of her heart, she knew it without doubt.
She loved Travis Hayes.
“I’ll be right back,” she whispered, her throat closing with emotion that threatened to suffocate her. She was going to say those words that were on the very tip of her tongue, blurt them out right here and now. But she didn’t want to do that, she wanted to tell him later, when it was just the two of them. Because it had always been just the two of them, hadn’t it? From the moment they’d met…it had been inevitable.
Theyhad been inevitable. A fight that neither one of them could win. Or, maybe in this, they were both the winners.
Slipping away from the fire, she hurried across the darkened yard toward the barn and their new loft apartment several hundred yards away. Pulling the hoodie around her more securely, she shivered, but for the first time, she felt safe. She glanced around her, not to check for an unwelcome stare, but to appreciate the space around her. The gentle summer breeze that drifted across the property, carrying more of that heady,fragrant lilac scent with it. Roxy remembered the pretty purple blossoms that Travis had cut for her earlier and rushed up the steps, eager to find a vase or even just a cup to place them in.
