“There you go.” His fingers danced over the back of Sam’s neck until room service came. Sammy stayed under the covers, hiding out of the way while the guy brought in the big rolling cart.
“Thanks.” Beau signed the chit and left a tip, the smell of food making his stomach growl.
As soon as the door closed, Sammy started uncovering, pouring them coffee.
“Mmm. Hungry.” For the first time in days.
“Me, too. Lose them sweats and c’mere.” Sammy arranged pillows and blankets, making them a nest.
“Okay.” Like he needed more encouragement than that. He would’ve dove right in, but he didn’t want to jostle the food. Sammy was close as he settled and…yeah. Coffee. Bacon. His Poot.
Beau thought he could breathe again.
Now they just had to make it through the damned finals.
Chapter Seventeen
His pickup was at the airport waiting for them, and Sammy was incredibly fucking grateful he’d cleaned it out. Not as grateful as he was to LouAnn for cleaning up the mess he’d made up to the house, but pretty grateful nonetheless.
“Come on, Boug. You got pups to meet.”
“I do, huh?” Beau followed along, whistling tunelessly. It was cute as hell.
“Yup. I picked a little bitch to keep, didn’t know if you wanted to keep a stud, too.”
“Maybe? Jethro might kill it.” They had one big old boy who was just jealous as hell.
“Yeah, we’d have to keep them in the new pens I built.”
“Well, I’ll have a peek. Once he got six months or more, he’d be all right.” Beau grinned, bouncing a little.
Sammy nodded, tossed his bags in the back. Beau was the one with the eye for the pups, really. It was a hoodoo thing. Had to be.
“Smells good out here, huh?” Beau always said the air within a hundred miles of home smelled different.
“Smells like home.” He grinned over, tossed Beau the keys.
Beau nodded, climbed into the truck after stowing his bag. They headed out, just grinning. The summer was finally giving it up, autumn creeping in here and there. It felt good.
The ride home had a lot of singing, and some of those orange cheese crackers and lots of ribbing. By the time they pulled up to the farm, Sammy felt ten years younger.
The dogs set to making a ruckus, and Beau hooted. “Home, home, home.”
“You know it. Your granddaddy brought groceries up.” The pack was going crazy, wagging and baying and bouncing at the fences.
“Good. Let’s go see the babies.” Beau took his hand and dragged him toward the pens.
“Eager!” He laughed and they hurried, Petunia howling up a storm.
“Well, hell, Poot. I been away a long time and she’s calling me.” Beau gave Pettie a huge loving when he got to her, letting her slobber.
“Girl, call them babies! Boug needs to see.”
At the sound of his voice, ten puppies came bouncing out, all feet and ears and noses.
“Oh.” Beau knelt down, obviously entranced by all that tripping and flopping.
“The big bruiser boy was the first out. He’s something else.”
