Ginger’s cell phone buzzed on her desk, startling her out of her sexual flashback. “Hey, son. What’s up?”
“Are you coming home soon?”
“Pretty quick. I have to make one stop first. Why?”
“Grandpa says to tell you we’re out of cereal and bread. He’s making fish sticks for supper and they smell gross. Now he’s mad that I don’t wanna eat his food, but I’d rather starve.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Yeah. That’s why he’s mad.”
As many times as she’d told her father he didn’t need to help out in the kitchen, every once in a while he got it in his head that he could cook. Never mind his culinary skills were limited to heating prepackaged frozen entrees, canned soup and dishing up ice cream. Even Ginger admitted the thought of eating fish sticks turned her stomach. “What would you rather have for supper?”
“SpaghettiOs.”
“I’m leaving the office now.”
By the time Ginger picked up her prescription and stopped at the grocery store, her head pounded with such force she felt her eyeballs pulsing.
Playing intermediary between her son and father didn’t help her headache. Once she’d finished kitchen duties, she downed her pills, crawled in bed with a box of Kleenex and a hot compress on her sinuses and was dead to the world.
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m out.”
“Jesus, Chase. That’s like the fifth hand in a row,” Bennett complained.
“And I’m still up more than you,” Chase pointed out. “I’m playin’ smart.”
“For a professional bull rider, you’re playin’ it awfully safe.”
Kane watched his cousin Tell sweep Chase’s cards into a pile. Then Tell looked at him. “How many?”
“Two.”
Tell dealt then faced his brother Brandt. “How many?”
“Three.”
“He’s bettin’ on a pair, boys,” Dalton announced.
“Shut your pie hole,” Brandt grumbled.
Dalton, the youngest McKay of the group, just grinned. “I’ll be takin’ three cards myself, bro,” he said to Tell.
“Fine. I’m takin’ two. Kane, bid’s to you.”
Kane knocked back a sip of his Budweiser. Full house. Threes and queens. Maybe he could bluff his way into winning the pot. “I’ll raise three.”
All around the table, trash talking ensued between the brothers and cousins. These biweekly poker nights had become a tradition in the last year. Kane didn’t kid himself it was his great planning that brought them together. Things had always been somewhat strained between his Uncle Casper and his three brothers, Carson, Charles and Calvin, hence a strained relationship existed between the McKay cousins from that branch. The original McKay homestead had been equally divided between the four brothers, which meant they were tied together in the ranching business until one of them bought the other three out. With the value of the ranch, no one had that kind of cash, and the McKays were beyond stubborn so the chances of that ever happening were slim to none.
Uncle Carson had quadrupled the size of his holding, and that didn’t include the pieces of land his sons had purchased. Kane’s dad had added to his original section too, but not as substantially. He only had Kane and Kade to help him work it, not four or five sons. Uncle Charles had added acreage in the last few years when he’d turned over the majority of the ranch responsibility to Quinn and Bennett. Chase returned to Wyoming and helped his brothers when he wasn’t on tour with the PBR. Except it seemed Chase’s Raising Kane
return home lately was to avoid the tabloids. Kane admitted pride in the kid, for taking the bad-boy, hell-raisin’ McKay reputation to a whole ’nother level—a national level.
But the biggest reason for them spending time together, besides the fact they were all still single, happened after Luke McKay’s death.
The remaining sons had a falling out with their father, a rift that still hadn’t healed. Uncle Casper had a bug up his ass about something, and he’d further alienated his brothers and nephews. It made for awkward conversation when dealing with ranch business. Especially since Brandt, Tell and Dalton purchased a tract of land on their own. As their father was the only McKay descendant who hadn’t added on—it’d always been a bitter point of contention for Uncle Casper and he’d taken it out on his sons.
Yeah, they were just one big happy f**king family.
Kane knew this type of poker game wouldn’t have happened in his younger years, when he was in the same age group as Brandt, Tell, Dalton, Bennett and Chase. At almost thirty-seven, Kane was the old man in the group. Uncle Casper and Aunt Joan had started their family later than his brothers, and had four boys in six years. Luke had been just turned twenty-seven when he died. Brandt had just turned twenty-five; Tell had turned twenty-four and Dalton twenty-one.
On the Charles McKay branch of the family, Quinn was going on thirty-four. Bennett was twenty-nine and Chase had passed the quarter-century mark and turned twenty-six.
Why did age—his and his other family members’—matter to him?
Because all Kane’s male cousins had been married by his age. Most married with families. And he wasn’t enjoying the bachelor lifestyle these days, not like he had when he’d lived at the Boars Nest. Hell, he hadn’t even missed having an active sex life. He avoided the bars, knowing he’d run into a woman or fifteen he’d f**ked at some point in the last two decades, usually a woman he’d f**ked over. The sad truth was, Kane had been with so many women…he didn’t remember all of them.
Talk about great husband and father material. Jesus. No wonder he was single.
His thoughts drifted to Ginger. At times, he believed they could make a good life together. But other times, he wondered why she’d want him long-term. They were already getting it on every chance they had.
He was already a father figure to her son. She wasn’t looking for security or a provider. Hell, she probably made more money in two months than he made all year. He knew she wasn’t looking to take this to another level.
And that sucked.
“He’s thinkin’ about bein’ on his knees in front of some big biker dude with a pierced cock, wearin’
leathers, holdin’ a whip.”
Kane’s focus zoomed back to the present and he stared at his cousin Tell. “What the hell were you talkin’ about?”