Southern Charms (13 page)

Chapter 25

Xander had dropped Rocky off at a border’s ranch in northern New York, and was now reaching the end of the three hour drive to the little town that his girl grew up in. For the last half hour, she had been all but bouncing in her seat -gushing over this, that, and the other- her voice getting more and more animated with every mile put under the tires. For the rock in his gut over this, he couldn’t stop the grin that came to his lips as she talked about her dad. It had been a long time since he actually met a girl’s daddy who he didn’t know growing up, and
never
before they actually had sex...

And they had a
very
active sex life.

Normally, there was no ‘daddy meeting’ with the girls he rolled in the hay with. They were one night, or possibly over the weekend, but not anywhere close to ‘take home and meet the folks’ kind of girls.

Matter of fact, there was probably a pretty long list of daddies ready to shoot him on sight.

Grunting and shaking his head to rid himself of the thought, Xander returned his attention to his girl when she squealed loud enough to put a pig to shame, turning in her seat when they passed the ‘Welcome to North Creek’ sign. Following the turn by turn directions, he soon pulled up in front of a single story blue house with a small porch and, you guessed it, a car in the driveway with retired military plates.

Leaning over him, Elizabeth laid on the horn a few times before throwing her door open, not bothering to close it behind her before running around the truck. Xander blinked a few times at the action, looking out his window to watch her leap into the arms of an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair, her cry of “Daddy” echoing off the porch and back to him.

Getting out of his truck as well, Xander held back as his girl and her daddy got reacquainted. When she turned her bright eyes on him while waving him over, he pushed off the front of his truck to walk across the yard, bending his elbow when his girl wrapped her arms around it.

“Dad, this is Alexander Steele. Xander, this is my dad, Kenny Mathews.”

Looking her daddy in the eye, Xander held out a hand, “Pleasure to meet ya, Mr. Mathews.”

Gripping the boy’s hand and giving it a shake, Kenny tightened his grip as much as he could with a cocked a brow, “You ever so much as raised your voice to a girl, Boy?”

“No, Sir. My mama have my hide ‘fore I could blink, iffin I ever did.”

Kenny looked at the guy he had only ever heard very good things about another moment before smirking. “Keep in mind that I have a gun, I know how to use it, and I am retired special forces. If I say I didn’t shoot you, no one will ask me again. You get what I’m saying, Boy?”

Xander nodded at him, his voice steady. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good. Call me Kenny.” Then he turned away from the kids, back to the house. “Get your bags and come on in. The game is getting ready to start, plus pizza should be here soon.”

As they were following the order, Elizabeth giggled. She gazed at Xander over the truck bed as she grabbed her backpack, Xander gathering the duffles together. Shouldering her pack, she smiled at him. “I think that went well.”

Xander snorted as he pulled her backpack off her shoulder to put over his, once again bending his elbow when she took his arm. “Yeah, he didn’t g’on and shoot me. I consider that a win.”

“He told you to call him Kenny. There are kids I grew up with that aren’t even allowed to call him that. I think he really wants to like you.”

Smiling down at her, he cocked a brow as he handed her through the door. “Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?”

Elizabeth smirked. “He didn’t come outside with his gun on his hip... and you got in the front door. If he wasn’t willing to at least try, he would have just gone ahead and shot you.”

Xander gave her a flat look as he closed the door behind him, setting their bags down. “Very comfortin’, Little Darlin’.”

She just giggled as she grabbed his wrist and pulled him the rest of the way into the house.

Chapter 26

“Go baby, go, go, go, GO... FUCK!”

Kenny dropped back into his chair as Xander leapt from his, double fist pumping with a “YES!” when his Cowboys tackled the fuck out of the Jet’s wide receiver and recovered the fumble. He might be trying to win over his girl’s daddy, but where he was from, football was a religion, the Cowboys their gods.

Sitting back down next to his girl with a hand on her thigh, Xander reached for his beer. After taking a drink, he turned to Kenny. “I got fifty bucks that say my boys kick the shit out of yours.”

After swallowing his own mouthful of beer, Kenny pointed the bottleneck at him, “You’re on, Son. My team has never let me down.”

Xander smirked. “Neither has mine.”

He tried not to be too smug as he took his girl’s daddy’s money later that night. It was kinda iffy there around the middle of the fourth quarter, but as always, his boys came through and won by 9.

Elizabeth just shook her head, a smile on her face as she watched them interact. She had been worried at first over this visit, but she knew that if anything would bring them together -beside the fact they both wanted to kill the same person- it would be football.

“Well, as sweet as the male bondin’ is, I’m tired. Y'all have a good night, now.”

As Elizabeth was turning to head upstairs to her room, her dad snorted his amusement. “Y'all? What the hell is that shit, Lizzy?”

Glancing over her shoulder with a grin, “Blame your new pal, Daddy. I promise by the time we leave, you’ll be sayin’ it, too.”

Kenny shook his head. “Fucking Southerners.”

Without missing a beat, Xander retorted. “Fuckin’ Yankees.”

Kenny looked at him with a cocked brow, but said nothing as he hugged his daughter, wishing her a good night and sweet dreams.

The next morning, Xander woke up to the most mouth watering scent there was. Taking a deep breath, he hummed in his throat. ‘
Is that bacon?’
Stretching out his back, popping his spine back into alignment, he reached down to adjust his extremely painful junk with a sigh. After rolling out of his girl’s bed, he grabbed his jeans off the floor. He knew this was his fault. His girl wasn’t nearly as vocal about not doing anything in her dad’s house. Those protests were all him. But he was definitely regretting the choice right about now. He knew one thing for fucking sure, if she was still up for it that night, there would be NO denying it.

After a quick stop at the bathroom, he followed his nose and the smell of pig to the kitchen, where his girl and her daddy were bullshitting about nothing as she bustled around the room. After a ‘Mornin’’ to Kenny, he kissed his girl’s cheek. He was pointed to the table, where there was enough food to feed a small army.

“Help yourself, Xander. I got some guys coming over this morning to help me with thinning out the tree line. If you want to eat, you better do it before they get here.”

Elizabeth snorted at the stove, turning around while twirling the spatula in her hand in a circle with a chuckle. “Daddy, I have seen breakfast time in the Steele house. Xander here is not above stabbing hands with forks.”

Xander took a drink of his juice to wash down the bacon, then cocked a brow at his girl. “Ya make it sound like I do that shit all the time. It was once, it was Mark, and he went after the bacon on MY plate. Ya damn skippy I stabbed that fucker’s hand. Ya don’t mess with a man’s bacon, Little Darlin’. That’ll land ya knee deep in shit faster than ya can blink on the Steele ranch.”

Elizabeth cocked a brow in return as she jutted out a hip. “It was three times. It was Mark, Kyle and Rocky’s vet, and you drew blood.”

He was completely unrepentant about it, too. “Previous statement stands, Sugar Britches. You don’t fuck with a man’s bacon and ’spect to keep all ya fingers. They knew better.” To prove his point, he shoved another piece of bacon in his mouth and winked at his now laughing lady.

Kenny watched the banter going on between his daughter and her new boyfriend, the small smile on his face hidden by the newspaper in his hands. He couldn’t remember a single time he saw her -while she was with that thing she calls an ex- that she looked that happy... not even before all that bullshit happened. She also never talked about him, but hasn’t shut up about Xander since he got up this morning. He had to admit, he was curious about the man, and she had no problems telling him anything he wanted to know. When she told him that he was a professional rider, with multiple national championship titles in different events under his belt, he would be a liar if he said he didn’t have him looked up. He’d make a few phone calls while she was in the shower.

He would also be a liar if he said he wasn’t impressed.

He knew he hadn’t misunderstood what she said. He knew she said he had them, but he didn’t think that she meant the he was the CURRENT national champion in those events, just that he’d had them at one point, but no. He was the current ‘gold buckle’ holder in the tie-down wrestle and the steer wrestle. He had the silver one in the saddle bronc and bareback bronc, along with the bronze one in the bull ride. He held a title in every event there is for a man. The guy he got the information from was jealous as fuck that Xander wasn’t only staying in his house, but dating his daughter.

He wondered if she knew he was the current title holder in anything but the one she actually said he had at the moment. After making a mental note to ask him if she knew just how big of a name he had, Kenny set the paper down, leaning back in his seat. “So, what do you kids have planned for today?”

Elizabeth was pulling a pan of biscuits out of the oven when she answered, “Nothing until tonight. I want to take Xander to Glen Falls tonight to go to that club I went to for my 21st.” Setting the hot pan on the stove top, she turned to lean against it. “I figured we would just laze around the house for the day, so I can see Cole when he and the guys get here.”

Kenny nodded. “I know he can’t wait to see you, Lizzy. The damn kid started calling the house everyday for the last three to find out exactly when you were going to get here.”

Elizabeth snorted before rolling her eyes, turning to take the biscuits out of the pan before moving them to the basket on the counter.

Xander looked at her with a cocked brow as he leaned back in his seat. “That the boyfriend you been talkin’ ‘bout, Little Darlin’?”

With a bark of laughter, she looked over her shoulder and winked at him. “Ex husband, actually. We were married when we were kids. Poor bastard didn’t take the divorce well.”

“I was 6.”

Elizabeth whirled around with a squeal, dropping the biscuit in her hand and darting across the room before leaping into Cole’s arms, laughing as he spun her around. Once she was on her feet again, she beamed up at him. “Holy hell! What on Earth have you been eatin’? You weren’t this tall two months ago.”

Cole smiled at her while ruffling her hair a bit. “You didn’t sound like a hick then either, Lizzy.”

With a swat to the chest with the spatula in her hand -as well as a huffed ‘asshole’- she turned to Xander, who was looking at her with a smile, “Cole, This is...”

He cut her off and held out a hand to Xander, “Oh, I know who this is. Cole Hunt, Mr. Steele. It’s an honor to meet you.”

Xander smirked at him as he shook Cole’s hand. “Mr. Steele is my Daddy. Call me Xander.”

There was a definite swoon in Cole’s eyes as he nodded, making Elizabeth cock a brow. “Looks like someone got crush on ya, Xan.”

Xander snorted as Cole looked at her like she was making fun of Jesus in bible country. “I do not. But, come on, Lizzy, it’s not everyday you meet a legend.”

Xander grunted, shaking his head. “I ain’t no legend, kid. I just ride.”

The spark of swoon was back as Cole shook his in disbelief. “You’re a national champion, three years in a row, in more than one event. You are the highest rated rider in the circuit. You have won more events -in the last year alone- than most riders do in their whole career. They say that if you keep going like you are, you could even beat Frost.”

Xander sighed, his eyes seeking the ceiling. “Well, I don’t know who ‘they’ are,” he intoned, looking back at Cole, “But ain’t no fella gonna ever beat him. Frost a legend; I just ride.”

Seeing the annoyance creeping into Xander’s eyes, Kenny intervened on his behalf. “Cole, shut up and leave the man alone. He isn’t here for you. Now sit down, shut up, and eat.”

Cole looked like he was about to protest, so Elizabeth smacked him on the back of the head before pointing to the table, “Sit.”

Shoulders slumping a bit, Cole did as he was told, grabbing a plate of food before plopping down at the table. Once a few minutes passed, he looked across from him at Xander, then swallowed his mouthful. “So, where’s Rocky?”

Xander looked up at him, “Border few miles over got ‘im for the week we gonna be here. Why?”

Cole shrugged. “No reason. I just know that you don’t go anywhere without him.”

Xander cocked a brow at him. “You a stalker?”

Kenny choked on his coffee at the same time Elizabeth spit hers out so she didn’t. Cole turned beet red at the question, but Xander sat there waiting for an answer.

Elizabeth wiped her chin off with the back of her hand, blinking a few times before slowly turning to look at Xander. “Feel free to use the fork.”

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful after that. Around noon, Elizabeth was in the kitchen with a couple of her girl friends. They made a mountain of sandwiches, pitchers of sweet tea and lemonade, then put several bags of chips into bowls. Once that was done, the girls took lunch outside to the picnic table. There was no way, in any life, that she was going to allow 8 men who spent the day out in the woods cutting back trees and branches in the house… at least, not without turning the hose on them first.

Once everything was outside, Elizabeth blew a high pitched whistle, and thencupped her hands around her mouth. “All hogs to the troug
h
!
Y’all boys come on and eat now.” As she turned back to go grab the paper plates, there was a pained yell from the woods, causing her to whirl back around to see what was going on.

It didn’t take long.

Out of the woods came Cole, Frankie hot on his heels. Frankie spear tackled in him the back, taking him to the ground face first. The girls crossed their arms, heads cocked to the side as they tried to figure out what the hell Cole did to piss him off this time, when Xander walked calmly out of woods, his own arms crossed.

Xander smirked as he saw Frankie take the stalker to the ground. When he was close enough, Xander pointed to his girl, making her start a bit. “Ya best apologize to the Lady, Kid.”

Cole fought against the hold Frankie had on him as he turned to look at Xander. “She didn’t hear me.” Then he cried out when Frankie twisted his arm more.

Xander cocked a brow at him, “Don’t rightly matter. Frankie ‘bout to rip ya arm off, Kid. I reckon I’d apologize, iffin I was you.”

Cole cried out again as Frankie pushed up on his arm again, yelling, “Sorry, Lizzy.”

Elizabeth’s eyes shifted from the guys to the girls, then back again, with the girls only shrugging in response. “For what?”

Frankie answered that. “He was picking on your accent again.”

Elizabeth groaned in her throat, huffing out, “Dick.” Shaking her head, she pointed to the food, “Just eat, ya bastards.”

After she came out with the plates, she took a seat next to Xander, who put his arm over her shoulders, then jumped into the conversation like she was there the whole time.