Boone asked, “Wes, does Rosemary like working with the two of you? I ran into her over at Cheaver’s the other day. Is she still splitting her time between your furniture business and the family store?”
Wes and Evan chuckled as they leaned side by side against the kitchen counter. Wes replied, “Rosemary works basically wherever the hell she feels like it on any given day of the week. Randy lost an assistant manager a couple of weeks ago, and so she’s been helping out a bit more over there. I’ll tell you, that girl can sell ice to Eskimos. We saw a one-hundred-percent rise in sales when she started visiting with clients. We got lucky that she’s interested in our business.”
“No, bro.” Evan chuckled. “We got lucky when she said ‘I do’ on that beach on Grand Cayman last summer.” Wes smiled and nodded as the other men chuckled.
Kendall turned his gaze out to the living room as the ladies’ discussion continued. He watched as Teresa’s toddler son, Eleazar, walked up to Maya and handed her his little board book.
“My-my, read me?”
Maya nodded and said something to him softly as she lifted him into her lap and opened the thick pages of the durable book. Kendall chuckled at the little boy’s version of Maya’s name. My-my. Yep, he felt the same way.
He looked over and caught Boone and Richard watching her, too. He wondered if he bore the same goofy, in-love expression on his face. Sometimes he wanted to pinch himself because this relationship with her had been a fantasy for so many years.
He’d been in and out of relationships, but she was the only woman he’d ever loved this deeply, even if it was only from afar.
He recalled a time during the year after the three of them had met their first year in college. He’d been dating a girl at the time who had been more flash than substance. It was his first experience living away from home, and the freedom had been heady. Pam was a social butterfly and very concerned with appearances and pleasing her sorority sisters. At a party she dumped him harshly in public, calling him a dumb redneck. When Maya had found out, she’d come to his dorm room and convinced him to go to supper with her and Morgan, who had seized the day and was already dating her.
Later that night after the party was over, the three of them had gone to the sorority house and toilet papered every tree in their pristinely landscaped front yard.
Though he had nothing to do with it, he thought it was hilarious when he saw the large sign proclaiming the name of the university at the entry to the campus. Someone had spray-painted in neat, red letters, “Pamela Vandernoot takes it up the ass. Call her at…” and then listed her phone number.
It wasn’t until later when he was telling Morgan and Maya about it that he noticed the red spray-paint residue on her fingers. She’d blushed and hugged him then told him Pamela didn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground. To this day, he remembered the feel of her comforting hug when he thanked her. It had felt like slightly more than commiseration when she looked up at him with earnest blue eyes and told him he deserved someone much better than Pamela Vandernoot. Morgan had agreed with her. That was the day he fell in love with Maya.
He didn’t need to have made love to her to know he wanted her forever. Then there was the fantasy he and his brothers had entertained lately, that she would somehow find it in her heart to not only love again, but to love the three of them enough to make a commitment. It was too soon to talk about engagements or things like that, but the three of them hoped for something permanent with her. The thought of making love with her and then watching her leave at the end of her week-long stay with them tore him up. Bit by bit Boone and Richard were losing their hearts to her, and it was no surprise, given the way she’d claimed his heart.
It gave him hope that she’d reacted favorably to the news that Grace had put in a good word for her with Dr. Guthrie, who would soon lose her RN to retirement. He hoped that meant she was seriously considering Divine as her permanent home.
Boone had mentioned to him the night before that he and Maya had been intimate out at the creek earlier that day. He’d expected as much when Boone had told them he would fetch her from the creek. Kendall knew if it had been him, he’d have done the same thing. She’d returned with Boone and Richard looking content and rosy-cheeked. He couldn’t wait until he had the opportunity to put that bloom in her cheeks himself.
He’d disciplined himself to one more night of nothing but rest for Maya and hoped tonight could be the night for the three of them. He planned to talk with her about it at their first private moment together.