The Scars That Make Us (Second Generation Book 3)

Chapter 10

JACE

I held Cat in my arms as we finally fell asleep last night. These late nights were going to kill me, but if it meant squeezing every moment out of this week I had with her, then it was worth the morning drag and the copious amounts of coffee that I was chugging to stay semi-awake. The highlight of my day so far was “forgetting” that Grandma was hosting the girls for breakfast in the morning and seeing her after their morning run carb-loading. She was blushing the entire time I was in the room and I snuck her a little wink before Grams kicked me out.

I wasn’t going to get to see her tonight and I was already having Catarina withdrawals. The bride wanted this special spa treatment from this place that was about a two hour drive from here, but they wouldn’t travel and do it here. I guess some mud mask, I don’t know Bev was complaining about it all morning because she had to drive them there. Since it was such a distance away, they opted to spend the night at a resort there and come back home tomorrow morning.

Thankfully, she was going to be getting her own room and promised that we could FaceTime tonight after they finished their spa treatments and drank way too much. I still hated that I wouldn’t be able to see her. I was already missing her soft lips and her floral scent and the way that her skin tasted like sweetness on my tongue. I wasn’t even going to pretend like I wasn’t completely sprung on her. I even almost dropped the L-word in my conversation with her last night. Who tells a chick he loves her after just a couple of days? Me, apparently.

“Jace.” Mitch pulled up his horse next to the feed truck I was running today and tilted his hat at me slightly.

“Hey, Mitch, what’s going on?”

“Did you pull this feed from the grain barn or was it leftover from yesterday?’

“I cleaned it out this morning and filled it fresh. It was smelling funky, well funkier than normal, yesterday.”

“Okay good. I just remembered having that conversation and I wanted to make sure we didn’t get the wrong stuff.”

Without saying much else, Mitch dismounted his horse and starting helping me with the feed machine. It is old as fuck and even though it should be automatic, it always backs up if somebody isn’t moving it along. During the summer when we have extra help we have two people running it at all times, but during the winter, the cattle aren’t as mobile so we don’t need to spread the feed as much.

“Haven’t seen you since the horseriding lessons, everything good?” Mitch asks to make small talk.

“Yeah, went to Nikki’s with the bachelorette party.”

“Oh yeah? How was that?”

“Not as bad as it could have been. Deacon made a fool of himself, so that is always worth the price of admission.”

“You know, when I was your age, that would have been a dream job.”

“When you were my age, you were a professional football player that didn’t need to entertain bachelorette parties.”

He gives a smirk in my direction, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It probably sounds crazy, but that part of my life seems so long ago. Last time Granger and I were at a cattle sale, one of the guys there recognized my name and asked if I was “the” Mitch Alexander and I actually forgot for a second that he may have been referring to my football career.”

I snorted a small laugh, “Somebody recognized you?”

“They recognized my NAME.”

“Oh, that makes more sense.”