After they’d eaten, Mia put together a plate filled with cake and cookies for Dave to take to his mother in the guesthouse.
“She’s probably getting ready for bed,” he argued, since he’d rather take Mia back to their bedroom than take a walk.
“She’s not ninety, Dave,” Mia said with a laugh. “And she left before she got any of the cake.”
Mia was polishing off a slice of Delores’s famous mocha fudge cake as Dave picked up the plate with a resigned sigh. “I’ll be right back.”
Mia smiled at him and licked her fork lovingly. “Take your time….”
He watched her tongue make short work of the frosting on that fork and could only mutter, “Five minutes, tops.”
Outside, it was cold, but Texas cold—so his bare feet on the flagstones didn’t bother him a bit. He glanced around the ranch yard as he walked silently through the darkness. Dave noted lights on in the houses set aside for the ranch hands and frowned when he noticed the foreman’s house was dark. Well, hell, on the ride home, all Mike had talked about was taking a shower and going to bed. Guess he meant it.
Shaking his head, Dave skirted the pool, walked past the line of Adirondack chairs and headed for the guesthouse. He’d built the damn place especially for his mother—he’d wanted her to live here, but to have her own space, too. Still, it had never been more than a way station for his mother, who refused to “be a wet blanket on her son’s party.” This time, though, he told himself, maybe he could get her to stay.
Once Mia was gone, the ranch was going to be…lonely. He frowned as that thought registered. Alone wasn’t lonely, he insisted, but that argument was ringing false, even with him. He couldn’t even imagine sleeping in his own bed without Mia beside him. Which told him that this whole situation was taking a turn he hadn’t expected.
Dave was still frowning when he gave a perfunctory knock to his mother’s door, then opened it. He stopped dead on the threshold and was pretty sure he’d been struck blind.
Mike Carter, wearing only a pair of white boxers, was kissing Dave’s mother. Worse, she was kissing him back. And since when did mothers wear short nightgowns with spaghetti straps?
“What the hell?”
The couple broke apart at his shout and Mike whirled around to face Dave while at the same time shoving Alice behind him, standing in front of her like a human shield. “Dave—”
“What’s going on here?” he demanded, then held up a hand. “Don’t answer that!” He knew exactly what was going on and really didn’t need any more details.
Dave set the covered plate down on the nearest table and took a step toward Mike. His friend. His foreman. The man he trusted more than anyone else in his life besides Tobin. “Mom, leave.”
“I will not.”
“Alice—” Mike said.
“Don’t you start, either,” Alice said and jumped out from behind Mike to face her furious son. “I will not run and hide as if I were a teenager being reprimanded by her parents. David Trahern Firestone, you just remember who the parent is here and who’s the child.”
“I’m no child,” he ground out, hardly glancing at his mother. “And I want to know what the hell Mike is doing here like…that.”
Alice bristled again. “You watch your tone, David, do you understand?”
“No!” he shouted, throwing both hands into the air. “I don’t understand. In fact, I think I’m having a stroke!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Alice folded her arms across her chest and tapped the bare toes of one foot against the floor.
He couldn’t think. Couldn’t rationalize what he’d just seen, and then he heard himself babble, “What? How? When?”
“Dave, if we could talk…” Mike said, reaching for his jeans and pulling them on.
Fury was crouched at the base of his throat and betrayal was tightly wrapped around it like a fist. He could hardly talk, but he managed to say, “The only thing I’m saying to you is, you’re fired.”
His mother walked right up and slapped him. Dave just looked at her. She hadn’t laid a hand on him since the year he was fifteen and took a ranch truck out for a joyride. “What was that for?”
“For being a boob,” Alice told him, frowning. “You can’t fire the man I love because you’re embarrassed.”
“I’m embarrassed?” He wasn’t dealing with hearing his mother say she loved a man. That was just too much for any son to have to take.