* * *

EZRA LET GO of the chin-up bar and landed on his feet with a sweaty grunt. He’d seen her last on Monday as he’d dropped her at her house.

He’d last kissed her then, too. It hadn’t even been a week since he’d seen her last and he missed it. He’d got used to her, especially after those days up in the mountains.

Each day without her, the energy had built along with the craving.

The energy he could deal with. There were a lot of things to be done on a ranch so he had lots of opportunities to burn through any excess. But it was the craving that made him panicky.

At the end of the day when he’d not given in and gone to her, he’d been proud that he’d resisted. And then miserable he even considered what this thing was between them marginally close to what he’d lived through as a junkie.

Paddy called out a hello and Loopy tore out of the yard to greet him.

Ezra grabbed a towel to mop his face and neck. “Just over here.”

“Ugh, why do you work out? You make me feel bad. Then I have to do it or all the beer and pizza will settle in my belly.”

Ezra looked at his brother and rolled his eyes. “I have to lift and haul crap all day long. If I don’t keep strong the ranch will eat me alive.”

Ezra wasn’t exceptionally superstitious but he did believe that he needed to be his healthiest to keep the ranch at its healthiest. There was a synergy between him and the land.

“But you can also sex up a fine lady now. Which seems more fun than pull-ups. Things are okay between you guys, right?”

“Things are fine. She’ll be up here tomorrow night.”

“Make me some of that shitty wheatgrass you drink and tell me things.” Paddy leaned over the fence to pat Violet’s head.

“Come in. It’s too late for wheatgrass, but I was about to have some dinner and you look hungry.”

Paddy grinned. “Score.”

They headed inside and Ezra pointed toward the kitchen. “Get something to drink. I’m just going to shower and change.”

Paddy was already playing with the cats so Ezra ducked down the hall to clean up.

* * *

BY THE TIME he came out, Paddy and Damien were in his living room drinking his juice and eating his food. Just a normal Friday, he supposed.

“We left enough for you so don’t frown.” Damien pointed at a glass.

“You’re in my chair.”

“I figured you’d be up cooking anyway. But I also figured that since I came over with a huge amount of food that my very pregnant, frustrated, achy and nesting wife prepared, you’d be fine with me sitting here.”

“Fuck off. I’m fine eating food your way-too-good-for-you wife makes, though.” He grabbed his glass and headed into the kitchen where really good smells hung in the air.

He was a decent enough cook, but Mary was magic and her food was, too. He opened up containers, poking around, grabbing a fork to taste things.

“Don’t get your spit in the food.” Damien strolled in along with Paddy.

“My kitchen, my spit. Also, I’m not actually sharing this with you two, so you don’t need to worry about my spit.” He ate directly from the container of cellophane noodle salad with fat, succulent shrimp. “I don’t know what you do to keep Mary around, but keep it up.”

“I don’t know most days, either, dude. She loves me and feeds me and likes my weird family so whatever it is, I’ll just try to do a lot of it so she’ll overlook my flaws. You’ve been ducking me for a few days.”

“Ducking? In case it’s escaped your notice— Hey what’s that?” Ezra pointed his fork at whatever Damien was putting on his plate.

Damien finished dishing some up before he replied. “Don’t know. It’s mushrooms and some sort of Italian ham stuff. It’s awesome.”

Paddy snatched the container before Ezra could, laughing all the while like a mushroom-stealing jerk.

“Don’t you people have women to be with? Why are you at my house drinking all my juice and stealing my chair?”

“You’re such a baby.” Damien took his food back into the living room, Loopy following hopefully.

“Loop.”

She gave him a sad face and he gave her a little cheese and then of course the cats needed a treat but luckily for his brothers, neither of them were in his chair when he finally made it to the living room.

“My woman told me to take the food and leave her alone for a few hours. Her hips are hurting so she’s napping and secretly watching reality television she thinks I don’t know anything about. I wish I could help her, make it better. Gestation is hard work. It’s tough on her body and I can’t do it for her.”

“She was looking a little pale when I saw her earlier today. I’m glad she’s resting.”

“Mom came by to help with some project for the baby’s room. I keep telling Mary to hire some whiz-bang designer to do all the work or at the very least let me do it, but she won’t have it.”

They’d spent several days earlier that month getting the outline of the nursery in place. Mary’s friend Daisy had come down to paint a mural and ouitfit the baby’s room with bedding and stuff while Damien and his brothers had put together the crib, installed a custom kit for the closet, hung shelves and the like.

It had been a happy time, watching his family continue to grow and fill with people who loved one another.

He’d hung out some with Levi, Daisy’s husband, who happily toted around their five-month-old daughter who adored her dad right back. Similar in temperaments, Levi and Ezra had hit it off quickly and that weekend for the very first time the desire to have that, a wife and a kid, to make his own part of the Hurley family had sprouted, growing roots rather quickly.