A Little Dare - Brenda Jackson [38]
“Morris Sears and Cornelius Thomas. And we’re going to meet at Kate’s Diner every morning for chocolate milk.” As an afterthought he added. “And it’s free if we let her know we’ve been good in school.”
Shelly made a mental note to ask Dare about Morris and Cornelius when she saw him again. Being Sheriff he probably knew if the two were troublemakers.
“They’re real cool guys and they like my bike,” AJ went on to say. “Yesterday they told me all about the sheriff and his brothers.” His eyes grew wide. “Why didn’t you tell me that Thorn Westmoreland is my uncle?”
“Because he’s not.”
At AJ’s confused frown, Shelly decided to explain. “Until you accept Dare as your father you can’t claim any of the Westmorelands as your uncles.”
AJ glared. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“And why doesn’t it? You’re the one who doesn’t want Dare knowing he’s your father, so how can you tell anyone that Thorn and the others are your uncles without explaining the connection? Until you decide differently, to the Westmorelands you’re just another kid.”
She stood. “Now, I’m going upstairs and shower while you eat breakfast.”
AJ nodded as he slowly walked out of the room and headed for the kitchen. Shelly knew she had given him something to think about.
“Is it true?” Morris asked excitedly the moment AJ got off his bike at Ms. Kate’s Diner.
AJ raised a brow. “Is what true?”
It was Cornelius who answered, his wide, blue eyes expressive. “That you had dinner with the sheriff and his family last night?”
AJ shrugged, wondering how they knew that. “Yeah, so what about it?”
“We think it’s cool, that’s what about it. The sheriff is the bomb. He makes sure everyone in this town is safe at night. My mom and dad say so,” Cornelius responded without wasting any time.
AJ and the two boys opened the door and walked into the diner. “How did you know I had dinner with the sheriff?” he asked as they walked up to the counter where cartons of chocolate milk had been placed for them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Turner saw all of you and called my grandmother who then called my mom and dad. Everyone was wondering who you were and I told my mom that you were a kid who got in trouble and had to report to the sheriff’s office after school every day. They thought you were a family member or something, but I told them you weren’t.”
AJ nodded. “My mom had to go to work unexpectedly last night and the sheriff offered to take me to dinner with him since I hadn’t eaten.”
“Wow! That was real nice of him, wasn’t it?”
AJ hadn’t really thought about it being an act of kindness and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Do you think he’ll mind if we go with you to his office after school?” Morris asked excitedly.
AJ scrunched his face, thinking. “I guess not, but he might put you to work.”
Morris shrugged. “That’s all right if he does. I just want him to tell us about the time he was an FBI agent and did that undercover stuff to catch the bad guys.”
AJ nodded. He didn’t want to admit it, but he wouldn’t mind hearing about that himself. He smiled when the nice lady behind the counter handed them each a donut to go along with their milk.
Shelly’s hands tightened on the steering wheel after she brought her car to a stop next to the police cruiser marked Sheriff. She’d had no idea Dare would be joining his brothers for lunch. How would she manage a straight face around him and not let anyone know they had spent close to an hour in a darkened area of her porch last night doing something deliriously naughty?
She opened the car door and took a deep breath, thinking that the things Dare had done to her had turned her inside out and whetted her appetite. To put it more bluntly, sixteen hours later she was still aroused. After having gone without sex for so long she now felt downright hungry. In fact starving was a better word to use. Would Dare look at her and detect her sexually-excited state? If anyone could, it would be Dare, a man who’d once known her better than she’d known herself.
And to think she’d even admitted to