Free A Very Lusty Christmas by Cara Covington

RAF.”
    Kate didn’t know if she had words to give him, or even if it was words that he needed or wanted from her. But she said, “So you sent them out to reconnect with their heritage, and the land.”
    “And perhaps to frustrate them, just a little, since they were waiting so eagerly for you to arrive this morning.”
    Kate laughed. She couldn’t help it. There was a sublime balance in this family—in all the families, in fact, in Lusty—a balance she thought the rest of the world would be fortunate to find.
    She’d heard the women of the family talk a fair bit about the men, and which of their fathers they resembled most. But in that moment Kate knew Charles Benedict had a fair bit of his mother, Sarah, in him, too.
    “So tell me, Mr. Benedict, are the boys going to find those cows you sent them after?”
    “Call me Charles, please. And to answer your question—probably not.” He laughed, and Kate could see where Patrick got his “charming” side from.
    “Perhaps, then, you could help me saddle up and point me in the right direction. I think it’s time for me to go and find them .”
    Charles nodded. “If you’re sure.”
    Kate grinned. “I’m sure.”
    Coco took that moment to nudge her shoulder with her head. Despite what she’d just said, she didn’t know if she was really sure, or not.
    But she thought perhaps it was time for her to find out.
     
    * * * *
     
    Gerald had been furious with his father. But that hadn’t stopped him from saying, “Yes, sir,” mounting up, and heading toward their old campsite on a search for wayward bovines.
    His usually even-tempered brother had felt the same way if the tension he could see in Patrick’s jaw was any indication.
    At first he’d just wanted to find the bloody cows and get back to Kate as quickly as possible. It hit him, then, that his mind had supplied the expletive bloody instead of damned .
    He pulled up on the reins and sat still, his ears attuned to his surroundings, his eyes taking in the slightly rolling landscape, the scattered trees—this sight one he’d enjoyed since the first time his grandfathers had taken him on a campout when he’d not even been old enough to sit his own pony.
    “Hell, I missed this.” Patrick stopped his own horse beside him.
    Gerald nodded. “Me, too. You have to wonder at the old man’s smarts, don’t you?”
    “To know we needed to do this, just the two of us?”
    Gerald sighed, then turned his gaze to his brother. “I hadn’t understood how edgy I was until just now.”
    Patrick nodded toward an oak tree that, when he’d been younger, had seemed as if it reached to the heavens, the branches extended like arms in supplication.
    “Damn near broke my fool neck the day I tried to climb up and see into that nest that was up near the top. Do you remember?”
    Gerald laughed. “I remember how alarmed the dads were when you fell and started bawling—and now I understand their worry wasn’t just for your well-being.”
    Patrick grinned. “Mother likely would have been beside herself if she knew half the things the dads and granddads let us do. She’d have chased them out the house with a broom. Or granddad’s shotgun, whichever was in closer reach.”
    “A boy’s got to have room to grow into a man,” Gerald said. That had been one of Caleb Benedict’s favorite sayings—at least around his grandsons.
    Joshua would just nod and say, “Damn straight.” And then he’d wink at whichever one of them—him or Patrick—Caleb had been talking about.
    “I want to head over toward the stream.” Patrick didn’t wait, just angled his horse and put his heels into the animal’s sides.
    Gerald followed, knowing what it was Patrick wanted to see. Every new season would find the Benedict men out here, camping. Sometimes there’d be Jessops and Kendalls with them, and sometimes not.
    But at the beginning of each season, they’d come. They’d fish, and drink—when they’d come of age, of course, the boys