Free Thunder In Her Body by C. B. Stanton

of the holster last night, and it was so hard it left a bruise on my hip!” she said defiantly.
    The brash, unexpected retort caught Aaron off guard.  He lurched forward, knocking over his tea.  He started to choke.  Clare jumped up to get paper towels as his tea ran all over the table and streamed onto the red terrazzo tile floor. Blaze smirked gleefully, and knew right then and there that he had his hands full.  She was bold, brassy, unabashed, but with a classy air that was not diminished by her straight-forwardness.  He had the answers to all of his confusion from the night before when he paced the floors.  He knew what he wanted.  It wasn’t just to get her into bed; it was to get her into his life.  It was her.  He wanted this complicated woman for his own, if she would have him.  Call it foolishness, he thought to himself.  I’ve known her less than 24 hours, but it’s her.  I recognize her.  I want her.
     
    Lynette took her linen napkin and slapped it in a puddle of tea in front of Blaze so it wouldn’t run into his lap.  She could’ve let it drip onto his lap and pretend to soak up the moisture, that’s what she really wanted to do, but that would have been ridiculously obvious!  She took some of the paper towels from Clare’s hand and squatted down to sop up the tea that had splashed onto the floor.  Blaze rose, then bent over and helped clean up the splatters of tea then gallantly extended a hand to assist Lynette back into her chair.
    “I warned you. I warned you.  Didn’t I warn you?” Clare admonished Blaze as she slapped Aaron on his back.  “Don’t ever pin her into a corner.  She’ll come out fighting,” she continued.
    “I’m a bad person.  I apologize y’all.  Blaze I apologize, but…,” Lynette tried to say when Blaze cut her off, reached over and kissed the back of her hand.
    “You’re gonna pay for that statement lady,” he laughed, in a fun and suggestive way.
    Having regained his composure, Aaron looked over at Blaze and shook his head in that way that one man warns another.
    “You better chinch up your saddle son, ‘cuz you’re in for a hell-of-a ride,” he cautioned his buddy.  Blaze had the most pleasant expression on his face.  It was as if a big door had swung open, and he was stepping into a bright light. Aaron began to explain his earlier statement.
    “Lynette, Blaze and I are brothers…well sort of,” he smiled. “It’s kinda complicated.”
    “My daddy married his stepmother a few years after my mother died.  I was just a little tyke when she passed.  Blaze’s mother was a pure-blood Apache.  His daddy was Indian too, but he went back to Mexico after Blaze’s mother passed.  He married again to the lady who my father eventually married.   Word came that he had been killed.  She and my father raised Blaze like their own.  We grew up as brothers even though we don’t share the same blood.  We shared the same parents and that made all the difference in the world.  After my wife died, and Blaze was free again, we decided to ranch together and it didn’t make any sense back then for us to build two separate houses, so from this wall,” he pointed to the outer kitchen wall, “over to the far end of this side of the house, was the original house I built for me and my wife.  This is my wing over here.  From that wall again, over to the other end of the house was all added on, and that’s Blaze’s side of the house.  He didn’t want as much room over there, so the house isn’t completely balanced.  All this common area, living room, family room, kitchen, etc., we simply share and it’s worked out real well so far.  I can be over in my side of the house and not even know when he’s here.  It’s real private,” Aaron said, looking right at Lynette.
    “The house is well insulated so noises don’t carry, if you know what I mean,” he winked at her.  “If Clare would like to stay over sometime, I’d hope she’d stay