Hott and Handled (The Hott Brothers #3) - Leah Sharelle Page 0,25

hear his shouts of excitement.

Any joy my son experienced, I did too.

“Baby, you don’t have to thank me, really. There is nothing I want to do more than spend time with you,” Nixx answered, with the same honesty the first time I had thanked him.

“Plus, this gives me the perfect chance to see where his skill level is at before we put him on a bigger bike. Safety is a priority on the HHH; showing off doesn’t impress us here.”

“This is only the second time I have seen him on a bike actually. When he goes to his mates, I am usually at the restaurant getting ready for the dinner trade.”

I didn’t like the hours a business like mine offered in the way of time with Dillion after he got out of school for the day, but so far, he and I were making it work.

“That must be hard on you both. My brothers and I were lucky in many ways growing up the way we did. Mum was a stay at home mum from day one, we didn’t see a lot of Dad in the early years, but once the farm started making decent money, he handed over some control to his farm manager, came in at a reasonable hour to have dinner with us and help us with our homework.”

“Did you have chores?” I asked, interested in him but keeping my eyes on Dillion. As a mother of a teenage son, I resigned myself to the fact that he would want to try dangerous sports like dirt biking and football. Luckily, football wasn’t played in the summer months in Australia, but I knew come March next year, he was going to pull on the guernsey again and make me watch him get flung around a football field by boys twice his size. Again.

“We sure did. Dad was from the tough-love school of thought. There wasn’t a soft bone in his body, except when it came to Mum.”

“She is special,” I agreed, thinking back to my last encounter with her.

“She rules the Triple H dressed in her pearls and bedazzled gumboots,” he chuckled, making me laugh too.

“Bedazzled?”

“Yeah, the woman is a walking talking glamour model from the old days. You should see her when she comes out to help spread bales of hay in the paddocks. Not a hair out of place and a full face of make-up. But she can swear like a sailor and make a grown man shake with fear with just one look, trust me.”

And grown women too, I thought but didn’t voice it. I had not shared with Nixx the topic of conversation Lillian and I had sitting on the hay bale and most likely would never tell him.

“You seem like you are very close with her,” I pried as gently as I could, knowing where a mother sat in a son’s life could make a potential girlfriend’s life a lot less stressful. My own relationship with my child was strong and perfectly bonded, so this was good practice for the future when Dillion eventually brought a girl home to meet me.

“We are all close with her, but I have an extra bond with her because of my illness when I was a kid,” Nixx said, catching me off guard with the word illness. The man was as healthy as I had ever seen. Muscular, toned and downright sexy … in my opinion, if that meant anything at all.

“Illness?” I asked, then held my breath when Dillion took a corner on the homemade track a little too fast, the back end of the bike kicking out and nearly knocking him off.

A loud squeak erupted from my lips, my heart rate kicking up, but Dillion righted himself just in time.

“Oh, my lord, boy, watch what you are doing,” I grumbled, patting my hand on my chest.

“He has good reflexes baby, the bike he is on is a petrol motor, not a two-stroke. They are a lot more powerful and harder to right in the same situation. Once I see he is more controlled, then we can step him up,” Nixx assured me, reaching out and taking my hand in his and laying it in his lap, but not before he lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles sending a shiver of pleasure to every sensor point in my body.

“Okay Nixx, I trust you will go slow with him, let him progress when you think it’s right.” The golf cart suddenly