(Season 8)

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A/N: Starting next Monday, my company is sending me to another site to work on testing product. I will be gone for about four weeks. I plan to post my stories at home before I leave for work in the mornings. I will not have access to a computer with internet while I am at the other site, so if you see any errors in my stories, you will have to ignore them. My phone will have internet, so I can still reply to reviews or PMs. I have written several chapters of each of my stories, so there should be no interruption in my posting schedule. (I hope not anyway)

I don't own Bones.

Ooooooooooooooooooo

Since Booth was busy placing a new roof on the garage with the help of Wendell, Brennan decided to mow the lawn. Christine was asleep in her room and after she handed the baby monitor to Booth, she removed the lawn mower from the shed in the back yard, started it up and began to cut the grass.

The grass in the backyard wasn't too long since Booth had mowed it six days earlier, but they had been having trouble with the grass in the front yard and it was starting to annoy both of them. It had bare spots towards the front of the yard abutting the sidewalk and Booth was threatening to reseed the whole front lawn.

Dressed for comfort, Brennan wore an old light blue short sleeved shirt, a pair of cream colored poplin shorts and a sturdy pair of navy athletic shoes. After she finished working in the back yard, she went in the house to check on her baby and found that Christine was still asleep. Grateful for that, she grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, drank most of it and then left the house to finish mowing the lawn.

As she started to mow the lawn in the front yard near the porch, Booth stopped hammering and stared at his lover as she moved across the lawn. Brennan had worked hard to get back into shape after Christine was born and much to her frustration, her body had changed and those changes were here to stay. Her breasts were a cup size bigger and her hips had increased a little bit giving her more curves than before. As far as Booth was concerned she was gorgeous and he for one appreciated the changes. She had been his ideal before and the changes just emphasized those ideals.

As he watched her mow, her damp shirt sticking to her back, he loved the economical way she moved the mower across the lawn. Brennan never wasted time if she could help it and she had clearly worked out a pattern that would allow her to mow the lawn the fastest possible way.

A little movement across the street and Booth noticed his neighbor, Jim Brandon staring at Brennan while she mowed. The look on his face was not a look of neighborliness and Booth felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Scrambling across the roof, Booth moved over to the ladder and quickly down to the ground. Wendell, who was busy hammering in a sheet of plywood, suddenly looked up and noticed he was alone. He assumed that his partner had gone to the bathroom and thought nothing of it.

Once he was on the ground, Booth moved quickly across the driveway, through the open gate and over to the front lawn. As soon as he was beside Brennan, Booth tapped her shoulder and motioned for her to turn the lawn mower off. "Bones . . . Bones . . ."

Startled, Brennan turned off the mower and gave her boyfriend a puzzled look. "Is there something wrong?"

"Yeah, Christine was crying a little bit and I think she might be hungry." Booth was lying and he didn't care. "Um, since you're feeding her . . ." Booth motioned vaguely towards his chest and blushed. "Maybe she might want some milk or something." A quick glance across the street and he saw that Brandon was still staring at Brennan and that just made Booth that much angrier. He handed her the baby monitor and pecked her lips. "I don't have the goods she needs."

Taking the baby monitor from Booth, Brennan listened and didn't hear any sounds coming from the monitor. "She's not crying now."

Booth shrugged his shoulders. "Well she was."

Since her baby was alone in the house, Brennan quickly walked over to the porch, climbed the steps, opened the front door and entered the house.

As soon as Brennan was out of sight, Booth turned and jogged across the street. Once he was standing a few feet from his nosy neighbor, Booth crossed his arms against his chest and glared at Brandon. "We're new here and I don't want to get off on the wrong track, but if you don't quit staring at my wife, I'm going to fucking beat you senseless." Satisfied that he'd made himself clear, Booth turned on his heels and marched across the street back to his front lawn. Even though Brennan wasn't really his wife, he wanted his neighbor to understand that Brennan belonged to him and he protected what belonged to him.

A cold chill running down his spine, Brandon suddenly remembered that the previous owner of the house across the street had been a dangerous drug dealer. Unsure who Booth really was, the frightened man beat a hasty retreat into his house vowing to mind his own business from that point on.

Not feeling guilty in the least, Booth started the mower and finished mowing the lawn. The sparse grass near the sidewalk an irritant, he cursed the dirt as he mowed over it sending a cloud of dust in the air. Once the lawn was mowed, he turned off the mower, lifted the hem of his t-shirt, wiped his face and pushed the mower up the driveway, through the gate and back to the shed where he stored it. That accomplished, he grabbed two bottles of water from the cooler near the open garage door and carried them up the ladder to the roof of the garage. "Here don't get dehydrated." Booth tossed one of the bottles to Wendell who caught it.

"Thanks Man, I was just getting ready to go down and get me one." Wendell cracked the bottle open and drank most of the water. Once he was satisfied, he glanced at Booth who was drinking his water. "I saw you mow the lawn. Was Christine awake?"

"Yeah." Booth continued the lie. "Since Bones had to take care of her I went ahead and finished mowing the lawn. She was almost done anyway."

"Um, why'd you go across the street?" Wendell had noticed the interaction between Booth and the neighbor and he couldn't help but see the look of fear on the neighbor's face before he'd practically ran into his house.

After he finished his water, Booth tossed the empty bottle off the roof somewhere near the cooler. "You saw that huh?" He debated with himself and decided to tell the truth. "The guy was leering at Bones. I will not tolerate that kind of disrespect and I told him so."

Amused, Wendell started hammering a nail into the board he was sitting on. "I see." If there was one thing he knew about Booth, he knew that the agent would not tolerate anyone paying Brennan too much attention, especially when it was someone not giving her what Booth considered proper respect. "Okay then."

He wasn't sure about Wendell's tone of voice and suspected the man was amused, but Booth didn't really care. No one was going to leer at Brennan and get away with it, unless it was him. The sooner his neighbors knew that she was out of bounds the better. "Yeah, well, wait until you're dating someone, smartass. You won't think it's so funny then."

"No probably not." Wendell glanced at the front lawn and shook his head. "Man your front yard kind of looks sick."

Annoyed, Booth glanced at the bare ground near the sidewalk. "It's not sick, it's dead. It's on my list of things to fix."

"You might get Hodgins to look at it." Wendell admired Hodgins and his knowledge about all things when it came to plants and animals.

Since he didn't really know what was wrong with it, Booth thought that might be a good idea. "I probably should. I don't know a lot about grass. I'm a city boy. Pops' lawn was pretty good, so I don't know what to do with a sick one. I'll get bug boy to come and look at it."

Shortly afterward, Brennan came outside with Christine in her arms. "I'm going to make lunch and let you know when it's ready."

Grateful, Wendell waved his hammer. "Thanks Dr. B."

"Yeah, thanks Bones." Booth stared down at his little family and smiled. "I finished mowing the lawn for you."

"Thank you." Brennan had heard the mower running and she knew that Booth had finished the job. "Christine wasn't awake."

Not willing to give up on the lie, Booth shrugged his shoulders. "Well, she was."

Not completely unaware of her surroundings, Brennan had noticed her neighbor staring at her while she mowed the lawn and she was certain Booth had acted out in his typical alpha-male way staking out his territory. Since she couldn't prove it, she decided not to mention it, but she did give him a smirk. "Uh huh." Just to let him know she was aware she knew he had been up to something.

Once she was gone, Wendell chuckled. "Busted."

"Yeah." Booth shook his head and laughed. "Oh well."

Oooooooooooooooooooo

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