Not Their First Rodeo

by Christy Jeffries

  While Marcus gently held her palm in one of his hands, his other fist tightly gripped the mug handle, wishing he could go back fourteen years ago and punch someone. “Most of my drill instructors were pretty decent, and I was so careful not to let anyone know who my father was because I didn’t want them to treat me differently. But we had this one staff sergeant who was such a jerk. One of those guys who kept track of how many recruits he could make cry in a day. He figured out who I was early on. He must’ve been smart enough to allow all the envelopes with the name King on the return address through, because I never got suspicious that anyone was messing with my mail. They took our phones away as soon as we checked in on the base, and we never had internet access. It killed me not knowing what was going on with you, but other guys in my unit were getting breakup letters and I tried to be relieved that at least you hadn’t sent me one of those. I did manage to write you a couple of times. I’m guessing you didn’t get any mail from me, either?”

  Violet shook her head, then sighed. “It’s not like you could’ve done anything about it anyway. When I got my next ultrasound at fourteen weeks, they could only hear one heartbeat. The doctor explained that since our twins were identical, they were sharing the same placenta and sometimes only one of them got enough nutrients to survive. She tried to reassure me that I could still carry the surviving baby to term but said that we’d have to do a procedure to remove the other one since it was too late in my pregnancy for my body to naturally expel it.”

  “Oh my God, Violet. I can’t even imagine...” Marcus swallowed the knot in his throat. “I am so sorry that you had to go through that alone. I should’ve been there.”

  Her eyes were damp, but her chin jutted forward. “I’m not going to lie. That was one of several thoughts that went through my mind. ‘How can I do this without Marcus?’ ‘How am I going to tell him that I lost one of his babies?’ Then it was ‘How dare he not be here to go through this with me!’”

  “Aw, Violet.” Marcus let go of her hand long enough to put his arm around her and pull her closer. “I know that neither one of us had planned on being parents so young. The pregnancy was a shock, but it was also thrilling. Thinking about you and our child—I didn’t know it was more than one at the time—was what got me through boot camp. I wanted to have a family with you. But I would never have blamed you for the miscarriage.”

  “Now I know that. But at the time, I was such a mess of emotions in that exam room, the nurse had to call my mom since she was the only person listed on my emergency-contact form. I’d been such a coward for not telling my parents about the pregnancy before then. But my mom never said a word. She arrived right as they were about to take me in for surgery. At first, the procedure went as expected and I tried to console myself with the fact that we would still have one baby. But they kept me in the hospital overnight because there was too much bleeding, and by the next day, the second baby was gone. I was devastated and inconsolable, but I was also postpartum, and a heavy fog of depression set in along with everything else.”

  He stayed silent, letting her continue.

  “That first week out of the hospital was a blur. I was just an empty shell. My mom had to hold a cup of water up to my lips to get me to drink fluids. She brushed my hair and changed my pads because even getting myself to the bathroom was an overwhelming task. Eventually, the depression lifted as my hormones evened out, but then came the denial and the anger and all those other stages of grief you hear about. The odd thing was, it was my mother who defended you. Who told me that you were probably under too much stress with boot camp and a potential military deployment. When I didn’t hear back from you, well... We all know what happened after that.”

  He let out a deep, shuddering breath. “I know that we can’t go back and change things, but...” Pausing, he dragged his hand through his still-damp hair. “Man, I wish I would’ve been smarter and more understanding, and not so damn stubborn.”

  “Me, too. We both were young, and our emotions got the better of us.”

  He lifted one brow. “You say that like we’re not going to let our emotions get the best of us this time.”

  “That’s because we’re not, Marcus. This...” She pointed at him and then back at herself before making a circular motion at the rumpled blanket on the ground. “This is just us getting the physical stuff out of the way so that we can think clearly about everything else going on in our lives. We both have people depending on us, and we can’t afford to get too caught up in what might’ve been.”

  Marcus knew better than anyone that there were no guarantees in relationships. By now he’d built enough of a wall around his heart that he wasn’t going to leave his happiness up to fate. He would have to be satisfied with making the best of their time together while they had it.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Explain to me again why your mom and Freckles think that all of you need to go to Washington, DC, to get Tessa and Agent Wyatt together,” Violet asked Marcus as they stood under the hot spray of the shower inside the pool house.

  It was supposed to have been just one night of lovemaking. At least that’s what Violet had told herself. But then one night had turned into a hot-and-steamy thirty minutes in the front seat of his patrol unit, which had led to an interesting encounter in the dusty file room at the courthouse. Now it was almost a game for Violet and Marcus to find secret locations where nobody would discover what they were up to. Her office at the pool house was usually off-limits because it was too close to the main house, and when the boys came home from school, it was the first place they looked for her. But it was still morning and Sherilee and Freckles had left the ranch for the day to talk Dahlia into what sounded like an ill-conceived plan. Romantic, Violet thought, but also very ill-conceived.

  Marcus rinsed the soap off his face, then resumed his explanation. “My mom is getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House for all her charity work when she was the second lady. If the whole family isn’t there, Tessa will immediately get suspicious. Even Duke is taking leave to fly in.”

  “How’s Duke doing, by the way?” Violet switched spots with him, so she could rinse off, as well. “He seemed pretty sad when he left the ranch.”

  “I think something is going on with him and Tom. I tried to bring it up when he was here, but he said he couldn’t talk about it.”

  “That’s rough.”

  “It was,” Marcus agreed. “Actually, it was kind of a punch in the gut because we’ve always talked to each other about everything.”

  “I meant that’s rough for Duke.” Violet squeezed the excess water out of her hair. “But sure, let’s make it about another bruise to your already-fragile big-brother ego.”

  “I agree with you one time about one sibling and you never let me live it down.” Marcus cut in front of her to block the hot water. She turned the faucet to cold then ran for her towel, leaving him to yelp as she jumped out of the spray.

  “So how long are you guys going to be gone?” she asked, trying not to stare at his abs as he rubbed the dry towel over them.

  “Just one night. We fly out in the morning, stay the night in DC, then bring the jet back on Sunday.”

  “I bet MJ will be excited to get away from the ranch for a while. Even if it’s only for twenty-four hours.”

  “That’s one of the reasons why I can’t take the boys. MJ has a lot of old school buddies in Washington, and he always used to slip his Secret Service tail when he was living there. I’m going to need to keep him occupied so he can’t get into any more trouble.”

  She noticed that Marcus said keep him occupied, which implied participating in an activity together rather than acting as his jailer. That was progress at least. She bent forward to wrap her wet hair in a separate towel. Someone was going to start wondering why Violet was going through so many beach towels when the outside pool was only forty degrees. When she flipped back up, she aske
d, “So then, who’s going to watch the twins?”

  Marcus tucked his chin and gave her a wide-eyed helpless stare.

  Violet gulped. “Me?”

  “That would be amazing, Vi,” he said a bit too quickly. “Thanks so much for offering.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You know full well that wasn’t an offer. I’ve never so much as babysat a child, let alone supervised two of them for twenty-four hours straight. At least not by myself.”

  “But you hang out with the boys all the time, and they love being around you. Plus, they’ll be sleeping for at least nine hours of your shift. Probably.”

  “Shift?” Violet crossed her arms. “Am I getting paid for this?”

  “I can pay you in other ways.” He began kissing her neck, and she giggled before hearing a noise outside. They jumped apart, neither one of them wanting anyone to catch them. After several heart-pounding seconds of nobody knocking on the sliding glass doors, Violet finally let out a relieved breath.

  “We can talk more about the details tonight,” Marcus said as he pulled on his uniform pants. “I’ll owe you big for this. And so will Tessa, if things work out between her and Agent Wyatt.”

  The rest of the afternoon, Violet vacillated between being thrilled and being nervous as hell. She was flattered that Marcus trusted her enough to leave his sons in her care. At the same time, she was seriously concerned that Marcus trusted her enough to leave his sons in her care. What was she going to do with two seven-year-olds for a whole day?

  The situation got even more complicated when Marcus called her later that night to fill her in on the latest. Apparently, Dahlia’s ex-husband, Micah, was going to be coming into town to stay with their daughter.

  “The thing is,” Marcus continued, “Dahlia’s apartment above Big Millie’s is only two bedrooms, and even though she and Micah get along great, she thinks it would be awkward for him to sleep at her place. Micah and Amelia are going to stay at the main house at the Twin Kings. So would you mind staying at my cabin with the boys?”

  Micah Deacon was a famous musician, but Violet had never met the man. According to Dahlia, Micah was a doting father who was as active as he could be in Amelia’s life, considering he lived in Nashville for work and spent a lot of time on tour with his band. It sounded like Micah could probably use some quality alone time with his daughter. Plus, Violet didn’t like the idea of having a stranger witness all the babysitting mistakes she was bound to make with Jack and Jordan.

  She tossed and turned all night trying not to think of all the things that could go wrong. When that failed to lessen her anxiety, she took one of her migraine pills and figured she might as well get a couple of hours of sleep before reporting for her so-called shift.

  The following morning when she arrived at the cabin, Violet wished she had insisted on staying at the main house. Jack and Jordan were, of course, thrilled to see her, but Marcus was rushed and unfocused and kept rattling off last-minute instructions as he put away a box of cereal in the fridge and a gallon of milk in the pantry. She followed him from the kitchen to the front entry and then back to the kitchen when he realized he’d left his suitcase by the recycle bin.

  “If you need the first-aid kit, it’s in the right-side cabinet in the master bathroom,” he said as they made their way to the front door. Again. “But if it’s something more serious, then just drive to the hospital in Jackson. They already have both boys’ insurance cards on file because we make a lot of trips there. If it’s worthy of 9-1-1... Crap, I forgot Rod was covering for the dispatcher this weekend. Try not to call 9-1-1.”

  Violet gulped. “Is this supposed to be putting me at ease?”

  “Don’t worry. You guys should do fine.” His emphasis on the word should wasn’t any more reassuring. But he continued babbling out instructions. “Freckles stocked the fridge again, but the boys might try and talk you into going to the Pepperoni Stampede. I keep a bag of quarters in the top drawer of the mudroom for the arcade games. But don’t let Jordan near the salad bar because the manager gets annoyed when he starts talking about salmonella and E. coli in front of the other customers. And Jack isn’t allowed to use the claw machine because one time he climbed inside and...never mind. I’m supposed to be at the airfield in ten minutes. Okay, what am I forgetting?”

  It suddenly occurred to her that Marcus was just as nervous about leaving his children overnight as she was about watching them. Surely, that had to be more stressful for him than anything she was going through. She threw back her shoulders with a confidence she didn’t quite feel and asked, “So where should I sleep?”

  “Oh.” He paused. Then looked over his shoulder toward the formal living room where they’d slept the one and only time she’d been to his house. He took the small travel bag she’d packed and said, “Follow me.”

  They went past the dining room and then a smaller family room where the boys were sprawled out with blankets watching TV and eating cereal. An arched hallway led to what must be the bedrooms, and Marcus turned into the first doorway on the right. The room was furnished nicely, but it was also very nondescript. There were no photos, no books, no personal touches to give it the appearance of actually having been lived in. It was a guest room.

  Okay. So Marcus was sticking her in a guest room. Violet wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but her heart sank. No. She wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it. It was probably better for the boys to see her sleeping in here rather than in their father’s bed, anyway. How would she explain that sort of thing to them?

  He set her bag on the dresser, then pulled her into his arms and gave her a deep kiss. “I really wish I could make this goodbye a little longer, but I’m already running late. Call me if you need anything.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  Violet resisted the urge to go down the hallway to explore the rest of the bedrooms. Instead, she tentatively approached the family room, took a deep breath and asked the twins, “So what do you guys want to do today?”

  * * *

  There were several outlandish ideas and a few disagreements, but in the end, Violet sat down at the coffee table in the family room with a yellow legal pad and treated this discussion as she would any other settlement conference.

  “Okay, so Jack’s suggested activities are bungee jumping, dirt-bike racing and going to that new axe-throwing place in Jackson Hole. Jordan, your suggestions are the Discovery Center, dinosaur-bone excavating and going to the pharmacy in town to use their blood-pressure machine.” Violet waited until both kids nodded in agreement before continuing. “Now, let’s see which of these options are going to work best for our needs. According to the Let Loose Adventures website, you have to be fourteen to jump off the bridge over Snake River. The Discovery Center looks interesting, but it’s all the way in Casper, and we’ll never make it back in time to watch that superhero detective show you guys were telling me about.”

  It took another thirty minutes of negotiating, but they finally compromised on taking one of the four-seater ATVs—with Violet, not Jack, driving—out exploring for caves and ancient artifacts. Jack was very impressed with her ability to do what he called sick burnouts, and Jordan was very excited to find a femur bone he was convinced belonged to a nineteenth-century buffalo, as well as several arrowheads. One of the boys’ birthday gifts had been a pair of Nerf bows and pad-tipped arrows. So Violet set up an impromptu archery range, which was way safer than throwing axes, and held still while Jack attempted to shoot an apple off her head. On their way to dinner at the Pepperoni Stampede, they stopped by the pharmacy, and Jordan explained to her that her blood pressure was—surprisingly—in the normal range at 105 over 68.

  It turned out, the only person who had sustained any sort of injury that day was Violet. And it wasn’t until after she’d put the boys to bed and gone back to the kitchen to open a bottle of wine, intending to toast herself to a successful day of babysit
ting. A little too anxious to celebrate her victory, her thumb slipped on the condensation of the bottle, and she jabbed herself with the corkscrew.

  It was a small gash, but started bleeding again every time she bumped it. Marcus had said the first-aid kit was in the master bathroom; however, Violet had been trying to avoid that particular part of the house.

  It was either go get a bandage or risk having Jordan wake up and see a pile of discarded paper towels soaked with her blood. The poor boy would probably insist on giving her stitches himself. Violet steeled her spine and quietly made her way down the hallway.

  When she got to the door, though, a heaviness made her stomach queasy.

  The king-size bed was covered with a fluffy floral-patterned comforter and throw pillows in assorted sizes and colors. There was a silver frame on the dresser holding a different wedding photo than the one she’d seen in the main house. In this picture, Marcus and Brie were happily staring into each other’s eyes. Just when Violet had gotten over feeling like an impostor babysitter this morning, she now felt like an intruder in another woman’s house.

  Turning to the bathroom, she quickly made her away across the plush rug, wanting to get in and out of there as soon as she could. She knelt and opened the right-side cabinet, reluctant to see any other personal items, and was relieved that the only thing on the shelf was the first-aid kit. She quickly found a bandage and wrapped it around her thumb, before deciding to grab a couple more for backup. She certainly didn’t want to come back in here if she didn’t have to. But when she stood up in front of the vanity mirror, she could see the reflection of the enormous walk-in closet directly behind her. The door was slightly ajar, and behind it, a row of Brie’s clothes were still hanging there.

  So this was the reason Marcus hadn’t taken her to his bed that first night she’d spent here. And why he’d installed her in the guest room today. The master bedroom wasn’t necessarily a shrine to his dead wife, but her presence could still be felt.