Hold on Tight (Cowboys & Angels Book 1)

by Anjelica Grace

  “Good, so good.”

  “Widen your legs just a little, let me make it feel even better.”

  I do as he says, panting against his neck, eyes closed, just waiting to see what he’s going to do for me next. With the added room, he’s able to sink two fingers inside of me, stroking in and out at a steady pace, curling them in to make sure he’s hitting exactly where I need him to.

  It’s all too much. Between the consistent rhythm of his fingers inside me, and his thumb still circling and teasing me outside, my body winds tighter and tighter, the tension building and building, until it snaps, and releases a strong, body shaking orgasm from me.

  “Oh. My. God,” I pant out, finally opening my eyes again, and finding him staring at me with the biggest smile he’s had in the last month firmly on his lips.

  “Was that as good as it looked?”

  “Better, it was better. The best.” I slide my hand up his neck and along his jaw, then tilt it down so I can kiss him without lifting my head from his shoulder.

  “Thank you.”

  I blink rapidly a few times, then laugh. “You’re thanking me? I’m pretty sure it should be the other way around. I was the one that got off…”

  “Yeah, you did,” he responds, then adds in his cocky voice, “I’ve always been able to get you off. I know your body. I know what you need.”

  “Ah, there he is.”

  “Who?”

  “The cocky, amazing, man I married.” I emphasize the word so he knows, no matter what has changed for him physically, he really still is every bit the man I fell in love with all those years ago.

  That makes him laugh. “And that, right there, is why I’m thanking you. You gave me back something I didn’t know I’d ever have again. And it means more than you can imagine.”

  I place another kiss on his lips. “We’ll have fun exploring new things. And you know the doctor said after time and recovery, you may regain full function and feeling there. You’ve already come so far in just a month.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, the fall may be worse than the one I took a month ago if I do.”

  “Don’t sell yourself or your strength short either, though.”

  He pulls his hand out from beneath my clothes, and I instantly feel the loss. It’s not until I realize I haven’t felt the slightest bit sick since we started fooling around does the nausea I had all morning come back with a vengeance.

  “Allie?” Chase says, the playful tone in his voice moments ago gone and replaced by worry now.

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong? You just went pale and got a weird look on your face.”

  “I just don’t feel well. I’m okay.”

  Before he can answer, a knock sounds against his door, and then his nurse comes in. “Are we ready for therapy?” she asks, smiling when she sees us together. “Hi, Allie.”

  “Hey, Kasey.”

  “I think we’re all set,” Chase responds next, then looks at me. “Right? Or do you want to wait?”

  “No, we’re all set. Let’s get you down there and see what you amaze us with today.”

  I slip off his lap and step aside, letting him wheel himself all the way to the therapy room.

  Chase

  Another week has come and gone. Though, this past week has been the best of the last five total, yet. It’s early September now, so the days aren’t as brutally hot. I’ve gotten to spend more time outside the hospital comfortably with Allie, and the girls, when they’re able to come down now that school has started again. Allie and I have found other creative ways for us to share an intimate connection together. Some of the teenage, don’t get caught, element of fun and danger has helped make things even better.

  In the last week, I’ve also regained some feeling below my waist. It’s more of a prickly, pins and needles feeling that comes and goes, but my team of providers say it’s a very good sign. Complete recovery can take years—if it happens at all—but to be showing this progress after just over a month is an incredible start.

  I’ve allowed myself to get more hopeful, and I’m pushing myself as hard as I safely can to continue making progress. For myself. And for my girls.

  Allie has been so worn out and tired lately. She continues to not feel well. The stress of all of this is getting to her. I know she wants to be here, but not being with the girls back home, being a normal part of their everyday lives, is hard on her.

  When she walks back into my room, after walking Tatum and the girls out, she’s got a can of Sprite and a sleeve of crackers in her hand.

  “Tatum said she would text when they make it back to the Springs,” she says tiredly. “And Cody texted and said he’ll be flying in tomorrow night, and he’ll be here on Monday to see you and push you.”

  “Good, then you should go home tomorrow for a couple of days. Get some rest, pick up the girls from school, live life as you would have last year or any other year.”

  “I’m not leaving you, Chase,” she responds with an annoyed tone. “Now let me enjoy these crackers and Sprite before they threaten to come back up.”

  I watch her sip slowly and nibble carefully, taking the moments of silence to really look her over where she stands. She’s lost weight, probably from all the times she’s thrown up this week. She looks smaller in every way, but her chest has gotten bigger. Not just in looks, but there’s definitely been more for me to fondle and play with over the last week than before. That’s one memory a man could never lose, even with a head injury.

  “How do those taste?” I ask her.

  “They taste good, but my stomach is—” She sets her can down on the countertop and rushes into the bathroom. I follow behind her, wheeling through the door just as she bends over the porcelain and empties her stomach of everything she just put into it.

  “I’m here,” I say, wheeling up behind her and reaching out to pull her hair behind her neck. “I’ve got you, just let it out.” I rub her back in lazy, soothing circles until she finishes, then I scoot back just a little so she can stand and get to the sink.

  She rinses her mouth out and turns to look at me; her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot from straining. “That was awful.”

  “Come here,” I say, patting my lap.

  She moves to my lap immediately and sits down, resting her head on my shoulder, and lifting her legs just enough so I can wheel us back into my main room.

  “Allie, I need you to see a doctor. This isn’t normal and I’m worried about you. You can’t let your body get run down and sick just because I’m here. Please.”

  “I’m fine, I promise. I’m just run down. Stressed. I’ll be better when we get you home.”

  I press a kiss to her head and wrap my arms around her. “Please?”

  “Chase, I’m really fine.”

  I don’t believe her for even a second. Not one. This isn’t normal. She finally came clean about being sick every day right after my injury, but that stopped. My therapist said she was likely having an extreme reaction to the anxiety and fear over my surgery and prognosis. But that all stopped for a few weeks. Things have only gotten better for me. This feels different. I see so many differences in her.

  “No, you aren’t. It’s been five weeks since I got hurt. I’m doing better. You were doing better. And now you aren’t.”

  “It’s been a long five—oh my God. It’s been five weeks since you got hurt?”

  “Five to the day.”

  “No… it can’t have been that long, there’s no way. Right? It can’t be.” She pushes off my lap and walks to her purse, grabbing her phone out of it.

  “What can’t be?” I watch her fingers move over the screen, flicking sideways with purpose. “Allie?”

  “I’m late, Chase.”

  “For?” I ask, completely and utterly confused.

  “My period…” she raises her eyes from her phone to look at me.

  “How late?” I try to recall the dates, but they don’t come to me. It’s
probably due to stress and everything she’s been going through with me.

  “Three weeks. I should’ve started just over three weeks ago.” Her voice is soft, contemplative, hopeful, and yet her eyes show how hesitant she is to get excited.

  “You’ve never been this late. Ever. Right?”

  “Only when I was pregnant with the girls, and...”

  I let her words sink in, and then my mind wanders back to just before she was sick. To every time we have been together over the last week.

  Larger breasts.

  Nausea.

  Her exhaustion.

  “I… You need to take a test,” I say, trying to maintain some level of calmness, even as the excitement over the prospect of her being pregnant, of things working out how they should have for us for once, starts to overtake me.

  “This could just be from stress, Chase. That can have such an adverse effect on a woman’s cycle and hormones. You need to know that, okay?”

  I nod my head, grinning wide, and wheeling across the room to her. “I get it. But you’re pregnant. I know it. I’m certain of it.”

  “Don’t… Don’t say that. Not yet. Please. I couldn’t take the letdown again. Not right now. We are going to act as though this is only a byproduct of stress until we know for sure. I can’t go through that loss again right now. I just can’t.”

  I wheel right up to her and lock my chair into place, then lean forward and wrap my arms around her legs, resting my head over her belly. “We won’t get our hopes up,” I lie. “But you need to take a test soon. I bet one of my nurses could provide one.”

  “No, don’t say anything to anyone,” she rushes out, fear lacing her every word. “Let me sip my Sprite and settle my tummy, then I’ll run to the store down the street and get us a test. But I don’t want to tell anyone. Not yet.”

  “I won’t say a word then.” I kiss her stomach again, then pull her back into my lap. “Drink your Sprite, and when you feel up to it, you go. We will do everything else together, okay? Positive or negative, this time you won’t be alone to deal with it.

  Allie

  Fear. Hope. Nervousness. Excitement. And nausea, always nauseated anymore. That’s what I’m feeling walking back into the hospital and heading up to Chase’s room.

  My stomach settled enough about an hour ago for me to be ready to leave and buy a test. So I waited until the end of day rounds with Chase’s team were over—getting to hear that his latest scans are looking good, the fusion and decompression seem to be healing perfectly, and given the return of sensation to his lower half, he may get to go home within the month—before I left.

  Walking out the doors, knowing how he’s healing, made the weight on my shoulders lighter than they’ve been in a long time, but the hope and fear that I may be pregnant, or I may not be, added a different heaviness on my heart.

  This time, no matter what happens, I’ll have my husband by my side.

  I enter his room quietly, then close the door with an audible click, making sure it’s secure. “I got it,” I say to him, not caring how obvious that is. My hands are shaking, my heart is racing again. I don’t care that he knew where I was, it was just something to say.

  “Let’s do this then,” he says back easily. “Do you have to pee yet?”

  “I do.”

  “Then do your thing, and I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

  I take my purse, and the test into the bathroom, and fumble the box opened, taking out the sticks so I can use them.

  Please, God. Let this be it. Let us be getting our dreams. Please.

  I send up the same silent prayer, over and over while I do what I need to, then I set the tests on a paper towel beside the sink, and walk out of the bathroom.

  “Three minutes and we’ll know…” I swipe my hand beneath the sanitizer dispenser and rub them together, much longer than I need to, while Chase watches me with a smirk.

  “I love you.”

  “Why?”

  He drops his head back and laughs hard. “Why do I love you? Well, because you’re my best friend—don’t tell Cody—for one. You are my wife. My soul mate. The mother of my children. And you’re incredible, too. In every way. Are those good enough reasons?”

  “They are, but why did you say it just then?”

  “Because you’re freaking out. You needed to hear it now, before we look at those tests and see what they say. You need to know, regardless of what they say, I love you more now than I did yesterday, and I’ll love you even more tomorrow.”

  His words, determined and full of love and support, are my undoing. I’ve fought off the emotions that hit me every time I take one of these tests, every time I get my hopes up, so hard. I was determined not to go there this time. But with everything he just said to me, I can’t fight them off anymore. His words were the dynamite needed to break the dam of tears I’d built up.

  “Hey,” he murmurs, wheeling over to me and taking my hands. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  He turns each of my hands palms up and raises them to his mouth one at a time, kissing over them, then he glances up at the clock on the wall.

  “It’s time,” I guess, sniffling back more tears.

  “It’s time.”

  I walk into the bathroom and grab the tests off the counter, too afraid to look at them by myself, then carry them out to him.

  “And?”

  “I can’t…not alone…together?”

  “Together,” he agrees. “Let’s go over to the chair so you can sit, too. Then we’ll look together.”

  I follow behind him, hand quivering around the tests in it, then take a seat in the recliner in the corner of his room, right beside his window.

  “I’ll look at one, you look at the other?”

  “Whatever you want us to do, we’ll do it.” He smiles at me and locks his chair into place right in front of me.

  I hand him one test, keeping the other for myself. “On the count of three?”

  “You count,” he encourages me.

  I nod my head and swallow hard, overwhelming nervousness forcing my nausea to ramp up again.

  “One…”

  “Two…”

  “Three…”

  We each look down at the tests in our hands, and I see it… Two bright pink lines.

  I’m pregnant.

  “Holy shit!” he exclaims. “We did it, baby! We really did it. We’re going to have another baby!”

  Relief, happiness, and even more love flood my system, forcing out a loud, happy sob from deep in my chest. “We did it,” I repeat, over and over after him.

  He pulls the test from my hand and sets it down, then he pulls me into his chest and holds me tight while I sob the happiest tears of my life.

  After a few moments, it dawns on me that I’m shaking too hard to be the sole cause of it, and that’s when I feel the wet drops of his tears on top of my head. He’s crying too. The strongest, most resilient, determined man I know has been moved to tears because we have finally made another little life together.

  Allie

  Somehow, throwing up every day and being constantly nauseated is more than worth it now. I feel terrible. I’ve spent every day for the last five weeks sicker than can be. Borderline Hyperemesis Gravidarum—the pretty, scientific name—for extreme morning sickness.

  I never would’ve imagined, walking back into Chase’s room four weeks ago, that the reason I’d been so sick was because I was growing our baby. I never would’ve imagined when I walked into Chase’s room four weeks ago that he’d be back up on his feet, moving slowly and with assistive devices for short distances on his own.

  He’s a miracle, according to his doctors. There is no rhyme or reason for him to be progressing this much yet. That’s what they maintain, even as he breaks more and more barriers, anyway.

  But I know the reason. It’s this baby. He wants to be everything he can be, do everything he got to do with the girls, with Baby Canton.

  He’s pu
shed his PT and OT even harder since we found out we are expecting. He’s regained muscle tone and strength, feeling has continued to return, albeit very slowly, to his feet, his legs, and at times to his saddle region. My husband has done everything in his power to become a living Superman.

  He gets to come home today. After nine weeks in the hospital, our family will finally be under the same roof when we go to bed tonight.

  “Mommy,” Aubrey walks into the kitchen, carrying a white poster board, “when will Daddy be here?”

  “Uncle Cody texted me about fifty minutes ago, saying they’re on their way, so he should be here in about fifty more minutes, give or take a little. Why?”

  “I want to make him a sign. Will you help me?”

  “I will help you a little bit, but then I have to get out there with Ava for a while, help her with her riding. I can draw letters for you to color, is that fair?”

  She grins wide and nods her head. “Very fair!”

  “Let me see your poster, I’ll write ‘I missed you Daddy’ on it. Is that okay?”

  “Yes, that’s perfect. Thank you, Mommy.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I spend some time drawing out bubble letters for Aubrey and then make my way out to the riding pen, where Ava and Lightning are waiting for me.

  “You ready, Ava?” I rub my stomach slightly and exhale slowly, breathing through this attack of nausea until it passes.

  “Yep,” she says, climbing up onto Lightning’s back. “Thank you for helping me learn to barrel race, even though you don’t feel good.”

  “Well. Feel well,” I correct, smirking. “You’re welcome, baby. I should have offered to help you sooner, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  “It’s okay. I forgive you. Do you think Daddy will be surprised?”

  “I think he will be so surprised. And so proud.”

  That sets a beaming smile on her face as she sets off to do the drills I had her start working on a few weeks ago. I can’t teach her as much as I wish I could right now, given the baby and morning sickness, but we are working on things still.