by Anne Jolin
Branson was already on his feet, his chair hitting the wall behind him. “London, what’s wrong?” His voice was strained. “Baby, talk to me.”
I stood up quickly, disengaging myself from Owen and walked around the table. It was clear the floor under her chair was wet. “I think your water broke, London. You’re going into labour.”
She looked at me her eyes flaring and then back to Branson. “It shouldn’t be for another few weeks.”
“The doctor said this could happen early. That’s why they put you on bed rest,” he reassured her. “Owen’s going to bring the truck around now, okay?”
She nodded and Owen ran from the dining room.
“Does she have a bag packed?” I asked him, remembering the chaos in my mind when my water had broken when I was pregnant with Ryley.
I’d only been eighteen then, and having a child alone scared the daylights out of me.
“It’s at the foot of the stairs.” Branson pointed.
Walking around them and into the hallway, I found a monogrammed Chanel duffle bag at the bottom of their expansive stairwell. Just as I picked it up, Owen opened the front door.
“Truck’s out front,” he hollered into the house before looking at me. “Darlin’, you call that hospital and let ‘em know we’re comin’.”
I pulled out my phone and did as he asked, dialling the non-emergency line. It rang three times before a nurse picked up. “Hi. My friend is going into labour, and we’re on our way there now.”
“What’s your friend’s name?” the nurse asked.
“Right, of course.” I shook my head as Branson walked out the front door, cradling a very unhappy-looking London in his arms. “Her name is London Daniels, I mean, shit. Her name is London Tucker.”
“Date of birth?” she questioned me again.
“Um.” Looking around frantically, I unzipped the outside pocket of the duffle bag and found London’s medical information. I rattled off her date of birth and doctor’s name before shoving the card back into the bag.
The nurse made a few clicking sounds on the other end of the line. “Great. We’ll see you soon.”
I hung up and ran outside after them. Nobody seemed concerned with locking the door and I didn’t dare ask.
Branson climbed into the backseat with his wife who was currently cursing him for what he’d done to her, so I settled into the passenger seat at what I hoped was a safe distance from her.
Sending a text to Nora, I asked if they could keep Ryley overnight and let her know what was going on. She replied back not seconds later with a thumbs up.
Nora hated texting but could speak through emojis better than most teenagers.
“We’re almost there, Sis,” Owen said, turning right onto the highway.
“Just shut up and drive faster,” she growled from the backseat and I had to put a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing.
Pregnant women in labour did not enjoy being laughed at, this I knew from experience.
“London.” Branson had a warning tone to his voice. “You need to breathe instead of shouting at your brother. Remember what the doctor said and squeeze my hand if you need to.”
I turned just in time to see her scowl at him.
It only took us about another ten minutes before we pulled up in front of the hospital. Owen and Branson helped get what was now a screaming London out of the backseat, while I ran ahead to let them know we would need a wheelchair.
They filled out her paperwork and admitted her to a room, but when the doctor finally came to examine her, he said London would be in labour quite possibly through the night. He explained she was in back labour, which was incredibly painful, but unless the baby became distressed, they were hoping to wait it out and allow her to give birth naturally. All of which sounded like it had the potential for a long night.
She insisted we leave and come back in the morning. They’d given her something for the pain, which I thought might have been better for Branson than London. He didn’t take his wife being in pain particularly well.
He’d looked distraught.
“Goodnight.” I smiled from the doorway as Owen kissed his sister on the forehead.
The last thing I saw before we left was Branson climbing into London’s hospital bed.
“They’re cute together,” I murmured out loud as Owen took my hand.
“They got the real thing, darlin’, ain’t no doubt about it,” he said.
We walked through the hospital holding hands, and even then we could hear the rain starting to fall outside.
Pausing outside the front doors to the hospital, I looked at him and then out to the wet parking lot.
“One. Two. Three. Run?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Why not?”
“One. Two. Three… Run!” I shouted.
We ran like hell across the parking lot. He beeped the locks on the truck doors, and I pulled myself inside as fast as I could.
“Burr,” I said, rubbing my hands together while he rolled over the ignition.
“You comin’ over tonight, case they have that baby soon?” Owen asked.
My lips trembled from the cold rain. “I’d like that.”
He tipped his hat, which I had learned was his way of silently communicating with me.
We hadn’t spent any nights together without Ryley in the last month, and never a sleepover. We often fell asleep on the couch, and he’d wake me just enough so that I’d lock the door after him when he left, then I imagined he went home. Although, I had yet to see where he slept when he left us. Truth was, maybe I was a little nervous to be alone with him. Like maybe he wouldn’t like me so much without Ryley around.
I hoped that wasn’t the case.
We drove in silence the rest of the way, heat blaring and the radio playing softly in the background. By the time we passed through the gates at Willow Bay Stables, the rain was coming down in buckets and you couldn’t see much farther ahead than where the headlights shone.
The property was large, and he drove until the little gravel road ended.
“You live in a trailer?” My voice came out baffled.
I wasn’t sure what I expected him to live in, but a little silver airstream hadn’t been high on my list during the guessing game I’d played. Though, I did gather that it would’ve be a bit odd for a grown man to live with his father and sister in the main house.
He put the truck in park and chuckled. “Sure do.”
“You really are a cowboy.” I rolled my eyes.
Jumping out of the truck, he ran around the hood and opened my door for me. “I ain’t just a cowboy, darlin’.” He tucked me into his jacket, protecting me as best he could from the rain. “I’m your cowboy, as long as you’ll have me.”
I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed the underside of his jaw.
Then the thunder rolled and we ran.
He held my hand the entire way and didn’t drop it, even when we reached the trailer canopy.
It was dark, but even then in our mad dash in the rain, you could see the beauty of living where he did. The trailer was parked behind both the barns and surrounding it was nothing but beautiful Alberta land.
It was peaceful.
It was country.
It was his home.
“What I did in this life to deserve you, I’ll never know,” I whispered, squeezing his calloused hand in mine.
I wasn’t sure I’d meant to say the words out loud, but I did so anyway.
Owen was this great, rough around the edges man who’d come into my life, out of the blue and pretty well demanded I give him a shot at caring for me.
I was sure I hadn’t prayed for him, but I was glad he hadn’t given up on me none the less.
He closed the distance between us with just one of his large steps, but it was enough that I could feel the heat coming off his body. Owen was always warm, even in the rain and I liked that.
“You ain’t had a whole lotta lovin’ in your life,” he said, his voice dr
opping low.
I nodded my head, even though it hadn’t been a question, and watched the water dripping off the brim of his cowboy hat.
You could smell the rain coming down around us, but the beating of our hearts drowned the sound of it out.
“Well then.” He stepped out from under the trailer canopy into the rain and dragged me with him.
Trying to run away from him as the water hit me, I shrieked, “Are you crazy? We’re already soaked!”
“It’s only a little rain, darlin’. Come here.”
I let him pull me against his wet chest and rested my head there, looking up at him. “What are we doing?” I asked.
He paused, the unintended weight of my question settling in the space between our lips.
“We’re dancin’,” he said simply.
Owen wasn’t a complicated man. Nothing about who he was seemed a mystery. He wore his heart on his sleeve and his head in that damn cowboy hat.
It was so very different from who I was—a person who played all their cards and all their secrets close to the vest.
But I wanted this moment—our moment—to be a simple one. So, I said nothing and we danced.
We danced in the dark to no music in the pouring rain, and nothing had ever been more perfect.
I didn’t know how long he held me in his arms like that, but finally, when I started to tremble, he lifted me into his arms and, looking like drowned rats, carried me to the cover inside his trailer.
“Your clothes are soaked.” He put me down inside the door, taking his cowboy hat off and tossing it on the kitchen table.
“So are yours.” I laughed, looking him up and down. The light denim of his jeans was now dark from the rain.
He peeled his shirt over his head and I heard it hit the floor more than I saw it. My eyes couldn’t leave his bare chest. I’d seen it a dozen times when he was working in the yard, but never alone in a dark trailer at night. And never wet.
Owen didn’t have the kind of muscles you got at the gym; he had the body of a workingman, the kind that got to be that way by bailing hay and roping horses. Let me tell you this, there was nothing on this earth that felt the same as being loved by a workingman.
And they weren’t hard to look at either.
“You’ll be catchin’ a cold we don’t get you outta those clothes soon,” he drawled.
I lifted my hands in a silent command above my head and felt his fingers curl under the hem. He moved it slow, the material clinging to me as he pulled it off my body.
My breathing had gotten heavy from his hands on me, the rise and fall of my chest increasing when one of them curled around the back of my neck. He tugged on the elastic holding my curls at bay and my hair fell around my face.
“This wild hair you’ve got, darlin’, plays tricks on a man’s mind,” he growled.
Standing up on my tiptoes, I wrapped my arms around his neck. My lips found his in a kiss that took over the entire space of the Airstream.
I sucked.
He bit.
Every kiss we shared before was rivalled by this kiss, because with this kiss, he owned me.
I was owned by Owen.
I felt his hand work the button on my jeans, and when the zipper went down, so did he. He broke our kiss and knelt down on the trailer floor, pulling my wet jeans down my legs as he did.
My stomach quivered, and I held on to his shoulders as I stepped out of the soaked denim, standing there in nothing but a little lace bra and thong that left nothing to the imagination.
His heated glare ran all over me, igniting fire on every inch of my skin.
“You’re beautiful, Rayne.” He kissed my belly.
I ran my hands through his hair, his teeth grazing the edge of my panty line while his hands splayed across the back of my thighs. He was so strong but he knelt before me, worshipping me as gently as I believed a man ever could.
Each of his rough hands grabbed my ass and lifted me as he stood. My legs wrapped around his waist while he walked, carrying me to the back of the trailer.
He laid me down on the bed, and I watched as he undid the buckle on his belt.
There were no lights on in the trailer. The only light coming through the windows was when the lightening struck and the sky lit up for the briefest of seconds.
It did so now, flashing as he dropped those Wranglers down his thighs.
My mouth formed a little O when I realized Owen Daniels has as much to be proud of below the belt as he did above it.
“You best quit lookin’ at me like that.” He leaned over me, hooking his fingers in the edges of my thong.
My voice was breathy. “Like what?”
“Like you ain’t been fed in weeks.” He tugged, and I forced my body to stay still as he slid the black lace down my legs.
“It’s been awhile,” I told him, unashamed.
He tossed my underwear somewhere in the dark room and curled his finger in a way that told me to come closer. “Sit up.”
I did as he asked, staying still as he unclasped the back of my bra and it too joined the rest of my clothes on the trailer floor.
“You want me, Rayne?” he asked, his voice raspy in a way I’d never heard.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled his naked body down over mine. “Yes,” I whispered.
He hooked an arm under my waist, lifted and twisted us, so eventually I ended up on top of him.
“Ima need to hear you say it,” he growled, his hands curling under my knees as he laid his head back down on the bed.
“I want you, Owen.”
The words were barely out of my mouth when his body bucked, his arms heaving me into the air as he sat me down on his face.
That was how cowboys did it.
He ravaged me.
He ruined me.
He cherished me.
He worshipped me.
And when he was finished making love to me, Owen owned every part of my body.
“That was, wow,” I whispered as he pulled me into his side, my head resting on his chest.
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and chuckled. “I dreamed about your pussy bein’ sweet, but hell if I ain’t gonna need a taste of you every day until the day I die.”
“Owen!” I blushed crimson and buried my face deeper into him.
I was not accustomed to men speaking to me in that way.
“Darlin’, you wanted a nice man, too bad. You want a man who tells you to stay in bed while he investigates the creepy sound, that’s me. You want a man tells you there ain’t nothin’ tastes better than you do, that’s me. You want the man that won’t leave you in your head too long apologizin’ for shit ain’t needin’ apologizin’ for, that’s me. You want the man who’s gonna drink a beer, watch his hockey team lose, and sometimes puts his cowboy boots on the table, that’s me too.” He paused, trailing his rough fingers down my spine. “You don’t want none of that, I don’t much care. You got me anyway.”
“Okay.” I smiled.
He cupped my cheek and slowly shook his head at me.
We got the call thirty minutes later. London and Branson had given birth to a beautiful baby boy.
Christopher Charles Tucker.
Seven pounds. Twelve ounces.
Owen said the song they danced to on their first date had been Tennessee Whiskey by Chris Stapleton. That’s where they’d gotten the name, Christopher.
I thought it was perfect.
“WELL NOW, COME ON, USE those muscles.”
Lookin’ down off the truck, I seen Dad givin’ Ryley a hard time. She was tryin’ to lift a hay bale damn near three times her size. Wasn’t movin’ an inch.
“Gotta lift with the knees, sweetheart.” He bent down and picked up a bale I’d already tossed off the truck.
She was gruntin’ and snortin’, liftin’ and pullin’, but fact was, ‘less she knew magic, that bale wasn’t goin’ nowhere anytime soon.
Rayne had dropped her off ‘round ten o’clock this mornin
’ and she hadn’t stopped smilin’ since. Suprisin’ to me a girl whose momma was a vet ain’t spent any time ‘round a farm her whole life. She found just about anythin’ excitin’, even the borin’ stuff. She done spent almost two hours cleanin’ tack with Aurora better part of the afternoon.
Dad come back out the barn and took pity on the poor thing. “How ‘bout you let this old man help ya out with that one, Ryles? Looks mighty big.”
Wipin’ the sweat from her brow, she moved to the side lettin’ him pick it up. “Thanks, Larry.”
“No sweat, kiddo.” He winked at her.
They’d taken a likin’ to each other. Think Dad missed havin’ young ones around, since all us kids been grown a long time now.
I tossed the last two bales onto the ground and sat down on the tailgate. Weather wasn’t half bad today, cold, but it hadn’t snowed and the sky was clear.
Ryley climbed on up next to me, doin’ that thing she does and pullin’ her knees into her chest. “What do we do now?” she asked, tilted her head to the side.
She was still wearin’ that hat I’d given her fishin’, barely ever took the damn thing off. I was man enough to tell any person who asked that I was happier than heck she wore it so often. Guess that’s the funny thing ‘bout wild men, much as we need tamin’ in a lotta ways, ain’t nobody gotta teach us how to love.
Seems to me a man oughta grow up knowin’ how to love right.
And I was pretty sure my heart was lovin’ the Brookes ladies a helluva lot.
Tappin’ the brim of her hat, I grinned. “You like horses?” Ryley nodded. “Well, how ‘bout we go and meet my Lady then?”
“I thought I was your little lady.” She studied me for a beat, frownin’ all serious.
Leanin’ in, I winked. “You’ll always be my little lady, darlin’.”
She smiled, and I remembered—just like I’d realized early on, after our fishin’ trip—there wasn’t much on earth I wouldn’t do just to see her smile.
“Lady’s the name of my horse. Wanna meet her?”
“Yes!” she hollered.
Fist pumpin’ the air, she jumped from the truck and started runnin’ toward the smaller one of our two barns, nearly takin’ out Aurora in the process.
“Hey now.” My baby sister put her hands on her hips. “What’s one of the rules?”
