by Emerson Rose
It turns out Ash had been watching for two years as the Whiskey Hill Ranch climbed in the ranks of most successful fastest growing ranches in the Midwest. And of course being a good businessman, he wanted in on it.
We went home to iron out the details, and while we were there, Ash almost regretted his decision. Another raging storm plowed through the area, no tornado this time, but Beau’s mother who has Alzheimer’s disease wandered away and got lost in the storm. It took both families and Ash to bring her home safe and sound, and the Deardons efforts didn’t go unnoticed. Finally, the rift between families was closed, and the feud was over.
Now Ash is a partner with both the Hill and Deardon family, and they are working to make the Whiskey Hill Deardon Rose Ranch one of the top five ranches in the country, alongside the Silversage.
My parents and I sat down at Ash’s insistence and talked. My daddy apologized for being a dick and mama told me she never meant to make me feel inferior. It wasn’t life-altering, I still feel a distance between us, but it was enough.
We spent a week doing business and getting to know each other better but ever since we got home a few days ago, I haven’t felt like myself and Cannon is starting to notice.
“Let’s pack up for the day and head upstairs. I’ll rest on your bed while you read me a story, how’s that sound?”
“Good. And we need a snack for your belly ache.”
“Yes, good call. We can stop and get some apples and peanut butter in the kitchen.”
“How come you don’t let people bring you stuff like daddy?”
I smile at him for being observant. “I like to do things for myself. It’s what I’m used to. Daddy’s used to people doing things for him, so that’s what he does.”
“Oh. I like doin stuff by myself.”
“That’s cool. Everybody’s different, that’s what makes us interesting.”
I close my laptop and shuffle my papers into a stack when Ash knocks on my office door and peeks in.
“Closing up shop early today, are we? Slackers.”
“Daddy!” Cannon yells and bulldozes into his legs.
“Hey, buddy, how’s my favorite boy?” He slides his big strong hands under Cannon’s arms and lifts him over his head before settling him on his hip. Cannon’s not a little kid, he’s tall and built like his daddy, but Ash tosses him around like a doll.
“Good, we’re gonna get apples and peanut butter by ourselves and go upstairs to read a book.”
“By yourself, huh? Very independent of you.” He turns to me, “You feeling okay? You usually study longer than this and, not trying to be a jerk, but you’re kind of green around the edges.”
I stand and wobble, grabbing hold of the edge of the desk. Ash puts Cannon back on his feet and rushes to my side. “I’m fine. It’s probably just low blood sugar. I didn’t eat breakfast.”
He takes my chin and brings my eyes to his looking back and forth from one to the other searching. “I think it’s something else.”
I frown up at him, “Like what?”
He leans over to whisper in my ear, “A baby.”
I put my hand on his chest and shove him away, “No way.”
Cannon calls from the door, where he is waiting not so patiently, “Not nice to tell secrets.”
“You’re absolutely right, it isn’t, especially when the secret isn’t true.”
He lowers his voice and leans toward me so Cannon can’t hear, but it doesn’t look like a secret.
“Did you want me to say it out loud? And I’m pretty sure it’s true, have you checked your pills lately? Your last placebo was yesterday, and you never had your period.”
“Um, no. And why are you looking at my pills?”
“Because I pay attention to details, that’s why I’m so successful, and that happens to be an important detail.”
Now that I think back, he’s right. I never started my period this week and last month’s was unusually light. I’ve been so distracted with school, visiting home, and taking care of Cannon I didn’t even notice.”
“Ahh, and the light comes on,” he says with a huge smile.
My mouth falls open, and I look at him in disbelief. “Are you… are you okay with that if it’s true?”
He pulls me into his arms to run his finger along my jaw and rest his thumb on my bottom lip. “I would be way more than okay if it’s true.”
“But we aren’t married yet?”
He laughs and holds up my left hand, “So what? You’ve had this rock on your hand long enough anyway, let’s make it official.”
I look down at the beautiful four-carat cushion cut diamond engagement ring that he slipped on my finger after a particularly hot evening of sex. “Like now, now?”
“Yes, like now. I can have the jet fueled, and we can go wherever you want within the hour.”
“I’m hungry,” Cannon whines hanging on the door knob.
“Bud, don’t hang on the doorknob, it’ll break,” I say in my regular tone and quickly lower it to a loud, frantic whisper. “What about your work, my classes, Cannon? We can’t just can’t up and leave.”
“We can take work, homework, and Cannon with us anywhere. Come on, where do you want to go?”
“Right now? I want to go to bed.”
He sighs with defeat and scoops me up in his arms. “As you wish. But tomorrow we set a date, no arguments.”
“Okay, I can handle that.”
“Oh, and I have something for you upstairs after we get your snack.”
He keeps his eyes straight ahead, but I see him smile. “Come on, apples, peanut butter, and books.”
“Yay!” Cannon yells following on his daddy’s heels.
Ash tucks me into bed and helps Cannon with his snack, while I let the idea of having a baby roll around in my brain. I probably have the flu and my period is late from stress. That’s got to be it. I’m not having a baby, that’s not how this was supposed to go.
We’re going to have a big wedding and I’m going to graduate college. Then I'll get a job teaching and then maybe we will have a baby. But that’s like, four years away and I’m already thirty. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to switch up the order of things.
Maybe I don’t have a choice.
Ash pushes the door open with his elbow. “He’s all settled. I told him you would come see him in a little while after you rested. He told me you didn’t need a nap, you needed apples and peanut butter so…” He holds up a plate with beautifully cut apple slices in one hand and a carafe of peanut butter in the other.
“You didn’t cut those yourself, did you?”
He sets the plate on the bedside table next to me, and the smell of peanut butter makes my stomach churn. “Nope, they wouldn’t look like that if I did it. Come on.” He holds out his hand to help me up.
“You just put me to bed, where are we going?” I say not actually caring, since wherever he’s taking me will be away from the peanut butter.
“Your surprise,” he says leading me to the bathroom.
“In here? Are you giving me another bath?”
“No, unless you want one then I’d be happy to. But, first this.” He holds out a stick that I recognize is a pregnancy test from seeing them on commercials.
“Now? You want me to… to pee on that stick right now?”
“That’s how it works, darlin’. We need to find out.”
I drop my arms to my sides and look at the floor pacing. “I don’t know if I want to know. Can’t we wait a few more days?”
“No, you shouldn’t be taking your pills if you’re pregnant and you have to start a new week tomorrow. Besides, you gotta know sometime, why not now?”
I stop on a bright cobalt blue tile and look up at him, “Because the idea is pretty new to me, I hadn’t even considered it until twenty minutes ago, and now you want me to pee on a stick because I’m a little nauseous and dizzy and late…” Saying it out loud makes me sound ridiculous. There are more than a few symptoms that po
int to pregnancy, he’s right, we need to know.
“Okay, give me the stick,” I say walking past him snatching the test from his hand.
“Do you need privacy?” he asks.
“No, have I ever needed privacy around you before?”
“Well, no, but I’ve never asked you to pee on a stick before either so…”
“I’m fine.” I lower my panties and sit down spreading my legs to hold the stick in the stream of urine. When I’m all tapped out, I hold it up. “Now what?”
“Give it to me, I’ll put it on the counter and we can lie down in bed and wait.”
“How long?” I hand him the wet stick and watch him place it carefully on the counter.
“The box said three minutes, but I think we should wait for five to be sure.”
“Okay.” We take turns washing our hands and go back to our room to crawl under the covers.
I turn to face him, and he pulls me closer, “What do you think it’s going to say?”
“You know what I think already. This is for you.”
“For me? You’re that sure of yourself?”
“Yep.”
“Even though I was on the pill?”
“Yep.” He smiles, and I sigh.
“I wasn’t ready for this.”
“Nobody’s ever ready to have a baby.”
“Yes, they are, people plan families all the time.”
“Maybe so but it usually doesn’t go like they want it to. I’ve been raising a son for five years by myself, didn’t plan that. I wouldn’t change it for anything, though. Cannon is what brought me to you.”
I smile at the memory of Ash standing in the hotel lobby holding Cannon’s hand while he screamed bloody murder. “What was he yelling about that day anyway?”
“He wanted to go get ice cream before we checked in and I told him no.”
“Seriously? That’s it? I’ve never seen him act that way.”
“That’s because he quit the second you spoke to him. Love at first sight, I guess.”
“Was it love at first sight for you, too?”
“Nah, it took me a while to warm up to you.”
“Ash.” I shove his shoulder. “How long is a while?”
“Like, five minutes. The second that slimy hotel manager Valentino started hitting on you I knew. I couldn’t stand the thought of you with anyone else. I knew you had to be mine. What about you?”
I chew on my lip deciding if I should make him squirm or tell the truth. Truth it is.
“Love at first sight. When I saw you standing on the steps in the lobby patiently holding Cannon’s hand looking all hot and fatherly, I was a goner.”
“Hot and fatherly, huh?” he chuckles.
“Yep.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been given that compliment before.”
“I know, you’re used to being called the Sexiest Man Alive, aren’t you?”
“You’re the only person I want thinking I’m the sexiest man alive. If you’re happy, I’m good.”
“Then you’re good because I am definitely happy.”
He kisses me on the tip of my nose, “Good. Wait here. I’ll be right back with your positive pregnancy test.”
“You don’t know it’s positive.”
He waggles his eyebrows up and down and rolls out of bed, “Yes, I do.”
“Wait, I’m coming with you.”
In the bathroom I watch him pick up the white stick and examine the tiny display box. His face is void of expression, so I take it out of his hand to see for myself.
Positive.
“Holy shit. You were right,” I whisper.
“Told ya.”
I look up at him with wide eyes, “How did you know?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes!”
He removes the test from my hand laying it on the counter and pulls me into his arms. “You stopped eating fruit, you’ve been going to the bathroom every half an hour for weeks, and you cried when your sister’s chicken laid an egg.”
“What?”
“Details, darlin’, it’s all in the details.”
I did cry when Clementine laid an egg. It seemed perfectly normal at the time, but now that I look back I did go a tad overboard. “Oh my God, we’re having a baby.”
“Yep. Now when do you want to get hitched?”
“I, uh, I don’t know, next weekend?”
“Done. Now, where at?”
“On the beach, anywhere with a beach.”
“You don’t want a big barn wedding?”
“Oh God, no, I want to see the ocean.”
“Okay, a wedding on the beach in Hawaii next Saturday it is. I’m going to tell Cannon.”
“Wait, you’re just going to leave me here with all this?”
He looks around the bathroom confused. “All what?”
“All this… this news!”
“You can come with me if you want.”
“I do.”
“Now you’re getting it, darlin’. All you gotta do is say that next week, wearing a pretty white dress, standing in the sand next to the ocean with your family.”
I’m getting married next week to the sexiest man alive, and I’m having a baby. Can it get any better than that?
24
Permanently forever
Ash
Money can do a lot of wonderful things. Like, for instance, make a beach wedding happen halfway around the world in six days. Shit costs more when it’s last minute, but I don’t care, Stella’s happiness is worth every penny.
“How come my pants gotta be rolled up like that?” Cannon asks.
“It’s a beach wedding. You can’t wear shoes or your feet will get wet.”
“Why’s Tella wanna get married in the sand?”
“She had never seen the ocean before, and I want her to have anything she wants because I love her.”
"Never?"
"Nope, not everybody gets to take nice vacations like us. We're lucky."
I can see the wheels turning in his mind as he takes in this information but only for about thirty seconds.
“Okay. Ima go see Charlotte and Beau.” He’s off and running down the hall to the living room where Stella’s sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law are waiting for the ceremony to start.
“I wonder why he can’t say Stella, but he has no problem with Charlotte?” I ask Stella through the bathroom door. She's been holed up in there doing whatever women do before they get married for hours. Cannon and I opted for simple cobalt blue button-down shirts and khaki pants rolled up with bare feet, but Stella chose a traditional wedding gown.
I haven’t seen the dress yet, she picked it out via Skype at some fancy store in New York and had it shipped to the island. I thought it was risky not trying it on first but she was confident it would work out fine, and it did, or at least that’s what she told me through the door when she put it on.
“It’s the phonics, St is harder to pronounce than Ch,” she says.
“You’re gonna make a great teacher someday, darlin’.”
“Thanks, I hope so. Are you ready?”
“I get to see you before the ceremony?”
“Do you want to?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Cover your eyes.”
“Why am I doing that if you’re coming out?”
“Dramatic effect, just do it.”
I sit down on the bed and cover my eyes. “Alright, eyes covered now, come out here and show me that fine ass of yours.”
I hear the door open and her dress swooshing against the carpet.
“No peeking.”
“Stop teasing.”
“Okay, you can look.”
I lower my hands and inhale a sharp breath. “Wow, you look… amazing. You didn’t try that on before today?” The dress looks like it was custom-made to fit her. The candlelight satin bodice hugs her curves and the lace-covered skirt flares out flowing around her feet just covering her pretty pink painted toena
ils.
“Nope, I told the saleswoman my measurements, and she got it right.”
“I’ll say.” I stand and reach for her hand to lead her to the full-length mirror. Standing behind her with one hand on her hip and the other on her flat pregnant belly, I soak up the moment. She is pure perfection with her dark hair swept up exposing her long delicate neck, teardrop diamond earrings dangling from her ears, and ruby red bee-stung lips.
“Darlin’, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but I’m gonna be honest, I can’t wait to get this dress off of you and show you what’s what.”
She laughs and covers my hand on her belly with hers. “We have our whole life ahead of us. There will be plenty of time for you to show me what’s what, babe.”
“Yeah, well, the sooner the better. Now come on, let’s officially make you Mrs. Pride. I want to be tied to you permanently, forever.”
Permanently, forever Mrs. Pride, I like the sound of that. I like it a whole lot.
Epilogue
Two years later
Stella
“Daddy, Lydia put something in her mouth again!” Cannon yells.
“I’m closer, got it,” I call out.
I pluck my little dark-headed carbon copy of her father from the floor and sweep her mouth with my finger. “Got it, what the hell is this?” I pull out a black plastic square and examine it. “Cannon, this is a LEGO, we’ve talked about this before.”
“Sorry, Mommy.”
“Your sister could have choked on that. We have to be more careful when we pick up your toys. How about you look under the couch and make sure there aren’t any more?”
“Okay.” He drops to his knees and starts crawling all over the place feeling the carpet with his little hands. “Got one!” he yells holding up a red block.
“Oh boy, keep looking.” Now that he has a job to do, he’s on it. I walk back to my desk and put Lydia down next to her age appropriate toys.
