“Why don’t you go get us a drink?” she suggested.
I would, had I not been tired as hell.
“I’m tired,” I admitted.
She sighed. “Okay.”
I frowned at the way the main road in Kilgore was so backed up.
“What’s the fuckin’ hold-up?” I muttered.
There had to be at least twenty cars in front of me holding up the turn lane.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I said.” I paused as I crept forward just a little bit more. “I was asking what the hold-up was to the person in front of me. The light’s backed up wayyyyy past where it normally is.” I narrowed my eyes as once again the light allowed two people through then turned red again. “The light’s fucked up and is only letting two people through before it turns red again. That’s what the hold-up is.”
“You should’ve gone the back way,” she teased.
I rolled my eyes.
The ‘back way’ was actually a cut through that really was only a shopping center parking lot so you could skip the light.
“That’s illegal,” I reminded her. “Remember?”
She scoffed delicately.
“The parking lots wouldn’t be connected if they didn’t want you to hop through them,” she corrected me. “And how is it illegal when I’m just cutting through the parking lot to look at a few cars?”
The line crept forward once again, this time allowing three people through.
Jesus Christ.
I groaned and slammed my hand down on the steering wheel. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” she said. “I love you.”
“I’ll see you in a bit, baby,” I murmured, watching as once again the light turned green and allowed three people through.
Son of a bitch.
Pulling up my radio, I made a call to dispatch, then once again waited for the light.
This time I made it.
I only had to run the red light to do it, though.
And as I got closer to our favorite deli, I remembered her asking for a tea.
Swinging in there, I ordered our teas, then ordered a sandwich.
I thought better of it before I left, though, and went back for two chocolate chip cookies.
“Thank you, Edna,” I said to the woman behind the counter.
She waved at me and I went on my way, heading home.
Finally arriving to the place that Rowen and I had purchased together a couple of weeks after I asked her to marry me, I took a good look around.
The yard needed weed-whacked.
Bad.
But I could tell that it’d been mowed.
Telling myself not to get too upset when I knew damn well and good that it wasn’t the neighbor that did it again, I walked inside with my bag of spoils.
I found my woman at the counter chopping up an avocado.
She had two large sandwiches made with everything I wanted on them, a pitcher of tea made sitting next to it, and cookies cooling on the counter.
My heart fell.
“Shit,” I said as I saw all the work she’d done. “I’m sorry, I thought…”
She turned and found the bag of food in one hand, the teas in the other, and her face fell.
“It’s okay,” she said as she gathered the sandwich meat and spreads up. “They’ll keep.”
We both knew that they wouldn’t.
And nobody, not even the dog we got last month, would eat it either.
I didn’t eat old sandwiches because it was inevitable that they’d be soggy. And Rowen didn’t like mustard.
Meaning those sandwiches she’d made, with goddamn bacon even, would go to waste.
I looked at the sandwich in my hand and considered throwing it out, but she stopped me with a firm, “Don’t you dare.”
I looked up to see her arms crossed tightly over her chest, forearms resting on her distended belly.
I placed the food on the counter, then walked to my wife and pulled her into my arms.
She rested her head against my chest and sighed.
“I thought you said that you weren’t stopping. That you were too tired,” she muttered.
I squeezed her a bit tighter and felt the baby kick me in response.
Smiling at the small life that she carried within her, I pressed my hand to her belly and waited.
The baby, like always, never kicked me again.
It was as if he or she knew what I wanted and refused to give it to me.
Like mother like child.
“I was, and still am,” I admitted. “But the tea sounded really good after spending the last four hours outside in the hot sun. And then I thought you might really like it. So I got you one. And a cookie.”
She sighed.
“You’re right. I would’ve liked it.” She paused. “Had I not eaten like eight of those cookies already. I don’t have any room left.”
I looked at the cookies that’d barely had time to cool, and grinned.
Putting my food into the fridge, I gathered my sandwiches that she’d made me, salted my avocado, and ate the shit out of the food she’d prepared for me.
Her smile was soft as she watched me demolish all twelve of the leftover cookies.
“At least,” I said as I took a gulp of milk between cookies. “With the deli, I wouldn’t have gorged on all these cookies.”
She snorted. “I’m sure that my bread was about half the carbs than the stuff they use,” she said. “It’ll wash.”
I rolled my eyes, then got a good look at the lawn again.
Eyes narrowing, I turned to her.
“So…” I said. “Did you mow today?”
She opened her mouth to deny it, then thought better of it.
“You’re always gone, Dax,” she said. “I just wanted to see it nice and mowed. And if it makes you feel better, I used the riding mower.”
I rolled my eyes and gathered her to me, then placed one hand on her head while the other curled into her back.
Her hair had grown out over the last seven months we’d been together.
We’d gotten married last month at a small, intimate ceremony with only our closest family and friends in attendance. She’d put it up in the cutest updo I’d ever seen. And even now, the short spiky tendrils that barely touched the back of her neck made my heart ache.
God, she must’ve had gorgeous hair when it was long.
I couldn’t wait for it to grow back.
Thank God for her pregnancy, because her hair was growing so fast that I might have to get her pregnant all over again just so I could have the stuff wrapping around my fist while I took her from behind.
“You’re not being very nice.” She pouted.
I wasn’t.
A month ago she was ordered to go onto light duty thanks to her placenta being very close to her cervix. They’d even had to sew her cervix shut to keep the baby baking a bit longer.
Which also meant no sex for the time being, either.
“Sorry,” I murmured, pressing my lips to hers. “That was pretty mean, wasn’t it?”
She sighed and pressed her mouth to mine once more, then got up to clean up the dishes.
I helped her in silence, then went to the laundry room to strip out of my gear.
Once it was all where she liked me putting it, I came back out in jeans, a t-shirt, and some boots.
She grinned at me.
Then watched me while I weed-whacked the entire yard despite being tired as hell from the day.
But the sweet way she kissed me, all sweaty with grass sticking to me everywhere?
That’s what made it worth it.
Rowen was worth it.
The baby she was carrying?
Worth it.
My life she’d given me?
Worth it.
“Let’s shower,” she ordered. “There was a new scary movie that release
d on Netflix. I want to watch it.”
So we did.
And I enjoyed every single second of her pressed up against me, face half hidden behind the blanket, while she watched the scary movie through the gaps of her fingers.
That was my girl.
Hard as steel on the outside, but all soft and gooey on the inside.
All. Mine.
What’s next?
Herd That
1-21-20
Chapter 1
Save a horse, ride a… bike. Nobody wants a fat ass.
U-Sports bottle
Codie
“Yes, Granddad,” I said through shivering lips. “I’m on my way. Yes, I’m okay. No, the truck’s not having any trouble pulling the trailer. Yes. No. Yes.”
I sighed in frustration when Granddad continued asking me questions. Obviously knowing I was driving in the rain didn’t much matter to him.
“Yes, I’ll look for Mr. Valentine,” I soothed. “I don’t know how to back up the trailer, so I’m going to ask him to do it. Do you think he will?”
“Yes,” Granddad immediately replied. “I think he will. Just make sure to say please. He’s very formal.”
Did I note a hint of satisfaction in his voice?
Whatever.
“Listen,” I said, spotting the sign for the Longview Livestock in front of me. “I’m almost there, and I’m about to turn. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Codie,” Granddad said in his shaky, aging voice. “Have fun.”
I smiled at the words coming from Granddad’s mouth.
He didn’t say ‘I love you’ very often, so when he did, it made the words all the more special to hear.
Dropping the phone into the seat beside me, I looked in my rearview mirrors and started to slow the large one-ton Dodge diesel dually, making a wide turn into the parking lot and coming to a stop almost immediately after pulling in.
“Where do I go?” I asked the empty cab.
My eyes took everything in at once, and my belly started to flutter.
“Shit,” I growled, turning right and keeping it slow as I accelerated.
I didn’t know how to drive a trailer, and I’d had to learn almost in a trial-by-fire type way.
Granddad had entered these cows into the show, and when he got sick, he couldn’t back out because he’d had a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with the livestock place, whatever the hell that meant.
I’d tried to tell him we could take them together next week, but he would hear none of it.
Take them, Codie. You can do it; I have faith in you. Plus, if you have any trouble, an old friend that lives on the next farm over will be there to help you if you have any problems.
Gritting my teeth, I followed the trailer in front of me to the back of the lot and swung a bitch at the very end of it, coming to a stop behind a pretty silver trailer.
Granddad had forced me to rent a trailer, and it looked ridiculous. Nothing could’ve signaled me as an inexperienced person more than the bright red trailer with ‘rent me’ on the side of it.
I’d tried to get Granddad to let me use his trailer, but he’d refused to allow me to even touch it.
“That’s a fifty-thousand-dollar piece of equipment. If you wreck it, then I won’t have anything to transport Shaggy in,” Granddad said.
Shaggy was my granddad’s prized bull, and the moneymaker of his farm at the moment.
At three years of age, Shaggy was the reigning champion, never been ridden for a full eight seconds, prize winner who was babied by my grandfather, and likely the cause of his heart attack.
Granddad tried to go to every event that Shaggy went to, and I loathed to admit it, but Granddad was no longer a spring chicken.
Something he’d had proven to him four weeks ago when he’d suffered a heart attack and been informed that he needed to take it easy.
That’d been my cue to come home, and I’d been with him ever since.
Four weeks of listening to my grandfather whine about not being able to make any of Shaggy’s games… or bouts…or whatever the hell they were called.
Then him saying he needed to get some work done, and sell some cows this morning, had come out of the blue.
He’d been so distraught about ‘bleeding money’ that I’d stupidly volunteered to help him any way I could. Which brought me to now, driving a trailer full of freakin’ cows, in a fucking thunderstorm.
Once I was fully in a stopped position, I put it into park and reached for my phone, typing out a text.
Codie (11:11 AM): I’m here.
Codie (11:14 AM): Where do you want me to go?
Codie (11:16 AM): Hello?
Growling in frustration, I snatched up my purse and hopped out of the truck, my new, pretty boots sinking about an inch and a half into a puddle of muddy water.
At least I hoped it was muddy water.
Placing the keys into my back pocket, I tucked the phone into my purse and started toward the big white building.
I smiled at a man who waved at me, his eyes taking in my attire, making me blush.
I was a city girl at heart.
I loved Kilgore, I’d grown up in the small town, but I wasn’t a rancher like my family had been before me.
I was a city girl who loved to wear flip-flops and high heels. I liked to wear dresses more than I liked to wear jeans, and I most certainly didn’t shovel manure unless I absolutely had to—i.e., never.
And for the last four weeks, I absolutely had to.
I loved horses. Had adored them since I got my first one at the age of three, but I didn’t like cleaning up after them.
I liked riding them and feeding them treats.
Poop wasn’t really my thing.
Growling under my breath, I picked up my pace, trying my best to ignore the water that was saturating my chambray shirt that had the cutest little rhinestones as buttons.
By the time I made it to the front door, though, I was soaked to the bone.
It didn’t help matters that the weather was exceptionally cold, either.
“Can I help you?” I heard asked the moment my feet stepped inside the door.
I looked up to find a man wearing a cowboy hat standing in front of me.
Not that that made him very special.
Every man in the joint had on a cowboy hat.
“Hi,” I chirped. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Who might that be?” the older cowboy asked, bringing his spit cup to his lips and letting loose right there in front of me.
I tried not to grimace at the disgusting use of the nasty product and instead focused on the area around me.
The building looked old.
Really old.
The paneling on the walls was faux wood and had worn down with time.
The floors were an off-white linoleum that looked like it’d seen way better days.
It was almost as if the entire place was stuck back in the seventies.
“Mr. Valentine,” I replied, finally turning back to the man, grateful to see that he’d dropped his dip cup to his leg.
I kept my eyes firmly above his waist as I waited for him to reply.
“What you want with him?” the man asked.
“He’s supposed to be helping me get some cows unloaded for my granddad,” I explained patiently.
The man smiled. “He’s at the last shoot looking at the newest bull for sale.”
He pointed toward a rickety brown door, and I smiled gratefully at him.
“Thank you,” I acknowledged appreciatively to him as I walked toward the door.
“Watch your step,” he called from behind me.
I waved my hand at him and opened the door, stopping when I realized that there were stairs on the other side of the door, with absolutely zero landing for you to walk out on to introduce you to the stairs.
Steep ones that looked to be about three times the size of a normal
stair.
I looked down at my boots—ones that were brand new and had absolutely no traction to them like tennis shoes—and growled in frustration.
Taking one last glance back and not finding the cowboy in sight, I climbed up the first step and closed the door behind me.
The first four steps were the worst, and they evened up the closer to the top I got. It was worse and better, of course. Better because the smaller steps meant I didn’t have to worry about my shoes losing traction. Worse because now that I was so high up in the air, I could see the entire sale barn.
It was about a football field in length, and about a football field wide.
There were pens on either side of the walkway that was suspended high above the area down below it, giving each and every person there a perfect view of the entire shebang.
“’Scuse me,” I muttered to an older gentleman that could rival my grandpa in age.
He looked fit, though, compared to Granddad. Granddad, although in good shape body-wise, looked just worn out.
He looked like he’d led a hard life—which he had.
The older gentleman turned to me and immediately said, “Codie Spears!”
I blinked, surprised by the outburst.
“Hi,” I said. “How do I know you?”
He grinned. “You may not remember me, but you do know me. I’m your mother’s sister’s ex-husband.”
I blinked. “Aunt Peggy?”
He winced. “That’d be her.”
I laughed then.
“Poor guy,” I cooed. “I’m glad to see you’re still standing.”
He grinned and patted me on the back.
“Gotta agree with you there. Careful of that board, it’s loose,” he said as I stepped over the board in question.
“Thanks.” I patted his hand that was still on my arm. “I’ve got to find someone.”
“Who ya’ lookin’ for?” he asked.
“Ace Valentine.”
His smile fell and his eyes narrowed.
“Whatcha’ want with him?” he questioned, his entire demeanor changing.
I blinked in confusion at his abrupt change in attitude.
“He’s supposed to be helping me… ahh, I think I see him.” I hurried away before he could say anything else, my eyes on the brown hat I could see bobbing up and down at the end of the walkway.
Just Kidding Page 21
