I didn’t. I somehow felt worse, but I couldn’t tell her that. What got me through these long days was the promise of crawling into bed with her at the end of them. She was my quiet, peaceful refuge, and even though I spent more nights awake than I did asleep, I always rolled out of bed the next morning feeling recharged.
“Stay. Sleep. For me.”
I couldn’t argue with her. I didn’t have the energy, so instead I forced myself up from the ground and said, “I’ll see you soon. Love you.”
Her reply was a long sigh, but with a quick, “Love you back,” she hung up. Like me, I think Rowen looked forward to our nights together as the only thing that got her through long days trapped in bed.
When I made my way down the hall, I found Garth and Josie camped out at their small kitchen table, eating what looked to be dinner at ten o’clock at night. Garth was more trying not to fall asleep between bites of steak, and Josie was picking at her green beans like she was more interested in making a pattern than actually eating them.
“Hey, sorry about going out like that,” I said, stretching my arms in an attempt to get the blood pumping. “I can confidently say that your dryer is not the most ideal of places to fall asleep if you’re looking to avoid debilitating neck pain.”
Josie dropped her fork, and Garth stopped chewing the bite he’d been working on since I’d walked in.
“Please don’t tell me you’re planning on actually driving ten miles in your current condition,” Josie said, grabbing the empty third plate at the table and moving toward the counter.
“I really am.” I shook my head when I noticed her preparing another plate of food. “Thank you so much, Josie, but I’m not hungry. Your fiancé already clogged my arteries with five pounds of grease, so I’ll be good until next year. Thank you though.”
She threw a hand on her hip, plate still in hand. “You need to eat.”
“No, I need to get home to my wife and then fall asleep.”
“That’s exactly the same thing I told her I needed when she loaded up my plate and ordered me to eat.” Garth scraped his fork across his plate, shuffling potatoes and beans around in an effort to look as though he’d eaten some. “But I’m too beat to even fuck, so I sure as hell am too tired to eat. I’ll keep this force-feeding torture in mind for the next time I order you to eat a bagful of QuikStop burgers and fries, okay, Jess?”
I smiled through the cloud of exhaustion. Josie’s glare and hand-on-hip angle twisted Garth’s way.
“Deal,” I said, waving at them before heading for the door.
“No way. Not so fast, Jesse Walker.” Josie’s voice followed me down the hall. She bounded up, Thermos in hand, right as I was about to open the door. “Coffee. Drink this.” She shook her head when I took the Thermos, thanking her with a smile. “Damn fools. The both of you.” She raised her voice to ensure a certain someone, who was probably asleep in his steak, could hear in the kitchen.
“Thanks for the coffee. Have a good night.” I headed out the door and toward my truck.
“Say hi to Rowen for me, okay? Oh, and would you ask her if she’d rather have pink and blue cupcakes for the baby shower, or if green and yellow would be more appropriate? I can’t decide, and since you two are the ones intent on torturing all of us planning a baby shower and wanting to buy gifts for a gender to-be-determined baby, I’ll leave the cupcake-color decision in her court,” Josie continued as I stumbled up to Old Bessie. I did a few jumping jacks to get the blood pumping, and she was still going. “Oh, and mention the possibility of doing a blue-pink, green-yellow swirl if she likes that idea better. The bakery said they could do that too.”
“Good night, Josie.” I yawned before firing up Old Bessie, successfully ending the conversation with the cacophony of the truck’s engine.
Before even touching the gas, I unscrewed the Thermos lid and took a sip of the coffee to make sure it wasn’t scalding hot. If it was, I didn’t seem to care, because I chugged half of the contents before settling it between my legs and rolling out of the driveway. Unlike the Sterling-Walkers’ driveway, the Gibson-Blacks’ was pocketed with rocks and pot holes. It didn’t take me long to realize I shouldn’t have settled an open Thermos of coffee between my legs. It might not have been scalding, but it still burned when it seeped through my jeans.
Instead of tightening the lid back into place, I downed what was left. The caffeine didn’t seem to hit my system until I pulled up to Willow Springs. I’d barely been able to stay awake on the drive, so of course the caffeine would go into effect now that I was ready to crawl into bed.
Everything was quiet. The house was dark, not even a flicker of a computer glowing in one of my sisters’ rooms. The barn was quiet. Even the night was quiet. When I checked the time on my phone, I saw that if I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow—which was unlikely—I’d get a solid five hours of sleep before I had to be up to help Dad and the rest of the hands with the cattle. Just thinking about it made me more tired—forget the caffeine charging through my system.
Stumbling up the porch stairs, I forced myself through the front door and only realized I’d forgotten to close it when I was halfway down the hall. Getting back to the open door felt like a journey, but after getting it shut, locked, and double-checked just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, I shuffled into the living room. I wasn’t sure if she would be awake, but if she wasn’t, I’d crash on the couch. I didn’t want to wake her by sliding in beside her. She needed her sleep more than I did.
I’d barely stepped into the living room when her head whipped in my direction. Even from here and even in my beat state, I noticed her eyes widen, followed by a sigh that was brimming with relief.
“You shouldn’t have driven home like that,” she said, waving at me as I staggered toward her. Her voice was stern, but she couldn’t hide her smile. She was happy I was there, glad I’d made it home for the night. I was even more so. “Getting behind the wheel in your condition is worse than drowning yourself in whiskey and driving. I need you alive, please.”
I grinned as I finished my journey toward her. I felt drunk. But the happy kind of drunk. The warm, tingly kind. Rowen did that to me. She made me feel all warm and happy and tingly.
Kicking off my boots, which was more like almost tripping over them, I crawled in beside her—she’d already scooted over to make room—roped my arms around her, and lowered my head on the pillow beside hers. I was home.
“I need you alive too, please.”
HE WAS GONE. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know it. I could practically feel the side of the bed he slept on was cold and empty. I didn’t like waking up after he’d slipped away without me noticing. I knew why he didn’t wake me before leaving—he was obsessed with me getting every wink of sleep I could—but I didn’t like starting my day without him. It just didn’t feel right. Like it was a bad omen.
Most mornings I stirred before he’d fully rolled out of bed at four. It was our chance to have a few quiet minutes alone to share a cup of coffee and pretend life was as easy and breezy as it wasn’t. I hadn’t missed a morning with him in a few weeks, so that was probably why I was feeling extra-strength grumpy when Lily came into the living room at nine in the morning. As was her routine, she knocked on the wall just outside, like it was a door and she was announcing herself, and waited for an invitation to come in. I found it especially endearing.
“Enter if you dare,” I called, smoothing my hair and blankets so I didn’t look like a banshee and frighten the girl. I woke up looking more like a wild animal than a woman most mornings. Especially so since the bed rest.
“I dare.” She stepped inside wearing a smile that implied she knew a secret no one else in the whole world was privy to. I loved those kinds of smiles. They were a side effect of love in its infancy, when you’re certain no one else could ever know how you feel.
“What are you up to this fine morning?” I asked. Outside, the day was turning out to be a beautiful last-day
s-of-summer-meets-first-days-of-fall kind of day. If an eighteen-year-old girl didn’t have big plans for a day like this, the world was doomed.
“Colt’s coming to pick me up in a little while, but my chores are done, I can’t mess with my hair for another moment, and was wondering if you’d like to kill a little time with me?”
Lily was wearing one of her linen summer dresses but had slid into a denim jacket to fight off the chill these kinds of mornings brought in. She was in a pair of shortie cowgirl boots and was wearing her hair down and swept over one shoulder. Unconsciously, I’d always pictured Lily as a girl. I’d never looked far enough ahead to see her as the woman she’d become, the one standing in front of me today.
If a sister-in-law could seem to just grow up overnight, how much faster would it seem my own child would? The thought made me mourn a day that was years and years away, almost making me wish the baby would stay in my stomach a little longer than expected.
That wish vanished in the two seconds it took for me to shift myself around in bed and feel like I was more a walrus with no arms or legs to assist me, just some giant thing trying to scoot along through life.
“I’ve got so much time to kill these days, it’s not even funny.” I eyed the chair beside my bed. Jesse usually used it to pull on his boots or drink his coffee in while we talked for a few minutes in the morning before he rushed out the door to spend a twelve- to fifteen-hour day working. “So please, come kill some with me together. Much more enjoyable that way.”
She practically skipped across the room before floating into the chair beside me. Her smile would not be tamed. I doubted little could steal it from her.
“Someone’s looking rather joyous this morning,” I said, arching a knowing eyebrow. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with getting to spend the day with your young beau, would it?”
Her eyes lightened a shade. “It would.” She checked out the window.
I couldn’t even begin to guess how many times I’d checked out that window for Jesse to come pulling up the driveway. No joke that a million was a closer estimate than a thousand.
“But we’re only spending the morning together, not the whole day,” she said. “I’ve got a bunch of things I promised Mom I’d help her with, and he’s got to catch a flight back to California later this afternoon.” Her boyfriend flying away was one of the few things that could wear at her smile.
“How long will he be gone?” I reached for the insulated cup of coffee Jesse had left for me and took a sip. It was decaf, but it still tasted good.
“A week this time. Only a week.” From her tone, it was like she was trying to reassure herself.
“That’s hard, isn’t it? Managing a long distance relationship. Especially when you guys haven’t been together very long.”
Lily nodded and exhaled. “It’s so much harder than I thought it would be. I don’t know how you and Jesse managed it, especially with you guys only having been together a couple of months before you left for Seattle.”
I lifted my shoulders. “We loved each other.”
Lily smiled into her lap. “I know the feeling.”
“This thing with him flying back and forth won’t stop anytime soon, right?”
She shook her head, looking almost solemn.
“It might only get worse if he expands?” I said gently.
Her answer was a sigh. Colt had opened up a hip kind of barbershop in California, and it had been so successful, he’d added a second shop a half hour up the coast. Like the first, it had also done well, and I’d heard rumor that he was planning to add a few more in the next year. Of course Garth and Jesse’s commentary didn’t end for a solid week when they found out about pretty boy Colt Mason opening up a posh barbershop in southern California—it was like the best kind of irony for them. The jokes were still coming, although the original ones had gotten old. The newest ones circled around Colt expanding into tanning salons.
I respected Colt for wanting to make it on his own and not rely on his dad’s money and name as his other brothers seemed content to do. Sure, the barbershop thing was kind of hilarious given how pristine Colt’s hair always was, but hey, he knew hair and was clearly passionate about it. I say the more power to him. “So what are you going to do if he has to, like, officially move back to California to run his barbershop empire?”
Lily’s gaze cut in my direction.
“I wasn’t making fun. Promise. Totally serious.”
She’d taken enough crap from her brother and brother’s best friend to be a little sensitive about the word barbershop. “I’m going to cry. A lot.” She wrung her hands in her lap. “And then I’ll get on with life because what else can we do?”
“We can pack our bags and fly out to join the man we love for a long weekend.”
“Yeah, I’m sure my parents and Jesse would just love that. They’d probably require I have my own room on an opposite wing of the house, and they’d fit me with one of those cameras on top of my head so they could monitor every little thing said and done.”
I patted her knee. Romantic life was rough for the oldest daughter of an old-fashioned rancher. “Good thing your facial structure would really complement a camera wrapped around your forehead.”
She laughed with me for a moment, then it looked like she was about to cry.
“Lily?” I squeezed her knee.
She ran her fingers through her hair. “You can’t choose who you fall in love with, you know? If you could, Colt Mason would have been at the bottom of my list. My brother hates him, along with just about all of my other guy friends—”
“Jesse doesn’t hate him,” I interrupted. “He just doesn’t like the idea of him being your boyfriend. Not that he’d like the idea of any other guy being your boyfriend any better . . . and your guy friends don’t like him because they wish they’d have worked up the courage to ask you out before Colt did.”
She gave a small huff. “Well, of course. Who wouldn’t want to go out with me?”
“The only guy who wouldn’t want to go out with you is the kind who likes his girls as vapid as he likes them shallow.”
Lily shifted, as expected. Compliments were like enduring torture for her. “So put Jesse and my friends aside, but there are only a half million more reasons Colt and I shouldn’t be together.”
“Like what?” It was my turn to shift when Baby Sterling-Walker decided to give me a solid kick to the belly button. He was getting strong. So strong, some kicks felt as if they were close to popping right through my skin.
“Like that he’s older than me.”
“Seems like a big deal now, won’t even matter in another five years.”
“He comes from a rich family who made their fortune making movies, not working the land, which is kind of sacrilegious out here.”
I shook my head. “They earned their money working hard, just like everyone else out here has. Don’t let the details muddy the waters.”
“People think he’s conceited and too good for me and is only into me because he wants to be the one to . . . you know . . .” If I didn’t know before, her reddening face filled in the dot, dot, dot.
“Here’s my mantra, Lily. One of them at least. Hold it close.” I rolled onto my side so I could look at her straight on. “People suck. Big time and most of the time. Who gives a crap what a bunch of people are saying? People are going to talk, and they’re going to talk shit. Don’t let a bunch of shit talkers keep you from doing what you want and loving the people you want.”
Lily watched me for a moment. Then she blinked. “People suck,” she said slowly, as if she were tasting the words, testing them.
“You just think that, say that, or scream that the next time you start to let people’s opinions on you and Colt get to you, okay?”
Her smile crept up on one side. “I think I can do that.”
“Good.” I fired off a wink and took another drink of my coffee. “You can’t choose who you fall in love with, that’s true. If we did, I??
?d probably be on some roller coaster of a relationship with some emo rocker guy who wears eyeliner and reads dark poetry but doesn’t understand a lick of it and has a time limit of two minutes when it comes to making love.”
Lily laughed, and I couldn’t help laughing too. I’d dated a string of those types of guys before marrying a wholesome cowboy from Montana. Destiny’s a funny thing.
“Speaking of people you can’t choose in your life . . .” Lily bit the corner of her lip. “Mothers fall into that category too.”
My eyebrows pinched together. I thought she was talking about Rose, who was the dream when it came to moms of teenage girls. Only a few moments later, I realized it wasn’t her mom she was talking about. It was mine.
“I’m not disagreeing, but I’m curious where you’re taking this,” I said, feeling the hairs on my arms rise from just thinking about the mother I hadn’t seen since that summer when she’d brought that scum of a guy back into her and my life.
“I’m just saying that I’m here if you ever need to talk about it, you know?” she said, picking each word carefully. “It’s got to be hard being pregnant, about to become a mom yourself, and not have any contact with yours.”
“It would be harder if I did have contact with her, trust me.”
Lily nodded, back to staring at her lap. “Have you been able to get in touch with any of your other family? You know, to invite them to the baby shower if you want?”
I swallowed. “There isn’t any other family, not in the sense I’ve learned from you all what family really is.” Damn hormones were making my eyes burn with tears I could feel just waiting to be released. “I’ve got my family. Right here. The others might share the same kind of blood as me, but they wouldn’t bleed for me the way this family would. The way I’d bleed for this family.”
She took my hand and shared a smile. “So you won’t be upset if your blood family isn’t at the shower? Or part of your baby’s life?”