Reaching Little Robyn (Littles of Rawhide Ranch #8)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Moira

“I swear, if I eat another single bite, I’m gonna pop!”

Moira smiled at the exaggerated groan Sadie gave while rubbing her hands across her belly. The smile turned into a laugh and a shake of her head when Derek reached into the picnic basket at his side and pulled out a huge chocolate-chip cookie and his Little wife made a grab for it.

“Hey, gimme!” she squealed as Derek easily kept the treat out of Sadie’s reach, standing when she did and laughing as she bounced around him like an excited puppy.

“Can’t have you popping, now can we?” Derek asked, taking a bite of the cookie.

Sadie’s shocked expression had the rest of the group laughing, but when the small brunette made as if to kick her Daddy’s shin, the sound of four people all inhaling deeply at the same time was actually audible.

“Uh-oh,” Moira said when Sadie realized what she’d come within a hairsbreadth of doing and wisely forgot all about cookies and turned her attention on making the raised eyebrow of Derek Hawkins lower.

“Oopsie!”

“ Oopsie?” Derek repeated. “Is that really the word you want to use, angel?”

“Sorry?”

Moira stifled a laugh. The word sounded far more like it was being auditioned rather than being used to offer a heartfelt apology. Evidently, Derek thought so as well as he shook his head. All it took was for him to lift his boot from the ground to have Sadie squealing and taking off in the opposite direction, her Daddy right on her heels.

The friends watched as the owner of Rawhide Ranch chased his wife across the grass. Sadie’s squeals and giggles rang out as Derek’s far deeper tone calmly informed her of what happened to Little girls who forgot their manners.

“You’ve got to catch me first!” Sadie yelled, feinting to her left then dodging to the right and ducking under Derek’s arm before racing away again.

“Think she has a chance?” Jayne asked from where she was sitting opposite Moira.

“Nope.”

Jagger’s response was given with an assurance that had Moira’s bottom clenching at the memory of how her husband offered his own lessons on etiquette, usually delivered with the flat of his palm against the globes of her bare butt.

“I’ve missed this,” Moira said wistfully.

“Missed what? Getting your booty busted?” Jayne asked with a smile as she returned her sandwich to her plate and picked up a pickle spear, using it to point at Jagger. “Sounds like someone might be doing too much Daddying while forgetting his Dommie duties.”

“Jayne!” Moira gasped, darting a glance between the two.

“Don’t Jayne me, little girl.” Jayne bit into the pickle with a force that somehow managed to emphasize her words. “Or are you forgetting that I’m not only your friend, but a Domme in my own right?”

“No, Ma’am, I don’t think there’s a soul who’s ever met you that could forget what a great friend and Domme you are. But I can also assure you that Jagger hasn’t skirted any of his Dommie duties either.” She giggled at the look on her husband’s face. Jagger had come a long way since she’d met him. Granted, their meeting hadn’t been under the best of circumstances since he’d been recovering from a bad fall from his horse.

The day she’d been assigned as his physical therapist had changed her entire life. Despite the fact he’d constantly griped he didn’t need her help, she’d been persistent in teaching him he was wrong. Patience trumped orneriness and he’d finally decided he not only needed her help, it turned out that he needed her in his life forever. Since then, he’d gone from being a grumpy patient to become her husband, Daddy Dom, and the father of their children.

“I meant I miss all this.” Moira waved her arms wide to encompass their surroundings. “The six of us getting away from ranch work and just having fun. It makes me feel, I don’t know, free, I suppose you could call it

Jayne, the remainder of her pickle spear halfway to her lips, looked across the red and black-checkered blanket they had spread over the grass to serve as their picnic table. “I’d love to say something profound and meaningful, but did you ever stop to think that feeling of lacking freedom might lay at the feet of those two adorable babies you and Jagger brought into this world?”

Moira smiled, but when her hand lifted to her cheek, it was her husband who responded.

“Now you’ve gone and done it.” He reached for his wife and easily pulled her onto his lap.

“Done what? I didn’t mean to make her cry. All I did was state you two make awful cute kids.” Pickle forgotten, Jayne was drawn to another hand as her husband Moses’ fingers danced in the air.

Though deaf, Moses was not only fluent in sign language, his ability to communicate went far deeper in that he read more than a person’s lips. He saw words left unspoken in the expressions on a face, the tension in one’s body, the softness of a smile and the emotion seen in the depths of a pair of eyes.

Jayne translated the words his hands and fingers spoke.

“You’ve done nothing wrong, Hears With Her Heart,” Moses signed, using the name he’d given her in a hidden cavern on this same mountain. “You just made a mother remember her babies aren’t at her side.”

“Stuck to her like glue is more like it.” Jagger chuckled when his wife slapped at his chest. “Can you tell me that’s not true?” he asked, capturing her hand and kissing her fingers before dropping their clasped hands to her lap. “When was the last time we all got together without little ones running amok or trying to climb up our bodies like the little monkeys they are?”

At a giggle, they looked to see Derek unceremoniously dump his wife off his shoulder and back onto the blanket. “I think you might need to clarify that statement, my friend.”

Jagger sent the couple to his left a look. “Which part? The fact that I’m not talking about the Littles here or climbing all over us?”

“More importantly, how on earth did that cookie survive all that running around?” Moira asked.

Sadie laughed and lifted the mostly intact cookie in the air. “Guess Daddy’s magic extends beyond the Ranch’s boundaries.”

“Thought you said you were gonna pop?” Jayne gave the Little a look that had Moira instantly picture Jayne as the Nanny J every single Little who’d ever stepped foot on Rawhide Ranch property both loved and feared a bit.

“Daddy made sure I burned off enough calories to make room for a cookie,” Sadie said with a giggle as she took a huge bite.

“What she means is that her Daddy made sure more than calories were bur… Moses?”

The change in tone from humor to total authority in Derek’s voice had everyone turning their attention to Moses. The man’s hands were no longer dancing, but one was raised, effectively cutting Derek’s words off mid-sentence.

“What is it?” Jagger asked as Moses stood. Moira found herself rising as well when her husband got to his feet, still secure in his arms before he set her down beside him.

“Is something wrong?” Sadie asked, looking between her husband and Moses, the man she considered her big brother.

Moses didn’t look at her, his focus on the land spread out before them. It was another several moments before Jagger’s head turned a fraction and understanding dawned.

“Stampede,” he stated decisively.

“What? Where?” Moira asked, looking around, half expecting to see a herd of cattle racing toward their group. Instead, all she saw were the horses they’d ridden up the mountain on. Horses that had all lifted their heads from where they’d been grazing, each pair of ears at attention as if sensing danger. “Jagger?—”

“Look!”

Moira turned at Sadie’s shout and followed her pointed finger.

“Go!”

The shout came from Jayne but was unnecessary as all three men were already halfway to their horses.

“Stay here!” Derek shouted, his foot in the stirrup as he swung himself up onto Bolt’s back.

Jagger hit the saddle of his blond mare, Star, at the same time Moses flung himself onto Thunder’s back.

A dance.

The word didn’t fit and yet Moira knew that it did. The fluidity of movements, the precise steps and leaps taken as the three men mounted and turned their horses on a dime might not have been choreographed by a director or performed on any stage, but they were definitely steps of a dance practically bred into the men’s DNA. She watched as the trio reached a gallop within seconds of seeing what had brought Moses to his feet before anyone else had a clue as to what was about to unfold.

“Moira!” Sadie called as Moira grabbed Cha-Cha’s reins, releasing the loose knot she’d tied to a branch with nothing more than a flick of her wrist. “Daddy said stay here.”

“You can stay and finish that cookie,” Jayne said, already following Moira’s lead by mounting Magic.

“And miss the fun? No way!” Sadie shoved the remainder of the chocolate-chip cookie into her mouth as she climbed onto the last horse’s back. “Come on, Snickers, let’s show these cowboys how girls ride!”

“You do understand that we’re talking about helping them, not riding them, right?” Moira asked, causing what sounded suspiciously like a snort to come from Jayne.

The sound of Sadie’s giggle came from over her shoulder as she took off, shouting, “Yippie-ki-ya!”

With that, Moira followed her friends as they tore off after the men and toward the stampede, not of cattle, but of horses. Wild, beautiful horses who had stormed over a ridge of the mountain and were even now racing across the plateau’s flat top.