3. Emily
3
EMILY
I wake up the next morning to the sound of tiny feet tiptoeing across the wooden floor of the small cabin. I look over at Logan. Of course, he’s sleeping soundly because he can’t hear a thing. It was startling when we first started sharing a bed—kind of freeing that I could make all the noise I wanted without having to worry about waking him. He takes his processor off, and then nothing can disturb him. When we’re at home, he has an appliance that connects to his watch set to pick up baby cries, and it will vibrate and alert him if one of the kids wakes up. He doesn’t have it on now. It usually picks up the sounds from the baby monitor.
I hear Kit shush the smaller kids. I glance at the window. The sun is barely up. I get up, though, get dressed quickly, and pull my hair up into a messy bun on top of my head. I slip on a pair of flip-flops and walk into the living room to find all my kids staring longingly out the front window toward the lake.
“What are you all doing?” I ask quietly, even though I know Logan is the only one sleeping, and I won’t disturb him.
Kit has our youngest, Jimi, perched on her hip. He hops up and down and points out the window. I walk over and look out to find a big red tractor rolling slowly down the lane. It’s pulling a row of small train cars, but only when I look closer do I see that they’re not train cars at all. They look like the oil barrels you might find behind restaurants in the city, only they have been cut to turn them into train cars. The edges have been reinforced and made safe, seats have been added, and they have been painted in bright colors. Each one has wheels, and the front of each one has a hitch to connect it to the one before it.
“Can we go see, Mom?” Kit asks. I don’t know when she moved from calling me Mommy to calling me Mom, and I’m not sure I like it.
I open the door and incline my head, and they all shoot past me in one big whoosh. They run with their little feet bare. I don’t think any of them have had shoes on since we got here. Gabby says that’s normal at the lake. When they get close to the tractor, Mr. Jacobson stops and glares at them, and I see them all take a step back. The man is a formidable presence on a good day, much less an early morning.
“Why are you up?” he asks brusquely. He gets off the tractor and walks toward the little cars, checking the straps and seat belts.
“They wanted to see the tractor, I think,” I say. To be honest, Mr. Jacobson intimidates me. He’s a mix of fierceness and softness, and I never can tell which one I’m going to get. “I’ll take them back to the cabin if they’re bothering you.”
“I could use a tester. Never pulled this thing before,” Mr. Jacobson says gruffly, his voice little more than a rumble.
All the kids look at me, their faces glowing with excitement. “Can we?” Kit asks.
I look at Mr. Jacobson. “You want to take them for a ride?” I ask.
“Well, it won’t help me any if they just sit and stare at it,” he remarks absently.
“Pop,” I hear Jake warn. “Don’t be a dick,” he hisses at him.
I hadn’t even seen Jake on the other side of the tractor.
“Don’t call me a dick, and I won’t be a dick,” Mr. Jacobson tosses back.
I hear Jake growl, which makes me laugh.
“Well, are you getting in or what?” Mr. Jacobson asks.
All the kids scramble to get into the carts, and Kit carries Jimi with her, buckling him into a tiny baby seat next to her. Suddenly, Katie’s smallest kids run up, too. They climb into the other carts until all the carts are filled with two to three kids each.
When they’re all buckled, Mr. Jacobson says, “All aboard!” Then he blows a train whistle, engages the gears on the tractor, and off they go. He heads down a long path.
Katie walks up next to me. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s been dying to take that thing out ever since he bought it. One of his friends made it just for him. My kids have been itching to ride it, but Pop made them wait until this morning.” She laughs. “I think it was just as hard for Pop to wait.” She glances down at her watch. “They’ll be about thirty minutes if you have something you want to do.” She waggles her eyebrows at me. “Or somebody,” she mutters with a laugh.
My face gets hot. “What about the kids?” I ask.
Just then, I see Jake running after the train cars. He runs, cursing up a storm, which makes all the kids giggle. He hops into the last train car just before it disappears out of sight.
“Jake’s with them,” she says. “They’ll be fine. They’re probably going to go down to the old haunted house, around to the cemetery, and then back around to the old section of the lake that we don’t use anymore. That’s where the ducks hang out in the mornings. They might even get to see a deer or two and maybe a wild turkey.”
“I probably should have gone with them.” I nibble on a fingernail as I stare toward where they disappeared.
“Pop may look like a grump, but he loves the kids. Teenagers, not so much, but he loves the little ones. They’ll be fine.” She glances down at her watch again. “You’re down to twenty-eight minutes,” she says with a grin.
“If you insist,” I say.
It’s rare to get a moment alone with Logan. We love having kids—along with everybody else’s kids—but we also like a quiet moment alone.
I go back inside, slip my flip-flops off at the door, and take off my clothes. When I’m naked, I get into bed with Logan, sliding close. He reaches for me instinctually. “Why are you cold?” he asks. He opens his eyes so he can see me sign. “I was outside with the kids,” I say. “They went for a train ride with Mr. Jacobson.” I scoot a little closer and kiss his naked shoulder. He pulls my leg over his hip. “We have about twenty-six minutes before they’ll be back.”
“It’ll only take me five,” he says. He grabs my butt to jerk me closer, feeling around when he realizes that I don’t have anything on.
I tap his shoulder so he’ll look up. “But what about me?” I ask.
“Okay, you can have five minutes too,” he says. He shucks off his boxers, and then he rolls me onto my back, and his head dips below the covers. We use the twenty-six minutes very productively, mostly with me clutching the sheets and begging him to hurry up, to not stop, and then to please ease up just a little. When he settles his hips between my thighs, I’m so sensitive that I can’t keep from coming apart again.
I heard the crunch of tractor tires on gravel and the low blow of the train whistle. I lift off my elbows where I’ve been resting on his chest. “Where are you going?” he asks.
“The kids are back,” I say. He shoves me back toward the bed without a word.
“I’ll get them,” he says, as he puts on a pair of shorts and pulls a t-shirt over his head. I watch as his tattoos disappear. “You take a break. Or a shower. I might have gotten you messy.” He grins, puts his processor on, and goes out the front door.
I lie there, staring at the ceiling. It all started that one night when I was cold. We ate pie, and he spoke to me. And my life has been nothing but warm ever since.
Instead of lying there, I get up, shower, put on a swimsuit, and get ready to start the day.