Chapter 11 #2
Yeah, Mitch had been around the rodeo enough to know what that meant. And he had a friend who did cutting horses, too, back in the day. They’d moved on now, but that didn’t mean he still didn’t know from horses.
“I’ll make sure we figure out how to impress that on her.” He told Cam, “I don’t want to end up with her getting kicked or worse.”
“Good man. So whose birthday is next, man?” Cam was still kinda pumped about Rachel’s birthday. It had gone over well.
He’d been pretty damn excited himself. He’d gotten the bike, they’d had most of Cam’s family over, and she’d had a couple dozen presents to open.
It had been an amazing day.
“Sarah is next. She’s an October baby.”
“Oh, now. That’ll be a whole different ball of wax.”
“Right? She’s not going to be one for a lot of people coming over.”
How surreal was it that Cam had only been around such a short time, but they were planning another of his girls’ birthdays together?
And he liked it.
Cam chuckled. “Maybe we could take her and Teresa on a day trip.”
“That might be nice, actually. Like take her someplace and let her have an experience.” And he could mostly afford it now, thanks to Mark, and Cam liked to help with things like food and gas and shit.
He noticed Cam didn’t ask how he’d did it with the money stuff, and that was a salve to his pride.
“Cool. We could run to Sand Dunes, maybe. Or to Taos. It’s not that far, and it’s got some sweet little shops and all.”
“And some fun stuff to eat, a bunch of ghost tours, and she’s fascinated by the idea of the Taos Hum.
Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.” He liked it.
And by then he should be able to walk around and not collapse from the effort.
He was getting better every day. That surgery had been the thing he needed, dammit.
“Oh man, the Hum! I bet she would love that! You think she would say she could hear it even if she couldn’t?”
He snorted. “She would just sit there and listen until she heard it. If she doesn’t hear it, one of us is going to stand behind her and hum a lot just so that she’ll not be disappointed.”
Cam started to laugh. “Now, I have to tell you, I can see that. We’d have to hire some old man to just kind of stay about six feet behind her going hmm-hmm-hmm.”
“Oh, hell no.” That was way too much work. “We’d just get us one of the recorder things and just play it behind her back the whole time.”
Cam’s eyes lit up. “You are one smart son of a bitch.”
“Dude, these kids are all three smarter than me. I have to stay on my toes.”
They started laughing together, and it felt so good to just be fucking happy.
Cam had brought happiness back to the house.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t reasonable.
But it was amazing.
When they eased back down, they panted together. “Lori says she’ll bring the girls home after their meeting; are they excited?” Cam asked.
“Rebekka is, but she’s pretending not to be. Sarah is not, but she’s trying to pretend she is because she has a friend now, and her mom is a leader. Rachel’s just excited that there’s such a thing as going to hang with other girls. She has no idea what it means. None.”
As far as Rachel was concerned, there was a uniform involved and badges. That was enough.
Lori had given the girls each a vest so they could have their first meeting with their uniform that had their troop numbers on it. It was kind of adorable.
There was one blue vest, one brown vest, and one green vest for his three girls.
Cam chuckled again. “Yeah, that’s one thing about my family—they’re joiners. They do like all the things, 4-H, rodeo club. I think that Diana actually started the robotics club at the high school.”
“Isn’t that what Susan is into now? Engineering?”
Cam nodded. “Those two are eighteen years apart, exactly. Susan was born on Diana’s eighteenth birthday, and they are two peas in a pod.”
“It’s wild.” Mitch wasn’t sure he was jealous that Cam had so many brothers and sisters or incredibly grateful he didn’t have any. He wasn’t sure what to think about such a big family.
Of course, he’d wound up with three kids, which he wasn’t sure had even been the plan.
He and Allison had never been good at actual planning. They’d just gone with things.
He rubbed his breastbone a little, because that still caused an ache in his chest, thinking about all she was missing.
“You okay, man?”
The question shocked him out of his thoughts enough that he just told the truth. “Yeah, I was just thinking about Allison.”
One of Cam’s eyebrows quirked. “I couldn’t believe it when they said you were getting married and having babies…”
“I couldn’t believe it, either. It wasn’t in the plan, really, but I was just thinking about the fact that she and I weren’t big planners. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I loved her. I loved her dearly. She was an amazing woman, but I hadn’t planned on having a family.”
“Did she want kids?”
He nodded. “She did. I don’t think that she wanted them at the age we started, and we didn’t plan the last one.
We didn’t really plan Sarah, but we weren’t trying not to have a baby either.
That was in our we’re-just-going-to-see-what-happens-and-let-God-take-it phase.
It stopped immediately after we found out that we were pregnant with Sarah. ”
He started laughing, the sound half humor, half hurt.
“And then we absolutely were not intending little Rachel. We were already having money problems, and she was talking about going to nursing school. I was thinking about starting up my roofing business on my own, and you know… what is that old saying? When man makes plans, God laughs? God was cracking his shit up when we were doing that.”
“Yeah, and then you…and she didn’t…” Cam’s cheeks were bright red, and he was stammering.
“She had a stroke. She had an aneurysm when she was about seven and a half months along. There was nothing I could do.” He’d come out of the barn to the sound of Bekka’s hysterical screams, her pleas for her momma to wake up.
He’d never heard fear like that before, but he heard it over and over again, when he dreamed about that day.
“She was dead before the EMTs got here. So they did an emergency cesarean. Thank God Rachel was hale and whole.”
She had cared about him enough to not make him have to choose to turn off the machines. She’d taken that out of the mix, saving him that guilt of having to admit, even to himself and the good Lord above that he’d chosen to kill his wife.
“Jesus, but obviously Rachel is fine?”
He nodded, blowing out a hard breath. “Yeah, she was fully cooked. She didn’t have to stay in NICU or anything. She was a perfectly healthy six-pound baby girl. She came home the day after she was born, and I held her at her momma’s funeral.”
“You’re the strongest fucking man I’ve ever met.” Cam sat there, shaking his head. “I think I might have just laid down and died.”
Mitch lifted one hand out of the water and let it fall back down with a splash.
“Maybe. If I hadn’t had my babies. But I had babies.
I had a six-year-old, a three-year-old, and a brand-new infant, and they needed me more than I needed to not deal.
I can’t tell you I’m a good dad, but I can tell you I try and that I love them more than is reasonable. ”
“Shit, man, you’re a great father, and I should know, because I have a pretty damn good father.
Now, I have a pretty damn good father who has more children than is reasonable, and a mother who is the bossiest hen in the entire roost. My parents love us and I don’t think either one of them could have done as good a job as you’re doing.
I think you’re a fucking hero, and I know without a shadow of a doubt you are those girls’ hero. ”
“If I can’t be anything else, I can be that.”
“You know it.” Cam sat there for a while so he could bubble, both of them lost in their thoughts.
Then Javvy came in, grinning. “All right, prune dude. Time to come out.”
He stood, but he was like a noodle, and Cam came to help Javvy get him safely out. Something about being all wet and slippery and mostly naked with Cam touching him was threating to make him spring wood.
That would be embarrassing.
Not because of Cam. Not even a little bit. But because what he and Cam had, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it wasn’t for public consumption. Their feelings weren’t that strong yet, their connection wasn’t that real. It was a whisper, a promise from a ghost.
God, he sounded like one of Sarah’s books.
“You got this, man?” Javier asked. “I mean, you’re still a little shaky.”
“I can get dressed. I know you’ve got another client. Cam’s here; he’ll help me get to the truck.”
“Totally. We’ll just get dressed and head out the side door. I’m parked over there anyway.”
Javier headed out, and that left them again, standing there, Cam holding him up as he shivered, a towel around his waist.
“I need you to get dressed, man.” Cam met his gaze, the green eyes reminding him of clover, of summer. “Because that’s a lot of skin to ask me to keep my hands off of. You get me?”
“I do. I really do.” He wanted to spend hours just finding new things that he’d forgotten.
“I’m tickled as all get-out. Now please get dressed.” Cam chuckled and winked at him. “By the time you do, I’ll be able to walk out of here without trying to look like I got a log stuck in my jeans.”
“Listen to you. A log. I do like a man who knows his uh…” He searched for the word. “Attributes.”
Cam’s eyes went wide. “Did you learn that one from your daughter?”
“We don’t get to talk about the children and your particular log in the same sentence. New rule.” He was chuckling now, though, and he managed to drag on his shirt. “Turn your back.”
Cam’s lips parted. “What? You can’t be serious! You’re not going to let me look?”
He thought about it for about a quarter of a second, and then he dropped his shorts.
It wasn’t as if Cam hadn’t seen it. Not ten years ago and not now.
He wasn’t hung like a bull moose or anything, but he had a cock, and it worked. He worked for a living, and he thought that it was obvious, especially now when he didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.
Cam, gave him a slow, lazy up and down. “You’re awful pretty.”
“I’d say I’ve worked for it, but I haven’t.” He shrugged one shoulder and put the towel on the bench so he could sit to get his drawers and his clean jeans on. “Still, I’m glad to hear it. It feels good.”
“A lot about this feels good.” Cam shook his head. “I don’t understand it. Not a bit. But it’s true. A lot about being here with you feels good.”
“Should I apologize?” He wasn’t being an asshole. It was an honest question. He didn’t know.
“Would you be mad at me if I admit I’m not sure? I feel like…shit. I don’t know, honey. I didn’t want to come here, and the more that I stay, the harder it’s going to be to go. But I want to be here with you right now.”
He got that, but… “Just remember, there’s three little girls, and at some point, someone’s gonna ask a question.
” He met Cam’s gaze again, and it was killing him because he knew this was probably a deal-breaker.
But he was a daddy first. Right? “At some point, we’ll have to figure out what we’re going to say. ”
“I know.” Cam nodded, his expression completely serious. “And I wouldn’t hurt those little girls for all the world either. I don’t want them to get attached if I’m just going to up and leave again. You know that.”
“I do know that.”
Cam was a brother and an uncle, and he loved kids even if he hadn’t really known what to do with Mitch’s when he’d first showed up.
He was getting better at that, and it made Mitch smile, but he knew his girls would be sad when Cam left no matter what time of the year it was now, because they had gotten used to having him around.
Sometimes it was about letting them down easy. So if Cam was going to ride off into the sunset, he probably needed to do it sooner rather than later.
As a parent, he had found out that managing expectations was a goodly bit of his job.
Mitch took a deep breath, then let it out. “You know I trust you with them as far as watching over them and trying not to hurt their little hearts, but it can happen. They already really like you.”
“So yeah, that enters into everything.” Cam helped him get his shirt on. His pants he had managed, but his shirt felt like a stretch too far today, that whole pushing back thing with his arms was harsh. He should remember to wear a pullover when he came to physical therapy.
Cam turned him around, hands on his upper arms, and put a kiss right in the center of his forehead. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to explore this.”
Lord, his heart was just hammering. He felt as if he might fall over. He was so lightheaded. “Duly noted. But we should probably get out of here so Javier and his next client don’t have to see any of this, right?”
“Fair enough.” Cam helped him slide into his shoes. He had learned not to wear his boots when he was going to be wrung out like a dishcloth. Then he gathered up his shit and got him moving for the door.
Thank God Cam was here, because Mitch wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to make it home after a session like this without some help. Not to mention, it was good to have Cam there, period.
His girls weren’t the only ones who were getting used to having the man around.