Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
KARL
My mom has had Nancy in the kitchen with her for the last twenty minutes while my dad peppers me with questions.
He can’t seem to wrap his head around the fact we just met.
He’s extra impressed that I managed to fall for someone, convince her to marry me, actually get married, and come home with the grand champion and reserve champion cows.
In short, he’s amazed by just how productive I’ve been.
“What did her parents have to say?”
I stare back at him, not sure what to say. No matter how they acted, they are still her family. I’m not sure where to start exactly. “They, um…” I stall, trying to choose my words carefully.
“My mother is appalled, and I’m sure my sister feels the same way,” Nancy interjects as she walks in and sits next to me, her hand instantly going to my thigh.
“Well, you can’t exactly blame them.” My dad chuckles. “It’s a major thing you two did.”
“It is,” Nancy agrees. “But, if I’d walked up to them with, say”—she looks up at the ceiling, thinking—“Scott Underwood, they would have thrown a party.”
Dad blinks back slowly. “Who?”
Nancy laughs. “He’s Canada’s top show jumper and my mother’s best student.”
“They must be blind. Look at him.” Mom gestures toward me after setting down a tray piled high with her first round of holiday bakes. She no doubt sent Mrs. Morgan home with a tin of goodies.
“They are… particular.” She looks at me, her eyes trailing around my face, pausing briefly when they meet mine. I can’t believe I get to spend the rest of my life looking into those eyes. “And Scott Underwood’s got nothing on this guy.” She turns to my parents and nudges me with her elbow.
“So,” Dad begins, leaning forward to put a couple of pecan snowballs on a napkin. “How did this come to be exactly? I know we seem all calm, cool, and collected, but I think we’re both still in shock.”
“She stepped in Daisy’s shit,” I disclose nonchalantly as if it’s the most logical way to meet the person you married.
“And what? That’s some automatic proposal to your generation?” Mom asks, her voice laced with both concern and humor.
“Well, to be fair, I was kind of a bi—not a very nice person.”
“Oh, she was fiery right from the jump. Looked at me as if I was the shit she’d stepped in.” Nancy looks over at me like she wants to disappear. “She did come back later to apologize, though. Stormed through the barn and ran right into me. We ended up covered in Matt’s rosti and her coffee.”
“Our early interactions were excessively messy,” Nancy chimes in. “Lots of stained clothing and shoes to start this relationship off with.”
“A classic foundation for a marriage,” Dad deadpans.
We spend the next while telling them about the rest of the week, including Nancy’s dress and the interaction with her mother. My mom is appalled that our first meal as man and wife was at The Flying Saucer and has vowed to make us a proper dinner to celebrate, even if it’s just for the two of us.
At some point Matt and Dad head out, and Mom insists I give Nancy a full tour of the house and farm.
“Is this where we’re sleeping tonight?” Nancy asks as she walks slowly around my room, her fingertips brushing old books and various trinkets from my youth. Things that feel incredibly childish now that my wife is in here with me.
My wife.
I look over at my double bed and wince. It’s not exactly a bed a newlywed would want to share while sleeping down the hall from his parents.
“It may be our only option until the cottage is less dusty. We could always sleep in the trailer, though.” I expect her to shake her head, but she shrugs and crosses the room toward me.
“I don’t care where I lay my head, as long as it’s beside yours.”
“Golly, how’d I get so lucky?”
“Persistence, I think,” she purrs against my lips, and the next thing I know, we’re falling onto the bed, which announces to anyone within a three-mile radius that we have arrived.
Nancy ends up on her back laughing hysterically, the bed squeaking incessantly with every move either of us makes.
“How did you sleep in here?” she asks, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Like the dead,” I say, rolling so I’m on top of her. “This job is exhausting. I sleep like the dead.”
She runs her finger down my chest, stopping at my belt. “So I shouldn’t expect much when you get home?” Her hand falls to her side, and she tilts her head.
“I think I’ll end up getting a second wind after work now.” I drop to kiss her, but the minute she moves, the bed sounds the alarm again, and I pull back, standing and offering her my hand. “Come on, there’s a lot more to see.”
Before we make it to the door, however, she’s tugging me back.
“Would you look at that,” she drawls, dropping my hand and walking to where a cowboy hat hangs on the wall.
She slips it off the nail and studies it, slowly turning back to me.
“Have I been riding a cowboy?” She grins, raising the hat and setting it atop her head.
My aunt bought Matt and me hats when we went out west to their ranch a couple of years ago.
They’re proper ranchers, the kind who ride horses and drive cattle and get excited about the rodeo.
I wore it around their ranch for a week, but it has hung on the wall ever since I got home.
Seeing Nancy in it, though, goddamn, I may need to stick it in a box when I pack to move into the cottage.
“Hmmm,” I hum, approaching my wife, who looks up at me, her eyes just visible under the brim.
The hat suddenly seems like a particularly good investment.
I should send my aunt a thank-you letter immediately.
“I believe in cowboy law, this means you’re mine.
” I tip her chin up so I can see her whole face. “No going back now.”
“Were you planning on going back?” she asks innocently.
“Not a chance, darlin’,” I drawl in my best cowboy accent before dropping my lips to hers, pulling off the hat and hanging it back on the wall in the process. “Can’t wear that right now, or we’ll never finish the tour.”
“It’s so…” Nancy trails off as she comes to a stop in the middle of the back pasture. “Quiet.”
Her warm breath clouds the air between us as she closes her eyes and inhales deeply. I resist the urge to ask a question for about half a minute, choosing to let her enjoy the silence for a few more seconds.
“Isn’t it quiet on your farm?”
Her blue eyes meet mine, her mouth twisting as she thinks.
“It is,” she says slowly. “But this is different. There’s a stillness here that I didn’t grow up with.
” She reaches out and takes both my hands in hers.
“I’m excited that I get to grow old here.
” Her grip disappears from my hands, and her gloved fingers slide into my hair.
“With you,” she whispers against my lips.
I slip my arms around her waist and pull her harder against me, my body instantly responding to having her so close, away from prying eyes and ears.
There is a desperation in the way she’s kissing me, like she’s running out of time, and I’m stuck somewhere between wanting to run out the clock with her and wanting to slow it down.
My body seems to make the decision for me because within seconds I’m sinking to the snowy ground, pulling her down with me until she’s straddling my waist, her lips still firmly against mine.
She rolls her hips and laughs softly when I groan, raising mine to meet her.
The intelligent part of my brain is screaming at me to get up and get somewhere warm, but the caveman part is grunting enthusiastically to keep doing this because it feels good.
Almost too good. The sudden thought of coming in my pants in the middle of the cow pasture in negative five is what finally has me seeing sense.
“Nancy,” I stutter. “Dearest.”
She pulls back half an inch. “Hmm?’ she hums, eyes dangerously lust-filled.
“You’re going to make me make a mess if you keep doing that.”
“Doing what?” she asks innocently while she sits up straight, rocking her hips, making me gasp and grab her waist to hold her still.
“You know exactly what,” I grit out between deep, slow breaths.
She pouts down at me, but I see a glint of mischievousness in her eye, and I’m momentarily filled with fear right before I get a snow facial.
Her laugh cuts the silence as she jumps up and runs toward the house.
In my head I jump up and run after her, catching her in a matter of strides.
But running with an erection proves harder than I had anticipated, and it takes several deep breaths once I’m on my feet before I can even think about doing more than a slow walk.
When I manage to move, I quickly realize something else: I married Donovan Bailey.