Chapter 11
Ville
There were things in life I had thought I’d never, ever do and this was one of those.
I was talking to the gate install guy on the far edge of the yard where the driveway started.
We weren’t on the driveway, because people were still driving in and out with Jenn arriving home soon and her friends descending already.
The biggest reason for needing to be extra safe was currently making baby noises in the carrier strapped to my chest.
“When did you start procreating?” Lombardi asked, smirking a little. He’d been on the property for all of five minutes, not commenting on the baby as we played a game of chicken with who would mention the tiny interloper first.
I rolled my eyes. “This is Emerson Harrington,” I introduced the little boy who clapped his hands at his name, or something else, who knew with babies.
“His grandma is on the way home from the hospital and it’s all hands on deck as they dash around cleaning the house a bit more.
His twin is with his uncle Crew this morning. ”
Lombardi was a friend of mine who worked from The Springs. I hadn’t even known he was in Colorado before I’d called him for referrals. I’d still thought he was in Seattle.
“So how are you here?” I asked as I leaned to the side of his SUV as he did something on his tablet.
“Colorado?” At my affirmative hum, he chuckled.
“I got so damn tired of close protection. We had a family meeting and everyone said okay. Relocating was easy because the kids are so small. You know Ramon and Monica work from home and Etta was pregnant with our youngest at that point and in between jobs. What she really wanted to be was a stay at home mom anyway.”
“How many kids do you guys have now?” I had lost count, especially because while they didn’t differentiate, with two men and two women in the same poly family, the connections were hazy to me.
“Four. Monica is pregnant though. So it’ll be five soon. We’re leaving it at that. Ramon and I both got snipped in March and let the ladies pamper us and throw us a little snip party after.” He looked thoroughly amused.
I chuckled. “Well, it’s sure easier in every way for you two to take care of that.”
“Absolutely. There’s no reason for a woman to have that sort of surgery when ours is easy and the pain is tolerable.
And ours is also more easily reversed if we change our minds at some point.
I mean, there are no easy answers and not everyone goes the route we did, but for us, it was the right way to handle the situation, long term. ”
“Straight people problems,” I snarked, which made him snort and roll his eyes.
“It’s not as if gay people don’t have kids.”
“That’s true.”
As he started to show me his plans on the tablet while I distracted Baby Em with a small teddy bear toy that clipped to the side of the carrier as a distraction technique, I wondered if Emery wanted kids.
There’d never been a need to talk about that. Not that there was now.
Ten minutes later, Demi jogged across the yard to us.
“Sorry, sorry. I decided to do all their laundry, too,” she explained as she began to extract her son from me.
“Demi, this is Joey Lombardi, he’s doing the gates for us. Joey, this is Demi Harrington, the mother of this one.” I held onto the baby as Demi folded the carrier under her arm to carry back to the house.
“Nice to meet you,” Demi said, smiling and held out her hand for Lombardi to shake.
“Likewise. Emerson is definitely the youngest person I’ve ever had an on-site meeting with.”
We chuckled and I handed Little Em over. “Are they on the way back?”
“Yeah, they should be here any minute now. After that, I think it’ll quiet down a bit. Fern told Mrs. Bailey that the doctor said no guests until tomorrow at the earliest while she was dropping off all that food.”
Lombardi chuckled knowingly.
“That’s good thinking. Do you think there’ll be many people coming?”
“Everyone knows and loves Mom. Mrs. Bailey will spread the word not to bother today, but there might be others who just don’t get the message. Literally and figuratively.”
“Gotcha. Well, we’ll risk it and walk to where we’re putting the gate. Here’s hoping for no reckless grannies.” I found myself stroking Emerson’s chubby little cheek with my index finger as he blew spit bubbles at me and shook the teddy bear. “Bye, kiddo. See you later.”
Demi smiled and left with him, and Lombardi and I got to work.
The next day, the hordes descended. And by hordes, I meant the ladies from the church Gigi Fern had gone to when she’d felt “particularly sinful” as her namesake had told me.
Apparently the older Fern Harrington hadn’t been much for church, but had gone on occasion just to glare at the “good Christians” that were Mike and Jenn’s parents.
Since it was a small town, most people went to the same church and these ladies that now came over for gossip to spread in town, some of them were church people.
Not the bad kind, Jenn had made sure to cultivate her friend group over the years.
She and Mike never went to church, and neither did any of their kids.
But Gigi Fern’s graceful and sometimes spiteful generosity had made a mark and her legacy lived on.
To be fair, Hawk, as he ducked out of the house after lunch, had told me that some of the friends of the family who now wanted to visit were people from the town’s chamber of commerce Mike and Jenn were involved with.
There were others, of course. So, so many people.
When I left the house after my lunch, Mike escaped for a bit with me and chuckled as he rubbed his face with his hands.
“It’s a lot, eh?” I murmured as we stood together on the porch.
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I mean, it’s great to see people care, but could they care a bit less?”
I snorted, then clapped his shoulder. “Hey, at least the gate’s not up yet.”
He laughed. “At least there’s that.”
A few hours later I went to Jenn’s office to print out some paperwork for them to sign.
There were people in the house but not that many. Who was there, though, was a tired as fuck looking Emery who was stuck in the corner of the couch with an elderly woman quizzing him about… heart operations?
I dodged another, younger woman in the hallway on my way back out.
“Ville? A minute?” Jenn called out from the kitchen where she sat at the table.
“Are you supposed to be doing that?” I blurted out when I realized she was fixing what looked like Payton’s afternoon snack.
Her eyes flared with fire, and I immediately raised my hands in surrender.
“Here’s the paperwork for you and Mike to look over, I’m going to put it over there.” I shuffled away from the reach of her knife and placed the papers on the counter where important things lived.
“I want you to take Emery with you. Take him riding or something. He needs a break. Don’t let him come back until dinnertime,” she spoke quietly and firmly, eyes on her task, before piercing me with a sharp gaze.
“Noted.” I went to the fridge to grab a couple of bottles of water. My eyes widened at the amount of casserole dishes. “Jesus. It’s like someone died.”
Jenn snorted behind me. “Better check my pulse, yeah?”
I closed the door and playfully went to grab her wrist just as Mike walked in.
“You making moves on my woman?” he asked in a mock stern voice, but his eyes were dancing with mirth.
Jenn smiled. “He’s checking if I still have a heartbeat. You know, because all the funeral food in the fridge.”
They immediately started to bicker in the way loving couples did, playful and teasing in their tone, and I took the opportunity to dodge out of the kitchen.
I walked to the family room and cleared my throat. “Excuse me, Ma’am,” I said in my best polite boy tone.
“Oh, you’re the security expert!” The old lady exclaimed.
“Yes, Ma’am. I’m going to need to borrow Emery for a while, if you’d be so kind as to let me steal him for a bit.” I smiled at her.
She had hearts in her eyes by the time Emery got up and made his escape.
I followed him outside, a few paces behind, and saw him leaning on the porch railing, looking so damn tired.
Holding my hand out to him, I murmured, “Come on, baby. Let’s go for a ride.”
He gave me a little smile and took my hand, then followed me to the lush pastureland that covered most of the area behind the barns that were separated by enough space that our walk through those pastures to the stock barn took a long while.
We walked hand in hand, outside of having to go through gates or climb over a fence.
It was… peaceful.
There were sounds of the horses and even some machinery in the distance. The cows were making noise on occasion, too, but they were far enough that it didn’t really carry much.
The light breeze ruffled Emery’s curls, and when he looked up at me and smiled, he was breathtaking.
“What?” he asked, puzzled at my dumbstruck expression.
“Uh, nothing.” It was the first time I’d lied to him. “I wish we’d remembered hats. It’s pretty warm today even with the breeze.”
He shrugged easily. “There’s some caps in the tack room.”
“Okay.” We continued the last bit to get to the barn.
“Hey, you two!” Wyanne said brightly.
“Hi. I dragged this one away from the old ladies who wanted his medical expertise. Do we have horses to borrow?”
Wyanne smiled knowingly. “Yes, I think Niko and Arrow are free. Feel free to grab them.”
I gave her a little salute, then tugged Emery to the tack room for those caps first.
There were some new ones with the ranch’s logo on them, so I took one and gave another to him. “Don’t you have your own cap?”
“Yeah, but I have no idea where it is. It’s not like I wear one for work,” he answered dryly.
“That’s a good point,” I said, using his exact tone.
We grinned at each other as we adjusted the ball caps, then went to get the horses.
Twenty minutes later, we were riding on the cow pasture. There was so damn much space.