Chapter 15
T hey unloaded the last round from the livestock trailer, and Avery watched them fan out over the pasture. Another fifty head. Two hundred and sixty-eight head of cattle. They were beautiful, as beautiful as cattle could be. “Wow. Look at that,” Jason said, his foot propped on a rail on the gate.
“Yeah. I’m a cattle rancher.”
“Yes. You are. I’m proud of you, brother.”
Avery grinned from under the brim of his hat. “Thanks.”
“What are the girls up to?” Jason asked, glancing over his shoulder toward the house.
“Wedding stuff.”
“Oh, lord. I hope you plan to do this as soon as possible or they’ll drive us both crazy!” Jason laughed.
“I’ve got to get a divorce first,” Avery said with a wink.
“How’s the bitch doing?”
“I dunno. I’m letting the state take care of that. She’ll go to trial in about a month, and I hear Texas is charging her with attempted murder. That trumps bigamy in Tennessee no matter how you slice it,” Avery said, slipping his hands into his back pockets.
“You all set for tonight?”
“Oh, yeah,” Avery told him, grinning.
“Guess we’d better go get cleaned up.” Jason turned and started toward the house, then stopped and looked back at Avery. “You coming?”
“In a minute.” He waited until he couldn’t hear Jason’s footsteps anymore and turned to see his friend open the back door and disappear into the house. When he was gone, Avery opened the gate, made his way into the barn, and sat down on a bale of hay.
There, in the quiet of the barn, with Dixie, Buttercup, and Bonnie and Clyde, the two new horses, snuffling around and looking for a treat, Avery took stock of his life. He had a beautiful home and a beautiful farm, cattle everywhere, four gorgeous horses, his trusty sidekick Skipper, friends galore, and a family. He couldn’t have loved Rodney and Belinda more if they were his own parents, and Danette and Jason were the best friends anyone could ask for.
But most of all, there was Lydia. God, how had he been so lucky? She was everything he could’ve ever wanted. They talked about everything―nothing was off limits. And when he’d finally told her about the dream he’d had while he was unconscious, she’d laughed and told him she’d give him as many little Averys as he wanted. That had cinched the deal.
And that very night, he’d seal it―forever.
* * *
The server brought the cake out, all twenty-nine of its candles blazing, and Lydia laughed until she cried. Danette, Avery, and Jason offered to help her blow them all out to keep the sprinkler system from going off, and she just laughed harder.
The cake was eaten, the wine gone, and everything was winding down. A couple of people said they needed to go home, but Danette whispered to them to just stay put. Lydia stood and said, “Thanks for coming, everybody. This has been the best birthday ever.” Before anyone else could move, Avery stood, took her hands, and dropped to one knee. There, in front of everyone they knew, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny box. As her mouth fell open, he smiled.
“LydiaSimone Kinsey, you’re the only woman who’s ever had my heart. I know you’ve been planning a wedding, but I want to make it official. I want you as my wife, and I won’t take no for an answer, so the answer had better be yes!” he laughed. He snapped the box open and Lydia gasped.
There in the box was a ring just like the one she’d circled a picture of in one of those two dozen bridal magazines she’d been poring through. Avery had scoured through them and when he’d found the picture, he’d made sure to find a ring that looked just like it. According to Danette, he’d done a pretty good job. When he lifted it from the box, she squealed and stuck out her hand, so he just stared at her. “Well?” he finally asked after he’d made her wait.
“Oh! Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” she blurted out as he slipped the ring on her finger. “Of course! Oh, god, of course! I love you, Avery!” she sang out as he stood and took her in his arms, listening to everyone around them clap, whistle, and cheer with joy.
“Good. I really didn’t want to take it back,” he laughed. He gave her a kiss and when she broke it, she leaned up and whispered in his ear.
“Let’s go home.”
* * *
“Done with these,” Avery said, dropping the box of condoms in the trash.
“No, don’t!” Lydia said and fished it out.
“Why?”
“I’ll give them to Danette. God knows they can use them.” She set the box on the dresser, then reached into the dresser drawer. “Done with these,” she said as she threw her birth control pills in the trash.
“Good. Let the chips fall where they may,” Avery said with a nod of his head.
“Yep. If BabyAvery wants to make an appearance, I’m ready,” she laughed.
“And if we find out you’re pregnant before the wedding, say nothing,” Avery told her with a knowing look.
“Of course not. Not a word. I’m a virgin bride, you know,” she snickered and winked at him.
“Get over here, virgin bride.” She climbed into the bed but instead of crawling straight into his arms, she knelt over his cock and dropped her mouth straight down over it. “Holy hell, woman, I think you just took five years off my life!”
Her head popped up. “Yeah, but you can afford them. You’re a young man,” she said, then sucked him with gusto.
“Oh, shit. That’s too good. You’ve gotta stop that, Lydia. I mean it. Lydia, don’t, don’t, I mean it, stop, oh, god, stop, oh, shit. Yeah, yeah, YEAH!” Avery cried out, flexing his hips upward. “Lydia! Stop, baby! Oh, god, stop. Please? Please, baby, stop, please?” he begged, writhing and squirming.
She finally let go with a pop and sat up, grinning. “Good?”
“God, no. Great. Do it again until I’m hard and then I’ll tear you apart.”
She laughed. God, he loved that laugh! “Oh, goody! Sure thing!”
In five minutes, they were rocking together in the dim light of the little lamp on the dresser, moving against each other, touching and kissing and whispering promises. It was heaven. And when they came together, for the first time, Avery’s essence was forced deep inside Lydia, the promise of a life together forever, a home, a family, and a love that would never die.
* * *
“I’m glad you two planned this wedding for three o’clock in the afternoon,” Danette whispered to Avery. “What the hell? Did she get hold of some bad seafood or something?”
“No.”
“She’s been puking her guts up since seven this morning. It’s ten now. I hope she’s over this by the time everyone gets here.”
“She will be,” Avery said and winked.
“How do you know?”
He just grinned. “Because she always is.”
Danette just stared at him like he was mad, but he watched as that look was replaced with a big, goofy grin. “Morning sickness?” Avery nodded. “How far along?”
“Just a few weeks.”
“Are you excited?”
Avery was beaming. “You can’t even imagine.”
The ceremony was done, the cake eaten, the dances danced, and everyone had gone. Avery and Lydia had taken her car, decorated with cans, streamers, and, for reasons they couldn’t understand, strips of bacon, and headed to the far side of town to a bed and breakfast where Jason and Danette had given them two nights as a wedding gift. But Avery had a wedding gift of his own to give his bride.
Once they were settled in the room, he pointed at Lydia. “Everything off.”
“Yes, sir!” she said and stripped instantly.
Avery did the same. Naked and lounging on the bed, Lydia said, “I’ve got a wedding gift for you.” Avery had expected that. “I hope you like it.”
She handed him the box and when he opened it, he was surprised to see the SIGSauer forty-five he’d been drooling over at the sporting goods store. “Oh, god, baby, it’s beautiful! Thanks!”
“You’re welcome.” She waited, and he knew she was expecting a gift. She’d been looking at a bracelet at the jewelry store, but Avery had opted for something far more valuable. He handed her an envelope, and she smiled. “What’s this?”
“Open it.”
“It’s plane tickets, isn’t it? Oh, god, I’m so excited! Will they let me fly if I’m pregnant?” she chirped, tearing the envelope apart and taking out the thick packet of documents inside. “What is this?” she asked, unfolding them and looking at them in the lamplight. But in an instant, Avery knew she’d figured it out. “Oh, god, Avery, no! You shouldn’t have done this! Oh, baby…” she said and dissolved into tears.
“I wanted to give you the one thing I knew you wanted more than anything in this world.”
Her tear-filled eyes looked up at him and she smiled. “A deed to the farm.”
“It’s yours, angel. All yours. Your legacy is returned to you, for you and our kids,” he said, kissing those sweet lips and laying a hand over her not-yet-expanding belly.
“You’re wrong, Avery.”
He stared at her. “About what?”
“You said you wanted to give me the one thing you knew I wanted more than anything in this world. But you’re wrong.” She sniffled and handed him the deed. “The thing I want more than anything else in this world is you.”
Avery’s smile was wide as a tear rolled down his cheek. “Then I guess all your dreams just came true.”
* * *
“So then we found two more out in the back. I asked him, ‘Will you sell me these for five dollars apiece or are you keeping them?’ He just looked at me like I was crazy and said, ‘If you can find more, I’ll sell them too!’” Avery boomed, laughing aloud.
Jason was laughing so hard he was crying. “Did he even know what they were?”
“I don’t think so! But those things are hard to come by, and they were worth at least twenty apiece. I rooted around and found five more, and I walked out of there with two hundred dollars’ worth for fifty bucks!”
“My husband, the bargain hound,” Lydia giggled, her big belly jiggling as she did.
“Danette’s the same way,” Jason said, pointing at his fiancée. “She talked an old guy at a flea market out of a genuine Coach purse for ten bucks!”
“You didn’t!” Lydia shrieked. “Did he have more?”
“Nope. Got the only one,” Danette said proudly.
“Wish you could find her one or two for ten bucks. Her and those bags are going to bankrupt me.” When Avery looked over at Lydia to grin at her, there was an odd look on her face, one he’d never seen before. “Babe? You okay?”
She stared at him, then looked at the floor. There, at her feet, was a puddle, and something was running down her leg. It took Avery all of two seconds to figure it out. “Oh, shit! Your water just broke! Oh, god, okay, what do we do? You’ve got your bag packed, right? And you guys still have a key, right?” he babbled, looking to Danette and Jason, who were grinning at him like monkeys. “Oh, and I need to call your parents, and I―”
“Avery.”
“―should probably―”
“Avery!” His head snapped around when his wife shouted his name. “Could you calm down please and help me get cleaned up?”
“Oh! Oh, yeah! Um, should I…”
Danette was already on the move. “I’ll get a bath towel. It’ll be okay. Hang on.”
“Thanks,” Lydia snarled. “I knew he was going to be no good in a crisis.”
“It’s a crisis?” Avery barked. “Is something wrong?”
“No. That was a figure of… Ohhhhhhhh, god. Oh, it’s starting,” Lydia moaned, grabbing her belly and doubling over.
“No-no-no-no-no,” Avery told her, taking her arm and helping her to the sofa, but she wouldn’t sit. “No. You sit right here. What do we need to do?”
“I need to walk around as much as I can until they’re about five minutes apart, and then we need to go to the hospital. Call them and tell them I’m in labor so they’ll know I’m coming.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Jason offered. “You just take care of her,” he told Avery, pointing to Lydia.
“I’ve gotcha, baby. It’s okay.” He helped her down onto the sofa, then sat down beside her and took her hand.
“Avery?”
“Yes, baby?”
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I am too. But we’re together. That’s what matters. If you can push it out, I can take it from there. Deal?”
Lydia giggled. “Deal.”
“Good. We’ve got this, babe. We’ll be fine.”
Nine hours later, Avery stood between his wife’s legs as she gave one last enormous push and out popped a wriggling, shrieking, seven pound, nine ounce, eighteen-inch-long baby girl with cottony white hair and big blue eyes. The crying infant calmed as soon as they placed her on Lydia’s chest, and Avery looked down into his wife’s crystal blue eyes as they filled with tears. “You did it, babe. She’s beautiful.”
“We did it, Avery. You and I. Oh, god, baby, I’m so happy.”
Avery couldn’t help it. He let out a shuddering sob and kissed his wife, then nuzzled the back of the baby’s head and released one huge, contented sigh. “There’s no man on earth who’s happier than I am right this minute. My life is complete.”
“Until the next one, right?” Lydia laughed.
Avery grinned and nodded his head. “Until the next one!”