CHAPTER 33
Arlo
I exchanged a concerned look with Rhett as we charged upstairs towards the sound of arguing. We’d left Shep in bed with Maxie. How the hell he’d managed to end up in a shouting match, I had no clue. I pushed the door open just as Maxie shouted at Shep.
“I said I was going to give you a baby! I’m sure I told you the rest of my plan! I’m going to be a surrogate!” She tugged at her hair and growled. “How did you not hear that?!”
Anger flared hot in me.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
Maxie spun around to face me.
“Tell Shep you heard me say I’d be your surrogate last night!”
“The fuck you did! You came over, said you were going to have our babies, and then passed out drunk. You told us you were going to have our babies! What the fuck are you talking about surrogacy for?” I glared at her as I moved closer. “This had better be some stupid joke.”
She threw her hands up.
“I meant surrogacy! I told you last night that I can’t be a mother. What did you think happened when I went to my hotel room? Did you think I suddenly forgot all the horrible lessons my mom taught me?”
“So, explain this plan to us. The one you didn’t explain last night.” Rhett’s voice was deceptively calm. “Please clue us in.”
She looked at him and proved how well she already knew us when she took a nervous step back.
“I figured we’d do…this…and I’d get pregnant. And then I thought we’d keep doing…this…until the baby was born. And then…”
“And then what?” He stepped closer.
“And then I thought I would give you the baby and I’d leave…” I watched her throat bob as she swallowed. “I thought it would give us both what we wanted.”
“You’d be okay with carrying our baby while fucking us and living with us for the next nine months and then just handing off that little girl or boy?” I knew her better than that. Her heart was too big for that ever to work out. “Get real, Maxine.”
She crossed her arms and pouted.
“It sounded really good in my head last night. I want you three and you three want a family. I can give you that.”
“We want you !” Rhett closed the distance between them and grabbed her shoulders. “Kids, dogs, and fucking pancakes every Sunday morning sound amazing but it’s nothing without you, Maxine. Don’t you get that?”
Her bottom lip quivered.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you’re scared. That’s no excuse for making a plan to leave us in nine months. If you think your plan works for us, you’re wrong. You don’t get to leave us.” Shep shoved his feet into his boots. “You try to walk away from us in nine months and we’ll follow you, baby. Whether you knew it or not, you made a commitment to us this morning. You’re ours. We’re yours. Get used to it because it’s not changing.”
“What? You can’t just make that statement. My plan is flawed but I’m not cut out to be a mother. If y’all can’t agree to my plan then we can’t sleep together. It’s not too late. The chances of me getting pregnant after—”
“After the way you took our come this morning? You’re definitely knocked up already. So this?” Rhett gestured back and forth between them. “It’s a done deal, baby.”
Shep nodded. “As far as I’m concerned, nothing has changed. You’re ours, sweetheart. And as much as I’m fucking overjoyed to have you, I need to get some air and space from you because the idea that you could walk away from our kid and us is making me want to break shit.”
“I’m serious! You can’t just tell me that I’m going to stick around with you. I just won’t sleep with y’all again. We’ll go back to a working relationship only. It’s fine.”
I pinned her with a hard stare.
“We all saw the way you came alive in our arms this morning, sweetheart. You don’t want to stay away from us.”
She followed after us as we went downstairs.
“You have to accept my choice. This isn’t something you can just argue against. It’s not up for debate.”
I spun around and grabbed her face, slamming my mouth down on hers. Kissing her until I had to pull away to avoid dragging her back upstairs and fucking her made my head spin. I turned and left the house before I could say or do anything I’d regret. With no clue where I was headed, I just stomped down the steps and out toward the pastures.
Shep and Rhett were ahead of me, waiting for me to join them. Rhett gestured to the house with an angry slash of his hand.
“What the fuck?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. She’s not our goddamn surrogate. She’s our woman.”
“She’s going to be the death of me.” Shep ran his hands over his face and shook his head. “She’s nuts. Absolutely, bonafide nuts. All that quite sweetness and cold aloofness was a farce. Our surrogate? Our fucking surrogate? Like we were going to fuck her, get her pregnant, continue to fuck her while she grows our baby, and then just let her leave? I’m not sure if I’m more offended for us or for her. Does she think so little of us that she thinks we’d take the baby and just wave her away? Or does she think so little of herself that she thinks that would ever be possible? That she could just slip away and it wouldn’t end us?”
The front door slammed and a few seconds later Maxie came stomping around the side of the house. She spotted us and put her hands on her hips.
“You can’t just kiss me to shut me up and then walk away!”
Shep was worked up and he didn’t hesitate to march towards her.
“You wanna bet, you sexy little nutcase?!”
Maxie gasped and backed away.
“I’m not a sexy little nutcase! That’s so offensive! Don’t try to kiss me, Shep! I mean it! Shep!”
Shep wrapped his arms around her hips and picked her up with his hands full of her ass. She braced herself with her hands on his shoulders and glared down at him but he didn’t care. He pulled his hand back and slapped her ass hard enough that the sound echoed over the empty pastures.
“You are a little liar. You know that? You pretended to be so sweet and innocent but you were hiding that you can also be a stubborn pain in the ass. You think I’m going to let you walk away after you grow our baby, woman? Never. Never in a million years.”
Maxie’s eyes heated and when he slapped her other ass cheek her mouth popped open on a slight whimper. Blushing a deep red, she changed tactics and gripped Shep’s hair and tugged his head away from her chest.
“You have insulted me so many times in the last ten minutes, Shep Winston, and I’m starting to get mad!”
“Good! Get mad! Get fucking angry and fight me, baby, because this is it. You’re looking at your future right here and now, so you’d better get fucking used to it.” Shep turned his head and nipped at her wrist. “There’s not a goddamn thing you could do to make us change our mind about you. We’re not going anywhere. Do your worst.”
After slapping her ass one more time Shep put her down and then leaned down and kissed her forehead. She stumbled back a step, her face a mask of confusion.
“Time to get to work. I’m going to tackle that dead plot of the pasture. The tiller finally came in.” Shep grinned at me and Rhett once Maxie couldn’t see his face.
“Ranch isn’t going to work itself, Maxine. Let’s go, sweetheart.”