Beau #2
“I’ll just be outside until you guys are ready for little ears to be back in the room.” Hawk’s hand came up to squeeze my shoulder. “She’s precious, Beau. Welcome to fatherhood. You’ll be fine.”
I don’t know if anyone else heard the words, but it felt like they echoed all around us before I cleared my throat. Juniper had her fist in her mouth, happy little gurgling sounds catching Birdie’s attention.
“Would it be okay if we sat down?” she asked. “I think Juniper is going to need a bottle, or we all might get to hear how incredible her lungs are here in a moment.”
“Shit. Yes, of course. Come in.” Lachlan moved to the couch, picking up the pillow and nailing Hayes right in the face.
“Jesus! What the hell, Lach?!” Hayes’s eyes popped open, scanning the room before landing on me. “I feel like I missed something…”
“You’re an idiot,” Jessie sighed. “Much like our other idiot brother who was just about to tell us where the mother of his child is.”
“The mother of…you have a KID?!”
“This is why I called all of you to be here together so I wouldn’t have to explain it more than once,” I groaned. “Who did you think Birdie was holding in her arms?”
His eyes moved over to Birdie, and if I wasn’t in the hot seat, I would have laughed from how wide they were.
My usually calm brother looked like he was about to completely lose it.
“I don’t know! I thought maybe she’d finally snapped and took one from the hospital!
Maybe we needed to help her escape to Canada or something after giving the kid back.
I didn’t think this was a reveal for your secret child! ”
“Hayes, knock it off. Your brother has only explained about fifteen percent of the story so far. He needs to get a move on before your father has another heart attack.” Ma’s face was pulled tight as she looked over at Dad.
But he just waved her off. “I’m not going to have another heart attack, Doll. Quit fussin’.”
“Hey, sleepy dipshit, the pillow to the face was kind of a signal for you to get up so Birdie can sit down with your niece and feed her…” Lachlan grumbled to Hayes, who was busy rubbing his eyes.
“Oh, shit. Sorry, Birdie.”
“No, I’m sorry. I could probably manage, but I need to heat her bottle first, and she’ll probably go right to sleep after she eats. Best to just be able to hold her with maybe a pillow propped under my arm.”
“We need to get more seating in here,” Colt mumbled.
“I’m not the one who decided everyone needed to come here for family meetings,” Lach sighed.
“Yeah, well, we’re not leaving you out,” Hayes griped as he moved around Lach and toward me.
“Beau, stop stalling. Where is this baby’s mother?” Ma finally snapped.
“Give me the baby’s bag.” Colt’s wife, Violet, reached for the strap still weighing heavy on my shoulder. “I’m going to help Birdie get her bottle ready.”
My eyes followed them to the kitchen before they disappeared towards the sink.
I tossed my hat down on the bench next to the door and ran my hands over my face. “Rosa died in a car accident four days ago. Juniper was with a foster family until they were able to get her birth certificate and track me down.”
“You’re an idiot,” Lachlan nearly shouted, his footfalls heavy with his cane as he got closer to me. “Just because some woman writes your name down on a piece of paper, doesn’t mean you’re that baby’s dad.”
“You’re going to get a paternity test done, right?” my dad asked.
“No, I don’t need to. I know she’s mine.” I’d never been so sure of anything before in my life.
“How?” Jessie asked. “This is wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time, but I think everyone in the family just wants to make sure that you’re not being taken advantage of.”
“By a four month old baby? She literally has no other family in this world, Jess. CPS looked for someone, anyone, on Rosa’s side.
I’m all she has. We’re all she has. And Rosa clearly never wanted to tell me about her.
Why would she lie and put my name down if she was never going to contact me about Juniper? Nothing else makes sense. She’s mine.”
My family went silent. Hayes shifted. Lach leaned more on his cane. Ma rubbed her hand over her heart. And Dad sighed. He walked over to Ma, pulling her into his arms.
“Well, that’s that then. Looks like we just added our first granddaughter to the roster, Doll.”
Violet and Birdie walked back from the kitchen, a shared smile between the two of them. My sister-in-law patted Birdie’s shoulder before she sat on the couch with Juniper. Hayes and Lach were nearly elbowed to the ground by Jessie and Ma as they sat beside Birdie and looked down at my daughter.
“Congratulations, Dad.” Violet’s arms wrapped around me, and my throat ached.
“Vi, I—”
“Nope. I know what you’re going to say. We’re good. You don’t need to apologize for anything that happened when I came back to Silver Springs.”
“It’d be okay if you wanted to watch me eat crow right now.” I smiled.
“Nah. We’re family. If you had to eat crow, I’d pull up a chair and help you finish it.” She patted my arm before walking over to Colt.
“I’m going to need everyone’s help,” I said, looking around the room at my family.
Most everyone was looking at Birdie as she fed Juniper, but her eyes were locked on me.
“I’m not sure how the hell I’m going to juggle all the ranch responsibilities with what Juniper needs, but I’m determined to make it work.
Denver and Kip were happy to run things today, but I expect tomorrow I’ll need to be back out with them. ”
“One of us can take Juniper,” Jessie volunteered.
“Hey,” Hawk knocked on the door as he walked back in with Beckett, “are we all clear to come back in? Someone’s looking for a snack, and he’s convinced Grammy brought cookies.”
“He’s one-hundred percent right!” Ma held out her hand and wiggled her fingers, waiting for Beckett to run over to her. The two of them disappeared into the kitchen like partners about to commit a crime.
“So…how are things going in here?” Hawk asked as he wrapped his arms around my sister’s shoulders.
“Jessie volunteered to watch Juniper for me during the day,” I teased.
“Absolutely, that’s a great idea. Help us get ready for baby number two.”
“Baby number two?” Birdie asked.
“Not yet. I mean, we’re not even officially toying with the idea, but it would be fun to see if we can handle the chaos of two…Do you need us to take her tomorrow? Hawk, you can get all of Beckett’s baby stuff out of storage today, right?”
“Of course.”
“I’m actually staying with Beau right now to help out,” Birdie said. Like heifers who just heard me whistle for feed, my family’s heads all turned to look at her.
“You’re moving in with him?” Dad asked.
“She’s staying for a few weeks.” I fucking wished it was a permanent thing, Birdie moving in with me, but I’d take what I could get.
“Just until he feels more confident about things. I have a few days off before I’m scheduled for another shift, and even then, I’m mostly at the clinic with only one of two hospital shifts left this month.”
“If you’re waiting on Beau to feel good about fatherhood, you’ll be spending the rest of your life out here at the ranch, Birdie,” Hayes teased, winking at her. “Then again, I think my dipshit of a brother might just actually prefer that.”
“He’ll be perfectly fine—”
“No, Chickadee. He’s right. I’d keep you forever if I could.
But I’m grateful for the help, even if I know it has to come to an end one day.
” I turned to Dad. “Look, I know we were thinking about bringing on a few extra workers for this year, but now we absolutely need to. I trust Denver or Travis to run things when I can’t be out there, but they can’t always be operating a man down. ”
“Okay, I’ll put out feelers. See if there’s anyone local looking to pick up work. We’ve got the room in the bunkhouse, and the budget. Might as well use it.”
“Who else is hungry?” Hayes asked. “I got about ten minutes of sleep, so I could throw a couple steaks on the grill and we could have lunch?”
“Sounds good to me,” Dad agreed. “You want me to run up to the house and grab some meat from the fridge?”
“Nah, I already looked in Lach’s fridge when I got here. He’s got enough stashed away for us.”
I laughed, nearly all the energy drained out of me as I settled on the couch next to Birdie while the rest of my family moved into Lach’s kitchen.
Juniper’s foot was kicking around happily as she drank from her bottle.
I let my fingers wrap around her soft skin, bending over to press a kiss to the sole of her foot.
And as I sat back up, I leaned a little, so that Birdie’s shoulder met mine.
“You did really well. And I think it went better than you were expecting it to.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It really did.”
“So, what do you think, Cowboy? Ready to go home and get some rest?”
I groaned. “Yes, but we can’t. We still have shopping to do.”
“Mmm. True. Now might be a great time to head into town because she’ll be down for the count for a while after this bottle.”
“Let me go tell my parents we’re gonna take off. Maybe I can convince someone to take pity on me and drop off steaks for us.”
Birdie laughed. “I slept great last night, so I can cook whatever you want.”
I bent over the back of the couch, my lips pressing into her hair. I needed to stop kissing her, but I just couldn’t. “You’re not my maid. Or my cook. Or my nanny.”
“I’m your house guest,” she whispered.
“You’re my lifeline,” I corrected, “and we both know it. Just sit tight for a minute, I’ll be right back.”