Birdie
My fingers traced over one of the small ladybugs on Beau’s forearm. I was still trying to catch my breath after…everything. Beau had me wrapped up in his arms, my back pressed against his chest.
I rolled so my stomach rested on the edge of his waist, and my finger found another ladybug. It was always funny to me how he’d stuck with the one theme for all these years. “You should let me color these sometime.”
His eyebrow quirked. “You don’t like them black and white?”
“I love them how they are, but it might be fun to see what they could look like colored in. When Juniper gets old enough, I bet she’ll love doodling on her dad.”
“You want to doodle on me? My body is your canvas, baby.”
I laughed. “You’d do just about anything for me, wouldn’t you, Cowboy?”
“Yeah, I would. I have almost thirty fucking lady bugs tattooed on my body for you.”
I swear my heart stopped beating in my chest. The wind died down, the crickets stopped chirping, and the only thing I could hear was the blood rushing through my veins. “What do you mean they’re for me?”
He stared at me for a minute, like I’d lost my mind. But I truly had no idea what he was talking about. “One for every year you’ve been my best friend. Hidden across my skin, just like your presence became a part of who I am over the years. There is no Beau without Birdie.”
“Why ladybugs? Why didn’t you tell me before now?” My throat ached. This whole night—the whole day—had been an emotional roller coaster. I didn’t know how much more I could take.
He groaned. “Because I’m an idiot who was destined to be the biggest asshole. Had to make sure I really screwed things up before I could set them right.”
“Beau…”
“I should have told you a million different times that I wanted to take things to the next level, but I chickened out every time. And then you’d tell me how you were really stressed about school, or work, and I wanted to make sure I never stood in the way of your dreams.”
“It’s not all on you,” I said, sitting up.
My dress was still wrapped around my hips, so I awkwardly tried to fix the fabric to cover my body back up while I kept talking.
“I should have said something. The crush I’ve had on you for the last thirty years should probably be studied by a psychologist or something.
Maybe Sloane would want to write a research paper on me. ”
“She’d have to write it on me, too, because I’m in the same boat.”
I smiled, finally wrapping the top part of the dress around my neck and securing it with a bow. My fingers went back to Beau’s arm, finding the ladybug closest to me and tracing over it. “So why the ladybugs?”
“You don’t remember the very first conversation we ever had?”
“Of course I do! You told me cows didn’t belong inside the dollhouse I was playing with. Then you invited me out to the ranch to see cows in person for the first time.”
“No. That wasn’t the first thing we talked about.”
I couldn’t hold back my frown. I had a fantastic memory, there was no way I wasn’t remembering that day right. “I remember exactly how it happened.”
He shook his head playfully. “I’m not wrong, baby.
I was watching you play with the dollhouse, and I remember trying to come up with something to talk to you about.
You were wearing a black dress with ladybugs all over it.
I asked you if you liked them, and you told me they were good luck.
You wanted to have good luck on your first day of school, so you begged your mama to let you wear that specific dress. ”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat and dropped my eyes back to his arm. Here comes the dang tears.
“And you were right. Ladybugs are lucky. Because from that day on, I had a best friend. Someone who kept me in line. Someone who loved me even with all my flaws. Someone who laughed with me. Someone who became family. Someone who grew to be the love of my life. So, every year around September, I get a ladybug tattooed on my body, in honor of the thing that opened the door to our friendship.”
“That’s so sweet, but you have to stop. They’ll cover you head to toe soon.”
“Does that mean you plan on sticking around? I can stop tattooing reminders of you on my body, because you’ll just be with me all the time?”
“If you don’t know by now that you’re never getting rid of me…”
Beau sat up, his arms tightening around me as his lips pressed into my hair. “I don’t want to get rid of you, Chickadee. I never want to spend another moment without you in my arms.”
A crack exploded through the air. For a second, I thought a thunderstorm had taken us by surprise. But a second crack sent the wine bottle next to the picnic basket flying, exploding it into a thousand different pieces.
“Whoa, hey!” Beau shouted, waving his hands over his head. Another crack, followed by a string of curse words half a mile long came out of him.
I couldn’t make sense of what was happening, only that Beau’s body was traveling toward mine impossibly fast in the next second.
He pressed into me, bowling me over so I was snug between him and the ground.
“What was that?” I panted, adrenaline dumping into my blood stream so quickly I felt nauseous as my arms and legs began to shake.
“Someone’s shooting at us,” he whispered. His eyes were darting back and forth over the horizon.
“What?!” I nearly shrieked. Beau’s mouth was quickly on mine, muffling my voice as he poured his calm into me.
“You have to be so quiet right now, Birdie. I need you to listen to me and follow my directions, okay?” he whispered as he ended the kiss.
I nodded.
“That’s my good girl. My jeans are still by you, right?”
“Yes,” I squeaked.
“Okay. Reach into my right pocket and take out the satellite phone. My cell phone would work out here, but I don’t want you turning on the screen. Press the second button from the left. It will connect directly to Colt. Got that?”
“Mhm.”
“Tell him someone’s shooting at us, and he needs to get his ass out here. Preferably with another weapon or two. Okay, baby?”
“I got it…” My hand slipped into his pocket and pulled out the satellite phone. Shakily, my fingers felt over the first button, and then found the second.
“Good. Hand me my pants while you call.”
“Where are you going?!” I hissed as he rolled off of me, taking the pants out of my hand. He reached around until he got to the holster, immediately pulling out his own weapon.
“I need to turn off the string lights. Whoever is out here shootin’ might have a night scope, but we can at least try to slow them down if not.
And then I need to see if I can fucking figure out where they’re shooting at us from.
” He looked back at me for a second as the twinkling lights went out. “Call Colt, baby. We need his help.”
My finger was shaking over the button, but I pressed down, controlling the phone enough to hear it connect through.
“What’s the matter, Beau?” Colt sighed. “Forget a condom and need your big brother to bring you one?”
“Colt,” I whispered, ignoring his joke. “We need help.”
“Birdie? Christ, sorry about that. What’s going on? Where are you?”
“At the old willow tree your dad used to bring you out to camp under. Do you remember—”
“Yeah, yeah. I remember that spot.”
“Someone just shot at us.” I tried to sound as calm as possible, but between this and Beau’s naked ass sitting right next to my face while he tried to scope out the direction the shots came from, I was close to either hysterically crying or laughing, and I wasn’t sure which one would win if I lost control.
“Someone what?! Are you guys okay? Do I need to call this in?”
“Should he—”
“Yes,” Beau growled. Apparently he could hear the conversation we were having. “Do it on the way, Colt. Just get your ass out here. I want Birdie in a truck and back at the house as soon as fucking possible.”
“I heard him, Birdie. I’ll be there in under five, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.”
I ended the call, slipping the phone back into Beau’s pocket.
“What are we supposed to do now?”
His eyes were wide as he scanned the area. “You’re going to go to the tree, and I’m going to stand up and cover you.”
“No! Absolutely not! The shooting stopped. There’s no reason why we have to move. Maybe a hunter got turned around and didn’t realize they were on private property! Hand me my underwear so I can hide it before your brother gets out here!”
Beau’s eyes stayed on the horizon, but his lips curled into a smile as he grabbed my panties off the ground.
“Beau!” He reached over, fixing the strap on my dress before sliding the underwear into my hand.
“I don’t like that we’re just lying out here, exposed. I want you to go to the tree, Birdie.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Put your pants on before your family gets an unwanted eyeful!” I warned.
Just as I slipped my underwear under my boob—because of course I couldn’t put them back on all torn up and I didn’t have pockets in this beautiful dress—bright headlights charged up the road at us.
“Is that?”
“No. I don’t think that’s a ranch truck.”
My heart started beating erratically again. “Oh my God. What do we do?”
He squinted, his eyes relaxing as the car came to a stop.
“Are you guys okay?” Beau’s hand squeezed around my arm as Denver’s voice filtered over to us.
“Yeah. Kill the headlights, would ya?” Beau yelled over. “How’d you know something was going on?”
“Emmett just got back from his days off. Came walking into the bunk house asking if you guys ever did any sort of shooting out this way. I asked him what the fuck he was talking about and he said he heard gunshots. I knew you guys were…uh…” Oh God, my cheeks were probably bright red right now…
“having a picnic over this way. Wanted to make sure you were all okay.”
Another set of lights came into view. Wait. Not just one set. No. Three trucks were barreling out into the field. Colt’s truck pulled up in front of us, blocking where the original shots came from.
“Fuck, you two alright?” he asked as he jumped down from the cab.
“We’re fine. Pretty sure the fucker was shooting from that direction.” Beau pointed out over the field. “Stopped as soon as we called you, though.”
“What the fuck?” Danny growled as he walked over to us. “Denver, go get the boys up outta the bunk house. We’ll see if we can’t track down who the hell is on our property fucking shooting like we’re a hunting lodge. And for fuck’s sake, Beau, put on some goddamn clothes and get Birdie out of here.”
Colt and Hayes both made some awful choking noise trying to hide their laughter as Beau hooked his arm around my waist and walked me towards Colt’s truck…his smile bright as he didn’t turn around to grab a single piece of clothing.