Chapter 9
BUCK
As Sage changed clothes and packed her things upstairs in one of the bedrooms, I called Curtis back.
“What’s up?” he asked. We’d gone to school together. He married the daughter of the owner of the Feed and Seed and had three kids.
I paced Mabel’s kitchen, then stopped and studied her fridge. It was covered in magnets from around the world and photos of people from Devil’s Ditch. Most of them I recognized. Holiday cards, birth announcements. She was well loved in the community outside of the diner.
“How long does a new furnace take to put in?” I asked.
“If I have the model she wants in stock, a day or two.”
A day or two? That wasn’t enough time to get Sage to decide to stay in Devil’s Ditch, that her life was here in this town, on my ranch. With me.
“Make it a week.”
Ten minutes later, I had my girl in my truck and headed home. It had started to snow and it was just starting to stick to the roads.
“Wanna tell me why you want a baby so bad?” I asked.
She shifted in her seat, bending her left leg so she could face me as much as the seatbelt allowed. “Me? Why would you want to be tied to a random woman for the next eighteen years? I can see me getting random sperm, but you offering it to–”
“You. I don’t want to be tied to a random woman. I want to be tied to you.”
Her mouth opened and closed. I’d stumped her.
“Why? You don’t know me.”
“I want to. You saw my family at the hospital. You know Trig and Ellie the best. They met last winter when he rescued her from a blizzard. They were married two days later.”
“What?” she asked, as if the idea was impossible. “Two days?”
I nodded. “Colt met Molly and while they had some serious issues with her twin sister, they got married within a month. Bray and Katie have known each other most of their lives, but once Bray got his head out of his ass, they were married within the month. Lainey and Beau, too. All of them are having–or just had–babies. Cam and Taylor and Zeb and Cammie are solid but don’t plan to have kids anytime soon. Not sure about Shep and Frankie.”
“What are you saying?”
“That every Wilder finds his woman and that’s it.
Ma and Pops, too.” She didn’t see the significance of driving her to my house.
She saw it as temporary, until her aunt’s basement was fixed up right.
I saw it as permanent. No way was she going back to that house.
Mabel knew what the Wilders were about and she’d understand.
“So you think I’m your woman?” she asked, as if the idea was preposterous.
I shrugged. “Don’t think. Know it. Which means if you’re having a baby, you’re having mine.”
She tossed up her hands. “You know nothing about me!”
“I know what your pussy tastes like. I know how quick you come for me.” She gasped and flushed furiously. “Fine, then tell me something about you besides why you wax your pussy.”
She narrowed her eyes at me–while I enjoyed seeing her cheeks pinken–and finally said, “I’m a lawyer. I work at my father’s firm running the pro bono department.”
“Smart,” I said, impressed.
I hadn’t even gone to college.
She shrugged off the compliment, as if she didn’t think of herself as smart.
“Why do you want a baby so bad?”
She sighed. “I have always wanted a baby. I want to be a stay at home mom. My father, as I said, has his own law firm. Biggest in the city. My mother is a prestigious cardiologist. Best in the state. Their work is their life. I grew up with nannies who tucked me in. Hugged me. I knew what I was missing, that my mother wasn’t…
isn’t maternal. My father only had me because he was trying for a boy to take over the company. ”
That sucked. I couldn’t imagine a childhood without my brothers and sister playing together and driving each other crazy and having each other’s backs. It would have been lonely… and then having uninvolved parents?
“He’s not going to give you the law firm because you’re a woman?”
She laughed. “He’s never mentioned it. Never said I was on track for partner, either.
I went to law school because it was expected.
It was that or be a doctor like my mother and I’m not too keen on blood.
There is no underachievement as a Montgomery.
None of it was my dream. It just… it just took me a while to see that the only way I’m going to get that dream is if I take it into my own hands. ”
“You mean turkey baster,” I muttered.
“It’s finally time to get what I want, even if it involves a turkey baster,” she continued, ignoring my snark. “Better than my ex.”
If she’d rather have sex with a turkey baster than her ex, then that said something about how much of a tool he was.
“I know it sounds bad after all those years of studying and work to become a lawyer–”
“Ma had nine kids.” I flicked my gaze off the road for a second. “You think she’s a trad wife or whatever it’s called now?”
She frowned and thought about it. “I… I guess not.”
“Ma and Pops met at a friend’s wedding, were married and pregnant with Trig a month later.
While she never had a career off the ranch, she’s worked alongside Pops in turning the Wilder Ranch into what it is today.
Maybe she didn’t toss bales of hay around or dig post holes, but she drove the tractor like a pro and raised all of us. ”
“I have no idea how to toss a bale of hay, let alone ride a horse. I don’t even know how to saddle one. You have cattle?” she asked.
I nodded. “A thousand head.”
“The beef I’m used to is on a plate medium rare.”
“Ma’s the glue of this family. The heart of it. I don’t blame you for wanting the same.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. I could hear the potency of my words because I believed them.
I never, not once, thought less of Ma because she never wanted to become a vet or a dentist or even a fucking florist. Her career was raising nine kids and that was one hell of a job.
If that was what Sage wanted, then hell, she was even more perfect than I imagined, because I wanted what my parents had.
What my siblings were building. I wanted someone to merge their life with me and settle on the ranch.
Make a passel of kids to run wild like I had, and with a bunch of cousins.
“You’re smart. Driven and determined. Something happened to get you to call that sperm bank,” I guessed.
“Seeing the new babies only solidified my dream. That I was waiting on a man for three years to be ready to have a baby. My ex strung me along. He said law school was too much work to have one, not that he was the one having the baby. Trying for the corner office took too much time.” She sighed. “My ex always had a reason.”
“Then, after all that, he cheated.”
She nodded. “With his paralegal, who worked a few floors below me. Got her pregnant.”
I blinked, processed what she was saying.
“Wait. You work with the woman your ex cheated on you with?”
She lowered her leg and turned to look out the passenger window. I couldn’t see her face, but could hear the hurt in her voice. “Both of them. My ex is the next partner at Montgomery Law and Sheryl is his paralegal.”
Holy shit.
“He told me it was my fault he slept with her.”
“Your fault?” I tried to temper my voice, but I was too fucking pissed for Sage. I really didn’t like this guy.
“Yeah, said I… um, couldn’t satisfy him.”
I slammed on my brakes and the truck slid across the snowy road. I reached out, stopping short and set my hand on Sage’s chest.
Then, I threw the truck in park and turned to face my woman. Her eyes were wide as she looked around for some kind of emergency. “Buck, what’s the matter? Why did we–”
“He ever go down on you?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have this conversation, because I didn’t want to imagine her with anyone else. I wasn’t hypocritical though. I was no virgin. Still, having her past sex life thrown in my face wasn’t all that great.
Her head whipped around. She looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe for pulling over or for the question. “What kind of question is that?”
“You heard me. He ever do what we did in the diner? Did he ever want to taste you so bad he dropped to his knees like I did?”
Her cheeks flushed and she shook her head and the puff ball on top of her knit hat wobbled. “No. He didn’t like it.”
Didn’t like eating pussy. Either he was in-the-closet gay or a dick.
“He ever make you come?” I pushed.
“Like, ever?” I didn’t realize there were variations to the question, but she’d found one.
“Yeah. He take care of your needs?”
“Well, no. I’d touch myself or finish when he went to shower after.” She bit her lip after saying that, as if she was afraid any other truths would fall out.
“Went to shower after,” I muttered. Instead of hating the guy, I was liking him more and more. He wasn’t competition. He was an example of what she didn’t want.
“Lemme guess, sweetheart, he fucked with his socks on? Under the covers? Lights out?”
“Well, um–yeah.”
“He religious or something?”
“What?” She frowned again. “Why… why does that matter?”
“Because if he had weird rules because of his faith, that’s one thing. But if it’s because he’s a selfish prick, then Sheryl the paralegal deserves him. You’re lucky to be rid of him.”
She huffed. “Except after two months, he hasn’t caught on that he’s been dumped because he keeps messaging.”
I didn’t like to hear that.
“You blocking his ass?”
“Of course, but he uses different numbers. He’s probably going through every landline in his office.”
“He calls again, let me know. I’ll set him straight.”
I meant it, too. I knew all the places on the ranch no one ever went to. Where a body could easily be dumped and even Colt, the sheriff, couldn’t find.
“You think your ex is giving Sheryl good sex?”
She had to see that this guy was at fault for everything, including her lack of orgasms. She was ridiculously responsive. She dripped for me, and we hadn’t even had sex yet.
“He’s giving her a baby.”
Ah. There it was. She’d stuck it out with this douche canoe for years because she thought he was her only option to the life she wanted.
That she’d give up good sex with an attentive man to get the baby she wanted.
Except, she wouldn’t be happy with just that.
In fact, I could now see why she’d connected with a sperm bank. That would be better than her ex.
It wasn’t either, or. It was neither. She wasn’t stuck with Mr. Dumbass and she wasn’t compromising with a sperm bank. She was getting it all with me.
I reached out, cupped her cheek and turned her to face me.
Met her eyes that were filled with unshed tears.
“I understand you wanting a baby. But you deserve everything–a family to support you, a man to fuck you and take care of you, a full life. You deserve to be eaten out and orgasms and a baby and a man who puts you first.”
“You’re going to give me all that?”
I stroked her cheek, met her dark eyes. “That’s up to you. Just gotta decide what life you want.”