Chapter 20 Michael
MICHAEL
“This is nice,” Blake murmured, staring at the water-stained ceiling as she snuggled into my side.
“Yeah.” Sighing, I ran my fingers up and down her arm as I flicked the channel on the remote to some horror movie.
We were at some shitty motel halfway home, but I had never been happier than I was right now. Something about Knight’s house was bad for us. How the hell he stayed there was beyond me. But here, it was like we were back to when we first met.
“I think if we have a girl, we should name her Annie.”
“Why Annie?”
“Well, it sounds like a Western name. And we do live in Montana. It only seems right that we keep with tradition.”
“I’m not sure Annie keeps with tradition, but it is a cute name.”
“Besides, she could be like Annie Oakley.”
Chuckling, I pressed a kiss to her temple. “And what if it’s a boy?”
“How about Cade?”
I sucked in a breath, shaking my head. “Pretty sure Knight has a kid named Cade.”
“Then we’d better steer clear of that.”
“What about Silas?”
“Silas,” she repeated, smiling happily. “I like it.”
“Yeah? Not too old-fashioned?”
“Not at all.”
“Of course, if we were really lucky, we’d have one of both, that way we wouldn’t have to choose.”
She sat up and glared playfully at me. “Don’t tempt fate. Let’s just stick with one kid at a time.”
“Yeah? And how many do you want?”
“How about we start with one and see if we can manage to keep the kid alive?”
She was so pessimistic. “Sure, we can do that. But don’t think I won’t try to convince you every day that we need more.”
Groaning, she buried her head against my chest. “Where are we gonna go? We have no house.”
“We could always stay with my parents,” I suggested, “or your family.”
“Neither of those sounds appealing.”
“Then we could camp outside. Although I have to warn you, it gets cold in Montana.”
“I’m aware,” she murmured. “And as much as I love camping, I don’t think I want to try it leading into winter.”
“I suppose we could just stay in motels until the house is built.”
“Doesn’t that seem like such a waste of money?”
“Maybe, but it beats staying with my parents.”
Sighing heavily, she sat up, brushing the hair out of her face. “I hate to tell you this, but our honeymoon sucks.”
“Well, in all fairness, I didn’t plan it.”
“I know. None of this was planned. I mean, not by us. I’m pretty sure the whole town and our families forced us to get married last weekend.”
“But it’ll be okay. We’ll be fine.”
At her frown, I sat up, suddenly worried that she was a little too concerned about all this. “Right?”
“Of course. I’m just…wondering, if it’s like this now, what’s it going to be like when we have the baby? Are random people from town going to show up at all hours to see the baby? Are our families going to insist on staying with us?”
“Do you want that?” I asked curiously.
Her gaze shot to mine. “Do I want our parents to stay with us? Not even a little. Call me crazy, but if mothers could do this for the past couple of thousand years, I’m sure I can pull it off as well.”
“You’ll do fine. You’ll be a great mother.”
When she didn’t say anything, I egged her on. “And me?”
“Oh, you’ll be a great mother, too.”
“Ha ha,” I droned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Can we get out of here?” she sighed.
“Where to?”
“Anywhere. Texas. New York. Florida. I don’t care. Just anywhere far away from Colorado.”
“Sure, we’ll leave in the morning.”
“No, let’s go now. Let’s just take off and drive as far as we can go,” she said excitedly.
“No destination in mind?”
She nodded. “Exactly, and when we want to see something, we’ll stop. It’ll be amazing.”
“I guess it’s technically tomorrow,” I said, glancing at my watch and noting the early hour.
Jumping off the bed, she was already pulling on her boots before I even got up. This burst of energy would only last her so long. After about an hour on the road, I knew she would conk out, but at least she would be happy.
We packed up the car and were on the road within ten minutes. As expected, her steam faded quickly, and I was left to drive alone for most of the early morning hours.
I was in desperate need of a bathroom break just about the time the sun was rising, which was when she woke up.
“Where are we?”
“Somewhere in New Mexico,” I yawned. “I need to stop for a break.”
“There’s a gas station up on the— Oh my God! Parker, turn right now!”
Startled by her sudden excitement, I yanked the truck to the right, the tires squealing as we rode two wheels, which was not something I liked to do in a truck.
“What the hell? What is it?”
“Keep driving! Just up ahead!”
I didn’t understand her excitement. There was nothing out of the ordinary around here. But when I got to the end of the road and pulled to a stop, I knew I was fucked.
“You’re not fucking serious.”
She grinned broadly at me. “It’s the answer to all our problems.”
“I can’t believe we did that,” I muttered for the tenth time today.
My beautiful wife was bouncing around the truck like we’d just bought her favorite dog. Excitement spilled from her pores as we approached the ranch.
Me? God, I wanted to turn around and bury my head in the sand. Maybe they’d think I had gone insane. Or maybe they’d just assumed I had done this because of the love of a woman.
Yeah, that made a lot more sense and made me look a helluva lot better than a man who just gave in because he was tired of looking.
“Just wait until everyone sees it. They’re never gonna believe it.”
“No shit, because no reasonable person would ever do what we just did,” I argued.
“Oh, you loved it, too. You know you did.”
That was a stretch, to say the least.
“I wouldn’t go that far. I’d say it was interesting. Not that I wanted to get it.”
“Ha! I saw the way you were ogling those wheels.”
“Again, ogling is not the term I would use.”
The wheels were fucking amazing. Any man would have been down on his knees, inspecting every aspect of them. To a man who liked rubber, they were the cream of the crop.
I turned down the road to the ranch, preparing myself for the massive amount of teasing I was about to face.
Not a single person would ever let me live this down.
Sure, my mother would appear interested.
Krista would mock me relentlessly, but Lizzy…
well, she was always on my side. She’d probably be the one to tell everyone else to shut up.
“This is going to be so awesome!” Blake grinned. “And we already have all our things, so it’s perfect!”
“I would say it’s a long way from perfect.”
“Hey, a little positivity here! This is our baby!”
I glanced over at her, shaking my head. “No, our baby is currently in your stomach.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do, and if you want me to be okay with this, you’re going to have to stop referencing that thing as our baby.”
The family was already outside as we parked in front of the house. They must have heard us coming up the drive, wondering what we were doing home so soon after leaving.
Ma’s face was slack. Pop was staring at it like it was an alien, but Liam and Jeff…
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, shoving the door open.
I was never going to live this down. And now that I was home, there was no way in hell I’d be able to stop the spread of gossip from reaching town. Even if I swore everyone to silence, I gave it five minutes before the whole town knew.
Stepping out, I rolled my eyes at Blake’s enthusiasm. She was way too thrilled about something so small.
“You’re back,” Ma said, her eyes scanning the truck warily.
“Yeah, it didn’t exactly work out.”
She nodded, her eyes still on the eyesore we dragged home.
Jeff cocked his head to the side, still trying to figure out what the hell it was. “Um…what exactly is that thing?”
“It’s a house!” Blake said excitedly.
“It has wheels,” Liam said, his brows furrowed in confusion.
“Nah, that thing’s too tiny to be a house,” Pop said. “That’s like…a shed or a fishing house.”
Blake, ever excited about our new digs, rushed over to the door. “Come see! It’s a tiny home on wheels! We saw it, and I just knew it was the perfect solution to our problem!”
Ma walked over, wary about the size of the house. Meanwhile, Pop headed my way, that condescending look on his face that he’d been giving me since I had hit puberty.
“The solution to your problem, huh?”
“She wanted our own space.”
“And staying in that thing is better than staying with us?”
I never said it was better. But, hell, yes, it was ten times better. There was nothing worse than waking up every morning, forced to listen to my father berate me for how disappointed he was with something I had done.
But that wouldn’t do any good to say.
“Do you ever get your way with Ma?”
He nodded. “Fair point. So, how much did you drop on that?”
“A hundred grand.”
He choked on a laugh, turning away to hide the worst of his reaction from me, but it was too late. I already knew what a joke it was.
“Can you even fit yourself through the door?”
“Unfortunately. She had me test nearly every model and made sure I could get up the stairs into the loft.”
“The loft, huh?” he grinned. “So, you’re sleeping on a hydabed or something?”
“It’s an actual bed, and the place has everything we need until we get on our feet.”
“We have everything you need,” he chided. “Not that you would take help from your old man.”
“Pop—”
“I’m just saying, you’re family, and you’d rather sleep in that thing that you can drag around town instead of living with us for a few months.”
“This wasn’t about you. Blake saw it and fell in love. What was I supposed to do?”
“Stop her.”
Jeff barked out a laugh. “She’s pregnant, Pop. Not sure that would have been the way to go.”
“Thank you.”
“I would have shoved food in her face and pretended to miss the exit.”
“Yeah, you tell me how that works when you have a wife of your own,” I snapped at Jeff.
“So, show me the damn thing,” Pop headed for the house on wheels. “Or is that too many people inside all at once?”