Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
BEAU
T he porch stairs creak under my weight as I cautiously sit beside Emily.
I press a kiss to her temple and the sensitive spot just behind her ear, and she shivers.
I offer her the large mug of coffee sweetened with her preferred white chocolate raspberry creamer from Mom’s coffee shop in town and then drape one of my heavy flannels across her shoulders to cut the worst of the morning’s cool breeze.
Her hair is pulled back, revealing the dark bruise I’d left at the juncture of her shoulder and neck last night.
I gently trace the dark spot with my lips, and her breath hitches for a heartbeat. Vanilla surrounds us in a wave.
“You did it, Mamma,” I whisper against her shoulder.
The vanilla pulses.
“ We did it,” she amends. “You did the hard nights, too.”
I shrug the comment away. “You spent nine months sacrificing your body and another six months sharing it with her while you exclusively nursed. The least I could do was the overnights and diapers.”
She takes a long drink of the coffee and hums in happy satisfaction. I can’t help but chuckle and wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her close. The birdsong filling the meadow overtakes our quiet conversation and the low drone of the bubble machine’s motor.
It might seem anticlimactic to some that we’re spending the morning of our daughter’s first birthday sitting on the porch watching her play with the gift we’d gotten her, but none of us are particularly unhappy. My phone vibrates with a text. As I pull my phone from my back pocket, Penny shrieks.
My eyes flash up to where she’s playing farther down the driveway, fear holding my heart in its fist. The whale-shaped bubble machine whirs, but no bubbles come out of the top.
She smacks her hand on it and shrieks again.
When she looks back at us, I kiss the crown of Emily’s head and ease to my feet.
“That lasted longer than I expected,” I admit.
Emily’s laugh goes straight to my dick. I swipe open the text from Ethan as I take the bubble mix out to the machine.
Surprise calf’s fine. Bachelors are out. Creek looks fine. Kyle and Paul are working on the next bit of fencing.
Why was he the one moving cattle this morning? He’s supposed to have two more weeks until he starts slowly taking things back over. I’d tried to make him take more time, but he’d refused.
Penny hits the top of it again, her eyes lining with tears.
“Hey, Penny girl, it’s all right,” I murmur. “I’ve got more.”
I shoot back a quick text to Ethan.
Sounds good. Glad the creek’s looking okay. Why are you out, though?
I quickly refill the bubble machine. It takes a moment for the bubbles to start again, but then Penny giggles. I kiss her cheek then head back to Emily.
Triston asked for today off.
Confusion twists my lungs and flips my stomach.
He did? He hadn’t said anything to me when we’d worked together yesterday, though he’d been quick to get out of the barns after lunch.
He hadn’t said why, and I hadn’t pried. I focus on Penny for a moment, trying to keep the hurt building in my stomach from becoming resentment.
I don’t want to hate him. Fuck, that’s the last thing I want.
I don’t text Ethan back. I set my phone to silent and then set it on the porch’s railing before taking my seat beside Emily again. I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her into me, ducking my hand under her shirt and tracing shapes along her side.
“I invited him,” I whisper.
She tenses for a heartbeat then takes another long drink. “What did he say?”
Penny giggles and spins around, holding that damn dog plushie tight to her chest. She tries to catch one of the bubbles and giggles again when it pops in her palm.
“Nothing,” I admit. “But apparently he asked Ethan for today off.”
Vanilla pulses around us as her breath catches in her throat, a small sound that she cuts off before it can gain any true life. I palm her hip. After a minute, she sucks in a heavy, deep breath and sets the half-finished coffee at our feet.
“Let me see the bite,” she whispers.
“It’s fine,” I assure her. “Just like it was yesterday and the day before that.”
She pulls away from me, frowning. Her voice is laced with heated command.
“Let. Me. See. It.”
Fuck, her voice like that turns me on.
I can’t help but smirk even as my dick tries to get interested.
“Yes, ma’am,” I whisper.
Then I kiss her, fast enough she can’t pull away.
I twist my hand into her hair and press my thumb into that spot where her jaw meets her throat.
The vanilla of her scent pulses again, even more potent than before.
Within a few seconds, she goes completely boneless, falling into me as she deepens the kiss.
I savor the taste and weight of her, loving the fuck out of knowing she only relaxes like this with me, that I get to be the one who sees her entirely unguarded.
When she pulls away, her cheeks are flushed and her breathing is choppy.
“Let me see it,” she says in a breathy tone that takes my dick from half-hard to fully aching.
I spread my legs a bit and then unbutton the henley, pushing the neckline down far enough that the bite she’d given me a week ago is visible.
She’s never broken skin before, always stopping just shy when that need to mark and claim gets overwhelmingly strong.
The bite’s fully scabbed and well on its way to healing completely.
She still traces over it, her eyebrows furrowed.
Worry tightens her lush mouth, and I want to ease away all the stress she takes on.
Her lips part, but I talk over her apology I don’t need.
“You needed it.” I press my thumb to her lips. “Stop stressing. It’s healing just fine.”
She rolls her eyes and huffs, but she does settle back against my side, letting me cover the bite.
Only a few minutes later, a gray SUV comes down the service road.
“What’s your Dad need that he didn’t call about first?” I ask.
But then the truck turns onto the drive, and I realize it’s not Scott at all, though it’s his vehicle. Emily freezes, and her vanilla snaps out around us, faster and stronger than before.
He stops the SUV long before it gets anywhere near where Penny plays and slowly gets out of it.
Bootcut jeans and a plain t-shirt sculpted to a broad chest and lean, sculpted arms shouldn’t be able to make my heart race.
It’s what most of the people in Creek Falls wear.
Hell, I see the other ranch hands dressed in the exact same style of Levis every single day.
And yet my heart beats faster and attraction warms my chest and limbs.
He stares at Emily, not Penny, as he shoves his hands in his pockets and hooks one thumb in a belt loop.
There’s a wealth of emotion in his blue-green eyes, enough I can’t hope to name all the individual aspects of it.
Desperation and guilt are there, but that fragility isn’t.
He doesn’t look like he’s prey among predators, one sudden move away from bolting.
Emily all but vibrates beside me. I tighten my hold on her, twisting my hand into her shirt to force her still.
Damn, it’s not often I wish I could tell the subtle pheromone differences in scents.
Most of the time I’m relieved to not be influenced by them at all.
But right now, with thirty feet and eighteen months of no contact between us, I would give just about anything to know what’s lacing Emily’s vanilla scent, to know if her tensing is in preparation for running away from him or running to him.
It’s then that Penny notices him. She squeals and races toward him, the bubbles abandoned entirely. My heart climbs my throat and pulses in my ears as he scoops her up before she can slam into his legs. She throws her arms around his neck, her dog plushie hitting the side of his face.
“Hi,” he says, just loud enough it carries to us. “Happy birthday.”
She babbles for a minute, holding up her dog and then pointing at the bubbles. Triston’s smile is small as he responds to her, quiet this time so the words are just a hum of noise by the time they reach us. After a few minutes, he kisses the top of her head.
“I have a present for you,” he says, though his eyes are on Emily again. “Do you want to see it?”
He doesn’t actually wait for Penny to answer. He backs up a few steps and opens the door of the SUV, reaching into the backseat. He hands Penny a small, dark blue bag that shines in the sunlight with silver tissue paper peeking out the top.
“Can you take that to your mom?” he asks.
Penny giggles and then wiggles against him in silent demand.
The moment her feet touch the concrete, she’s racing back toward us, the bag scraping on the ground every few steps.
My gaze catches on Triston slowly following behind her, carrying a much larger, rainbow decorated bag and a small bouquet of daisies.
Emily’s hands tremble as she takes the bag from Penny.
“Thank you, love bug,” she says. That shakiness is in her voice, too, enough that Penny frowns.
She taps Emily’s knee. “Mama.”
“She’s all right,” I murmur, though it’s a complete load of shit.
I release my hold on Emily’s shirt so she can sit up just as Triston reaches us.
He drops into a crouch, completely silent, behind Penny.
The present sits beside him, his elbows resting on his knees and the bouquet hanging limp in his hands.
A small bruise on the inside of his wrist catches my attention, and I frown.