Bucked
TEN
Autumn
“I’ve only lived here a short time, but I’m pretty sure the ranch is the opposite direction,” I commented when Jake turned the truck left instead of right, heading out of town. “I thought we were going to meet Ivy there so she could unveil her grand plan for our nuptials in a week?”
I wasn’t exactly upset by her insistence that we couldn’t get it done by a simple visit to the courthouse.
More like resigned to it, willingly letting go and putting faith in people around me to take the wheel, because my life had spiraled beyond overwhelm.
Besides, Jake made some sense when he said it’d be better that we make it look like we’d been planning to marry for a while now…
not just for the sake of a custody suit.
“We’ll get there—by the scenic route. I thought you’d like to see more of Montana,” he explained.
“I live in Montana. See it every day.”
Jake smirked from the driver’s seat, his elbow hanging out the window. “You live above a coffee shop and hardly ever get out to see all of the beauty on a pretty fall day.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “So you kidnap me and Stetson? Ivy doesn’t seem like the type of woman we should keep waiting, even though she’s the one who has hi-jacked our sleepy little wedding and blew it up.”
“I texted her that we’d need a couple of hours.”
“You did? You’re being awfully mysterious. Is this something I’m going to have to learn to live with when we’re married?”
He laughed. “I might like to surprise you now and then.” He reached over and captured my hand between us.
“Not sure I like surprises.” I settled deeper into the passenger seat, warmed by his touch, unable to stop my smile—because yes, of course I loved a sexy-ass SEAL surprising me, putting thought into something nice for me.
More than my ex ever did for me.
I glanced over at Jake’s strong arms, and his grip on the steering wheel, and then further down his lap. Another benefit of this union developed—me taking more and more liberties with my gazes on his physique.
Because in one week, I’d be his wife. Wife. The word did a hot lap around my body, checking on places that had been closed for too long and reporting back that, actually, everything still worked.
Someday—no rush, baby steps—those big, rough hands on the steering wheel would be allowed to…
I turned to the window and let the Montana breeze do its job, blowing through my hair, cooling me off.
“Now relax and enjoy the view. There’s something I need to pick up before we get to the ranch.” He sighed, and then muttered under his breath. “And someone you need to meet.”
I caught that. “Who?”
“Okay. Don’t get upset. I’m taking you to meet my parents.”
“Jake! You could’ve warned me.” I pulled down the visor mirror, aghast at my reflection.
I quickly braided my hair, and then inspected my tee to make sure there were no stains.
It was fine enough to go over wedding details with Ivy as she tried to pull together our wedding with a week’s notice. But to meet the parents?
Stetson squealed behind us, apparently delighted that Mama had finally lost her mind.
“It’s really not a big deal, Autumn. They’re going to like you both.”
“It is to me.” But I could only stew for a moment. This meeting was inevitable. I may not have family to speak of, but he did.
“Seriously, my parents are very down home, nice people. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be nervous. Besides, meeting Jamie was also a surprise and you handled that fine.” Jake pointed through the windshield. “Hey, see that river?”
“Don’t you try to distract me. I’m still mad at you.” But I leaned forward anyway to view a ribbon of sparkling blue curving through the prairie.
“That’s the Gruff Bear River. My dad taught me to fly-fish down there.”
“Were you good at it?”
“No. I fell in.”
I turned toward him. “How old were you?”
“Eight.”
I laughed. “Please tell me he saved you.”
“He hauled me out and told me the fish weren’t biting hard enough that day to go swimming after them.”
I snorted. “I like that humor.”
Jake’s expression softened. “He’s a good man. He’ll like you.”
Something about the way he said it made me shift in my seat.
“Is this a right of passage where you’ll teach Stetson how to fish?”
“Someday. I hope so. Would you like me to?”
“Yeah. That’d be nice. If he wanted to, that is.” Jake was so different from Brantley, who had little interest in outdoor pursuits. Every day I found another way to compare the two of them. When it came right down to it, I should stop because Brantley couldn’t compete.
Jake drove on, pointing out the school where he’d played football, the dirt road he’d ridden his bike down as a kid and broke his arm, and a swimming hole where he claimed Jamie once shoved him off a rock because he’d put a frog in her bed.
“No. Please tell me you didn’t torture your sister.”
He glanced over. “Whose side are you on?”
“Female solidarity.”
From the back seat came a loud, “Dada!”
Jake’s eyes jumped to the rearview mirror. I bit my lip. Stetson had become increasingly committed to that particular word, despite Jake’s repeated attempts to convince him that Baba was perfectly adequate.
“Baba,” Jake corrected.
“Dada.”
“Baaa-baaa.”
“DADA!”
I burst out laughing at the exchange. “We might as well give up. Can’t argue with baby logic.”
My laughter died somewhere in my throat. His gaze heated on me. It lingered in his crinkled eyes, warm and inviting. Far too intimate for two people getting married just because my life had gone to hell. Definitely too close for people who were supposed to take things slow.
“Should we let him call me Dada then? I’d be fine with it. You and Stetson are… Hell, you must know how I feel about you, Autumn.”
I turned toward the passenger window before he could see the effect he had on my watering eyes.
Thankfully I didn’t have to think up a response because he immediately turned onto a narrow gravel lane.
A huge wooden sign arched over the drive with pretty vines growing on it, and announced “The Double M” in large script letters.
A split-rail fence followed it toward a white farmhouse nestled between towering cottonwoods.
A large wrap around porch featured several rocking chairs with homey quilts and pillows. Flower beds spilled over with early fall blooms everywhere. A red barn sat farther back, and a few horses grazed near the fence.
Beyond that, in the distance, were a few more barns, too. Dotted all around the front pasture were goats. Lots and lots of goats of all colors, shapes, and sizes.
Jake gestured wide with his hand out the window. “Welcome to McCall’s Meadows, Montana’s largest goat farm. Oh, and Jamie runs her honey business here, too.”
“It’s all lovely. Quite different from the Off-Duty Rescue Ranch.”
“Well, we do have goats instead of horses.”
“No. I meant more like this one has a woman’s touch involved.”
“Yeah. My mother’s.”
“McCall’s Meadows,” I tried out the words as a round woman appeared on the porch, waving at us.
“Ready?” He arched his brow.
“I’m still mad at you. But we can argue about it later.”
He laughed and got out. He met who I could only assume was his mother with a big old bear hug, lifting her feet off the ground. She yelped and laughed. With her feet back on dirt, she held her hands up to his cheeks.
Whatever he said to her next, her hand went to her forehead, shielding her eyes at me. Her entire face changed. She ran to the truck so fast, the SEAL had to hurry to keep up.
“Well don’t leave her in the hot truck,” I heard her say.
Jake pulled my door open and helped me out with a hand. “Mom, this is Autumn Triggs. Autumn, my mom, Diane, but everyone calls her Dot.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Dot.”
“Likewise.” She dabbed her fingertips along her eyes. “Oh, you’ll have to excuse me. Jake hasn’t brought a woman home in—ever.”
Stetson protested from the back seat, being left out.
Dot gasped, clasping both hands to her chest. “What’s this? Better yet, who?”
“This is my son, Stetson.” I got him out of the seat.
“Oh, my word. Are you seeing this, Mr. McCall?” She must have sensed a tall and thin older man making an appearance behind her, wearing a dusty straw hat and overalls. His quietly bemused expression reminded me of Jake’s.
She wiggled her fingers, and Stetson giggled. That was it. Dot McCall was a goner.
“What a handsome boy. He’s precious. Can I hold him?”
“Careful. Mom might never put him down,” Jake warned.
“Must run in the family,” I winked at Jake and handed him over.
Dot had Stetson on her hip, already narrating the farm to him like a tour guide, when the ground started to rumble.
I turned toward the sound. Something big and shaggy and horned had split off from the herd in the front pasture, cleared a low spot in the fence like it wasn’t there, and was bearing down on us at a dead run.
“Jake, watch out!” My heart slammed into my throat.
Instead of diving out of the way like a sane person, the big Navy SEAL planted his boots, dropped his center of gravity, and caught the thing by the horns.
Man and beast went skidding across the gravel in a cloud of dust and profanity. I screamed. I may have grabbed the nearest weapon, which turned out to be the diaper bag. What was I even planning—to burp it into submission?
His parents stood there laughing.
“Oh, he’s fine, honey.” Dot waved a hand, bouncing Stetson, who shrieked with delight, pointing at the show. “That’s Macho saying hello.”
“Saying hello?” The two of them were wrestling in the driveway, Jake grunting, the goat’s back legs churning gravel. “It attacked him!”
“Just a greeting,” came a new voice. Jamie strolled up from the direction of the smaller barns, wearing half a beekeeper’s suit, the hood pushed back from her hair, tugging off a pair of long gloves. “Nice to see you again, Autumn. Hi Stetson.”
“Wait, you met them before I did?” Dot’s face screwed up about it.
Jamie mentioned meeting at the wedding, the two of them unfazed by Jake and the animal. Then the goat made a sound I can only describe as a happy groan and started rubbing his head up and down Jake’s shirt like an enormous cat.
“Hey, Macho.” Wrecked and filthy, he scratched it behind the horns. “Missed you too.”
I stood there with my mouth gaping wide open.
Dot explained, “Nine years ago, Jake came home on holiday leave, and we had a sickly twin, too weak to nurse. His mama rejected him. We’d about given up until Jake sat in the barn on Christmas Eve and bottle-fed him every three hours.
He did that for two solid weeks, right up until he shipped back out.
” She shook her head fondly at them in the dusty driveway.
Jamie added, “Macho never forgot. Every time Jake comes home, he charges him out of love.”
“I was just saying the other day, that goat mourns when Jake leaves. Stands at the gate for days. Isn’t that right, Mr. McCall?”
The man only grunted in reply.
“Isn’t he technically a—” I hunted for the word. “A ram?”
“Buck,” Jamie corrected, grinning. “Sheep have rams. Goats have bucks. But Macho is a wether. Means he’s castrated. Wethers are nicer than bucks.”
“If you call getting mauled, nice.” That’s when I felt the tug at my shoulder. I glanced down and startled. A white and brown colored goat with a long face methodically ate the corner of my diaper bag.
“Presley! No.” Jamie swatted her away, but the damage was done. “I’m so sorry. She’s our delinquent. Eats everything. I’ll buy you a new bag. No arguments. Consider it my first act as your sister-in-law.”
Sister-in-law. It went through me, so foreign, but warm at the same time.
“Go on with the tour. I’ll put Macho away,” Jake called.
“Yes. The baby has to meet our kids.” Dot led the way to a barn full of goats.
I learned more in a half hour about these animals than I thought possible.
But the real moment came when meeting the newest arrival at McCall’s Meadows, only two days old, black and white, roughly the size of a loaf of bread, and with the cutest ears.
Dot set Stetson down in the straw on his diapered bottom, before I could protest. The tiny kid goat wobbled straight over and pressed its nose to my son’s face.
Stetson laughed with an unstoppable belly jiggle that only babies have, and the goat startled, bounced straight up in the air the way baby goats do, which only made the laughter louder.
The bouncing and laughing game repeated, seemingly with no end.
I took a hundred photos. I would have taken a thousand just to capture all the joy in my son’s face.
“She needs a name,” Dot said, misty-eyed. “Stetson, honey, what should we call her?”
My son looked up at the assembled McCalls, gravely aware of his moment, pointed one chubby finger at the goat, and declared: “Ba!”
“Perfect. Bah it is.”
So my son named his first goat, and nobody in that barn thought it was anything less than official. Secretly, I hoped it wouldn’t be his last.