Beau
“Do you know you just got, like, fifteen packages out on your porch?” Birdie chirped as she walked back through the front door. I adjusted Juniper in my arms, because, yeah, I hadn’t been able to let her go since we got home. “I thought you were feeling good about having everything Juniper needs?”
“I am. I was up that first night, and I guess I got carried away. Those are for her party,” I said like I wasn’t completely crazy. “I’m gonna make some coffee. You want to split it with me? Or I have some of that girly tea you like up in the cupboard still.”
“Girly tea, please. Her party?” Birdie smiled as she walked toward the counter and set three boxes down. “What party is your daddy talking about, berry girl?”
“She’s going to be five months old soon.” I filled a small pot with water from the tap before setting it on the stove and turning on the burner. “It’s her first milestone that I’ll be able to celebrate with her.”
Birdie’s eyes met mine, a shimmer filling them almost immediately. “That is so sweet. What can I do? How can I help?”
“You’re already helping enough. I’m gonna wrangle my brothers in on set up, figure we can do it at Lach’s place.
Colt can run an extension cord and help Hawk put up that inflatable bounce house they got for Beckett.
Ma will want to cook, but I’ll chip in with that.
It’s not going to be anything big, but yeah. I just want to celebrate her.”
“Your daddy is a good man, Juniper. He’s going to spoil you rotten, and I’m going to love watching it happen.” She grabbed on to Juniper’s leg and pressed a kiss to the bottom of her bare foot. “I could just eat these little toes up!”
I chuckled. “I think she’s almost ready for another bottle and some sleep. Could you take her? I might set up the paint and get moving on her room. I know you have to go back to work tomorrow; figured I could get it done before with your help.”
“Yeah, of course I can. Just don’t forget to grab the rest of the boxes. Come here, sweet thing. Let's get you ready for some good sleep!” She scooped Juniper out of my arms.
“Shit,” I groaned, reaching over to the stove to turn off the heat.
The water for her tea had just hit a boil, but I didn’t fucking want her scalding herself on it when she took a sip.
Holding the pot over the sink, I grabbed her mug and poured the scalding hot water over the tea bags, before setting the mug back onto the counter.
“It’s okay. Just let the tea steep. I’ll come downstairs and grab it after I get her settled.”
“You sure?”
“Mhm.” Birdie nodded. “Bring up her bottle with you? Yeah?”
“I’m on it.”
They disappeared upstairs, the floor creaking above my head as I fixed Juniper’s bottle.
It was a little warm when I tested it, so I left it on the counter while I walked to the front porch.
Birdie was right. There looked to be a dozen packages—or more—still sitting out there.
I’d only ordered a few things. Balloons.
Streamers. A crown for Juniper to wear. The prettiest matching dresses for her and Birdie.
That was going to be a secret until party day, so somehow I needed to figure out which package had those inside and hide them away until the big day.
Would Birdie even like that?
“Beau?” Her voice filtered down the stairs.
“I’m just about to come up!” I replied, jogging to the kitchen where I tossed down the boxes and bags, then grabbed her bottle.
By the time I got upstairs, Birdie was sitting in the rocking chair, a pillow across her lap with Juniper perched on it. Her little hand was in her mouth and her face was turning red.
“Oh, I see we’re at DEFCON 3.”
Birdie laughed. “She’s like you when it comes to food. No one better get in her way.”
I handed the bottle to Birdie, running my hand over Juniper’s head. “Sweet dreams, baby.” I turned to Birdie. “Thank you for going with us today,” I whispered.
“It was nothing.”
“No.” I couldn’t stop myself. Everything about the last few days had left me feeling like I was free falling. But not when I was near Birdie. Not when I was touching her. She kept me grounded. My lips pressed against her forehead. “It wasn’t nothing. It meant everything to me.”
I turned, but not before I enjoyed the surprised look on her face.
“I can’t believe you got this all set up while I got her to sleep.” Birdie’s voice filtered in over my shoulder as I finished taping down the plastic over the hardwood floors.
“How is she?”
“She’s great. You know, Juniper wasn’t even the one who cried during her shots…”
I nodded. Yeah. I’d lost it the second the needle plunged into her tiny little leg.
My girl was strong, though. She went wide-eyed for about half a second before crinkling her forehead up and looking at me like I was the bad guy.
I wasn’t ashamed to admit I lost it a little bit.
Thank God Birdie swore to keep my reaction to herself.
I’d seen the tears in her eyes, too. And I’d known I was right with what I told Marissa: I wasn’t alone in raising Juniper. I hadn’t been from the very first minute I’d learned about her; Birdie was there.
“What do you say, Chickadee? Feel up to helping me paint?”
“Of course.” Her brows pulled together, but she pushed off the wall. “Where did you even get this paint?”
“Oh,” I chuckled, “Hawk left it on the back porch. They had a bunch left over from when they thought Beckett was going to be a girl. Said I’d earned it after he made me paint their nursery to show how sorry I was for being an ass to Jessie.”
She laughed. “So, I guess we can call this color ‘humble pie pink’?”
“It’d be fitting,” I agreed, using the church key to pry open the lid, before pouring the first paint tray half full.
“Let’s tackle the trim together, and then we can roll,” Birdie suggested.
“Sounds good to me.”
We both moved towards the ladder I had set up in the corner.
“Uh, where you going, Cowboy?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Chickadee.”
“I’m going to do the trim around the ceiling.”
“Like hell you are,” I grumbled. “I don’t like the idea of you up on the ladder.”
She rolled her eyes and pointed her paintbrush at my chest.
“Don’t even start. I’m perfectly capable of climbing a ladder safely.”
“I know you are. I’m not saying you couldn’t—I’m just saying it’s safer for you to keep two feet on the ground. So, you should.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Yeah, but you like that about me.”
She shrugged, but I could see the smile she was fighting to hold back.
“Well, I won’t be disappointed with the view,” Birdie teased.
“Damn, I hadn’t thought of that. Here I was being chivalrous, and I fucked—ducked—myself over.”
She patted my chest. “You’ll be fine. Better scurry up that ladder.”
I groaned as I took my place, watching Birdie as she pulled out her phone and rested it against the window. Some sort of ethereal music started playing.
“Is this one of your midwifery playlists?” I joked.
“Yeah, it is.” She laughed as she sat on the floor, pulling the second tray of paint closer to her. “This is a favorite. It’s soothing while still being energizing; something I think we could both use right now.”
“Alright. But when we start rolling, we’re switching to country.”
“Whatever you say, Cowboy.”
I chuckled. “Oh! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. We had two calves born this morning.”
“What?!” Her whole face lit up, and my chest tightened. She’d always loved getting to bottle feed the babies when their mamas didn’t take to mothering.
“Ma sent out this guy who she met at the diner to come talk to me about hiring on as an extra hand, and Travis called up, telling me there was a mama in distress.”
“No. What happened?”
“He was elbow deep when we got out there. Emmett—the new guy—stepped right in and got the calf’s position fixed, and out that baby popped. It was wild.”
“Aw.” Her eyes went wide. “Are they okay? The baby and the mama?”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, flipping back to the text I’d gotten from Kip while I was taping down the tarp.
“Kip was checking on ‘em this afternoon. Looks like they are both doing great.”
I held out the phone and showed her the picture I’d gotten.
“Adorable. Look at you, not wanting to listen to my birthing playlist, but being a midwife yourself, of sorts.”
I chuckled, shaking my head as I slipped my phone back into my jeans and slopped paint onto my brush.
It took thirty minutes for me to make it around the top of the room, mainly because I kept getting distracted by Birdie’s humming. I hadn’t told her about eavesdropping on her lullaby time with Juniper, but each time she started humming, that warm feeling I had in the barn returned to my chest.
“Alright, I think that looks good.” Birdie stood with a groan, stretching her arms above her head so the tiniest sliver of her side stuck out between her shirt and her overalls.
Except, it wasn’t pale pink that I saw.
Her skin was purple and blue, and I fucking saw red.
“What is that?” My words sounded like a bark.
Cold, distant. Her side had been hurt for days, and I still hadn’t checked in with her.
The small sliver I saw looked so fucking painful.
Like the time my horse, George, kicked me in the thigh.
He had been aiming for another horse, and I’d gotten myself wedged between them, so it was my own damn fault, but that hadn’t meant it hurt any less.
She must have been in pain this whole time…
“What is what?” Birdie’s eyes went wide, her free hand cupping under the hand that held her paintbrush.
“Your side.” I got down off the ladder and closed the distance between us, my fingers brushing against the fabric of her shirt. “Every time I ask about it, you brush it off. I want to know what happened.”
Her eyes fluttered closed for one second while she took a deep breath.
“It’s honestly nothing. A situation at work got out of hand. Security handled it.”
“Chickadee,” I groaned, my forehead pressing against hers. “I could have been putting some arnica on it for you. Have you been in pain this whole time?”
“No. It was just sore the first day, but it’s gotten better,” she whispered.
And then she pulled back, just enough for her eyes to drop to my lips for a second before flicking back up. Fuck. I knew what she was thinking about. Because it’s what I had been thinking about doing nonstop for years.
“You seem to have gotten a little something…right…” Her hand reached up to brush under my eye, completely distracting me from the fact that she still had a paintbrush—loaded with pale pink paint—in her other hand.
Suddenly it slid across my chest, painting a streak over my skin and dripping down my belly. “There.”
My jaw dropped open, and the sweetest laughter filled the room.
“Oopsies.” She shrugged, shrieking as I reached out and pulled her right into my chest, careful not to bump her side. I smeared the paint all over her as my chest rubbed against hers. Her sunflower overalls were now christened with the pink paint she seemed to love so much.
“Beau!”
I laughed, deep and so hard my sides hurt. Birdie’s hand rested on my chest, then came up to slather more paint across my cheek.
We were so close, I could feel her heart beating right against mine. I was sure she could feel exactly what that was doing to me. It was the way she was looking at me…
I couldn’t hold back. I slid my hands down her waist, pressing her closer to me as I dipped my face to hers. And then my lips were there, hovering just a breath away from hers.
“Don’t hide your hurt from me again.”
Her bottom lip went between her teeth. “I didn’t want you to worry.”
“I’ll worry no matter what. You’re so fucking important to me, Chickadee. Don’t ever doubt that.”
“I don’t…”
For a second I thought she was going to pull back. But Birdie’s eyes fluttered shut, her breath stilling as she pushed up on her tiptoes, and our lips connected.
I was kissing Birdie.
And Bernadette June Calloway—the girl I’d never really let myself dream of taking this step with—was kissing me back.
Holy fuck, I was kissing Birdie.
I opened to her, my tongue licking along the seam of her lips. She tasted like strawberries and sunshine, and everything good in the world.
“Thank you for the help in here,” I whispered as she broke the kiss. Why the fuck were those the words that came out of my mouth after kissing her? Thank you? I shoved down the groan that was building in my chest as I watched her face fall.
“Of course. Although, I think I might have been more of a hindrance than a help there at the end.”
I chuckled as I looked over the sad state we were both in. The paint was everywhere. In my hair. In hers. On our faces. Our clothes. I’d never seen a bigger mess, or laughed harder in my life.
“Pink looks good on you, Cowboy,” she smiled up at me, booping the end of my nose and depositing more paint there, I was sure.
“Looks good on you, too, Chickadee.”
She signed, leaning back against my chest. “We should probably go get cleaned up. You can have a shower first.”
“Nope. You go on ahead. I’ll grab some fans from the garage and work on a second coat if it dries fast after I roll the first. Might take a couple coats by the look of it, and that means a couple of days before Juniper can sleep in here.”
“Are you sure? I started the paint war. I feel like maybe I should have to suffer the consequences of my own actions…”
“I’m sure. Go get cleaned up.”
Birdie left, taking all the sunshine out of the room with her…and I fucking tried my hardest not to imagine her naked in my shower as soon as I heard the water turn on.