Chapter 15
Sometime after midnight, my body betrays me, and I turn Guy into the little spoon.
I don’t remember wrapping my arm around his waist, entangling our legs, and stuffing my nose in between the muscles of his shoulder blades. I should probably extract myself, but his arm is draped over mine, and his breathing is slow and steady. If he’s finally getting some much-deserved rest, maybe I shouldn’t move? Every muscle beneath his clothing is lean and solid, the product of hard labor and a harder life. I can feel every ridge and plane of his stomach, and my fingers curl into the deepest ridge.
Just when I start to think I’m feeding him enough…
A soft chuckle accompanies the movement of his abdomen beneath my arm. “Sienna, no more sandwiches. Not unless I’m making them for you.”
Guy rolls and faces me, somehow knowing what I’m thinking. My arm is still around his waist, and as I start to untangle myself and scoot back, a warm, strong hand rests on my hip, silently asking me to stay. No problem. All the warmest parts of the bed are in the critical foot of space between us.
“Did I wake you?” I ask, glancing at the clock on my nightstand. It’s only half past two, and Guy sounds much too alert.
“No, I’ve been awake for a while,” he admits. “Did you know you talk in your sleep?”
“If I said anything incriminating, I plead the Fifth,” I murmur. Like how his lower back seems to have invented some new muscles where most men just have normal flesh.
“You talked about cookies.” The hand on my hip slides so his fingers span my lower back, a moment so foreign between us but not unusual between two people curled up together.
“I like cookies,” I admit. I also like the weight of his hand, but I don’t tell him.
“What kind of cookies?” Guy’s question seems oddly specific after the events of today.
I huff a laugh. “Pretty much anything with sugar and flour is good in my book. Why do you ask?”
“I’m trying to sneak some more intel out of you. I know you like my daughter, Legs, and brownies.”
“I like Emma much more than Legs. And I really like Legs.”
Guy’s expression changes, and in the dim glow of the woodstove, I see his eyes flicker down to my lips. “Duly noted,” he murmurs.
“Should we go check on her?” I ask, because it’s safer to focus on Emma than it is to focus on a low, gentle voice asking me about cookies. I swear even his body language is coaxing me closer.
“I checked Emma a little bit ago,” he tells me. “Her vitals are good, and the swelling is better. She’s sleeping.”
“You aren’t though, are you? Do you want me to leave so you have some more space?”
“That’s the last thing I want.” Guy hesitates, then he asks softly, “Can I hold you? I know it sounds needy, but it’s been a tough night.”
“It’s not needy,” I promise. “We’re married, Guy. I know this is a marriage of…”
“Convenience?” he supplies with a tiny smile.
“Purpose. We have a marriage of purpose, and that’s helping Emma. There aren’t any rules for how we do it. If midnight snuggles help you, which will in turn help Emma, I’m in.”
Guy sometimes gets this look when I talk, and I don’t know how to read what he’s thinking.
I inhale a deep breath, then add, “It will help me too. Plus, since I already had you in a rear body lock tonight…”
He sighs with playful lust. “If you watch MMA, you just secured your place as my dream girl.”
I snicker as I scoot over those important couple of inches closer to him, enjoying how the blankets are trapping heat in the space between us. Then I turn so my shoulders are pressed to his chest. His hand on my hip becomes a muscled arm looped around my waist, cradling me close without locking down too tight. Guy’s a much better big spoon than me, and I allow myself a moment to experience being held by him. It’s been a really long time since I’ve been held. It’s…nice.
I’d almost forgotten what nice was.
The moon is bright tonight, and as we lie there in the pale wash of moonlight through the window, I’m overly aware of how close we are. I feel like someone should say something, so my tongue decides on the first random thought that pops into my head.
“Do you remember when I called you the first time, and you thought I was trying to get you naked?”
He smiles against my shoulder. “I remember thinking I knew better, because the wildly hot ones always get me in trouble, but I was sorely tempted.”
“Wildly hot ones, huh?” I can feel my cheeks heating.
“You’re beautiful, Sienna.” His voice softens. “You might be the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen. I could barely open my mouth the first time I saw you.”
This from a man who had me drooling from his first push-up.
“It’s been a long time since anyone called me beautiful,” I admit. “I think it was my wedding day.”
“So, two and a half days ago?”
“Brat. No, my real wedding.” My grin slips when I realize what I said. “I mean, not that ours wasn’t real… I just meant…”
Guy makes a soft noise in his throat. “I know. I didn’t take it that way. We’re not doing this the usual way.”
I look over my shoulder at him and see Guy’s eyes sweep over me. “I’ve spent all night thinking about how grateful I am Emma has you.”
“You have me too,” I whisper, wishing my heart wasn’t hammering in my chest because of how he’s looking at me.
He doesn’t ask if he can kiss me. The way his thumb traces my cheek is a silent question and one I know the answer to. When I nod, he dips his head, brushing the softest, slowest kiss across my lips.
“Like this?” he asks gently, and I murmur an affirmative, turning in his arms. The second kiss is even slower, somehow even softer, for all it sends my pulse frantically scrambling. “Or like this?”
“Now you’re showing off,” I decide, and the best thing happens. He grins, a real, happy grin, and I see a glimpse of the man he could have been if life had been gentler on him.
“You bring it out in me, Sienna. I can’t help myself.” One last kiss to the tip of my nose, then Guy snuggles in, as if holding me is just as good as any of the rest of it.
I daydream, just for a moment, that he’s holding me from love and not convenience. A life with Guy would be a gentler life. Loving a man like him would have been safer than the path I chose for myself. The girl who picked the wrong boy because he looked cute on a horse and held on long after she knew she had to let go. Somewhere there’s a version of me that’s more than a shadow of who I could have been too.
I wish I had any idea of how to find her. I wish I could tell her I’m sorry this happened to her.
“Hey, Guy, I promise, okay? No matter what happens, you and Emma will always have me. No matter what we choose to do.” Then I yawn and cuddle deeper into his arms, adding sleepily, “Since it’s technically Tuesday now, we married six days ago, mister. It’s too soon to forget our wedding date yet.”
His low laughter accompanying a brief kiss to my brow is the last thing I know before sleep takes me. “Trust me, Sienna. I’ll never forget.”
***
Guy checks on Emma a couple more times throughout the night, and every time, the movement of him in bed wakes me. I offer to go check on Emma for him, but he just murmurs for me to go back to sleep. I do, but only after he comes back to bed, and I know Emma is still safe.
My mental to-do list decides to turn up the volume full force an hour before my alarm goes off, forcing away the last vestige of sleep I was hoping for. The list today is long, and there are two people and a lot of animals in my home who will need breakfast. Guy’s boss told him to take today off, so if I move quietly enough, maybe he can get a little extra sleep. If Emma is feeling better, maybe I can coax her into eating something she likes after morning chores.
“Sienna?” A low voice thickened with sleep makes a hushing noise. “Come back to bed.”
“I’m technically still in bed,” I remind him.
“Part of you isn’t. I can hear your brain running a mile a minute.”
Guy’s arm around me isn’t a cage, but somehow, he manages to shift in a way that draws me deeper into his form, a place of hard muscle and heated skin. I move without consciously making the action, rolling to face him beneath his arm and snuggling in closer. The hollow of his large body fits around me perfectly. It’s as if he’s physically made to shelter others. Guy is honey on rustic bread, sweet and warm and a little rough around the edges. A safe place to hide for a while.
Except that’s not his job.
Guy’s eyes find mine in the dim light of the woodstove, his knuckles stroking my cheek in a brief, gentle touch. He’s tired, I know he is, and there’s still time for him to rest.
Then he sighs. “Okay, you win. I’ll start the coffee.”
I feed the animals while Guy works on getting Emma ready for the day, then we meet up for breakfast together. Emma’s doing better, but she’s cranky and makes it clear she’s uninterested in her oatmeal. She keeps wriggling out of her seat as if unable to sit still for more than a moment or two. I don’t know what it’s like to be in kidney failure at four years old. I don’t know what it’s like living in her tiny, brave body, but I do know what restlessness is like.
“Emma, do you want to ride Legs today?” Guy’s head comes up in momentary alarm, but I smile at him reassuringly. “We’ll double up. He could handle all three of us if he had to, not that he wouldn’t complain the whole time.”
“Daddy, can I?”
“Can I say no when you’re both looking at me like this?” he counters with a shake of his head. “But you have to eat your breakfast, Em.”
“I’ll go get him saddled.”
“You have to eat too,” he teases me as I start to get up with my mostly full bowl. “Girls and horses. You both have it bad.”
“Horses, mules, anything with four feet… Emma and I know what’s important.” I smile cheekily at him, stuff a couple more bites in my mouth, then head off to the barn.
Not everyone is as happy as we are, especially when I break it to the mule he can’t hang out with the others today and to Barley that he can’t come with Emma. Oh, the looks we’re getting.
Legs normally ignores me when I saddle him up, a standard form of passive-aggressive protest I find endearing. And true, he is technically ignoring me, but he keeps lowering his head to Emma, nudging at her pockets for treats and breathing warm breaths on her face. She giggles when he lips at her hair, the first smile I’ve seen from her in hours.
Horses—and mules—have this special relationship with kids. I never understood why, but having been the little kid with horsey breath on my face, hugging a nose larger than my torso, I get it.
To be fair, hugging them as an adult has never actually lost its appeal.
“Is he safe for her?” Guys asks, coming to stand by my side as I finish tightening the girth strap. “He’s so tall.”
“So are you,” I reply, giving Guy a quick grin. “Are you dangerous?”
“Not to you,” he promises, and for a moment, I feel his hand rest on my hip. “Never to you.”
The hand on my hip slides to the small of my back. He gives me a brief squeeze, then Guy shifts away to give me room to finish my work.
“Legs is a troublemaker some days,” I say because I’m not going to lie to him. “But he’s the safest ride I have on snow and ice. I trust him to stay on his feet in a blizzard and get me back home in one piece. I can’t promise he won’t try to scrape me off under a few branches if I give him the opportunity. All’s fair in love and trail rides.”
Guy pats Legs on the neck. “Take care of my girls, big guy.”
I don’t ask Guy what he’s going to do while we’re gone, and as he lifts Emma up to sit in front of me in the saddle, I realize I never actually invited him to go too.
“There’s room for one more,” I say, because I don’t want him to feel excluded, even if I hadn’t thought beyond Emma this morning. “I could saddle Lulu for you.”
“Naw, I know a ladies’ day when I see one.”
Guy watches us ride out, then he turns and bends down to ruffle Barley’s ears. I think about turning around to convince him to come too, but Emma starts talking about what a ladies’ day is as we wind our way up the mountainside.
The snow is falling in big, fat flakes, landing on Legs’s neck and holding their shape until he shakes his head, snorting equally large snowflakes off his sensitive nose. I keep one hand on the reins, leaving them loose to stay out of his mouth, while keeping a snug arm around Emma’s waist. It’s a long drop from Legs’s back, and while I do trust him the most in weather like this, the last thing Emma needs is a fall.
A ride in the snow before Christmas? That seems to be doing her good.
“Can we go faster?” Emma asks.
“You’ll have to ask Legs,” I tell her, loving the bright smile on her face as she twists back to look at me.
“Let’s go, Legs!” she says, and I squeeze my calves into his sides at the same time as Emma calls to him. Legs picks up into a trot with the obedience of a mule much more satisfied in his life than Legs usually acts. It must be Emma. She’s charmed him the way she’s charmed me. I swear the grumpy old fool is picking his feet up higher as he trots on purpose. Emma’s peals of childish laughter as the snow sprays around us are so good for my heart.
I hate that Guy is missing this.
We ride to the top of the peak, where there’s a chance of phone reception. Far below, I can see the river and, nearby, our home. I make a video call, and to my pleasure, Guy’s screen pops up on the second ring.
“Sienna? Are you two okay?” Guy’s handsome face is lined in worry. I need to call him more, because he seems to associate my calls with bad things happening.
“Someone wanted to say hi.” I angle the phone so he can see Emma and she can keep her hands on the saddle horn.
“Daddy, look! The snow is falling.” Emma starts to babble to him about all the ways Legs has acted and all the things we’ve seen. And yes, I always enjoy my rides on some level, but seeing her excitement makes me sit back and look around again with fresh eyes.
“Are you having fun, baby?” Guy asks, and Emma nods emphatically.
“ So much fun.”
“So much,” Guy and I murmur at the same time, and I hear him laugh softly. “You girls stay safe. I’ll have some apple tea ready when you get back.”
As I tuck my phone away, I see Emma has her little mittened hands gripping Legs’s mane the way she holds on to Barley, like she never wants to let go.
“Sen-na, do we have to go back?” she asks, turning big blue eyes—her father’s eyes—to me.
As I look around at the perfect wintery world around us, the snow swirling in the evergreens while warm breath rises from Legs’s nostrils, I hope one day the answer will be no. That one day, this will be hers to love without fear and restraint, where she can be just as safe and free as I’ve been. Where she can ride up and down these mountains and find her own paths and streams and favorite spots to show the people she loves.
Today, I’m going to have to turn around. Emma lives in a world where the adults in her life always have to turn around and take her back home.
But one day? One day, my answer will be “We can stay here forever.”