Chapter 1
Sally stood in the bathroom with the door locked. Her eyes filled up with tears as she stared at the pregnancy test stick. They were tears of joy. She was going to have a baby. Mason and Steven’s baby. Her heart was racing and she felt a little sick to her stomach. That was no different than the nauseous feelings she had been having for weeks. Then she noticed that her pants were getting a little tighter, too. She couldn’t believe it. She was having a baby.
The knock on the door frightened her, and then Steven’s voice.
“Sally, are you okay? Is anything wrong? Why do you have the door locked?” he asked.
“I’ll be out in a minute.” She quickly gathered up any evidence of the test kit. She wanted to surprise them both. She didn’t want them to find out like this. She needed to do something special. She just had to figure out what. It had been seven months since she took that tumble down the ravine, had the car accident and recovered from her injuries. It was November, Thanksgiving was tomorrow, and they were celebrating it at the main house. Everyone was bringing something, and all their friends would be together. She would do it then. She could wait one more day to tell Mason and Steven.
She hid the bag with the test kit and carton in the closet. Later, when Steven left for work at the veteran’s hospital, she would get rid of it.
She fixed her makeup then opened up the door.
Steven was standing there with his arms crossed, staring at her.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he looked her over. She was more than okay. She was the happiest woman alive right now.
“Yes. What is wrong with you?” she teased as she walked toward the bed, picked up one of the throw pillows, and placed it on the top of the bed with the rest of the accent pillows there. She had begun making the bed then hurried to the bathroom while Mason and Steven cooked breakfast downstairs. God, she really didn’t feel like eating eggs right now. The thought made her belly rumble.
I’m going to have a baby.
Steven turned her around to face him. He had his hands on her waist as she held his forearms and smiled up at him.
“Steven, what’s wrong?”
“You tell me.”
“Nothing is wrong.” She smiled at him then gave him a look that she hoped he would understand as confusion. She really was going to have a hard time keeping this from them. Just one day. One day, she told herself.
“You look different.” He told her and she smiled. I am different. I’m going to be a mommy. I’m going to have your baby and Mason’s baby.
“Different good or different bad?”
He immediately placed his hand over her ass cheek and squeezed her to him.
She felt her breast tingle. They were so oversensitive lately, and now she knew why.
She grunted as he squeezed her so tight, that her breasts collided with his muscular chest.
He pulled back.
“Are you hurting?”
“No, silly, you just squeezed me tight. Now stop fussing. Don’t you have to get to work?”
“I do, but I came up here to tell you that breakfast is ready. Mason made omelets.”
“Oh, okay. I’m really not
that hungry. I might just have some toast.” Steven looked at her strangely again. He brushed his thumb along her hip bone and her belly. She wondered if the good doctor was aware that she was with child. Did doctors just know that kind of stuff? Was it intuition? Well, she sure wasn’t going to spill the beans.
She stood up on tiptoes and kissed him hard on the mouth. “Let’s go, sweet cheeks.” She slapped him on his ass before quickly heading toward the door. He of course got to her before she could escape and kissed her to near breathlessness. When he finally released her lips, she was pliant in his arms.
“That’s what you get. Now move it.” He turned her toward the staircase and gave her ass a squeeze as they headed downstairs. Now she just needed to avoid Mason, the ex-military interrogator that knew immediately when something was on her mind. Well, not today, mister. She was going to keep this secret until tomorrow. A plan needed to be created, and she was going to surprise everyone with this news. Ahhh, to keep a secret from two dozen or more of her family couldn’t be that hard…could it?
* * * *
Tommy Ollsen watched his brother Vic as he walked out of the main barn and headed toward the fence. Tommy was looking out across the fields and at the horses that still wandered around grazing. He had been thinking about his life and that of his brother. Two tours in Iraq, they had seen and experienced such terror that until this day plagued their dreams. They were both on the force for nearly two years and still had difficulty dealing with PTSD. Doctor Frank was a great doctor and a vet in the service. He understood posttraumatic stress syndrome and had even experienced a light bit of it himself. He got through it a day at a time and through each experience. Tommy felt that his Native American upbringing also helped him to deal with his struggles. Many customs and beliefs in the higher power directed him to fight sensations of flashbacks or aggression. The aggression he felt he had some control over, but Vic confessed that he didn’t. He was the one to fly off the end pretty quickly, but Tommy was there to stop him from losing it. They hid their PTSD rather well, and in any other town they probably wouldn’t have gotten hired as deputies, but they were in Delite, and Delite was special.
“Hey, what’s that serious expression about?” Vic asked as he leaned his forearms onto the fence. With them both over six feet, they could lean on the top wrung comfortably.
“Nothing really. I was just thinking about the war and getting hired here. I’ve been having some crazy dreams lately.”
He felt Vic’s hand on his shoulder.
“I know what you mean. I do, too. I think some of the dangerous situations that our friends have been in may have something to do with it,” Vic stated then winked. Tommy knew exactly whom, specifically, he meant. He shook his head and smirked. “Elise is such a spitfire. I don’t even like going to Dixie Chix because I know I’m going to freak out at the number of guys hitting on her,” Tommy admitted.
“Never mind that body of hers. Don’t let that attitude fool you either. She’s a sweetheart but stubborn as damn hell.”
“Obviously, Vic, because she hasn’t caught on to our interest in her,” Tommy said.
“We haven’t exactly been pursuing her the way men who want a woman should be.”
“I’m not sure yet. I mean, what if we’re together and I get one of those flashbacks? She could get freaked out, or I could hurt her,” Tommy admitted.
“Like that thought hasn’t kept me away from her either? I’m the one with the aggression issues. Do you know that just last week, I pulled these teenagers over and one of them gave me lip? I nearly took his head off. He pumped out his chest and challenged me. In my head I didn’t see him as a wiseass teenage kid with no concept of reality about the world we live in. He might as well have been a Taliban terrorist. I stepped toward him and the fear in his eyes was enough to make me regain my composure. That scared me.”
“Shit, Vic. I’ve been there before. Remember that guy, Ralph, that kept bothering Elise, but we didn’t find out until we forced the info from Juliet?” Vic nodded.
“Well, notice that he no longer comes into town, never mind into Dixie Chix. I went to see him. Threatened to beat him down and leave him in the field for the animals to have their way with him. He saw that look in my eyes. You know, that look that tells anyone with any common sense that I’ve killed before. I was so worried about Elise. I want to protect her, but I’m also afraid of smothering her, too. If she becomes our woman, I don’t know if I’ll be able to let her out of my sight, never mind work at Dixie Chix.”
Vic chuckled.
“We’ve stopped ourselves. We’re getting better with time and maybe being with Elise will help, too. I’ve fucked around long enough, Vic. I want more.”
“So do I. So I guess we’d better start working on breaking down those walls Elise has built up.”
“Now that is going to be a challenge.”
Chapter 2
Elise Ross was bending over trying to restock the bottom shelf with some glasses when she heard the whistle. She knew her blue jeans were tight and hung below the waist, hugging her hips and revealing a bit of hip bone, but it was the attire most of the staff wore. She also wore a tight fitting black T-shirt that stopped at her midriff and had the words “Dixie Chix” done up in rhinestones. She ignored the whistles until she heard the commotion of more than a few men at the bar.
She glanced up and shook her head, eyeing Ben and Quinn, who ran the electric bull, along with Gus and two other guys she didn’t know. She placed her hands on her hips.