Reaching up, I cup his face and he turns into my hand, kissing my palm. His focus falls on my still flat stomach. Attention captivated, his hand strokes back and forth with such tenderness I’m on the verge of happy tears. I’ll never have to wonder how he feels about this child.
“That’s why I had to make sure, when I decided to do this, that it was with someone I could trust with my world.” Bending over me, he rains soft kisses on my belly.
“Dane?”
“Yeah, baby,” he murmurs against my stomach. Looking up, he waits patiently for me to continue. I don’t have it in me to correct him.
Mouth dry and heart pounding inside my chest, I marshal the strength to ask, “What is this?”
“This––” he repeats, index finger drawing an invisible circle between us. “This is the world. Everything about me revolves around you…and I mean everything.”
As declarations go, it’s a pretty powerful one. But what exactly does it mean? I must be the dumb girl because I don’t really know what it means.
“I can see you thinkin’.”
“No, umm, no thinking,” I say with a smile. I’m thinking. I’m thinking a lot.
His lips are almost on mine when he pauses. He’s giving me a last chance to back out, one last chance to avert this train wreck because, let’s face it, there’s a high probability it will be. All we agree on is that we desperately desire one another. The rest is still up for debate.
When I don’t stop him, he smiles and kisses me. The moment his lips touch mine I know I made the right decision. Nothing has ever felt as good as being with Dane. In the unlikeliest of ways, we fit.
His hand moves up my bare thigh, taking with it the hem of my dress. Over my lace panties, his fingertips sweep back and forth between my legs, slow enough to drive me crazy, hard enough to have me panting for more.
I struggle with his shirt, fumbling with the buttons. Some pop off and go flying across the wood floor. We both stop and stare at each other.
“Woopsy,” I say, giggling.
He rewards me with one of his blinding white grins, shoves the shirt off, then his undershirt. The sight of him bare-chested and up on his knees is almost enough to turn me into a squealing fangirl.
I’m not a lucky girl. I’m not the heroine in any epic romance novel. I’m the practical one––the one that knows Jane Austen died a spinster and clings to that reality as the reason not to believe in romance.
Give me numbers. Give me dollar bills. Something I can hold on to with both hands. Something real to believe in. But right now, in this instant, looking up at this beautiful man with his big heart and even bigger erection, with longing on his face and it’s all for me…I’m the freaking heroine. I’m finally the lucky one.
Dane’s face darkens with pure hunger the moment he catches me staring at the erection pushing against his slacks. I stroke him and he grits his teeth.
“Patience, baby.”
He kisses me again and in seconds it turns hot and deep. He nips my bottom lip, sends his tongue in search of mine. His hands over my breasts are pure sorcery, slide down my body, glide teasingly between my thighs. I’m so turned on my dress might as well be made of steel wool––a medieval torture device. I need it off like yesterday.
Somewhere a cell phone pings. Incoming text. The hand delving between my legs, the hand pushing aside my underwear and grazing my clit, tells me to ignore it.
Another ping.
“Fuck me!”
He sits back on his heels and I almost cry out at the loss of him. Hair mussed, lips swollen. The ridiculous amount of sex appeal he exudes makes me dizzy.
When the phone starts to ring, Dane frowns and gets up to grab it from the nightstand. He sees who’s calling and picks it up.
“What’s up?” The v that pops up between his brows says something’s up and it isn’t good. “Okay, I’m on my way.”
Ending the call, he grabs his undershirt off the floor. “Missy went into labor and there seems to be some trouble.”
Jumping off the bed, I push down my dress. “I’m coming with you.”
Five minutes later we’re walking into the barn.
The frailty of life. We lose sight of it so easily. We go about our business day in and day out like there’s only a slim chance it may all end when in fact it’s probably closer to 30-70. Every time I start to feel safe enough to let loose, something comes along to remind me how precarious it is.
Missy has been in labor for two hours and I swear every time the small mare groans and thrashes, I die a small death.
Three times Dane has asked me to leave and go back to the house. Three times I’ve ignored him. He and Levi look exhausted from trying to keep her calm as we await the vet to arrive from treating a bunch of colicky horses that got into some bad hay. Or so I’ve been repeatedly told.
“Where the fuck’s the vet?” I whisper-shout for the fourth time from outside the birthing stall.
Levi wipes the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt and takes his cell out from his back pocket. Missy makes a terrible, pained sound and we all freeze.
Looking at the screen of his cell, he says, “On his way, but he’s comin’ from sixty miles away.”
“Conyers’s outfit?” Dane asks and Levi nods.
“What do you think is wrong?” I ask, both curious and scared of the answer.
Dane and Levi exchange a look. “Foal is breech––and the cord may be wrapped around the neck.”
My stomach sinks. I feel faint all of a sudden. Blood rushing in my ears, weak-kneed, the stall door is the only thing keeping me up.
“You should go back to the house, Stella. You look pale.”
Dane’s head whips around, a scowl at the ready.
“That’s it.” He steps out of the stall and grabs a small stool for me to sit on. I drop down in it. Sitting on his heels, Dane meets me eye to eye.
“You’re worrying me,” he says in a low, direct voice. “Let me take you back to the house. You’re no help here.”
He’s right. I’m getting in their way and that’s the last thing they need. With a heavy heart I nod and Dane wraps an arm around my back.
A tall lanky man, wearing jeans and a silver handlebar mustache walks in holding a bag and a medical box.
“How she doin’?”
“Not good,” Dane answers, getting to his feet.
Forgoing the greetings, the vet sets down his tool kit. A young woman comes running in with more equipment. They douse their arms and hands with what I assume is disinfectant and put on surgical gloves. Then the vet disappears into the stall, stethoscope hanging around his neck.
Dane hauls me up and out of the barn while I complain the entire way back to the house.
“Don’t fight me. I can’t look after you and help them.” I nod and he leaves me standing in the bedroom.
Sometime around 2 a.m. he walks back in. I sit up right away, wait for him to speak but he doesn’t. He won’t meet my eyes and I’m too upset to ask.
Shirt and pants soiled, he strips down to his underwear and walks into the bathroom. I hear water running. A moment later he’s back, pulling up the covers and sliding into bed.
“Dane?”
Strained and small, I don’t recognize my own voice. He takes my arm and pulls me against him. My back to his front, he holds me gently and buries his face in my neck.
“Foal didn’t make it.”
My entire body hurts, an unbearable pressure pushing on my voice box. The next sound I hear is a sharp squeal, broken and raw. Dane’s hold tightens.
It’s me. I’m the one squealing. I’m the one crying hysterically for the little gray mare and the foal she lost.
The next morning I wake up feeling like I got hit by a freight train––which then reversed over me. The bed is empty. Neither of us slept more than a few hours.
Dane must be exhausted. He held me all night, brushed my hair back, dried my tears. I’ve never had a man do that for me, didn’t eve
n know they were capable of it.
I’m not cut out for this, all this emotion. It’s overwhelming. I need to go home, get back to New York. Where there aren’t any cute animals I can get attached to, sweet older men who regale me with stories that make me laugh, and handsome young men that make me swoon with their singing…where I’m not on the verge of falling in love with the father of my child.
I need to get back to reality.
Desperate for coffee, even if it’s only decaf, I throw on jeans and a hoodie and open the bedroom door to male voices in the kitchen.
“I brought you up to take responsibility, Dane, not run from it. That woman is crazy about you. She’s carryin’ your child. You’ve got to do right by her.”
“It’s not that simple, Dad.”
“I don’t see why not. Things haven’t changed that much since your momma and I met. When love finds you, you gotta go with it or you won’t ever get peace again.”
“Yeah, and look how that turned out,” Dane murmurs angrily.
“I got two beautiful kids, a grandbaby, and two more on the way. I’d say I made out pretty dang good.”
“Bringing that woman up isn’t the right approach.”