Page 74 of Bucked Hard

I grin. “Tell her to leave some for me.”

Rachel groans as she shifts and lays down next to me, flinging an arm over her eyes.

“You just lay right there. I’ll bring her, babe.”

My girl’s a trooper. She won’t let anyone else feed Bethany, not yet.

She said maybe in a month or so. She’s got one of those pumps so she can fill some bottles and I can take a little of the burden. That’s fine with me, but I still get up with her every feeding. I like to pull Rachel up between my legs as we lay in bed, her leaning back into my chest so I can stroke her hair while Beth takes her nourishment.

It makes me feel like I’m part of everything. And I told her, if she insists on doing all the breast feeding right now, then all the diapers are mine when I’m home, and I’ve stuck to that promise. Just like my Dove, I want to be part of every moment of my baby’s life. Everything. Good and bad.

I hop out of bed. The floors in this big old house are the original pine from trees they harvested right here on this land, about eighty years ago. The bassinet is white wicker, it was my mom’s.

Bethany is smiling when I lean over. There is nothing like the sight of your own baby, smiling up at you. This little girl has me wrapped around every finger and toe, and I know I’m already outnumbered with her and Dove. They both know just how to work me like fresh dough.

“Hey there, baby girl.” I slip one hand behind her head and still can’t quite get over how delicate she is. She’s got my dark hair. Her eyes are still milky blue, but they’re the same shape as her mamma’s. She’s got the same warm skin tone too, and just the hint of a dimple.

Holding her warm tiny body against my bare chest, I climb into the bed, and Rachel moves into position between my legs as she takes Beth from me. Then she leans back and settles that little mouth on her breast.

The sight never gets old. I’d give up every wink of my sleep to see this.

“My beautiful girls.”

I kiss Rachel’s hair, breathing in the softness, feeling the warmth and happiness she’s brought to my life. The feelings I have now, since I met her, I hardly even dared dream of them before.

“What time do you leave?” She turns her head and I kiss her cheek.

“I’ll head out about seven.”

I’ve got a clinic over at Roger’s place today, about two hundred spectators will be there.

“You’re going to be tired.”

“I’ll be fine, babe. You text me every hour after I leave, okay? Otherwise, I’m going to turn around and head right back here.”

Since Beth came home, I can’t seem to go an hour without hearing from my Dove, or I start to go a special kind of crazy. She tells me I’m bordering on being psychopathic and I agree wholeheartedly. No apologies here.

“Rooster going to be part of the clinic?”

“Yep. Figure he’s going to be tagging along anyway, might as well do some work with him in front of the crowd.”

Once Arabelle arrived, instead of letting her board over at Roger’s I brought her to Jessie’s place. The second Rooster got his eyes on that mare, he’s never been the same. I told him I understand.

The first couple times I tried to haul Arabelle over to Roger’s for a clinic, Rooster broke through the fence and galloped down the road after the trailer. Cut himself up pretty good both times, I can tell you, so now they go everywhere together. That boy’s got it bad as me, I reckon.

After I helped finish up the harvest at Jessie’s, I found a place about ten miles from there. It was old, a training facility with barns and arenas and this house which is now our home. We have four hundred acres here, and I’m still working on fixing everything up. A hundred or so are woods, some are hay fields and the rest are pasture. It will take a couple more years before everything is perfect, but it’s already home.

We got married two months after the night Leander slopped back down into our lives. I told Dove she could plan whatever she wanted, as big as she wanted.

But, she decided she wanted it small. Just the two of us along with close family and friends. Jessie was there of course, and Crutch. Then there was Roger, Courtney, Enrique and Vanessa. We all stood outside with a campfire, and I built this archway and decorated it with every rose I could find in three counties. Every color made by God.

The preacher married us under the scent of roses and the chill of the early November evening. But that’s what Dove wanted, and it made her happy, so there ya go.

We don’t talk about Leander. He was on parole when he attacked Rachel, so after that, he was charged with attempted murder, false imprisonment, assault and Lord knows what else. He’s good and secure back up at Jackson State for the next fifty years, and if he ever gets out of there and it ain’t inside a box it’ll be too soon.

Rachel may be the forgive-and-forget kind, but me? Not so much.

We’re coming up on our first anniversary and Thanksgiving is in less than a couple weeks.

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