Page 18 of Roped By the Cowboy
“Did I come to get you too late, Jilly Bean?”
“Y-you’re here to get me?”
“Course I am honey. Didn’t take too long did I?”
“N-no. No, Jacob, you got here just in time.”
“Fuck, I miss you,” he hums, pressing his face against my throat as I work my fingers through his hair.
Fingers tunneling in my hair, he yanks me down, his mouth crashing against mine. I cry out as tears slip down my cheeks. God, I missed him. Missed this pull that bounces between us. Wraps him around me and me around him. I stroke his hot tongue with mine, tasting whiskey.
“You drunk, cowboy? Take a few drinks to get you here?”
“To get me to knock on the door to your dream house, thinking you might be in here reliving your dream life? Hell, yes, it took me a drink or two. Is that what this is, honey? You starting over somewhere new with Elliot? Because…I reckon I might have something to say about it.”
“Starting somewhere new yes. Know of a castle somewhere?”
Grinning up me, his fist in my hair yanks my head down. His hips pin me to the door as he kisses me stupid. We start pulling and pushing at clothes before he lets out a shout. Falling backward with a thud, he rolls to pin me beneath him, both of us laugh.
Here we are right where it all started.
“Jilly Bean I will build you a castle with my bare hands. A cottage on a hill or a ranch anywhere you want, honey. We can’t…I can’t be without you again. I missed you too bad. We’re not doing that again. Can we agree on that? Can you promise me we’re not going to be apart again?”
“Yes. Yes, I miss you too. So much, baby. Left half of myself back there on that damn ranch, Jacob.”
“Took half of me with you that morning you left. I waited for it to go, Jilly Bean. For it to just stop. Told myself it was a crush, a fling, something to get over. It didn’t go, didn’t stop, and I won’t ever get over you. I don’t want to. Even if you don’t want me or can’t give me more than a few nights beneath the stars…I will take it.”
Smiling against his mouth, I shake my head. What a clueless cowboy. “I do want you. How could I not want the man who showed me how to live again? Be whole again. I meant what I said before. I am starting again, I have a new dream, Jacob. One with a cowboy, a princess, and maybe a few horses on a farm you could bring back to life the way you did me.”
“If that is on the auction block, Jilly Bean, I will take it. Sold.”
Nodding, I bend my head to kiss him before a wave of nausea hits me. Oh right, the other cowboy in my new dream. “Uh…before you buy the cow for the milk or hitch your wagon on me, I need to tell you something.”
“None of that made a lick of sense. Nothing you can tell me changes my bid on you, Jilly Bean.”
Gazing down at him, the nausea fades. Warmth takes its place as I see the truth in his pretty blue eyes. See my whole dream right there, looking back at me. He will want this, me and Jocieandour little cowpoke.
“Jacob, we might need a bigger castle. We’re having a baby. I’m pregnant.”
Jacob stares up at me before a wobbly smile, dimple, overtake his handsome face. “A baby? Oh, honey…we’re going to have a little one? Besides Jocie? I mean…I’m going to be a daddy, Jilly Bean?”
“Yeah, baby, we’re having a little rancher.”
“Honey, that is a dream come true if I ever heard of one. Becoming a father, being with you, with Jocie…in whatever dream home anywhere on earth is beyond any dream I could have dreamed up alone. I will take it.”
“You and me both, cowboy. Sold.”
Epilogue
Jacob
One Year Later...
Watching the sunrise is still my favorite way to start a day.
Lying in bed, staring down at the beautiful sight I am blessed to wake up to each morning, I let out a little sigh. Jillian curls closer to me, reaching for my hand as it rubs over her belly. I wake before her to get these moments to watch her sleep, watch her dream.
That first day I fell all over her, I had no idea our dream life together was just starting. I thought I might have a good time that night, might even get to kiss a pretty girl from the city. What I got was the other half of me, the woman I would start a life with, build a home with.
