Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
“Sweets, just gonna say this, we’ve been doing the back and forth as much as we can. I get back I have some shit to do here. I’d like it if I came home to you and Penny and Lily plus the chickens and Matilda. I know that it’s all set up at your place, but I’ve been busy here and I got a coop built behind my house and got some chicks for us to have fresh eggs here. I know your sister or Jordyn get the ones there when you aren’t home. Got an area for the dogs too. Haven’t quite sorted Matilda yet because I don’t think you want to travel with her in the car. Maybe Jordyn wants her.”
“What are you sayin’ Clay?” I ask confused.
“This thing we got, it’s the best I ever had. I want to be able to come home to you. I don’t know how we can work it with your job, but you don’t have to work. I make enough, you can stay home. But if you want to work, I get that and maybe we can do so many days at your place, then some at mine. I want this thing we got to be more. I want you to be my ol’ lady and I don’t want to think about nights without you however we need to make it work.”
Tears fill my eyes, I blame the hormones.
He wants to make this work.
“Sugar, I don’t know how to say it and I don’t know that a phone is the way to do it, but I just gotta get it out.”
“If you’re gonna tell me all the ways this doesn’t work, I don’t want to hear it. I’ve already shown you we make it work because dammit, Sara you are meant to be mine.”
“No, I was going to say, I’m pregnant.”
Nothing.
Silence.
“Oh my God. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m in the bathroom. You called just as I took the test. I’ll figure it out, Clay. You don’t have to do this. Just forget you called and I’ll forget the figuring things out with us. I got this. You owe me nothing.”
“Fuck yeah, she’s having my baby!” He yells to I’m not sure who into the phone.
“Sugar?”
“Sweets, your ass better be at my house when I get back. The job shit, we’ll sort it. The animals, we make that work to. I’m gonna be there for this and take care of you and this baby.”
His excitement is contagious as I find myself smiling. I don’t have to do it alone.
“God, I wish I could kiss you right now,” he mutters.
I smile. “Well, since I’m giving you all the good news. I guess I should tell you. I love my job. I won’t leave it. I love what I do and I happen to be very good at it. This means I cover multiple areas and I can relocate to Sampson County office.”
“You movin’ in with me?”
“I don’t know if that’s the words, but I think we can try to do this and figure out my house and yours and the animals and this baby one day at the time. But my job it doesn’t hold us back.”
“Sara, I fucking love you.”
Those words the tears fall from my face.
“You are beautiful, sassy, fearless, strong, smart, and determined. You are everything I want for the mother of my children and now you are giving me a gift beyond words.”
“Clay,” I whisper, “shut up when I can’t kiss you.”
“You gonna be my ol’ lady?”
I laugh, “as long as you don’t actually call me that, yes.”
Yes, I’ll be his ol’ lady, his lady, his woman, his anything and everything because as much as Clay Faircloth says he fucking loves me, I can say without a doubt I’ve never met a man like him. I’ve never felt what I feel for him. I fucking love him even when he’s gruff, and rough, and I’ll live without the tattooed up.
Maybe my mom and aunt were on to something with their dream man lists.
I don’t need a list anymore, I have everything and more in a Hellion.
EPILOGUE
COUNTRY BOY
Eight Months Later
“Breathe, Sweets.”
The noises of all the machines going off are giving me a headache. I don’t know what I am supposed to pay attention to. Which is the most important her vitals, or the baby’s heartbeat, or should I watch the machine printing the contractions?
Why don’t pregnant women come with an instruction manual?
Like from the beginning, before they even pee on the stick, I need the manual.
It starts with the hormones meaning there are tears, but not the kind a man can prepare for. If she’s happy, she cries, especially in the first trimester. If she’s angry, she cries because no one wants to be the angry pregnant lady, Sara has explained to me many times. Don’t let that animal shelter commercial come on because that leads to more tears. Oh let’s not leave out the happy tears. I had to go to the Harley shop to get my bike serviced. I saw a kid’s Harley jacket and picked it up. Well, apparently, to a pregnant woman it is the happiest and most exciting thing for their baby’s father to buy baby shit. Who fucking knew?