Page 49 of Kicking Up Dust

Maybe it’s because baby bear is so happy to have a mommy who isn’t moaning and groaning as she walks down the stairs the next morning, or because the powers that be decided now was the time, but as I’m helping June peel potatoes, my little one starts moving around again in there.

A rather hard kick makes me gasp and drop my peeler. It clangs loudly against the metal bowl I’d been dropping peels in, and June jumps.

“Did you cut yourself? Let me see.”

But when she rounds the table and sees my hand on my stomach, she relaxes, smiling down at me in that special way of hers. I reach for her hand but she pulls back, her smile softening slightly.

“Has Colton felt her move yet?”

“No,” I tell her, mirroring her smile in understanding. “Not yet.”

She nods, but bustles back over to her seat.

“He gets the first feel. After that, you’ll have to pry my hands off your stomach.”

I bite my lip and look down at my phone screen, our latest sonogram staring back at me as the wallpaper. The men would be in from work in about thirty minutes or so, but I wasn’t sure if she’d be awake that long.

“Think Maddox is in a good enough mood to let them come in for lunch early?” I ask, still not sure the eldest Whittaker sibling likes me very much. He barely ever acknowledges me. Never rude, always polite, but also never going out of his way to start up conversations with me.

June grins. “I think he will if I tell him to.”

“No, it’s okay,” I insist, not wanting to stir the pot. She’ll probably be asleep again by the time they get in for lunch, but if she’s this active now, hopefully she’ll feel similarly tonight when Colt and I are alone.

It’s selfish of me, but I don’t really want an audience seeing Colt’s face the first time he feels our baby kick. I stole so many firsts from him. I want him to have this first all to himself.

TWENTY-SIX

COLT

Blair is crying, which makes me feel like the most useless motherfucker on this side of the Rockies. I’ve been pretty lucky—by every standard in the book—but also by pregnant girlfriend standards. She hasn’t been very teary at all, for the most part.

She cried sometimes. Usually if my tone was too blunt or when the Get-n-Split was out of gummy bears, but there hadn’t been nearly as many meltdowns as I’d mentally prepped myself for.

Except for tonight. We’d had dinner with my family and then came upstairs to watch another episode of her show. She was eating ice cream, more than I thought she would typically be able to scarf down, but I was smart enough not to speak on that.

Somehow, the ice cream caused her to cry. I think.

I was having a hard time getting a straight answer.

“Come on, pretty girl. Take a deep breath for me and calm down enough that I can understand you.”

“I am calm,” she sobs out.

I don’t argue with her, because I have really good survival instincts… tall buildings and the backs of bulls aside.

“Okay,” I say instead, reaching up to wipe her face again. “Are you hurt?”

She shakes her head, batting my hands away to wipe her own tears and setting her bowl of melted ice cream aside.

“Alright, that’s good then. Baby bear doing okay?”

“I guess!” she says with a dramatic shrug, flopping her hands back down against the blanket covering her lap. Okay, that question seemed to touch on a nerve, so I think I’m getting warmer.

“You guess. Alright. Um…” I wrack my brain for follow-up questions. Jesus fuck, this was why I never continued my education beyond a barely achieved high school diploma. I don’t have the smarts for riddles.

“Your mom said ice cream would w-work,” she cries out, a fresh round of tears rolling down her pretty cheeks.

“Would work for what?”