Page 52 of Kicking Up Dust

“You don’t like me dirty, baby?” he asks, shuffling the washer back and forth against the floor of the trailer. “Seem to recall that being a thing for you.”

“Never mind, I’ll use my vibrator instead.” He barks out a laugh and then squats like he’s going to pick up the washer by himself too. “Absolutely not, Colton Dean,” I chastise. “You’ll pull your back and then I’ll have to listen to you whine about it.”

He stands up again, leaning over to rest his arms on the top of the machine. “You’re the only one that gets to whine?”

“I’m the only one who’s pregnant here, so yes.”

Colt snorts again. “Fair enough, mama.”

Colt’s stubbornness in not letting me help him has led to it now being evening, with me cooking our dinner while he continues to move furniture in on his own, filled with lots of bumps and curses. I’ve long since given up on offering to help.

I’m stirring what I can only assume is a radioactive neon powder of some sort pretending to be actual cheese into the macaroni when he comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around my stomach and resting his chin on my shoulder.

We haven’t discussed what we are yet, but all of this seems pretty freaking domestic. There’d been no question that both of our belongings would go into the same room. Granted, the cabin only had two bedrooms and one was needed for the nursery, but…

“Finished?” I ask him, resisting the urge to pop the wooden spoon in my mouth and lick off the cheese-adjacent sauce. We needed it to serve the macaroni, I remind myself.

“With everything I can carry alone, yeah. Did you make food other than macaroni for us to eat?” he asks, his grin evident in his voice.

I elbow him in his ribs for the slight. “Yes, but just for that, you don’t get any of my macaroni.”

“You gonna eat it right out of the pot, mama?” he teases, pulling away from me to lift the lid on the pan of chicken breasts. We don’t have much by way of groceries, so we’ll have to go into town tomorrow to get some things, but I had enough to throw together a quick dinner. Honestly, the most important thing was the mac and cheese, so.

“Might. Can you quit being nosy? The chicken’s almost done, then we can eat.”

“I’m not being nosy. I’m trying to see if you’re at a stopping point so I can show you something.”

I smack Colt’s hand away from the lid over the chicken breasts and take a look inside, prodding around with my fork for a second before covering them again, turning the heat down.

“What’s up?” I ask, wiping my hands on a nearby towel.

He starts walking further into the house, talking with his hands as he does.

“We don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to. I know there’s, like, safety things and all, so I’d want to call someone out to inspect it first and make sure it’s up to par, but even then, if it doesn’t fit what you want, then we can put it back in storage or whatever, genuinely no iss—ow!”

I pull him from the wall by his shirt sleeve.

“Gotta watch where you’re going, babe. Why’re you so anxious?”

“Babe?” he asks with a cocky grin, his rambling and footsteps immediately ceasing. I roll my eyes at him and gesture with my hand for him to hurry up with whatever it is he needs to show me.

He grabs my waving hand and tugs me along behind him, pushing open the door to the room we’re going to be using for the nursery. It’s practically empty, but through the moonlight streaming in the window, I can see the old wooden rocking chair June gifted us, the one that rocked all six Whittaker babies to sleep over the years.

I don’t notice the crib until he turns on the light. An old, dark wood just like the chair, with arched ends and a low bottom, clearly recently cleaned and polished. It’s simple, but absolutely gorgeous. I walk toward it in awe, running my hand along the bar, picturing our little girl standing in it with a binky cock-eyed in her mouth and sleepy eyes as she reaches for me.

“We don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to,” Colt repeats. “And I want to get it inspected first. I’ll fly out inspectors if I have to. I’ve done a bit of research, but you’d probably be better at it. I don’t really know how to phrase what I’m asking. But if you’d be willing to keep it…” he says, trailing off. I hear him swallow. “It’d mean a lot to me.”

I have to drag my eyes away from it, away from the prophetic vision of our daughter my mind has gifted me.

“Was it also yours?” I ask him.

He twists his lips and I’ve known him for so little time, but I already know it’s a quirk he does when he’s doing his best to hold back tears, so I reach for him. He’s quick to slide up to my side.

“Yeah. My parents didn’t have a lot of money when Mama got pregnant with Maddie. They were young and her parents didn’t really care for her choice in men,” he says, a little half-smile making its way on his face as his eyes get lost in the memories of his parents together. I imagine he’d heard this story countless times, straight from his father, the way he was telling it so fondly.

“The ranch wasn’t making much back then. Almost went to the bank, if you heard Dad tell the story, but I don’t know how true that is. Dad built most of the stuff for Mama. The rocking chair, all the additions to the Big House as our family grew. And this crib. Mama rocked us all to sleep in that chair and then put all of us straight into this crib.” He pauses. “Well, Bailey had a different crib, since there were two of us at the same time, but she gave that crib to Theo and his wife when Annie was pregnant with Callie.”

I reach up and thumb away a tear from his cheek, which makes him sniff and pull away enough to wipe his face with his sleeve.