Page 86 of Kicking Up Dust

She sniffles again and won’t look up at me, but concedes, “That was cute.”

I huff out a laugh, reaching over to cup the back of her head.

“How about we go to the store and pick up some pumpkins and carve them? Maybe paint your belly and take pictures how you wanted? I’ll call Bailey over.”

“Tate,” Blair argues immediately. “Bailey’s busy tonight. She told me she had plans.”

That strikes me as odd, that she’s close enough to Bailey to know her schedule now, but I don’t press.

“Okay then. Tate. That’s even better, honestly, because I can bribe her with Cattleman’s. We’ll pick some up on the way home so we don’t have to go in and sit down. How’s that sound?”

Blair doesn’t agree that it’s the best plan I’ve ever had, instead changing the subject, which means she agrees but doesn’t want to say it.

“She likes their food a lot or something?”

“Tate likes food a lot, period,” I tell her with a grin as I put the truck in drive and back out of the parking spot. There was something about being the last sibling born in a family of six that made one ravenous, I assumed. She’d break your fingers if you came between her and her supper.

Apparently, all it took was some macaroni and cheese in her system, some orange and black paint on her belly, and three pumpkins on our front porch to make Blair smile again. I made a note for the future. I doubted these things would work beyond October, but one could hope.

The next week, there’s a snowstorm that sends Blair into a panic. She has determined snow is more dangerous than rain, which is fair in some ways. Unfortunately, we’re in Montana and it’s November, so snow is something that’s happening quite a bit.

With rain, just the sound of it is enough to bump up her anxiety, but snow is basically soundless in most circumstances, so she stares out the windows and gnaws on her bottom lip at all hours of the day.

“Baby, we’re fine. Nothing is going to happen to us while we’re in this cabin.”

“There could be so much snow that it blocks the doors and traps us in here.”

I look out at the three inches of snow, but wisely keep my mouth shut about how we’d need feet of snow before that becomes a concern.

“And if, by some freak accident, that does happen, we have a lot of food stored up and you have plenty of books to read.”

“But if I go into labor⁠—”

“Then I’ll deliver your baby with the help of a 911 dispatcher and both of you will be fine. But you won’t go into labor. Besides, if we were blocked in our cabin by snow, Maddox would make sure our cabin was the first to be unblocked because he knows you have anxiety and you’re pregnant,” I promise her as I massage her shoulders, though I think that might be giving my brother a lot of credit.

She bites her bottom lip and I think she might be feeling the same way.

“Do you want to call him and have him confirm he’d unblock our door first if we got blocked in by snow?”

“No,” she says with a sigh. “I don’t want to bother him.” I wait for approximately twenty seconds, and then, “Yeah, actually, can you⁠—”

“Already calling.”

“’Lo?” Maddox asks, voice just as gruff as it always is, so it’s hard to tell if he was busy or sleeping or what. I nod at Blair to speak, but she shakes her head with wide eyes and nods back at me. “Hello?” he says again, impatiently.

“Hey. If the snowstorm traps Blair and I inside our cabin, would you clear the door so we’d be able to get out in the event Blair goes into labor?”

“The fuck?”

“Blair is anxious that⁠—”

“Colt!” Blair hisses, apparently unappreciative of the way I’ve thrown her under the bus.

“Yes, I would make sure you were able to get out of your cabin.”

“First?” Blair asks quickly and then claps her hands over her mouth. I’d imagine she feels like she sounds selfish, but if I had to come up with a thousand adjectives for Blair, selfish still wouldn’t make the list.

“Yep,” Maddie says, not sounding the least bit impatient, which surprises me because he’s gotten irritated with me for less. “Promise.”