Page 90 of Kicking Up Dust

Bailey huffs. “No, which brother?”

“Oh,” he says with a grin that gives me the feeling he’d known what she meant the first time. “Maddox, of course.”

I let out a sigh of relief as the pain in my stomach finally goes away. When I look up, Cartwright’s looking at me with uncertainty in his eyes. He passes Bailey to come over, sticking his hand out. “I’m Chase.”

“Blair,” I offer in return, feeling like I should definitely know who this is, but I don’t. I remember him from Quitter’s, but that’s about it.

“She’s Colt’s girl,” Bailey feels the need to tell him, smacking his hand away from mine. “So keep your hands to yourself.”

Chase snorts. “What if I want my hands somewhere else, honey?” he coos, reaching out for her instead. My lip curls. I’m not sure I should be here for this.

She takes a step back again.

“I told you to stop calling me that!” she seethes.

“Do you guys want me to leave?”

“No,” they say in unison, Bailey’s voice firm and irritated while Chase’s sounds more amused than anything else.

“You used to love it when I called you honey, honey.”

Bailey gives him a sarcastic smile. “I used to love a lot of things five years ago, Chase.”

I pull out my phone to check the weather app. Surely, the snow will stop soon, right? I want to go back home and lie in bed for a bit. Or try to go to the bathroom, maybe. I’m not feeling the greatest and I think that might help.

My phone hits the hay-covered floor as another pain takes over and I grab my stomach, screwing my eyes shut while I promise to anyone listening that I will never, ever eat so much dairy in one night ever again. Chase and Bailey’s bickering fades to background noise.

It passes after a minute or so, and I’m about to stand up to interrupt Bailey and let her know I’m going home, but when I open my eyes, I realize they’ve stopped arguing and are both looking at me with wide eyes instead.

“What?”

“You’re in labor,” Bailey whispers, face pale.

I snort. “I wish. I’m so tired of being pregnant, it’s ridiculous. But no, I think the ice cream from last night has finally caught up to me.”

Chase’s eyes dart between mine and my stomach before looking over at Bailey.

“Call Colt,” he says as he walks over. “You had another pain like this about five minutes ago, when you and Bailey first walked into the barn, didn’t you? And it lasted just about the same amount of time?”

“Yeah, but I’ve been having them all day. If this was labor, I think it’d be a lot worse than this.”

“Oh, it will be,” he agrees. “But I’m almost 98% sure it’s labor. Can you stand up? Regardless of what it is, I think we need to get Colt here.”

I hear Bailey on the phone with him in the background.

“Bailey, leave him alone, he’s going to get all worried over nothing.”

Neither of them listens to me. I take a step toward Bailey and promptly pee my pants… I think? Bailey gasps and I look down, watching the fabric of my pants darken. What the hell was that?

Actually, I think I know what the hell it was, but I’m really, really scared that my suspicions may be correct. If my water just broke, that meant…

“No,” I’m quick to say, but Bailey’s hanging up the phone and rushing over to pull me into a hug that I don’t want, because I feel wet and gross and… sweaty? It’s snowing, I don’t know why I’d feel sweaty.

“Text Colt and tell him to bring her a change of clothes.”

“He’s already on his way, he’s not going to stop by their house.”

“The hospital bag,” I’m coherent enough to say. Everything’s happening very, very fast all of a sudden and yet no one is as concerned as I am that it’s snowing.