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Chapter 8: Baby, Oh Baby!
Wednesday morning, Daisy got up early, rousing Hank. “Sh-h-h, Daph’s still sleeping,” she warned, slipping into jeans and a t-shirt and pulling her boots on. “If you wanna go out and start feeding, I’ll fix us some breakfast.”
She was quiet in the kitchen. Filling mugs with oatmeal and coffee, Daisy dumped honey and milk in, poured orange juice into plastic cups, and then carried it all out to Hank. He’d let Lucky out into the corral. The paint was bucking and playing, working his kinks out.
When they finished eating, Hank set barrels. She led the paint gelding into his stall and groomed him carefully, working around him slowly and cautiously. He swung his teeth at her as she tightened the cinch, and pinned his ears as she set the bit in his mouth.
“Shoot, he’s a mean one,” Hank complained, leaning on the stall door.
“Well, let’s see how he is under saddle,” Daisy said philosophically. Hank held the gelding’s head as she lifted into the saddle. She warmed Lucky up slow, jogging and loping, but he was still too hot to mind her. So Hank opened the gate, and she rode Lucky out into the pasture. She gave the paint rein and leg and he took off, sprinting a quarter mile mostly uphill in twenty-five seconds. Turning the horse back, there was exhilaration on her face. “He’s fast and so much fun, Hank!”
Back in the corral, she put him on the cloverleaf, neck reining around the barrels easily, then tightening her pattern, coming in closer and closer, so their times decreased.
“16.51,” Hank crowed, “You just about beat your best time on Gypsy, Daisy Mae.”
She wanted to whoop, but that would make the horse crazy. “Hell, he might be a bear on the ground, but he is some kinda athlete,” she exclaimed.
“Not as pretty as Gypsy,” Hank said loyally, “But just as fast.”
“Yup,” Daisy said, head nodding. “He’s real fast Hank, maybe faster than Gypsy, even. Gypsy’s sweet, always wanting to please, but this guy’s super tough, and he’s hungry for it.”
He stepped up for the horse as she swung down. As he held the reins, she surprised him by throwing her arms around his neck, smacking his lips with a big kiss. “I’ve been wrong about you all this time, you know?”
Hank smiled down at her. “I know. But we’re finally getting it right now, aren’t we?”
Daisy’s eyes lit. “We sure are.”
*******
After Hank left, Daisy did her morning work at Ty’s then drove Buck’s old Chevy to town with the list Daphne had made up.
Turning into the grocery store, she spotted Luanne Rodriguez pulling an infant carrier from the backseat of her beat-up tan Escort, complete with a brand new baby and braked, hard.
Dang-it!Hank and I didn’t use protection last night!
They’d used a condom every other time; after the picnic, when it had been fast and deep and crazy, way hotter than she’d ever had it. And in the hotel room, after Gypsy colicked, when Hank had been so slow and gentle, she’d started tearing before she came, and afterward sobbed in his arms. He’d held her all night, making her feel safer than she had since her daddy died, but they’d sure remembered to use a condom. But last night they’d done it twice, without anything.
Triple Dang . . . She’d gotten him hot right away. Once they’d climbed in bed, he’d given it to her fast and intense, the way they both liked it. Yeah, it felt so good while he was naked and inside me because, like fools, we forgot protection!
And they forgot the second time, too, at two a.m., just before Daphne got home, when they woke all giggly, close and familiar, so easy with each other that their love-making seemed second-nature, now; their hearts were as close as their bodies. It had never been that way before for Daisy, and from what Hank always whispered after he came, it was new for him, too.
Last night had felt so familiar—so right—she just hadn’t thought. . . And she’d started her period exactly two weeks ago, just after the rodeo at Odessa. Oh, just shoot me now. What was I thinking? Or NOT thinking?
“Hey, Daisy,” Luanne called, tucking her arm under the handle of the infant seat and grabbing her three year old’s tiny, plump wrist. As Luanne and the kids hustled towards her, Daisy tried to resist cold panic washing over her in waves.
Steadying her voice, she replied, “Hey, Luanne,” and took the little guy’s hand. Luanne’s son was cute…if you could get past the clear snot pooling out of his nose and the red candy stain around his lips.
“You’re dating Hank Gallagher?” Luanne asked, searching Daisy with admiring eyes.
“Not hardly.”
Luanne looked upset that Daisy was keeping secrets from her. “But Julio says you and Hank have been riding to rodeo together.”
“Doesn’t mean we’re dating,” Daisy shrugged. She felt her face redden, on top of her panic about last night.
Luanne gave Daisy the indulgent look of a friend willing to play along. “Oh, right. So you’re not dating Hank, then. Just riding to rodeo together and maybe a little bare bucking on the side.”
Daisy blushed hard, and Luanne grinned. “You remember my boy, Theodore?”
