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“Ah, well, we can hope,” she said, not helping at all. “If it is a little girl, he will be all about being her big daddy protector. If it is a little boy, he will be all about playing catch and teaching him to be a little man. I think things will go back to normal between you two,” she told me.
“How are the girls settling in?” I asked, knowing they had been having some issues with their new school. In New Jersey. Not Navesink Bank where Gunner and I spent most of our time, but close enough that I could see them much more often. She claimed she moved here because the publisher was in New York, and it was smart business sense to be nearby. But we both knew it was because she wanted to be closer to me, to us.
“They’re doing better. I found them a friend group, so they’ve been happier about that. They can’t wait to meet their little cousin. Margo said to tell you to tell him or her to come out already.”
“Duchess, maybe pacing in heels isn’t the smartest thing to do when you’re pregnant,” Gunner said from the doorway, making me have to take a slow, deep breath before speaking again.
“Yeah, tell Margo I am thinking the same thing.”
Sloane – 10 years
“He’ll be fine,” Ranger assured me as we both leaned on the railing of the pen, watching as Gunner hefted our son onto the back of a donkey. With no saddle, I might add.
You’d think I would be used to this by now.
That punch to the gut that was fear anytime Gunner did something with Nico that was somewhat dangerous. Which was almost all the time.
Nico.
That was what Gunner wanted to name him.
He was technically Nicholas because I had insisted. Because maybe he would want to grow up and be a businessman someday. To do that, Nicholas would work a lot better than Nico.
Though, I think it was clear from the moment that kid could use his own legs to get into trouble that he wasn’t going to be a businessman. He was too active, too curious, too drawn to things that would leave him with scars and stories someday.
He would be like his daddy. And all his uncles – and some of his aunts.
And that was fine by me.
I was all for whatever made him happy, a lesson I learned much later in my life that I wanted to make sure he learned as early as possible.
But in having a more hands-off approach to whatever brought his little self joy, it meant that I had to have an almost constant knot in my stomach, worried about another cut, another fall, another trip to the hospital for an X-ray.
We’d lucked out so far.
No broken bones.
But I knew that was coming.
Possibly today.
“There’s not even a saddle,” I objected.
“Donkeys are pretty calm. If it were a horse, I’d make them saddle him.”
“You’re no help,” I told him, giving him small eyes that he just smiled at.
Smiled.
Ranger.
A lot had changed for him too.
Which had everything to do with the woman inside the cabin that she had made him expand slightly who was making us coffee that wasn’t the consistency of sludge.
“He’s a kid. He’s gonna get bumped around a lot. If you make yourself sick every time, it is gonna be a long ass decade or so ahead of you.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Even Auddie told me to calm down.
The girls were always crying at his age. Something was always bruised or bleeding. You learn to get used to it.
There was some truth in that too. I didn’t almost black out whenever I saw blood now, though I did make Gunner deal with the cuts if they were really nasty.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re doing,” Ranger declared to Gunner who was trying to give Nico what were, apparently, the wrong directions on how to correctly ride a donkey without a saddle.
With that, he hurdled over the fence, none-too-gently pushing Gunner out of the way, and taking over himself.
Gunner came back to me, shaking his head.
“He’s crazy about our kid,” I declared, watching the two of them.
“He needs to make one of his own, so I can teach mine this kinda shit.”
“You’ve never ridden a donkey,” I countered as he moved in behind me, pressing his front into my back, putting his hands wide on either side of mine on the rail.
“Ridden a horse and a camel. Can’t figure it would be too much more difficult than that.”
“Ten years,” I said, shaking my head.
“Hm?” he asked, nuzzling into my neck in a way that was creating very inappropriate feelings in my body.
“Ten years, and I still learn things about you that I never knew before,” I clarified.
“I’m interesting as fuck. That’s why you married me.”
“Really? I thought I married you for your body,” I said, smiling a little when he chuckled into my ear.
