Page 70 of Reckless and Rooted
When he does, and the clock strikes midnight, Jax places a hand over my belly, another cupping my cheek, and he kisses me into the New Year.
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January’sbitter cold bites to the bone as I lead a horse back to her stall. Two other wranglers are working on the opposite end from me as we work to clean out the barn.
I hate cleaning the barn in winter.
Because we have to make sure that each horse has ample exercise, each one needs to be let into the indoor one at a time. It is time-consuming, to say the least, but necessary.
I readjust the horse’s blanket, making sure it’s on properly before I exit the stall. One more down.
CT is officially on a break, due to his brand-new baby arriving just last week. Dani is doing great, but CT wasn’t ready to leave their sides, and I didn’t blame him a bit, so us wranglers, plus my brothers, are picking up the slack.
It is seven days until Felicity’s due date, and the anticipation is killing me. I am ready.
Well, I thought I was. I spend every day after work making sure the nursery is in top shape. Everything Felicity and I could need for the baby is there and ready to go. Diapers, wipes, onesies, extra onesies, pacifiers, bottles, a bottle warmer in thekitchen along with all the fancy gadgets that Felicity purchased online that you could possibly use for a baby. We barely have any counter space for regular things a kitchen might use, but as long as Felicity feels peace, I don’t mind.
She was throwing herself into any little project she could get her hands on. After finishing her latest album, she was bored to tears, and since I’d encouraged her to take leave for the birth of this child, she didn’t have much to fill her time with.
Which led her to reading romance novels, some happy, some with what she called spice—those were some of my favorites—and some with tragedy that made her bawl her eyes out at three in the morning.
I was doing everything I could to keep her mind off of her impending birth, which was why today, Ezra took her, Juniper, her friend, Erin, from LA, the midwife that Felicity had painstakingly scouted and hired, and Thea to a spa in town to get her mind off of it.
I’m hauling another bucket out of the stall when a shadow at the end of the barn has me pausing, a sliver of unease coursing through me before I realize it’s just my big brother here to harass me.
He isn’t the only one.
My sperm donor was relentless, and after seeing me on TV with a famous celebrity, kissing her, and essentially announcing the pregnancy to the world, he was a dog with a bone, itching to get his hands on Felicity’s money.
Of course, he tried to play that off. Tried to say he just wants to be a part of my baby’s life. Fat chance that will ever happen.
That fucker isn’t coming anywhere near my girl, our child, or any of the rest of my family, for that matter.
I grunt as I haul the bucket over the edge of the manure spreader. It is nearly full, meaning I will have to drive it out of here into that cold wind again.
Fuck. I hate winter.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, glancing around the barn. “Finally ready to help out?”
Mitch seems to clench his jaw as he looks down the alleyway to where Maverick and Covey are. Covey is new to the ranch but came on as both wrangler and farrier. It is a help to both him and CT, who had to dole out a big chunk of change to get the horses here shoed every six or so weeks.
I follow his line of sight and frown at the look on his face. “What’s wrong?”
“That new wrangler needs to stay away from Juniper.”
I pause, my brows rising. “What?”
“Juniper doesn’t need some guy sniffing around her. She has too big of plans for that shit.”
Mitch looks like he could easily throw a punch at someone, and given that I have no intention of being the recipient of said punch, I take a step back. “Okay. Well, I can’t order Covey to do anything.”
His jaw clenches, and I sigh, shaking my head. “You didn’t seriously come out here to tell me that, did you? Just ask the girl out, Mitch.”
His brows draw together, and it looks like every muscle in his body clenches. “I don’t want to ask her out.”
I wave a hand at him. “Could have fooled me.”
