Page 13 of Big and Bold
I shake my head, and he turns toward the kitchen. “I can get you a thermos of coffee. I have chocolate croissants, or I can make you some eggs.”
I shake my head. “Just coffee.”
He wants to argue with me, but he just pours the coffee, and then with one hand wrapped around the thermos, he holds his other hand out to me.
The weight of this moment is heavy. I could keep my distance and refuse to touch him, but when I think about what I want, I know what I need to do. I put my hand in his, and instantly he laces our fingers together.
Speechless, I walk through the house and outside with him. He walks me to the side-by-side and helps me sit down before putting my thermos in the cup holder. He helps me with my seat belt, and I laugh. “I can do it.”
He just shrugs and blushes. “I want to.”
As soon as it snaps, he doesn’t move away. Our faces are inches apart from each other, and he looks as if he may kiss me but then backs away. I watch him walk around and get into the driver’s seat.
We ride around the ranch. Every now and then, he stops to fix something, and I insist on helping him. In the past, he would never have let me. Heck, he wouldn’t even have thought of bringing me out here, but today is different.
He tells me stories about the ranch and how it’s always been a dream of his to own his own land. He talks about wanting a family, and I practically gawk at him. Yes, we were married a year, and we never talked about kids.
He’s looking out at the land. “I always knew I wanted kids, and when we got married, I was even more sure. I would love to have a little boy to teach how to ride.”
I clear my throat. “What if you have a girl?”
He blinks at me. “That’s easy. I’ll teach her to ride too, and I’m sure she’s going to be as pretty as her momma, so I’ll have to ground her until she’s thirty.”
I can’t help it. I laugh out loud. “That’s a little chauvinist, Dustin.”
He just smiles at me. “What about you? Do you want kids?”
I put a hand to my chest. God, this man is going to break me. He’s pulling out all the punches today. “Yes. Yes, I want to have kids.”
He puts a hand on my thigh and then puts his foot on the gas. We’re almost back to the house, but I’m not ready for the morning to end. He points toward the backyard. “You remember when you first moved in? You said you wanted chickens. Did you mean that?”
I nod. “Yeah, I always thought I would love to have chickens and fresh eggs. I thought about?—”
I stop talking, thinking that I’m saying too much, but he insists on me finishing.
“Tell me, honey. You thought what?”
I look straight ahead instead of at him. “I thought it would be nice to one day take my kids out and let them play with the chickens. I imagined their little faces when they would gather the eggs and bring them in for the family.” I shrug. “I don’t know. It sounds cornball when I say it out loud like that.”
Thickly, he answers, “Not to me. It sounds… perfect to me.”
He squeezes my thigh, and we’re both silent the rest of the way to the house. When he parks by the steps of the porch, I unfasten my belt. “Do you want a sandwich before you go back out?”
He steps out of the side-by-side, and we meet at the front of the vehicle. He searches my eyes. “I thought we could go into town to have lunch. There’s a new ice cream shop we could go to. They make sandwiches too.”
I try not to let my shock show. “Yes. I would love that.”
He goes to get the truck from down by the barn as I run in the house to freshen up and grab my purse. When I walk outside, he’s standing at the passenger side with the door open. He helps me in, fastening my seatbelt again, and soon we’re on our way into town.
The closer we get, the more unease I feel.
I shrug. “Maybe we should just get it to go.”
He tenses. “Why?”
I hold my hands together in my lap. “Well, it’s already all over town that we’re separated, and now we’re going to lunch together. The gossips are going to be going wild with this one.”
He shrugs. “I don’t care what people think, Annie. But if you’re uncomfortable being seen with me, then?—”
