Page 19 of Rough Hands on the Prairie
Before she arrived, it was nothing more than the place I happened to live, the bed nothing more than where I happened to lay my head.
But with her here, it’s more than that.
It’s a home, a true family home, and I have done my best to prove that to her any way I can.
I’ve turned the single cot into a double bed for us to share, crafted an enormous table that has enough space for a family often or more, filled the pantry with enough food to last us all the way through the winter.
She says I’m overdoing it, but I want everything to be perfect. I have already lost a family before, and I know I will not let the same thing happen again, not for anything in the world.
The protectiveness I feel towards her and our unborn child is almost more than I imagined possible, an all-consuming certainty that drives every action I take.
She keeps trying to convince me that everything will be alright, that she hasn’t even really suffered in the last few months she’s been with child, but she knows better than to try and argue.
"It’s been exactly a year since I arrived here."
I raise my eyebrows.
"Is that so?”
She nods, as she rises to her feet and makes her way over to me, discarding the journal she had been flicking through on the table to wind her arms around my neck.
"Mhm. I have it noted down right there..."
I glance back at the page where it has been left open, covered with her chicken-scratch scrawl. I grin.
"You going to read these to the baby when she comes along?"
She cocks her head to the side.
"You’re really certain it’s going to be a girl?"
"More certain than I am of anything in the world."
"Well, I think they’re a boy," she replies, as she cups her hands around her swollen belly. "No idea why. I just get the feeling. And yes, I’m going to read them my journals when they’re born. They’ll be sick of the sound of my voice before they get to a year old..."
I laugh, and reach out to pull her into my lap, bringing her on to my knee.
"Careful, I’m probably too heavy for you now," she warns me, and I roll my eyes fondly.
"You could weigh a ton more and you wouldn’t be too heavy for me, ma’am," I remind her, and she softens into me, resting her arms on my shoulders.
"You’re too sweet."
"Just speaking the truth, nothing more."
I rub my hands along her waist, glancing back to the journals on the table beside us. She must have filled out a half-dozen of them since she arrived, detailing the stories that we have shared in the last year. I never had an issue with it, even if I wasn’t entirely sure why she was so committed to it – and then, when she came to me a few months ago to tell me that she was with child, it all fell into place.
She was keeping these stories for them, as a way to share the strange, beautiful shape of how we had come into each other’s lives.
And strange it was, and still is, at least as far as everyone in town is concerned. We’re not married – no need for that, when the commitment we share to one another runs deeper than anything some minister could confer on to us.
Whatever we have, it defies the limits of anything else I have ever known, even anything else I have ever experienced. I don’t care what people think of us, as long as she is at my side. Let them talk. Our story is far more complex than they could ever imagine.
"I can’t wait till this baby comes along," she sighs sweetly in my ear, as she rests a hand on her stomach. "I’m going to have to get a dozen new journals just to keep up with this part of our story..."
I chuckle.
"I’m sure I can see my way to that."
I drop a kiss on her cheek – but then, she turns her head to kiss me properly, her lips grazing against mine with a passion that tells me she is far from done with me yet. I coax her mouth open with my tongue and sink myself into her, my body stirring against hers as my hands travel along her back. She feels better to me now than she ever has before, her strength and her femininity coming together in a mix that I will never be able to resist.
She pulls back for a moment, and just gazes into my eyes, catching me off-guard. And then, she plants a kiss against the corner of my mouth and whispers those words to me, those three perfect words that I will never grow tired of hearing from her.
"I love you."
And, before I can reply, she moves into me again, rendering my ability to speak utterly void. I know she doesn’t need to hear me say it, though. Not when I show it to her in every way that I am capable. Not when I will do anything in my power to give her the life that she wants and deserves, even if I have to carve it out of the wood of this forest myself.
And not when I have already dedicated every day of my existence to making this place a home she will always want to come back to. My girl, the mother of my children.
My June.
