14
CAROLINE
“Happy People” by Little Big Town
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“Let me get this straight,” Quinn says, folding another baby blanket and placing it on Leighton’s coffee table. “Clay, my allergic-to-anything-resembling-commitment brother, is not only in a super-committed relationship, but also livin’ in sin with his girlfriend?”
Leighton snorts, throwing some tiny yellow baby socks at her best friend’s head. “You make it sound so scandalous, Q.”
“And you aren’t shocked?”
“Well, no, not really,” Leigh answers, looking down at her lap, but not before I see the smirk on her face.
“It’s only been two months!” she exclaims.
“So what?”
I stop petting Leighton’s giant cat, Earl, and chime in. “We’ve technically known each other our whole lives. I had a crush on him before I started datin’ John. I guess it’s just our time now.” At my words, they both look over at me with jaws wide open.
“You had a crush on him back in high school?” Leigh questions with a smile.
“You hussy!” Quinn laughs. “He’s six years older than you.”
“What?” I blush. “He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever known.”
“That’s so sweet.” Leigh sighs dreamily, wiping her eyes as they fill with tears.
I gape at her in shock when she starts crying harder. Hoping to find some sort of help from Quinn, I’m utterly flustered when I see her crying as well. “Uh,” I hedge.
“What the fuck is goin’ on?” a voice thunders behind me.
At the sound of her husband, Leighton waves him off and sniffles loudly. “Stop growlin’, cowboy.”
“Did you hear?” Quinn cries toward her brother.
“Hear what?”
“Caroline moved into the ranch house.”
Maverick stops in his path and turns slowly to assess me. I haven’t gotten very close to the middle Davis child, but I also haven’t spent tons of time around him since Clayton and I stated dating. The few interactions we had were brief, and he studied every move his brother made with me. What I hadn’t gotten in the months since Clayton and I started dating was his younger brother smiling freely in my direction. It’s so shocking I can’t do anything but stare at him.
“Well, I’ll be,” he finally says, his grin growing even wider. “I bet that bitch Jess isn’t too happy about this news.”
I shake my head.
“What’s that mean?” Quinn questions, sniffling loudly.
“Just what I said, Hell-raiser.”
“Why would what Jess thinks even be relevant right now?”
“You must not have been hearin’ the gossip flyin’ around town. I know Leigh told you about it because she said you were goin’ on and on about how nasty Jess is.”
Quinn looks at Maverick like he’s grown a second head. “She mentioned Jess was sniffin’ around Clay, not details! I’ve been stuck at home on bed rest for a whole week, asshole. How am I goin’ to get the good gossip when I can’t even waddle my ass into town?”
Leighton laughs, finally dry-eyed. “I forgot to tell you what I heard when I was at the PieHole last week. Sorry, Q. I got distracted when you started talkin’ about your cervix and everything.”
Quinn’s eyes go from Leighton’s to her brother’s, over to mine, then back to Leighton’s when no one goes to explain further. “Well! D, don’t just sit there. Give me the goods.!”
I sigh but don’t say anything.
“It really isn’t a big deal. His ex put her hands on him in the middle of the day smack-dab in the center of town. Jana told me that he grabbed her hand off his crotch the second he realized—a second too late, I should add—that she was goin’ to touch him there. She didn’t hear what he said, but rumor has it was somethin’ about her bein’ a used-up slut that he wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot-long cattle prod, even if he wasn’t madly in love.”
“I think you’re embellishing it just a little, Leigh,” I add, rolling my eyes to hide the fact that my stomach is going nuts at the mention of love.
“She isn’t far from the truth,” Maverick says, sitting down next to his wife and rubbing her stomach. She looks at him and smiles before placing her hand on top of his.
“How is that woman still even sniffin’ around? They’ve been broken up for years and I know he isn’t stupid enough to have gone back even for a quickie seein’ as she’s been with half the town.”
Leigh hums in agreement when Quinn stops talking. “Did he ever say why they split in the first place?”
They look at Maverick first, but he doesn’t glance away from his wife’s belly, ignoring them completely.
“Uh,” I stammer, “I love you two and all, but if you haven’t heard it from him before now, you aren’t gonna hear it from me.”
I might’ve gotten back the friendship that was broken when I left town after high school, but my loyalty will always be to Clayton now.
I ignore the annoyed glances they both shoot me and meet Maverick’s gaze. I’m not sure what I expected, but a wink followed by a low chuckle damn sure wasn’t it.
“You know!” his wife snaps accusingly. “You hadn’t even come back to Pine Oak when he was datin’ her.”
“Didn’t have to live in Pine Oak talk to my brother, darlin’.”
“Well?” Quinn probes, looking at her brother.
“Yeah, right, Quinnie. And don’t y’all be givin’ his girl any shit for bein’ faithful to her man. If Clay wanted y’all to know his personal shit, he’d tell you. You both know damn well you wouldn’t say a thing if the roles were reversed, so give her the respect of doin’ the same.”
They stay mute as he leans down to kiss Leighton’s belly before pressing another kiss to her lips. After rising from his seat, he walks by his sister and pats her head. Leaving the room, he shuts the back door softly. The girls share a look, then glance at me in shock.
“I think,” Quinn breathes, “you just got a Maverick-size stamp of approval.”
“She totally did,” Leighton agrees with a smile.
Earl licks my hand and meows, clearly sick of me not petting him anymore. I lean back, fighting a grin. Five minutes later, he’s not too happy with me when Leighton shoos him off my lap so I can help her carry all the newly washed and folded baby items to the nursery. Quinn, knowing she’d be pressing her luck if she got off the couch since she’s ready to pop, doesn’t come.
“You seem happy,” Leighton muses in the nursery.
“I am,” I confirm with a smile.
“I haven’t said it, but I’m really happy that you and Clay are together. It’s not just that he’s good for you—you’re good for him. He’s always been super private about his personal life, but I hope you know that both Quinn and I are here if you ever just want to talk to your girls about things. I respect the fact that you might never do that too, just so you know. We might be nosy, but Mav wasn’t wrong.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Leigh.”
“A little advice from one girl who fell for a Davis to another: just don’t ever tell Quinn about your sex life or you’ll never hear the end of it. That girl is as weird as it gets when she finds out about that stuff.”
I chuckle. “Noted. Don’t ever tell Quinn how good her brother is.” My eyes widen when I realize what I just said. “What are the chances you’ll forget that?” I ask Leigh.
Her whole belly moves as she laughs softly. “Not even a little bit, but don’t worry, I won’t say a word. I’ve got a cowboy of my own, so I know how to keep quiet.”
When we go back into the living room, Quinn is asleep on the couch and Earl is curled up in a tiny space between her belly and thighs. A large cat, some breed Leighton called a Maine coon, there’s no way he can be comfortable with his back half hanging off the couch, but he’s purring away regardless.
“I’m goin’ to let y’all rest and head home,” I tell Leigh, feeling my heart skip a beat at the idea of home being the ranch. “I promised Clayton today I’d finally let him teach me how to ride.”
I give her a hug, promising to call later, and walk out to my car. It’d be quicker if I knew the four-wheeler trails, but I don’t mind the short drive. It’s hard not to love it when every turn gives me the most beautiful views of Pine Oak’s backcountry. Miles and miles of green pastures.
Every stretch of the road on the Davis property is lined with a stark white fence. Clayton explained that when his father had been running things, they had cattle roaming their lands. The Davises raised some of the best, but it was a business Clayton never saw for the future of the ranch. Since they no longer use the majority of their land for cattle, they farm out unused parts of those pastures for hay so that they can gain that resource for the horses.
Clayton tells me he owns pastures that have some of the best views in all of Texas, but since you have to travel by horse to get there, I haven’t seen those yet. He’s been working so hard to get me comfortable around the big beasts, but there’s just something about those huge black eyes watching your every move that makes me uneasy.
I honk at Drew, the ranch foreman, when I see him working on one of the fence rails near the turnoff from Maverick and Leigh’s road to ours. He pulls his hat off and waves it in the air before wiping his brow and bending back over to continue his work. Not far after that, I see two other hands do the same, and I give them a honk of my horn as well.
Right before the turn into the ranch house, I see a few cows in the distance, smack-dab in the middle of the road. The rancher who owns the land on the other side of the road has so many head of cattle, they’re always dotting the landscape, but this is the first time I’ve seen wayward cattle making a break for it.
I continue down our drive, reaching for my phone in my purse. I pull up Clayton’s number and give him a call, climbing out of the car while it rings.
“Linney,” he answers in that deep way of his that’s almost breathy but too manly to be called such. The sound goes straight through me, bathing my whole body in warmth.
“Hey, honey.” I smile into the bright sun, walking up the porch steps and into the house. “I know you’re busy, but I wanted to let you know some of the Larkins’ cows are makin’ a break for it. I saw them when I was turnin’ in farther down the road.”
“I’ll give Todd a call.”
“I figured you would. Are you goin’ to be home for supper tonight?”
I can only imagine how tired he is, seeing that he left before sunup this morning to deliver some horses to a buyer out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He made it sound like no big deal, but I can’t imagine making a five-plus-hour drive one way and not being wiped by the time I got home.
“I should be at the ranch in about an hour, darlin’. Why don’t we head into town for something?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to just have a relaxin’ night at home? You’ve been on the road all day.”
He laughs. “No, I want to take my girlfriend out. Might not be as fancy as what we’d get if we drive into Dallas, but I don’t take you out enough as it is.”
“Clayton,” I say with a smile, “you know I don’t need all that.” And I don’t. I know he’s busy with things at the ranch and his hours are long and taxing. I don’t want him working his tail off all day only to get home and think I need him to take me out in order to show me a good time. All I want is to be near him. There’re no distractions when you’re getting undivided one-on-one time.
“I know, darlin’, but I’m still feelin’ the itch to show you off.”
I roll my eyes, walking through the house toward the stairs so I can go get ready now that it looks like we’re not going to be staying in.
“I was just visitin’ over at Maverick and Leighton’s. I know Quinn is on bed rest, but why don’t you give Tate a call and see if he’ll okay a trip to town for dinner? I’ll ring Leigh and see if she and Maverick want to join. They don’t have much time left before the babies are here. As much as I love our time with just the two of us, I think we should have a family dinner before the little ones come.”
A noise comes over the line that makes me pause in pulling off my leggings. “I like hearin’ you refer to them as family.”
“Well, they are your family, Clayton. What else would I call them?” I laugh awkwardly.
“And seein’ as we’re buildin’ our future, they’re yours too, Linney.”
“Clayton,” I gulp.
“Don’t go sayin’ my name like that when I’m too far away to do somethin’ about it. One day soon, we’re gonna sit down and talk so you know exactly what I see for us down the road and I can make sure you don’t have any doubts as to where I’m standin’. Get ready, baby, I’ll be home soon.”
He hangs up before I can say anything else, but since he’s rendered me speechless, that’s just fine with me. I’m not stupid: I know he wouldn’t have moved me into his home if he didn’t see a future for us, but knowing how his last relationship ended, I worry he might not want the same things for his life as I do for mine—a family. There isn’t much in this world that would make me willingly give up what I have with Clayton Davis, but the fact that he doesn’t want kids might just be one of them. Which is the very reason I’ve been dreading the moment he wanted to have this talk.
What will I do if he only changes how he feels about marriage but not children? Can I stay with a man who can only give me his love but not his babies? I’m honestly not sure.