by T. S. Joyce
Cheyenne groaned. “Dead, Train Wreck isn’t some cat we picked up off the side of the road.”
“I can feed him.”
“No,” Two Shots and Cheyenne said at once.
“He’s nice and helped us bury all those bodies. He’s one of us.”
“Can we just learn to manage this herd before we add to it?” Cheyenne asked.
“I’ve always wanted a pet,” Raven said.
“Oh, God, don’t encourage him,” Two Shots muttered.
Dead scoffed. “You like him, too. Yesterday you said, and I quote, ‘Train Wreck isn’t the worst at beer runs.’”
“Because you have that throne, you douchebag,” Two Shots insulted him. “At least Train Wreck doesn’t bring us back sparkling apple cider because it was on sale or because he likes the color of the label. He brings back actual manly beer. You know what? Yeah, let’s bring him in. Dead, you’re kicked out of the herd. Train Wreck is taking your place.”
“No one could ever replace me,” Dead muttered. “Who would make your friendship bracelets?”
“No one! Because you never made me a friendship bracelet!” Two Shots griped. “You made them for everyone but me. You even made one for Annabelle before you made me one.”
He was right. Annabelle was wearing her pink and purple wolf charm friendship bracelet right now.
Two Shots was on a roll, and his voice was getting louder and louder. “You probably have three made for Train Wreck already! You know what? Fuck this. I’m tired.” Two Shots marched off.
“Who says I didn’t make you one?” Dead asked calmly.
Two Shots halted, just on the inside of the ring of illumination created from the storage pen lights.
“Maybe I spent more time on yours than anyone’s,” Dead said. “Maybe I made it in your wife’s favorite color.” He pulled a yellow friendship bracelet from his pocket. “Maybe I put all of our initials in it.” As he held it up, sure enough, the light glinted off tiny beads with the herd’s first initials on it. “But if you don’t want it…” Dead moved to put it back into his pocket.
“No!” Two Shots yelled, then looked around at them with wide eyes. He lowered his voice. “I mean…no.” He cleared his throat and moseyed on over to Dead, hesitated in front of him to look at the others again, then snatched it out of his hand. He held it up in his clenched fist. “This is stupid.” But as he walked away, just before he hit the shadows, Annabelle saw him slide the bracelet onto his wrist.
Since Cheyenne and Raven wore matching mushy smiles, Annabelle took stock of herself. She was definitely smiling, too, and the stretch of her face felt so good after the last few days.
“I’ll take the first shift tonight,” Dead told them. “You ladies go get some sleep. Annabelle…” he said as she began to walk away.
“Yeah?”
“Especially you, okay? We can see you getting tired. See the stress on you. Quickdraw is okay. Take care of his boy.”
Annabelle nodded, but it took her a few moments to unclench her tightening throat enough to speak. “I just want him to come back. I want to tell him everything will be good no matter what. I want him to tell me the same.”
“I know.” He kissed Raven on the forehead and swatted her butt. “You girls go on. We’ll do Cheyenne’s traditional pancake breakfast in the morning and try to find some normalcy, okay?”
“Okay,” Annabelle murmured, linking her arm in Raven’s.
Normalcy? What was that? She didn’t even know anymore. She said goodnight to Raven and Cheyenne on the edge of the shadows, then turned to call out a last goodnight to Dead, but a soft, familiar sound perked up her oversensitive ears.
Last week, she had sent the sound of the baby’s heartbeat to the herd. They’d asked for it.
And right now? Dead was playing it for Quickdraw. Dead didn’t speak or move. Just rested against the fence while playing the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the baby’s heart.
Quickdraw wasn’t running or charging. He wasn’t pacing. He was standing near the fence near Dead, just quiet. Still. Muscles twitching and coat covered in sweat, but still. Finally still.
Annabelle clasped her hands over her mouth to stifle the emotion that was washing through her.
Never in her life would she forget the sight of Dead, that big, bearded behemoth leaned up against the panel, staring into the eyes of Quickdraw’s gnarly bull, them both still and silent, listening to the beating of her baby’s heart.
Never in her life…
Chapter Twenty
“Will you resent me?”
With a gasp, Annabelle sat up in bed in the dark. She blinked hard, praying this wasn’t another dream. “Quickdraw?”
Her eyes adjusted enough that she could see him sitting in the corner of the room in the small chair by the closet. “Will you resent me?” he repeated gruffly in a hoarse voice that said he hadn’t used it in a very long time.
“Come here,” she whispered.
Stiffly, he stood and then slipped under the covers she held up for him. His skin was cold and his muscles twitched, and he grunted with soreness as he pulled her against him, but he was back. Her Quickdraw was back.
She hugged him tight because hugging him kept her shattering pieces together. She wanted to make him warm.
“Will you resent me for getting you pregnant and taking your choices away from you?” he asked.
The air too heavy to breathe, she dragged his hand down to the small swell of her stomach. “I’m happy.” She said it nice and clear so he could hear the truth in her voice. “I love him. And I love… I love…”
“Say it fast and then it’s done.”
“I love you,” she forced out in a whisper. “I would never resent you. You have given me more gifts than you will ever realize. Will you resent me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, instead of answering her question.
“Because I was scared.”
“Of what? Of me?”
“Of you leaving. Of you thinking I’d done this on purpose. You are it, Quickdraw. You’re the best bucking bull shifter in the world, and you’re wealthy now. I didn’t want you to ever question if that was why I was here.”
“I would’ve never questioned that, silly wolf. I know you. I know your intentions. I was the one who kept begging you to come here.”
“You said you don’t want commitment or children, and here I come, an entire package of complications.”
“You aren’t a complication. You could never be a complication, and do you know why?”
“Why?” she squeaked out, feeling like she would spill a hundred tears.
“Because I’m happy, too. With you.” He cupped her belly and rubbed gently. “I want both of you.”
“Truth,” she whispered.
“I want you to make me a promise.”
“Okay,” she said, nuzzling her face against his chest. He was already warming up under the covers with her. “What promise?”
“You have to promise to never question why I’m here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I never want you to think I’m here just because we got pregnant. Even on our bad days. Even on the days I’m failing at understanding what you need from me. Even on the imperfect days. I want to build and not question that shit. Just, eyes forward, focus on what we’re doing, and go for it. Go for the life we want. I know how I feel about you, and I built that before I knew you were growin’ our boy. I loved you before I knew you were having my son.”
He loved her. Loved her. The way he said “my son” made her hug him even tighter. She was loved. She was coveted. She was important. “Okay, Quickdraw, I promise.”
“And in return, I’ll never, not even for a second, question why you’re with me. Deal?”
“Deal.”
He eased out of her hug and rolled her onto her back, cupped her belly, and pressed his cheek against it. “Can I name him?”
“As long as it’s not Bullcrap or Lima Bean or Mooc
ephus. Dead has been coming up with awful names all week.”
His hoarse laugh loosened something in her soul she hadn’t known had tightened up.
“I want us to name him something I always told myself I would name a son if I ever had one. I was the last of the Burns, but now this little wolf will carry on the name.”
“And what if he’s a bull?”
“Don’t matter to me either way. The name will still suit him.”
“What’s his name?” she asked, massaging Quickdraw’s head as he kissed her tummy.
“Tuff Enough Fast Burn. We’ll call our boy Tuff for short.”
“Tuff Enough,” she murmured, forming the name carefully. It felt important to get the name just right the first time she uttered it. “Tuff Enough Fast Burn, heart of Annabelle Faulk, son of Quickdraw Slow Burn.”
He grinned up at her, then scooted closer and kissed her lips. “If he’s a bull, I’ll teach him everything I know. He’ll be better than I ever was.”
“And if he’s a wolf?”
Quickdraw’s grin was slow and proud. “Then he’ll be the best rider this world has ever seen.”
Epilogue
She’d kept her promise.
Annabelle had kept her promise to never question why Quickdraw was with her and, now, eight weeks later, she was here, in a happy moment she’d never imagined would belong to her.
The leaves stirred in the cool spring breeze as she looked at Quickdraw’s face down the aisle. She gripped more firmly onto the crook of her father’s arm.
At the front, under a floral arch, Quickdraw stood with his brothers, his best friends, his herd—Dead of Winter and Two Shots. The boys all wore their nicest Wrangler jeans, new boots, and white button-down shirts under dark blue blazers. They had on their white cowboy hats, of course, and each had a red Azalea pinned to their jacket pocket.
On the other side stood Raven and Cheyenne in beautiful, flowing, soft pink gowns.
Eyes burning with happy tears, Annabelle looked down at her boy, growing like he should in the swell of her stomach, pressed against the bejeweled white gown that lifted and floated around her in the wind.
The crowd was small but important. Rork, her parents, Raven’s parents, First Time Train Wreck, and a few of the other bulls in the circuit.
She’d never seen Quickdraw cry before—never once—but right now, with the woods of their ranch as a backdrop behind him, his eyes were full of emotion as they stayed locked on her.
If ever she’d had a moment when she questioned his feelings for her, it was put to rest now.
Raven and Cheyenne were crying, and Dead? She was about ninety-nine percent sure Dead was choking back tears. They all wore their friendship bracelets because no one wanted to deal with Dead’s emotional constipation on Quickdraw and Annabelle’s wedding day, and under their dresses and suits, they all wore their favorite cowboy boots.
Yes, even Annabelle had cowboy boots now. So did Tuff. His nursery was done, and there were already three pairs of boots in his closet.
Annabelle had accepted an online marketing job for the bull shifters and loved designing and selling their merchandise. Raven had become so important during this pregnancy, and so had Cheyenne. They were both the sisters of her heart.
She and Quickdraw’s ranch barely had the For Sale sign taken out of the front yard, but they’d done it. They’d settled into the property across the road from Two Shots and Cheyenne, moved in, decorated the nursery, and planned this special day, all before the new PBSRC season started.
The music played and Annabelle walked toward him—her Quickdraw—with her entire hope-filled future stretching before her.
She used to be terrified of the future, but now?
Annabelle believed with her whole heart that everything in her life had happened for a reason. The good and the bad had all occurred in the exact perfect order to lead her to this moment—the real beginning of happily ever after.
The ups and downs, the uncertainties and triumphs…they had all led her to the love of her life in Quickdraw. To a family. To a safe haven. To a home. To her little boy.
And as she looked down the aisle, into the adoring eyes of the man who cared for her heart, she couldn’t think of a single place she would rather be.
Up Next in this Series
Train Wreck gets his story in
First Time Train Wreck (Battle of the Bulls, Book 4)
Coming January 2021
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For More from this Author
Check out her The Official Reading List of T. S. Joyce
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About this Author
T.S. Joyce is devoted to bringing hot shifter romances to readers. Hungry alpha males are her calling card, and the wilder the men, the more she'll make them pour their hearts out. She lives in a tiny town, outside of a tiny city, and devotes her life to writing big stories. Foodie, bear whisperer, ninja, thief of tiny bottles of awesome smelling hotel shampoo, nap connoisseur, movie fanatic, and zombie slayer, and most of this bio is true.
Bear Shifters? Check
Smoldering Alpha Hotness? Double Check
Sexy Scenes? Fasten up your girdles, ladies and gents, it’s gonna to be a wild ride.
For more information about T. S. Joyce and her work, visit her website here.
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