by Cheri Chaise
With a grunt, Evan strode from the room. “Forgot cream and sugar.”
I couldn’t help but smirk. If there was one thing I’d learned early on about Stella, it was that she had a stubborn streak a mile long. This was one battle my brother would never win in the long haul.
Stella grimaced with each bite of egg before offering a piece to Meg then tackling the ham and potatoes instead. Meg started to chew hungrily – until the taste on her tongue registered, and her button nose wrinkled.
I couldn’t help but laugh. Like mother, like daughter. “I’m afraid we’re out of practice in the kitchen.”
“It’s still more palatable than my initial attempts,” Stella admitted with a chuckle. “At least there aren’t black chunks of char mixed in.”
“Look a little closer.”
She affectionately gripped my hand that rested on her belly – until her eyes widened at my involuntary flinch and prompted her to look down.
Stella gasped and nearly scattered the contents of the plate when she tugged my hand closer and turned it over to see the blister welling up along my palm.
“Cole Carston, you’ve burned your hand.”
“Just a little.”
“Bad enough to blister,” Bret observed, passing his daughter off to Drew.
Stella set aside the plate and tossed away the covers as if she could readily leap from the bed, an impossible feat in her condition. “We need to wash it properly and get some salve to bandage it up before it gets infected.”
At the same time, Bret and I both pressed her back against the pillows. “I’ll take care of him.”
“And you,” I directed, “finish your breakfast.”
Stella huffed. “I barely have enough room to breathe with this baby in the way, so I can hardly swallow much else.”
I handed the plate back over to her with narrowed eyes. “Humor me and try anyway.” I leaned over to kiss her forehead. “And plan to stay in bed all day to rest.”
That stubborn glint appeared in her stormy blue eyes. Yup, there went my greedy cock again.
“I can hardly stay in bed doing nothing. Besides, I slept quite well for the first time in…oh, I forget when.” Stella fussed with the covers then rested her hands on either side of her stretched stomach. “Maybe it was before you did this to me, husband.”
Bret smirked at me before planting a solid peck on her lips. “I’ll bring you a book to read.”
“Or we can continue attempting to do what we started last night,” I offered with a brow wiggle.
I wouldn’t mind one bit if we spent the day curled up with Stella, alternating between who feasted on the banquet spread between those luscious thighs as we tried to keep her contractions going.
But circumstances plotted against that pleasurable pursuit with the heavy clomp of Evan’s boots thundering up to the bedroom door. “Scratch that, brothers. Russ and his boys are headed this way…and they’re bringing a wagon load.”
“A wagon load?” Stella asked. “Of what?”
The hint of a smile peeked out from behind Evan’s beard. “It’s a surprise we’ve just been itchin’ to share with you.”
Chapter Five
Estella
Cole stayed behind to help roll me out of bed and assist me into my clothes. All the while he fought to hide the grin that twitched and twisted those delicious lips.
I narrowed my eyes at him playfully. “What are you boys up to?”
He moved behind to hitch up and fasten the skirt that threatened to fit no longer. “Like Evan said, it’s a surprise…even though it’s shitty timing.”
I just sighed and shook my head. Ever since Meghan had been born, I’d been trying to stress to my husbands the need to check their language. Such impressionable ears had a tendency to pick up on their utterings, as evidenced by waking to my daughter’s shocking exclamation. At this rate, her vocabulary would consist mostly of the foul-mouthed words usually found among cattle rustlers and bank robbers.
Those filthy words might titillate in the bedroom, as I’d come to appreciate, but I did want to be able to take my daughter into a proper public setting someday without worrying over what might pop out of her young mouth.
Cole tugged and pulled at my clothes to try and cover every last inch of my enormous girth. The skirt’s waistline rested just below my breasts and emphasized every bulge both above and below.
“Hurry up back there so I can see this wagon load Mr. Watkins brought.”
I could almost hear the seams of the skirt groaning as Cole tugged tightly one more time and managed to secure the clasp when I sucked in whatever breath the baby allowed. I steadied myself against a log that comprised the bedroom wall as he slipped sturdy shoes onto my feet.
Cole straightened to appraise my attire then stuck out his arm like a well-trained gentleman. “Shall we?”
Together we waddled slowly out to the porch, but where I expected to see a wagon being emptied in the center of the yard, all I saw were chickens pecking in the dirt.
“Where…?”
Cole led me to the south end of the porch. “Look around back here.”
The first thing I saw was a grinning Drew holding Meg, her tiny hands pointing and emphasizing every squeal at something just out of my sight as her Papa Drew clamored on. Then the rear of the wagon came into view as we neared the railing – and I couldn’t help the tears that sprang to my eyes.
“Oh, Cole. It’s beautiful.”
Nestled on top of a load of milled lumber rested an enormous window, so much wider than tall. The morning sun flashed within the panes as Russ and his two boys lifted it from the protective crate. Evan and Bret, along with several of our ranch hands, strained to steady it to the ground where other smaller windows already waited.
My husband sidled up behind me and wrapped his arms around my massive middle. Lips trailed tender kisses along my neck before he nuzzled my ear.
“You’ll have plenty of light all winter for weaving on that loom of yours. We’re even gonna build in a window seat so you sit there and read to your heart’s content, just like you used to do in that fancy house back east.”
Tears flowed unabated as I remembered reading and rereading his letters while nestled in the old Davies family library. “And the nursery?”
He pointed toward the far edge of the rock foundation they’d previously laid. “Will be right off our bedroom, so you can keep all our little ones close.”
I reached behind and pulled his lips to mine. Our tongues twined together in sweet abandon as I kissed him long and deep. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined I would be surrounded by such incredible love and sacrifice.
The love of four amazing men.
Cole’s eyes glittered with passion as hoots and hollers broke us apart. Gingerly he helped me down the porch stairs and around the side of the house to take in all the activity.
Last summer we’d begun laying down the rock foundation for the new addition to the house and spent much of the fall felling tall, straight pine logs cut from near the river. But the bitter Canadian winds had come howling down from the north rather early, cutting off any further work until the thaw.
By the time the spring rains cleared and the ground dried, the needs of the ranch occupied most every available moment – and I was growing heavier with pregnancy by the day. At least this time we knew for certain whose child I carried.
Unlike with Meghan.
With their first wife, the Carston men had worked out an arrangement whereby only one brother deposited his milky seed in Sky’s womb over a two month period while the others vied for her body via other pleasurable means. After her womanly show ended that second month, the next brother in line claimed her womb for his own. That way when she came up pregnant, there was no question concerning the baby’s parentage.
Unfortunately Sky only carried one child to birth before they tragically lost them both.
When I’d first arrived, I hadn’t realized how starved for affection I w
as until Bret and Cole eagerly sought to satisfy my carnal cravings. Overcoming my initial shock at the scandalous sharing, I had leaned into them with gusto. But my legal husband was determined to leave my womb for his brother, since Bret had taken me first.
However, just as I’d fought for all nineteen of my trunks and my tapestry loom to follow me from Fort Union after the trip up the Missouri River, I just as stubbornly overcame Cole’s objections to have me like a husband should. After all, between the two of them it was easy to see which lover had fathered my daughter.
Since then, I’d acquiesced to the expected rotation, though I still didn’t understand the reasoning behind denying my womb to the youngest brother. From everything I’d witnessed in how he cared for and doted on little Meghan, Drew would make a fine father. I looked forward to the day I could lay his newborn son or daughter into his arms.
But for now, I’d settle with bringing Cole’s into this world.
And with the new one’s arrival, we had to finish the nursery so I’d have my daughter nearby when we had to move her from our bedroom – if it would ever come.
I sighed. Now that the new addition was firmly underway, I supposed waiting out this child was the best course. It wouldn’t do to have to interrupt all the work my men were facing by making them wait upon me in my birthing bed.
With the windows stashed out of the way, Cole kissed my forehead and left my side to get to work. Drew settled Meghan’s hand in mine and leaned in for a kiss.
I quickly presented my cheek to him with a murmured whisper, “Not in front of guests, Drew.”
He thoroughly kissed my cheek instead of my lips with a laugh. “No one gives a damn, Ella. Everyone here knows we all fuck with you. All they gotta do is look at Meg.”
I quickly covered little ears. “Language, Drew.”
“Fuck, Mama! Fuck!” Meg cried out gleefully, oblivious to the meaning of the words she happily squealed.
I’m certain my face turned at least twelve shades of red as chuckles broke out across the yard. I tugged my daughter along as I waddled back toward the porch.
“Can I get coffee for anyone?” I called out without looking back. “Biscuits?”
A smattering of ayes followed me inside, where I handed a crumb of biscuit with huckleberry jam to Meghan and proceeded to fill a basket with the now cold confections. I smiled when a few crumbled easily in my hands. Bret had rolled them out with too much flour.
I warmed with the realization that my cooking had improved so much since those early days of my arrival in the Montana Territory, that I could so easily detect the problem in a simple biscuit. Mrs. Barker would be so proud if she could see me.
The Davies family housekeeper had at times been more of a mother to me than my own. My heart ached to think on one of the few people I still desperately missed from back home.
But Carston Ranch was my home now, and as soon as things settled with all these coming changes to our house and family, I needed to sit down and write Mrs. Barker another a letter. I’d never tire of thanking her profusely for all she’d done to encourage my skills to ensure I became a good wife and mother.
I tucked the cloth firmly over the basket and lifted the coffee pot from the stove where Bret had placed it. The warmth emanating through the potholders reminded me that I still needed to see to my husband’s wounded palm.
Meghan toddled along behind me until I told her to go find her dolly to keep her occupied until I returned inside. I’d spent the previous winter stitching her plenty of new clothes in various sizes and had utilized a few scraps to craft the toy. Ever since I’d laid it beside her in the crib, she’d carried it around almost everywhere she went.
Only minutes had passed since I’d gone inside – or so I’d thought. But already the men had notched out and pieced together the base logs atop the foundation for the plank flooring and started spreading a thick muddy paste of chinking to adhere the sections together and prevent drafts.
Drew had even scampered up to the existing attic roofline and hung a plumb line to denote where the wall was to go, separating the large space into two rooms. One room that would become the library, home to all of our books, the family desk, and my loom. The other, the much-needed nursery I couldn’t wait to fill with our progeny.
Especially now that I knew I was so wonderfully fertile.
To rid myself of a tiresome suitor in Baltimore, I’d taken a lover in a very public and scandalous fashion. My actions forced my father to remove my sister and me with him from the family home to the nation’s capital in Washington, DC when he was elected to Congress. The affair had continued with great fervor over the course of several months before the forced relocation.
None of which had spawned a child.
For years afterward, when whispers reached me of other area debutantes who were hushed away for nine months, I considered myself lucky to have spared my family even more shame by bearing a child out of wedlock.
However, when the last of Cole’s many letters finally arrived asking for my hand, I made the cowardly decision not to reveal my suspected barrenness and risk spending the rest of my life constricted and confined within the walls with my bitter father.
I’d never been happier to be so utterly and completely wrong about my barren condition when the first signs of pregnancy fluttered through my belly. Soon I’d add another Carston to our growing brood.
A sharp pain stitched my side like the lance of a knife and bent me over, tipping the pot and threatening to waste hot coffee on the ground before someone grabbed it from my hands.
“You shouldn’t be carrying so much at once,” Cole growled in anger, but it was concern that etched lines across his face.
His shirt was already gone and sweat glistened over the ridges and valleys of his taut muscled chest. I’d never tire of seeing my husband standing before me – preferably naked as when humanity first walked the gardens of Eden.
Yet another reason welled inside me to move this pregnancy along as soon as this addition was complete. I couldn’t wait to have Cole’s long, firm length inside me again. Pumping and thrusting between my thighs until we shattered together with cries of utter abandon.
I handed over the basket of biscuits to greedy hands as Cole passed off the coffee for consumption.
“You, my dear husband, need to stop whatever you’re doing and let me dress that burn before gangrene sets in.”
“I’m not going to get gangrene from a burn,” he scoffed.
My fists firmly planted on my ample hips. “If we don’t keep that hand clean and dry, it’ll get infected. Once infection sets in, it’s only a matter of time before the wound becomes septic. Then Bret will have to cut off that hand.”
“Don’t make me cut off your hand, brother,” Bret yelled with a smile. “You’re gonna need it a little while longer to keep yourself satisfied.”
I shivered at the imagery – and it wasn’t from the self-gratifying implication. Even though I knew Bret teased, I’d read enough of his medical books these last two years to know that most times the only option to save a patient from gangrene’s death sentence was to remove the offending limb.
Cole stared me down for a few seconds. “I’ll make a deal with you then.”
“Fine,” I readily agreed.
“I’ll let you bandage my hand up real good, if you’ll keep Meg out of the kitchen while we’re out here.”
My vision blurred as tears filled my eyes. Damn, damn damn. I hated how they were always so close to the surface these days. But instead of happy tears this time, my heart broke into a thousand tiny pieces.
How could he think for one moment that I could treat any of my loved ones with such disregard? To even consider I’d ever wager away the love I had for my family?
“You…you’d force me to…to choose who I love most?”
The frustration in his features softened. His face fell as if I’d wounded him with my words instead of the other way around.
“Aw hell, Stella.” He wr
apped his arms around me and drew me into his chest to kiss my temple. The scents of sweat and manly musk filled my senses as I clung to him. “I shouldn’t have ever said such a shitty thing.”
I slapped his firm pectorals. “Damn right.”
He chuckled then bent to kiss my lips – and gladly I welcomed him.
Cole pressed his forehead to mine and stared down at me, love pouring like water from his clear gaze. “This I promise you, Stella Carston. I’ll never ask you to choose between your love for me and any other Carston ever again.”
I swiped away the tears, narrowed my eyes, and smiled ever so wickedly. “Now that that’s settled let’s go inside and see about that hand.”
He swept his hat from his head and bowed low. “After you, milady.”
I waddled triumphantly toward the house in as dignified a manner as my pregnant condition allowed.
Hiding the increasing agony in my body the entire way.
Chapter Six
Cole
After so much time wasted, waiting for Stella to finish dressing my hand, I snatched up my work gloves and headed back out to join the work in progress. My glove barely fit with all of the bandaging in the way.
In the time I was gone, the ground floor supports were already in place, and everyone busied hammering away at the plank flooring.
“Make sure to keep checking so it stays square, Bret!” Drew yelled from between two sawhorses. “That chinking is still wet, and we don’t want anything to slip and go lopsided.”
My little brother was definitely in his element. He sawed away at the milled wood to ensure the planks were all even and fit tightly together for a smooth finish, then he directed exactly how to position everything for the best fit. Though numbers were a challenge for him, Drew had to merely eyeball a piece of wood or area to cut a piece to size.
As I sauntered toward the ongoing efforts, I wondered again how we were ever going to finish all this before the first touch of winter. This past summer had kept us far too busy to do more than add logs to our ever-increasing pile behind the house.