by Jordan Marie
“Then, what was the gift about?!?!” he yells back.
“How does a piece of cake make you think I want you to knock me up?” I ask, exasperated.
“Cake? What are you talking about?”
“I sent you a piece of red velvet cake last night. Didn’t you get it?”
“Cake? Well, yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about… Unless… Was that part of warming me up, too?”
“Warming you up? You really are insane. I wouldn’t warm you up if it was Thanksgiving Dinner and you were the turkey!”
“That makes no sense at all.”
“I don’t have to make sense!”
“Well that’s damn clear!”
“Do you think you could tell me what has you so upset?” I sigh, that headache I had earlier starting to throb.
“That damn box of condoms you left on my desk!”
“Condoms?” I ask, thoroughly confused.
“Exactly that! Along with that damn book on the female… you know!”
“I don’t think I do know.”
“That damn book you left to explain where the female watch-a-ma-jigger is!”
I hold my head down. I’m smelling rats here and it is rats about the age of eleven and five.
“Let me get this straight. You somehow got it in your head that I sent you a present of condoms and a book detailing the female…area—”
“There’s no point in denying it, just because I’m confronting you about it. You signed it for damn sake. If you’re going to send something like that at least own up to it.”
“I don’t know who signed it, or whatever, Mr. Reed, but I can assure you, it wasn’t me.”
“What? Then why—”
“I have no idea, but I intend to find out. Still, just for the sake of argument here, let’s say I did send it. How would me sending you condoms make you think I was trying to make you become a daddy? Seems to me the opposite would be true,” I tell him logically.
I watch as his face changes slowly, and embarrassment creeps up it. Then he narrows his eyes, beats down that emotion and annoyance flares back up on him.
I don’t know how I can read him that clearly, but I can.
“As long as we’re clear that I’m not a candidate to be your—”
“Trust me, I wouldn’t think of you as a candidate to do anything for me except run this ranch,” I respond, my voice is once again cold.
“Fine then!”
“Fine.” I cross my arms at my waist and wait for him to leave—or say something else to piss me off.
He looks at me, his frown increases, and then he slaps his hat back on top of his head and turns to leave. He stomps off about three steps before he stops. When he turns back around to look at me, his eyes are narrowed.
“I’ll have you know I am not a size small.”
I blink, so sudden is the topic change that I don’t understand.
“I don’t—”
“You women are all the same. You think a man only has one role in your lives and that’s not fucking true. I might not have fathered children, Lady, but I know how to use what I got.”
“Mr. Reed—”
“And it might be worthless when it comes to making babies, but it sure as fuck ain’t small! It’s big! You got that?”
“I—”
“Really big!”
He turns around and leaves after delivering that.
There’s a lot to take in from that. I’m not sure I understand it completely, but I get the idea that Jansen might have had the same luck with women that I used to have with men. I’m even pretty sure he has his own scars to deal with.
Scars that need fixed.
But, that’s not my job.
Not in the slightest.
Jansen Reed is not my cow.
Not my cow, not my pasture, and not my meadow muffins. Therefore, not my concern.
Petal and Cyan though? They are and they’ve got some explaining to do. I turn to go back inside.
It’s going to be a long ass day.
“Petal? Cyan? You two get your butts down these stairs right now!” I yell, forgetting I have a sleeping Mary to worry about. When she starts crying through the monitor I want to cry myself.
Yep.
A long freaking day.
12
Maggie
“I thought I told you two not to do anything until we told you!” I hiss at Cyan and Petal.
“We were only trying to help,” Cyan mumbles.
“Yeah, we were only trying to help. We like Jansen! We want him to be our poppa!”
“Well, he’s not going to be your poppa. We already had a dad,” Blue says, and I can hear the anger in his voice, and I can understand it. He’s been the one most resistant to fixing mom up with Jansen, and probably because he remembers our dad the most. All of us do, but Dad and Blue were a lot alike. They were super close. I don’t mean he didn’t love us all the same, he did. But he and Blue just had some kind of connection. Blue loves the farm and ranching life as much as Dad did, they bonded over it. Blue even joined the F.F.A. and Dad never missed a chance to brag on him.
“We did have a dad, a great one,” I tell him. “But, Jansen would be good to have around, too, Blue. He’d make Mom happy.”
“You don’t understand,” he mutters and he stomps off, walking back toward the house.
The rest of us are gathered on the creek bank. I frown as I watch Blue go.
“He’ll be okay. He’s just missing Dad.”
“I miss him too,” I tell Black.
“Yeah, but he wasn’t your Dad. Not really,” Cyan says.
“He was, in all of the ways that counted and he loved us all,” I respond, repeating words Mom preached to us when we were in school and the kids would make fun of us. I smile at him and he smiles back—even if it’s kind of a sad smile. “We’ll always miss Dad. That doesn’t mean we can’t love Jansen too. Especially if he makes Mom happy and she stops crying all the time,” I remind them.
“And working so much. I miss her,” Petal whispers.
“I do too,” Green mutters. We all kind of mumble our agreement. At least we can all agree on that.
“Then, we need to work together—not go off and do things without getting everyone’s approval.”
“Fine,” Cyan grumbles.
“I don’t think it’s going to work now,” Black says. “It’s been three days and they haven’t even spoken to each other. Mom has even stopped sending Jansen down supper.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “Maybe we should just give up.”
“Nah. They just need to talk things out. Whenever my girlfriend gets pissy, I always set her down and we talk it out.”
“Your girlfriend is a bitch,” I mutter before I can stop myself. I swear all of my brothers have horrible taste in women. They think with their dicks, that’s the only reason I can come up with at all. White is the worst one of all of them. He’s a total horn dog. My friend Kayla thinks he’s everything, but she’s too young. White doesn’t even look twice at her.
“She is, but she has some good things about her,” Green says with a wink.
“Gross,” I mutter. With brothers like mine, it’s no wonder I’m still a virgin at seventeen.
“I’m just saying, arguments can almost always be worked out if you just get them to talk things out alone,” Green says.
“You’re not talking about talking. You’re talking about fu—”
“Black!” I yell, to stop him from saying fuck, because Petal is close by and can hear him. Black jerks his head around to look at me and I motion toward Petal.
“You’re talking about….” He doesn’t finish, clearly unable to come up with another word for fucking.
“About hiding the sausage,” Cyan says, helpfully.
I need to kill my brothers. They know entirely too much about sex, too!
“Why would Mommy and Jansen want to hide sausage? That’s gross. I did that once in my room. I was in trouble and I wanted t
o go outside. Mom said I had to clean my plate, but I wasn’t hungry. Remember Mags?” Petal says.
“I remember. Let’s—”
“I hid my breakfast under my bed, but I forgot,” Petal sing-songs, proving that all of my siblings, male and female, are wanting to kill me off.
“And it stunk really bad. Mom got mad cause there was bugs and stuff.”
Everyone snickers, while I just hold my head down.
“Mom and Jansen don’t need to hide the sausage, eggs, bacon or anything else they might have for breakfast,” I mutter, narrowing my eyes at my brothers. “They just need to talk. Anything else would be gross.”
“And cause worms. That’s what happened under my bed!” Petal adds.
My brothers lose it and snicker, like the juvenile delinquents they are. I might laugh too, if I wasn’t so worried about how to get Jansen and Mom to makeup. I really believe that Mom would be happy again with Jansen. I really need for her to be happy before I go away to college.
“How are we supposed to get Mom and Jansen to talk?” Black finally asks.
“I got an idea,” Green says and from the look on his face… I should probably be scared.
The sad truth is, however, I’m running out of ideas and after the mess Cyan made of things, I’m more than a little desperate.
“Fine. What do we do?” I ask Green, knowing I’m going to regret asking.
“I got it all planned out,” he brags, grinning widely.
Yep… I’m so going to regret this….
13
Jansen
“Jansen? What do you think makes a good woman?” Green asks out of the blue.
“Haven’t thought much about it, I guess, son.”
“Mags says my girl is a bitch,” he says flopping down on the chair in front of my desk. His long, lanky legs stretch out and he perches his foot on the corner. I give up all pretense of working and look at him. There’s one thing I’ve learned about these Lucas boys—and girls too, really—once they have something on their mind, you might as well let them speak their piece.
“Maggie seems like a pretty good judge of character,” I hedge.
“Yeah.”
“So, is she?”
“Huh?”
“Is your girl a…”
“Bitch? Yeah,” he laughs. “She totally is.”
“So, you’re wondering if that says she’s not a good woman?” I ask. I swear being around these kids is making me feel younger. Although, I can’t remember my brain going in as many directions as these kids for sure.
“Maybe, I guess. So, what do you think makes a good woman?”
“I reckon, that’s different for every man. I’d wager to guess what I think is important and what you do are pretty different.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’m older than you. I’m not out there looking to…”
“Get laid?” Green answers with a smirk and I lean back in my seat, taking the boy in.
“I guess that’s so. My Dad taught me to be a bit more respectful than that though.”
“Hey, I respect women. I love women.”
“Love in my time, boy, meant a lot more than getting my rocks off.”
“I—”
“I’m not getting after you. You’re young. Too damn young to understand that sex is a whole lot more than the act—or at least it should be.”
“Jansen—”
“Women are special, no matter who they are. The way you think about this girl of yours. Is that how you’d want someone to be with your sister, or your mother?”
“But, it’s not my sister or mother.”
“It’s somebody’s.” I tell him and wait for that to sink in.
“I like my girl though. She’s pretty. She’s the captain of the cheerleading squad.”
“That’s good. If you’re going to waste time with someone, it’s good you like them.”
“Is that what you’re looking for Jansen? Someone you like?”
“Well, I don’t really see me looking at this point in my life.”
“Why’s that? You’re not old.”
“Some days I feel older than dirt,” I laugh, not even kidding. “But, I had my shot at love once. It didn’t work out. Too old now to be twisting myself up over a woman. That’s a young man’s game.”
“Maybe you can find a woman who don’t twist you up,” he says and that makes me smile. He doesn’t know it yet. He’s young. I don’t have the heart to break it to him that all women twist you and bend you. He’ll find that out on his own.
“Maybe,” I laugh. “Your game still on for Friday night?”
“You know it,” Green grins. The boy has an arm on him like I haven’t seen. He’s going to go places, and he has no idea how far. He’s got big things on his horizon. “You going to come watch me?”
“I’ll be there. Got to see if you put that extra twist in your curve ball.”
“I’ll do it. Just like you taught me,” he says sounding excited and his words cut inside of me deeply. I never had a son and I never will, but if I did… I would have wanted to teach him how to throw a curve ball. I would have loved to go to his games, too.
“Can’t wait,” I tell him, clearing my throat because suddenly I have way too much emotion inside of me. Green gets up to leave and he’s almost out the door when he stops to look back at me.
“I’ll make you proud, Jansen. Wait and see,” he says and damn it… Those words mean more than I could ever tell the boy.
14
Ida Sue
I’m so stupid.
For the hundredth time, I’m calling myself a fool and trying to talk myself out of doing this. Jansen will probably just say something to piss me off. I shouldn’t even bother trying—especially after our last conversation. I stare at the strawberry cake I just made and want to groan.
I’m sooooo stupid.
I made this for Jansen after hearing Maggie and Petal talk about how much Jansen loved the strawberries they picked him from my garden. I swore I wouldn’t do anything nice for him again—not after the way he acted about Cyan and Petal’s little surprise. How a grown man could think I’d send him a box full of condoms and pictures of the female’s reproductive system is beyond me. It’d almost be funny except for one thing…
The knowledge that two of my youngest children are trying to set me up with a man.
I had to talk plain with them, and I only hope they listen. At the very least, I’m hoping they’re afraid to matchmake anymore because as it is, they won’t be allowed to leave the house except to go to school, for at least a week.
I went down to Jansen’s office to explain what had happened and that’s when I heard him and Green talking. His words struck me so deep I couldn’t breathe. I never had a father who cared enough to give me heart to heart talks. Orville did and until I heard Green talk with Jansen, I had forgotten how special that bond could be. Jansen didn’t have to do that, but he took the time to gently teach my son. Green’s smart. I know when the time is right the seeds that Jansen sewed will take root. So… I wanted to thank him.
By baking him a cake. After our fight and the talk about me sending him dessert.
Admittedly, the fight between us really had nothing to do with the piece of cake I sent him. But still…
I’m so, so, so, sooo stupid.
I’m also nervous, which is crazy. The trip to Jansen’s quarters doesn’t take long, but it feels like forever. I try to talk myself out of it a hundred more times, but out of pure stubbornness I keep going, holding the strawberry cake like it’s a dang shield.
When I get there, Jansen’s door is open, so I knock on the door trim instead.
“Have you got a minute?”
Jansen turns to look at me. He’s wearing a white shirt under a blue jean jacket and faded Wranglers today. He doesn’t have his hat on and his dark hair is rumpled, streaks of gray around his sideburns and along the edges. I wish I could quit noticing how good looking he is. It’d be bett
er all the way around if I could. He takes off his reading glasses and nods at me.
“Sure.”
“I… Well, Maggie and Petal mentioned you liked strawberries. I had some left in my greenhouse… I thought…”
“Ida Sue—”
“I wanted to apologize. Well, I mean not for me, really. More for my kids. It’s just—”
“Cyan told me.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. He came down the next day and explained he put the box on my desk and wrote your name.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, I figured that out. I went off half-cocked. I don’t do that much anymore, but I did this time. Children… well the having of them… it’s a sensitive topic for me, I guess. You kind of got caught in the crossfire of that. I’m…” he clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“I am, too. I don’t know what got in their heads.”
“I suspect they were trying to get us together.”
“Yeah. Before you ask, Mr. Reed, I didn’t tell them to, or give them any—”
“I never thought you did. I’m learning kids pretty much have a mind of their own,” he laughs.
“Ain’t that the truth,” I murmur, joining in with his laughter as I put the cake on the desk.
“That’s a mighty-fine looking cake,” he says, making me grin.
“I could cut you a piece?” I offer.
“Ida Sue… at the risk of upsetting you again…”
“Are you about to accuse me of something else?” I joke.
“I’m allergic to strawberries,” he says looking really uncomfortable.
“What? But… The girls…”
“Well they picked me a handful of those things and I couldn’t hardly say no, especially when little Petal was so proud of them.”
“You ate them?” I gasp.
“Well, yeah.”
“You ate strawberries, knowing you were allergic to them?” I ask again, not quite believing him. “What if you had died?”
“I took some allergy medicine and it’s not like a major allergy. I mostly break out in hives and itch like a… mother… like a pig that’s been rolling in poison oak,” he finally says, clearing his throat and blushing. I can see the color on his face.