Heart & Soul

by Nicole Williams

  When Jesse crawled my way like he was a soldier shimmying under barbed wire, a goofy grin on his face, I felt my crossed arms start to give up. It took a lot of energy either pretending to be or actually being upset at someone, and I didn’t have an excess of energy lately, most of all tonight. This whole day, I felt like something had found my energy switch and flipped it off. I couldn’t find a way to switch it back.

  “Have I mentioned how grateful I am that you’re not as touchy as most women?” Jesse said when he made it to the edge of the mat in front of me.

  “Not following,” I said as someone hurled his hat across the mechanical bull at him. Instead of landing closer to him, it landed almost directly on my head. I grabbed the hat before it tumbled to the floor, and I dropped it on my head and waited.

  Jesse’s smile grew when he studied me in his hat. “You know. Some women, they’re like grenades. With the slightest of mishaps, they can tear apart half a city block.”

  I had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from smiling. “Garth Black, stop channeling him. I like my Jesse Walker only about infinitely more.”

  Dropping my hand to his head, I mussed his crown of thick, light hair that spent way too much time hidden under a hat. Jesse had the kind of hair women would die for and male models would kill for. Part of me kind of liked that few people saw him without his hat though. The top of his head and hair were a secret I was one of the few people in on. I liked having parts of him I didn’t have to share with the world. That was what made a relationship special—that a person knew the secrets and parts of someone they kept hidden from the rest of the world, and stood shoulder to shoulder with them no matter what.

  “All I’m saying is that I’m thankful you don’t get riled up and ticked off every time I say something wrong or do something not quite how I should have. It’s nice to go through life on solid ground instead of quicksand and glass.” Jesse swung his legs over the side of the mats and sat on the edge, looking at me with eyes so light, it didn’t seem possible the world around us was dark.

  “You’ve said so few wrong things and done so few wrong things in your life that the verdict is still out as to if you’re human . . . but you’re welcome. Nice to know my lack of drama is appreciated.” I let him pull me closer when his arms wound around my waist. “However, I’m not sure I can let what you just said out there go.”

  Jesse’s head tipped. To him, it was already forgotten, but to me, I wasn’t so sure I could forget it.

  “About me not being pregnant next time,” I said, jump-starting his memory. “I didn’t realize you’d made that decision for us. Or felt it was your duty to decide for us.”

  His eyes closed for a moment as a sigh escaped his mouth. I’d heard him mention before that one pregnancy was enough for him, but I’d thought that was the stressed-to-the-max version of him grasping at whatever strings of perceived control he could. Just now though, he hadn’t been an anxiety-ridden wreck. He’d been as relaxed as I’d seen him in weeks.

  “I’m sorry it came out that way. You’re right. It did sound like I’d made some executive decision I hadn’t gone over with you first.” He rubbed the back of his neck, staring across the barn as if he were hoping the right words would paint themselves across the walls. “I just figured, you know, after all we’ve been through with this one . . . it would be our last.” His eyes flitted to my stomach, lingering for a moment, before returning to the barn.

  “If we have any more kids, it won’t go like this. You realize that, right? If we want to have another, I’ll get the surgery, and the next one will be a breeze. You won’t have to worry about me fainting from a walk in the park or passing out if I want to vacuum the carpet or my heart saying sayonara at the drop of a hat. The next one would be entirely different.” I was hot, tired, emotional, and that snapping/squeezing sensation was still making me its personal project, so I should have been the one hell-bent on never doing this again. Why was I the one making the argument for more babies? I hadn’t made it through this one yet.

  Jesse’s hand slid around my back, pausing on the swell of my stomach. I’d swear from the look on his face as he switched between staring at my belly and my face, it was as if he was deciding which to save and which to let go of. Agony and guilt swam in my husband’s eyes, and I was used to the opposite. That was why I found myself worrying about him making it through this twice as much as I worried about me making it through.

  “Right now, Rowen, I just can’t even consider doing this again. This one’s been hard enough, you know?” His voice was so quiet, he could have been talking to himself, but I heard every word. “Once we make it through this, we can talk about doing it again, but right now, this is all I can handle. I’m sorry if that makes me weak, but that’s how I feel. I can’t pretend I don’t.”

  My frustration melted, leaving in its place something not quite so fiery hot, but something that brought a slow, rolling warmth. It felt a lot like comfort.

  “That doesn’t make you weak. That makes you strong.” I stole the remaining space between us and dropped my hands around the back of his neck, lacing my fingers together. “If you were weak, you’d find a way to weed out some of the feelings you have for me and this baby. If you were weak, you’d be looking for any and every possible way to ease your pain instead of accepting it and focusing on lessening mine. If you were weak, you’d find some way to care less so if something did happen, it wouldn’t bowl you over, just make you stumble back a few steps.” If I could have crawled into his lap and kissed the worry out of him, I would have, but Jesse’s ran too deep for me to remove. The only thing that could free him wouldn’t come for another few months. “To be strong, you have to know your weaknesses, confront them, and ultimately accept them. A person isn’t strong because they lack weakness but because they don’t let it guide them.”

  He swallowed like he was trying to clear a tennis ball lodged in his throat, then he pulled me closer and dropped his head carefully to the swell of my stomach. His forehead still creased, his eyes closed as I ran my fingers through his hair. Every few strokes, another crease would unfold until a minute later, Jesse had either found a sliver of peace or fallen asleep with my stomach as a pillow.

  I let him stay like that, not wanting to disturb him in a rare moment of solitude, continuing to comb my fingers through his hair in the way I imagined I’d calm our child one day. I was so used to Jesse being a beacon of strength, it was a relief when I caught a glimpse of just how human he was.

  It seemed like an entire night had passed when in fact probably only a few minutes had, but I was brought back to reality when the same black-hat-sporting cowboy leapt onto the same bull he’d just been tackled off of. From the shade and sparkle of his lips, he’d been tackled by someone else too.

  “Get out your composition books and take notes, people,” Garth shouted into the crowd gathering around the pit now that Mr. Championship Buckle was going to give them a show. “Because you’re about to witness how a real cowboy doesn’t just ride a bull but stays on one.”

  Jesse remained in his temporary hypnosis, but I smirked at Garth, whose normally bloated ego had reached new heights. From the corner of my eyes, I noticed Josie kick off her boots and bound across the wide circle of mats toward the bull and Ego-rific. In one insanely graceful move I’d be lucky to manage on my least-pregnant day, Josie leapt onto the bull behind Garth. She cinched her arms tightly around him as she pressed her lap as far into his ass as it would go.

  In under five seconds, I caught no fewer than three emotions filter through Garth’s eye. Surprise, to excitement, to a different kind of excitement when Josie’s chest pressed into his back.

  “I’m more of a learn-through-doing type of girl than by watching,” Josie said with a smile so evil the devil could have been taking his own notes.

  “One rider only!” the guy standing by the controls and wearing a shirt that read A-Z Rentals shouted.

  Josie didn’t have a chance to pout before Garth gla
nced at the guy. “I’ll pay you an extra hundred to ‘overlook’ that rule this once.”

  The guy’s lips clamped together and stayed that way, his hand moving to the control panel.

  Josie stuck her head over Garth’s shoulder. “I thought we were saving for a honeymoon?”

  “Baby, this right here is a honeymoon.” He shifted on the bull, although it had less to do with adjusting himself into the sweet spot and more about adjusting up on Josie. When she leaned closer and whispered something in his ear, his brows disappeared into his hat. “Now this is the way God intended man to ride bull. With a sexy-ass woman straddling him from behind mouthing filthy things into his ear.”

  I rolled my eyes at the two of them doing their thing, but really, it was pretty damn amazing. Garth and Josie’s love story was almost as unconventional and unlikely as Jesse’s and mine.

  “Hang on, Josie!” someone hollered at her as the bull started to move.

  “Josie’s an old pro at this,” Garth hollered back, clamping one hand over Josie’s hands around his chest, the other holding onto the bull. “She’s had plenty of experience riding beasts of an imposing, well-hung, might I add, nature.”

  I didn’t miss Garth scanning the room before letting that comment fly. Those two might have been engaged, but I didn’t doubt Mr. Gibson wouldn’t hesitate to rip Garth apart, appendage by appendage, if he heard Garth mention his daughter’s experience riding well-endowed animals.

  “Well-hung’s a matter of perspective, Black!” Someone chortled in the crowd as Garth and Josie moved a bit faster on the bull.

  Garth found whoever it was in the crowd and lifted a dark brow. “I don’t know. Your girl’s ‘perspective’ on that matter didn’t leave any room for disappointment.”

  A chorus of “ooooohs” circled the pit as the bull spun and moved in an almost lazy loll.

  “Come on, I ain’t no grandma whose had both hips and a knee replaced. Stop insulting me and give me a ride here,” Garth called to the guy at the controls, who was fighting a smile at Garth Black riding a mechanical bull in granny mode. His wasn’t the only smile floating around the pit. “Make it hard, for Christ’s sakes.”

  That was when Josie’s hand slid down his chest, lingered just above his belt buckle, and wound down his thigh. It was a little too inner thigh for this public of a setting in my opinion, but Josie had never let someone else’s opinion get in the way of what she wanted or didn’t want. She had Garth’s attention from about the belt buckle point, and when she angled her head closer toward his, Garth’s whole face changed from being in control of a situation to having none in a different one. That man was so hopeless when it came to her that she could have only been using him to harvest his internal organs and he wouldn’t have cared.

  When she moved closer, her eyes dropping to his mouth, he followed the cue, and tipping his hat back just enough, Garth lowered his mouth to Josie’s. There they were, making out up on top of a mechanical bull in front of a barn full of family and friends. It was what I loved about them. They made fairy tales a reality in a very public way, where Jesse and I preferred to keep our own tale more private.

  The bull took a very sudden and sharp jolt, which was promptly followed by the newly engaged couple flying off the back of it before thumping into the mats. The crowd around the bull erupted in shouts and claps, but not even that could break Jesse from his stupor. I was glad. Peaceful moments were so rare for him, I’d started to wonder if he was capable of recreating them. After firing a glare at the guy chuckling at the controls, Garth pulled Josie up and headed toward us.

  “Nice ride there, Black. Plenty of noteworthy material I can apply in ‘How Not to Ride a Bull.’” I waved at Josie, who was covering her mouth as though she’d just noticed we were here.

  Garth tried to fire a scowl at me as he adjusted his hat, but his eyes gave him away. He was happy. So much so, I doubted if anything could strip him of it.

  “I’m so glad you guys were able to make it.” The moment Josie crawled off of the mats, her hands dropped to my stomach, spaced around Jesse, who was snapping out of his temporary hypnosis. Josie had always been a hugger, but after I’d started to show, she became one of those pregnant-stomach touchers too. It was like a baby inside a belly was a magnet she couldn’t resist the pull of. “What a nightmare with all of the waiting you guys had today. Didn’t those doctors know you guys had a party to get to tonight?”

  Jesse lifted his head from my stomach, more because Josie’s hands were invading his space than him looking like he wanted to. “Sorry we’re late.” He sounded tired, his voice thick like when he woke up in the morning. “But happy we’re here now.” He managed a smile for Josie before holding his hand out to shake Garth’s.

  “See? I told you they’d make it. You can relax now and enjoy the rest of the night.” Josie glanced at Garth before getting back to staring at my stomach as she massaged little circles into it.

  It kinda freaked me out, and I would have put a hard stop to it if it was anyone but Josie, but she had always been one of those touchy-feely types. Her running her hands all over me was like someone else nodding at me in acknowledgement.

  “Yeah, yeah. They made it. You were right,” Garth replied, his lips still shiny and sparkly from Josie’s lip gloss.

  “This guy’s been pouting half the night, worrying you two wouldn’t make it in time,” Josie said, waving at someone who offered a congrats in passing. “He said the only people who are his real friends wouldn’t make it and he’d be stuck making nice with everyone else who was only here because of me.” Josie circled her finger around the barn brimming with people. “Because, you know, the world is out to get and totally against Garth Black.”

  “This might be a bad time to bring this up, but the only reason Jesse and I are here is because of Josie too.”

  Garth gave me a tight smile as a beer magically appeared over his shoulder. So much for no friends in the crowd.

  “Why doesn’t this man have a cold beer in his hands yet?” Garth motioned at Jesse, who’d just shoved off of the mats to take his sentinel at my side. Answering his own question, he held his beer out for Jesse.

  Jesse didn’t seem to notice it. Instead he looked like he was still trying to wake up and figure out where he was.

  Garth grabbed Jesse’s hand, opened it, and slipped the beer in. “There you go, Jess. Now it’s a party.”

  I didn’t know if it was the condensation dripping down the side of the bottle into his hand or if he’d just figured out a way to push the last of the fog aside, but Jesse’s eyes cleared. After taking a look at the three of us, he glanced at the beer. “It’s your party. You need this more than I do.” He lifted the beer toward Garth, who shook his head as adamantly as I’d ever seen him.

  “No. You most definitely need that more than I do,” he said, waving when Jesse tried to hand it off again. “Besides, I’ve already met my two-beer limit for the night, so I’m going to pretend to be a good boy and refrain from all bottles unless there’s water inside.” Garth lifted his chin at the people around us. “Half of these people are only here for the free food and the hope I’ll demonstrate just how much of Clay Black is inside these veins. You know how much I love disappointing people. It’s one of the few things I do really well.” Garth winked at me then kissed Josie’s cheek before backing into the crowd. “Speaking of bottles of zero-proof liquid, you want me to grab you one, mama bear?”

  Jesse nodded for me while I shook my own head. I’d been drinking so much water today, yesterday, and every day since two pink lines drove a wrecking ball through our lives, I’d actually checked the internet to see how much a person had to drink before it became a bad thing. That was another thing my husband was ever on the ball on—keeping a water bottle within reach and topped off.

  “Okay, so do I grab one or don’t I?” Garth waved his finger between Jesse and me.

  “Yes.”

  “No,” I said at the same time.

  Both of us
followed it up with a sigh.

  “It’s hot in here. You need to stay cool, hydrated,” Jesse said, glancing at my forehead where I could feel sweat beading. “It can’t hurt.”

  Instead of arguing, I turned it into a negotiation. “Fine. I’ll drink a bottle of water.” His face ironed out in surprise, probably because I never gave in so quickly or easily. “If you drink that bottle of beer.”

  His face pinched back together. “What does me drinking a beer have to do with you drinking water?”

  “Nothing.” I lifted a shoulder. “And everything.”

  “Shit, you guys. This can’t be that difficult of a decision.” From his tone, I could imagine the impatient look on Garth’s face.

  Jesse threw him a quick glare for “defiling” our innocent baby’s ears before aiming his attention back at me. “This is crazy.”

  “I know.” I lifted his hand holding the beer toward his mouth. “Isn’t it great?”

  With a disgruntled sigh, he lifted the bottle to his lips and took a sip.

  “That’s fine. You want to nurse your bottle all night long? I will too.” I waved Garth on his water-retrieving way but crossed my arms at Jesse.

  “So are you implying that for every bottle of beer I drink, you’ll drink your own bottle of water?” He took another sip, this one not so dainty.

  “I didn’t realize I was implying anything. I thought it was pretty obvious.”

  “You’re bribing me.”

  Yeah, I kinda was. “I’m trying to get you to loosen up for one night and have a good time.”

  Finally done running her hands all over my stomach, Josie held her fist out for me. I bumped mine against hers.

  “Unbelievable,” Jesse muttered, taking another even longer drink of his beer.

  I smiled. He hadn’t had a single drink since he’d found out I was pregnant. When most men would have been reaching for the bottle, Jesse’s got shoved to the back of the fridge. I figured that with his low tolerance even before three months without alcohol, he’d be putty in my hungry, very horny, hands after three, possibly four beers.