All But the Fall

by Kim Turner

  “She’s five and thinks she run things.” It wasn’t about him anymore, he had to think of Lily’s well-being.

  “Lily? Hell, she’ll fall for Jenna in a heartbeat. Kids are resilient, she’ll be fine. I’m telling you, you don’t need to let this one get away, Aaron.” Jeremiah stood back up, grabbed his coffee, and turned for his jeep. He climbed in cranking it and driving closer, “I’ll be on the set tomorrow afternoon to help out.”

  He gave his brother a nod and turned back toward the house. Lily would be up soon enough wanting breakfast and Sunday mornings he did the cooking for everyone. The clouds threatened rain if not snow by late afternoon, and while he wondered what Jenna was up to, he’d spend this day inside with Lily playing games and catching up on the wash and chores.

  Entering the front door, giggles let him know Sarah and Lily were in the kitchen already. He made his way there and grabbed Lily, tossing her over his shoulder and swirling her around. “I heard a munchkin chattering in the kitchen.”

  Lily squealed in delight, laughing so hard she lost her breath, her bouncing brown curls bobbing around her face. “Dadddddddyyyyyyyy.”

  “Aaron be careful, the ceiling fan is an inch above her,” Sarah warned, reaching into the refrigerator for a package of bacon, giggling along with them.

  He sat Lily back down on one of the bar stools and leaned to kiss Sarah on the cheek. “I got breakfast, you go get that book you’ve been reading and take a break.”

  “I know you cook on Sundays, but I can help. What’s got you in such a happy mood?” She let him have the package of bacon and moved so he could get into the refrigerator for the eggs.

  “Just home with my best girls and today the munchkin and I are going to wash the sheets and make all the beds in the house.” He tried to make the chores a fun thing for Lily. Somehow, she didn’t care as long as he was there to play in between the work.

  “Jeremiah says Daddy is happy cause he likes the nurse at the movies. Who is the she Daddy?” Lily blurted the words in a flurry, jumping around the kitchen as if her question was nothing at all.

  Aaron choked on his own saliva. What the hell?

  Lily’s green-eyed-gaze landed on him as she grinned, and it didn’t go past him that Sarah had cocked a brow in waiting.

  “Well, Jeremiah has a big mouth if you ask me.” He set the bowl of eggs on the counter and grabbed the loaf of bread. “The nurse is my friend, and you’ll be the first to know if that changes.”

  Sarah dropped her gaze but smiled, leaving him a bit unnerved at the whole conversation.

  He grabbed Lily and pushed a chair to the stove, standing her in it. “You help me cook the eggs and don’t ask so many questions.”

  “Daddy, are you hot? Is that why you need a nurse?” Lily climbed up and sat on the counter, stretching in her pink pajamas and fluffy kitten bedroom shoes.

  “What?” He shook his head, narrowing his gaze on her.

  “Jeremiah said Sally thinks you’re hot, and the nurse would like to check you out.” Lily waited in earnest for an answer and scooted further back on the counter. “Is the nurse going to check if you have a fever?”

  It was Sarah who stifled her laughter as she continued with her chores. His mother was well aware that where Lily was concerned, anything and everything was subject to being repeated.

  “I think we need to filter what your uncles talk about in front of you. No, I don’t have a fever, and the nurse is a friend. End of subject?”

  “Okay, Daddy.” Lily smiled, glancing in the direction of Sarah’s stifled chuckles.

  Aaron’s pulse raced. How in the heck his five year old knew this much was beyond him. He continued breaking eggs in the skillet and handing Lily the shells to drop in the garbage, both used to the routine.

  “Coffee.” Gabe entered the kitchen, going straight for the pot that stayed hot most all day. He opened the cabinet and grabbed a mug, pouring it full and taking a long sip, hot and black.

  “Morning.” Aaron tossed his brother a glance, while he continued laying strips of bacon in another skillet.

  Gabe groaned.

  “That bad huh?” He chuckled as it had been after two in the morning before his brother had returned from Helena.

  “Just hanging out with the boys. Morning, Ma.” Gabe plunked down at the table and glanced at Lily. “Morning cutie?”

  “I get to stir the eggs.” Lily held up her wooden spoon in the air and then skirted it around the pan of eggs.

  “Morning, Gabriel,” Sarah answered, putting the broom away and grabbing a rag.

  “Amos up?” Gabe scratched his shaggy dark hair and took another sip of coffee.

  “He’s showering, says he feels good today.” Sarah reached for her coffee mug, sipping as she ran the rag along the counter.

  Aaron’s gut clenched, worrying of his father becoming more of a daily chore. He exchanged glances with his brother. They all worried as Amos’ health had declined the last year. He now required oxygen most all the time.

  “You put the bread in the toaster. Two for me and Gabe and one for you, Sarah, and Amos. How many is that?” He waited as Lily counted on her fingers.

  “Seven.” His daughter went about the task with a giant smile.

  “Good girl.” Aaron remained thankful the conversation had changed from the nurse.

  “You going to the set today?” Gabe asked, rubbing his face.

  “I checked on the horses yesterday evening. Lily and I can ride out later today,” Aaron answered, adding more bacon to the pan, the sizzle making him take a step over to shield Lily.

  Gabe nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  He eyed his brother catching his tone.

  “I was out on fifteen yesterday, and I saw some nurse babe on the back of your bike, hanging on tightly.” His brother folded his arms and gave him a knowing smirk.

  Aaron glared at him. Hell, the fun in having brothers! “And what business of it would be yours?”

  Gabe held his hands up. “It’s all good.”

  He enlightened his nosy brother anyway. “She had to ride in with Masters when he took that spill and her SUV was still on the set, remember?”

  “Yep.” Gabe picked up the paper and began reading.

  Aaron turned back to the bacon and eggs. Actually, Jenna had been hanging on tightly and without a doubt he’d liked that part and kissing her had damn near done him in he wanted her so bad. But more than that, he wanted to know her mind, her thoughts, and her dreams. All of it.

  “Amos.” Sarah turned as Amos made it to the bottom of the stairs.

  “I’m fine, Sarah. In fact, I am feeling good this morning.” He entered the kitchen with his oxygen tank over his shoulder and the cannula filling his nostrils.

  “Well, you shouldn’t try the stairs alone. Let one of the boys help you.” She rushed behind him to pull out his chair at the table.

  “Hi, Papa, I’m cooking the toast and eggs.” Lily smiled, working hard on her task as the toastmaster.

  “Morning…princess. Morning boys. I am fine to wander the dwelling without a bunch of panic.” Amos smiled, talking between breaths.

  “Morning, Pop.” Gabe glanced up from his paper.

  “Breakfast is just about done, Pop.” Aaron turned back to the bacon.

  “Aaron, you planning on being here today?” his father asked as he adjusted his seat.

  “Yep, gotta go to the set later.” He glanced over his shoulder.

  Amos nodded. “There’s a stretch of barbed wire falling away from the fence near the road, thought you might get that today. Don’t want the cattle pushing through if they’ve a mind to it.”

  Aaron lifted Lily to the floor. “I’ll take a look at it after we eat, looks like rain later in the day.” He handed Lily the first plate, filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, and buttered toast. “Take this one to Papa.”

  “Here ya go, Papa.” Lily set the plate on the table, grinning wide and hugging Amos.

  “Thank you, Princess.” Amos smiled
as she walked back for the second plate.

  “This one is for Grandma.” Lily turned again handing Sarah her breakfast as she sat.

  Sarah smiled. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Aaron picked up the remaining plates, setting one down before Gabe and then his own next to Lily’s. “Come on munchkin, eat up and you can help me mend the fence.”

  “Wait, blessing.” Lily reminded them all as she sat in her booster seat.

  “You say it,” Sarah encouraged her.

  “Bow your head, Uncle Gabe.” She inspected everyone at the table for participation.

  “Oh.” Gabe rolled the paper and leaned forward bowing his head as did Aaron.

  “God bless the horses since they aren’t home right now and they are on the TV show with the cowboy. Bless Daddy and Gabe and Jeremiah and me and Granny and please bless Papa’s breathing. Oh, and bless the nurse. What’s her name, Daddy?” She looked up from her prayer, keeping her hands folded.

  Aaron wanted to crawl under the table. It didn’t help that Gabe pulled the paper back over his face to stifle his laughter and Sarah’s lips turned white with her suppression of laugher. Holy shit, this has turned into a fiasco.

  “Jenna.” He spoke her name and didn’t look back up.

  “God bless Jenna the nurse and Kittyboy. Amen.” Lily smiled as if some great task had been completed and grabbed her fork digging into her eggs. “Kittyboy slept on my bed last night. He knows I’m his mother.”

  “You do a good job keeping him fed,” Sarah praised her. “Such a big girl taking care of him on your own.”

  Aaron looked at his plate, not that he had an appetite now, but Amos picked up the conversation changing the subject. He was used to Lily praying for all the animals especially the old cat, but that his daughter had done the same for Jenna caught him off guard.

  “Gabe, I read there were…some jobs to bid on for contractors near Sun Prairie.” Amos studied his middle son.

  “Yea, Tucker’s headed out there tomorrow. I’ve gotta be on the set with my brother and his…nurse friend.” Gabe bit his bottom lip to stifle his laughter, and Aaron gave him a swift kick to the shin under the table.

  “Tucker bids too low…have him boost it a bit this time,” Amos warned and scooped his eggs.

  “Tuck does all right.” Gabe rubbed his shin, still grinning.

  Aaron went back to his food. Tucker was co-owner of Sun River Construction along with Gabe, the two men military buddies. The business was nearing five years old and had become quite successful.

  “So a nurse,” Amos said sipping his coffee with shaky hands, glancing Aaron’s way.

  Aaron looked at his father, dropping his fork in defeat. Really?

  “That’s a respectable job. You boys all need to find a good woman and settle down. Aaron, you should…bring her out here to meet us. I could fill her in on my medical history.” Amos gave the hint of a smile.

  “You could bring her out here on your bike.” Gabe let go of a belting round of laughter but stopped with a heated look from Sarah.

  “Enough is enough. We’re friends, and if it goes any further, I won’t need to keep you all updated as it seems my brothers are on the gossip chain, though I was thinking of bringing her here to meet everyone.” Aaron got up heading out to the porch. It wasn’t that he couldn’t share the idea of Jenna, but right now he was already missing her so bad he could taste it and he knew better—he was falling hard. Hell, he’d already fallen.

  “I’m kidding,” Gabe yelled after him.

  Out on the porch he took a deep breath and sat. He might have expected all the teasing, but he hadn’t expected Lily’s innocent part in it right at the breakfast table. This relationship thing was going to be more difficult than he thought but he still wasn’t sure of anything at this point.

  “This must be some woman to have caught your attention.” Sarah came out to the porch and sat down in the porch swing, pulling her robe tighter.

  He looked at her and nodded. He should have known to escape to the barn. “Yep.”

  “Aaron, everyone is happy for you. Gabe is just being Gabe, but I think Amos would like nothing more than to see you find someone. Me too.” She rocked the swing as she talked.

  “He is worse every day, isn’t he?” He changed the subject, maybe it was his father’s condition.

  “You know like I do he has good and bad days.” She took a deep breath and turned the conversation back. “So her name is Jenna?”

  He nodded but talking about his love life with his mother wasn’t on his list of priorities.

  “You know it’s all right to let her in, Aaron. Get to know her. Have fun.” Sarah always had an uncanny way of making things seem like they would be fine.

  “I’ve got Lily to think about.” He leaned back in the chair, running his hand through his dark hair.

  “I can understand you needing to be careful about Lily, but one day Lily will be grown, Aaron.” Sarah continued. “You haven’t dated more than a few times since Pamela left. You deserve to be happy.”

  He finally nodded. “It’s not Pamela.”

  Sarah took a deep breath. “It’s not Lily either is it? It’s Aaron. I was so much younger than your father when we married. My sisters warned me one day I would still be a young woman when he was an old man. I suppose I could have listened and not had the wonderful life I’ve had with your father. We did everything we wanted to do, including making you boys our family. I don’t sit and wait on Amos to leave us. If I did, I would miss out on today. You and this nurse have now as well…and life is short, Aaron, and this is the first woman I’ve heard you mention in a long time. She must really be something special.”

  He nodded. “She’s uhmm, pretty incredible.”

  Sarah smiled as she got up. “Then I suggest you ignore your brothers and get on with it.”

  He glanced out across the ranch, thinking Sarah always had a way of finding the right things to say to keep him in perspective. She got up to go inside and as she passed by, he grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Chapter Eight

  Aaron pulled his motorcycle to a stop near the camper. Gabe’s truck was parked outside the barn and a light burned inside. He’d read the upcoming script. The crew would be building a scaffolding to hold a long ramp that would allow Maxus to jump from one side of the river to the other in spite of the differences in height of the banks. It seemed The Bounty Hunter was to escape outlaws by jumping his horse from an old west bridge and land at the water on the opposite shore.

  The ramp sketching and measurements looked about right, and he’d spent the last half hour walking along the far side of the river, while Lily played by the shore. Maxus could make the distance, but he’d have to have time to get used to this specific ramp. He’d jumped from ramps before but Maxus could be temperamental and it would take a few weeks of training to get the ornery horse used to the idea. Still the angle and rise of the ramp wasn’t that much except for the drop off prior to the water’s edge. Landing in the water was one thing, but hitting the ground was a huge problem if a jump like this didn’t go well.

  He got off his bike and turned to Lily who still sat in her booster seat on the back. She was all bundled in her winter suit to the point she couldn’t move, but her rosy cheeked smile gave him his own. She loved to ride and had been doing so since she was a few weeks old, bundled in a chest carrier when she was tiny and never seemingly bothered by the roar of the engine.

  “Can I see Charger and Scout? They miss me.” She pushed the light brown curls from her face, as he helped remove her child-sized helmet.

  “Yep, Gabe’s in the barn. I’ll be there in a minute.” He kissed her icy forehead and sent her on her way, grabbing her backpack full of dolls and who knew what else, intending to toss it in the camper.

  “I love your horsey back pack.” Jenna moseyed closer, tugging her coat tighter.

  He set the helmets and backpack inside the camper and turned back to her. “Well, if you
’re a good little girl you might get to play with my dolls.”

  He walked closer, hesitated, waiting on her nod, and then kissed her softly, touching her hair. God, he loved her hair, the soft thickness of the bouncing curls. Out of scrubs she was breathtaking, in spite of the heavy coat. She had curves in all the right places, and it didn’t take him long to feel all too physical about that each time he saw her.

  “Does Lily come with you a lot?” she asked, glancing toward the barn.

  “She was missing the horses. Scout and Charger are her best friends I’m afraid. She’s inside, come on.” He nodded toward the barn, taking her by the hand. No sense in waiting until she could visit the ranch to meet his daughter with Lily right here and besides, Jenna’s presence in his life was no longer any big secret it seemed.

  Inside they found Lily on Scout’s back in the stall and Gabe watering all the horses, who were moving out of their stalls to head outside to the corral.

  “Good morning.” Gabe’s brows lifted with his nod to Jenna.

  “Morning, brother,” he answered, hoping Gabe would keep his mouth shut and for that matter, Lily too.

  “Hello,” Jenna answered.

  He turned toward Lily, pulling Jenna along with him and ignoring his brother’s knowing gaze.

  “Daddy, Scout missed me.” Lily spoke to him but held Jenna in her sights.

  “I’m sure he did miss you. Lily, this is Jenna.” He waited, unsure of her reaction.

  “Do you like horses?” Lily leaned across Scout protectively, eyeing Jenna as she walked closer.

  “I like them very much. They are lucky to have you taking such good care of them.” Jenna traced a hand across Scout’s large neck.

  “You can ride with us one day.” Lily studied her then for a long moment. “Are you a nurse?”

  Aaron sucked in a breath. This kid was smart, and there was no telling what might come out of her mouth next.

  “I’d enjoy riding with you. Yep, I’m a nurse.” Jenna played along.

  Gabe broke the awkward silence, tugging Lily from Scout and handing her over the stall to Aaron. “Time for you to get down, I gotta get Scout out to the corral.”