by Imari Jade
She broke her promise and scratched him hard as they both came together.
“Oh my god,” she screamed. “That was magnificent.”
Kolby was trying to recover.
“It snuck up on me too,” he said, swiping his dripping wet hair out of his eyes.
She could still feel the heat from his cum deep inside her. The condom intensified it. Aliya watched while he extracted his soft cock and removed the rubber.
“That’s quite a load.”
“Everything’s big in Texas, darling.”
Aliya nodded. She was starting to believe that.
Chapter Eight
Having Aliya back at the ranch made Kolby a bit nervous. His mother had been pleasant so far and allowed Aliya to help her in the kitchen with lunch. Later he took her to the barn and introduced her to Thor. Some of the guys were there checking her out. Kolby suspected Harry had something to do with it.
He never knew his horse could be jealous. Thor wouldn’t let Aliya pet him and he actually nipped her on the behind a couple of times. Harry and the others got a big laugh out of this.
“Your horse doesn’t like me,” Aliya said from a safe difference.
“Apparently,” Kolby said high up in the saddle. He rode off a little to show her his horsemanship and control of Thor and then rode back. Thor still tried to get at her.
“Maybe he doesn’t like what I have on,” Aliya said.
“Take it off,” Harry shouted.
“In your dreams,” Aliya said.
Kolby got off the horse and tried to walk Thor to the stable but the horse kept snorting at Aliya.
“Mind your manners,” Kolby said to the horse. “You’re going to scare the pretty lady away.” He walked Thor to the barn and disappeared behind the door. He came out and found his mother talking to Aliya.
“Your mother has invited me to go with her for a ride,” Aliya said.
“We’re going to pick vegetables for dinner,” Sonya said.
Kolby seriously thought about telling Aliya, no.
“Okay,” he said. “Don’t be long.”
Aliya climbed into the passenger seat of the jeep and Sonya drove away.
“You don’t look too good,” Harry said. “Are you worried that Auntie might bury her out in the fields?”
“Yeah,” Kolby said. “But I suspect that she’s trying to see how tough Aliya is.”
§§§
“I’m cooking stew for dinner,” Sonya told Aliya when they arrived at the field. “We need potatoes, carrots, and peas.” The older woman showed her what to do and set her to work. Aliya had put on the gloves and got busy. She wasn’t afraid of a little hard work and she wasn’t going to let Kolby’s mother think she couldn’t cut it. Marissa had already told her that her grandmother considered Aliya a greenhorn. They worked side by side under the heat of the sun. Sonya had given Aliya a hat to protect her skin. Aliya was thankful that she’d also remembered to put on sun block before she had left her apartment.
“What do your parents do for a living?” Sonya asked her.
“My father is a chef in his own restaurant and my mother was a jazz singer. Now she’s a housewife.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Aliya said. “They met at one of her shows.”
“I like jazz,” Sonya said. “Why did she quit?”
“They started a family. I’m the youngest of ten children. I have five brothers and four sisters.”
“Wow. I wanted more kids, but after having Genieva and Kolby I just couldn’t get pregnant again.” She paused. “Do you like children?”
“Yes,” Aliya answered as she pulled a potato out of the ground. She shook the dirt off the root and then put it in one of the baskets. “That’s one of the reasons I became a teacher. I worked a nine to five job at a bank and I hated it. I wanted to make a contribution with my life so I went back to college and majored in early childhood education.”
“Marissa said you are a good teacher.”
“She’s an excellent student. I’m glad they put me in a first grade class. They are so eager to learn.”
“She’s going to be smarter than all of us,” Sonya said. “Her mother died in a car accident when Marissa was four. Kolby took it pretty hard.” Sonya unearthed some carrots and put them in a basket. “For the longest time we couldn’t get him to talk about it. He just closed himself off. I guessed he just needed time to grieve.”
“He seems alright now,” Aliya said.
“He’s still not much of a talker but sometimes he sits on that porch late at night like he’s expecting Meredith to come walking up. I hate seeing him like that.”
Now Aliya was beginning to understand Sonya’s toughness. She supposed it was hard to see her child suffer.
“I can’t promise that I won’t tragically die in an accident,” Aliya said. “But I like Kolby. He makes me smile. His horse hates me though.”
Sonya laughed and then sighed. “Thor hates me too. I think he just hates women. The only female he lets near him is Marissa.”
Aliya laughed. “He nipped me on the butt a couple of times, but I like Rosie. She’s very gentle.”
“Do you plan to stick around Brazoria County long?” Sonya asked.
“Yes,” Aliya said. “I’m no quitter. I’m getting used to the place and the people here are so nice and friendly.”
“It takes a special kind of person to be a ranch wife,” Sonya said. “I think you have good potential.”
“Thank you,” Aliya said. She’d take a compliment any way she could get it.
“We have enough vegetables. We need to head back.”
Aliya took the biggest basket and hauled it to the jeep.
Sonya put in the other basket.
They climbed back into the front of the car.
“Everyone loved your gumbo. You have to show me how you prepare it that way.”
They talked all the way back to the ranch house.
Kolby showed up to help with the baskets.
“Did the two of you have a good time?”
“Yeah,” Aliya said. “Your mother is going to teach me how to make beef stew.”
“I hope we’re having cornbread with that,” Kolby said.
“Of course I’m making cornbread,” Sonya said. “It’s the only way I can get your father to eat stew.” She entered the house and Aliya and Kolby brought up the rear.
§§§
Kolby sat on the front porch with Aliya, Hale, and Genieva watching the sun set. Someone from the bunkhouse was strumming a Spanish tune on his guitar and singing. Harry had gone off on another date with Becky, leaving the four of them alone to enjoy the rest of the evening.
“Did you go to Mardi Gras this year?” Hale asked Aliya after they’d been talking for a while.
“No,” Aliya said. “I’ve seen enough parades to last a lifetime.”
“Hale has been promising to take me,” Genieva said. “But we never quite make it there.”
“It’s something you have to see at least once,” Aliya said. “And you have to try a Hurricane.”
“What’s that?” Genieva asked.
“A popular drink in New Orleans made with three different kinds of rum, orange and pineapple juice and grenadine syrup.”
“Ooh wee,” Hale said. “I think I can go for something like that.”
“It will knock you on your ass if you drink enough of them,” Aliya said.
“Are you speaking from experience?” Kolby asked her.
Aliya nodded.
“Yeah, I tried it once and believe me I woke up the next morning with the worst headache in the world.”
“So why should I try that?” Genieva asked.
“Because it’s just something you do in New Orleans when you visit. You eat a lot of good food, drink a lot of whatever and then you catch some beads.”
“I’ll skip the drinking,” Genieva said. “But I want to go there for the food. I want to taste Shrimp Creole and praline candy.”
“Not dinner?” Kolby asked.
“Are you kidding?” Aliya asked. “Your mother would kill me if you guys didn’t eat Sunday dinner here on the ranch.”
Marissa came outside with her clear tackle box. “Daddy. I messed up my hair.”
Kolby rose from the rocker, walked to the edge of the porch, and sat down. Marissa walked down and sat down on the step between his knees.
“What are you doing?” Aliya asked him.
“I’m about to comb my daughter’s hair.”
“Do you want me to do that?” Aliya asked.
“No, I got this,” Kolby said. He took the balls and barrettes out of Marissa’s hair, brushed it, and braided it into two neat plaits.
“Thanks,” Marissa said once Kolby had finished. “I’m going to bed.”
“Have a goodnight, darling,” Kolby said.
Everyone told his daughter good night.
Kolby stood up and climbed back into to the rocker.
“You can comb hair?” Aliya asked.
“Yes,” Kolby said.
“He’s very good at it,” Genieva said.
“You can comb mine one of these days,” Aliya said.
“I like messing yours up,” Kolby chuckled.
Aliya hit him on the arm.
“You’re not supposed to say that aloud.”
“So that’s where all those scratches come from on his back,” Hale said. “Harry and I thought he’d fallen off Thor and got scraped.”
Aliya buried her hands into her pocket.
Kolby continued to chuckle.
“I had them trimmed when I went in for a manicure,” Aliya confessed. “I just had to find something to grab on to.”
“Is Kolby that bad in bed?” Hale asked.
This time Genieva popped her husband on his arm.
“Are you kidding?” Aliya asked loud. “Kolby knows how to scratch an itch.”
Both Genieva and Hale laughed.
“They’re never going to let me live this down, darling,” Kolby told her.
“I can’t wait to tell Harry,” Hale said. “Harry was betting you would have to jump Kolby’s bones first.”
“I’m not that slow,” Kolby said in defense of his manhood. “Aliya is pretty sexy when she wears one of my shirts.”
“You two won’t be doing the mattress mambo tonight, will you?” Genieva asked. “Marissa sleeps in the next room.”
“I’m taking my filly off to the cabin,” Kolby said. “I’m not stupid. Mama sleeps in the room right below me.”
“That place isn’t very romantic,” Genieva said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Aliya said. “It does have its charm.”
Chapter Nine
“Aliya Marie Harris, do you take Kolby Louis Patterson to be your wedded husband, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health?”
“I do,” Aliya said to the preacher a year to the day after she and Kolby started dating.
They stood in a field of wildflowers on the Patterson Ranch before friends and family. Her parents, sisters, and brothers had made the journey from New Orleans to share in their blessed moment. Although she would have preferred to have gotten married during the summer, Kolby wouldn’t hear of Marissa’s little brother being born out of wedlock. His mother didn’t go for it either. Kolby said it was bad enough that the entire community knew that they had jumped the gun. Aliya could care less about what the entire community thought of her. She had attacked Kolby six months ago when he came for a visit to her apartment looking uber-scrumptious in a black suit, black Stetson, and black boots. They never did make it out to dinner that night, nor did she give him a chance to take a rubber out of his wallet. She wanted him naked from head to feet with nothing in between.
The preacher repeated the vows for Kolby. Aliya faintly remembered him saying ‘I do’. It was kind of hard hearing the ceremony with the construction workers building their home just a few feet away. Aliya had found the blueprints for the house when she went out to the barn one day. Kolby wanted to draw up another set. Aliya wouldn’t hear of it. She wanted that house, and the quicker the better. She did get along with his mother now, but she’d learned from her grandmother a long time ago that a house couldn’t have two queens. It stuck with Aliya all this time.
Aliya gave Marissa her dolls as a wedding present. She was sure her Barbies would be in good hands since Marissa treated her dolls like little princesses.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the preacher said. “You may now kiss the bride.”
Kolby lifted Aliya’s veil, lowered his head, and kissed her.
Aliya wrapped her arms around his neck and stuck her tongue in his mouth.
Some of the cowboys whooped in the background.
Aliya chuckled. It was her wedding day, and if she wanted to give her new husband a kiss to remember nothing was going to stop her.
“Save the rest of that for the bedroom,” Kolby whispered to her.
They were spending their wedding night in a room in the hotel that her family was staying at. She had reserved the honeymoon suite for the weekend. Kolby had wanted to take her away on a proper honeymoon to Vegas or Hawaii, but Aliya had talked him into taking her, Marissa, and the baby on a family trip next year and Marissa had her heart set on Disneyworld. She didn’t need a fancy honeymoon anyway, she had just married the man of her dreams, she had the best daughter in the world, and she carried the next generation of Patterson in her womb.
“I have to pee,” she told Kolby. “We have to leave now.”
Kolby picked her up and carried her to the car and drove her directly to the ranch house so she could empty her bladder. The rest of the guests followed because Sonya and Aliya’s father had prepared the wedding feast.
Their parents seemed to get along better than she expected. Aliya’s mother had come out of retirement to sing at the reception and Harry played a tune on his guitar to commemorate their wedding. Marissa looked so pretty in her white flower girl outfit. Her father had woven bluebonnets in her hair. She and Kolby toasted with champagne. She didn’t get to drink any of it. Sonya had taken the glass out of her hand and gave her another one with milk.
“Did I tell you that Kolby weighed twelve pounds when he was born?” Sonya asked as the women sat in the den talking when both mothers made Aliya come inside to rest.
“No,” Aliya said. That bit of information she thought she needed to have a long time ago. No wonder the doctor kept asking her if her husband was a big guy. She had put on a considerable amount of weight, but had contributed it to her increased appetite. Sonya was smaller than her, where did she carry him?
“The doctor had to put me on bed rest after my seventh month. I just couldn’t walk anymore, and Kolby lay on my bladder.”
Aliya was just about to enter her seventh month. Her ankles were swollen and she lived in the bathroom.
“All the women in our families have big babies,” Sonya continued. “Marissa weighed in at ten pounds.”
Aliya looked to her mother for help.
“You were five pounds and fourteen ounces,” her mother said. “You were my smallest baby.”
There was a big difference between five pounds and twelve pounds. “Did you deliver Kolby naturally?” Aliya asked her new mother-in-law.
“Ooh, lord no. I had to have a Cesarean. I couldn’t pass that big boy out of me. You look like you’re having a whopper too.”
Twelve pounds? No wonder Kolby was so tall and fine. Maybe Sonya should have told her this before she molested her son without a condom.
“Did it take you long to recuperate after you had him?”
“I’m still recuperating,” Sonya laughed.
“Mama, stop teasing Aliya,” Genieva said entering the room. “You’re going to scare her.”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
Aliya asked her equally pregnant sister-in-law. Apparently there was something in the air around that time.
“No,” Genieva said, sitting down next to Aliya.
“You should be,” Hale’s mother said. “Hale was a big baby too. He weighed twelve pounds when he was born.”
Genieva grabbed Aliya’s hand and squeezed tight.
“Mother Christian, why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Because I wanted grandchildren,” the older woman said. “You would have high-tailed it to another state if I would have told you that.”
The rest of the women in the room laughed at their naivety and agreed.
Aliya looked at Genieva’s belly. She looked like she was carrying twins.
“It’s only one baby,” Genieva said as if reading her mind. “Now I understand why Doctor Pritchett keeps shaking his head when I go there.”
“He does that when I go to see him too,” Aliya said. She tried imagining giving birth to Kolby’s son naturally. She shook her head to clear that memory. “I’m going to make sure he has plenty of drugs on hand when I go into labor.”
“Me too,” Genieva said. “No wonder I look like a beached whale.”
“You do not,” Hale said entering the room with Kolby. “You look beautiful, Neva.”
“You too,” Kolby said to Aliya like she needed him to make her feel better. She hissed at him.
“How much did you weight when you were born?”
Kolby took off his Stetson and scratched his head.
“Twelve pounds, I think.”
“And you didn’t tell me that?” Aliya asked, struggling to get out of her chair.
Kolby helped her up.
“Is that important?”
Aliya hit him on the arm.
“Of course that is important. I can’t push a twelve pound baby out of me.”
Kolby rubbed his arm.
“Ouch, you’re strong. Where are you going?”
“I have to pee again,” Aliya said. She heard Sonya laughing at her as she left the room.
Chapter Ten
Kolby Louis Patterson, Junior was born August 1st at 1:00 am. His equally eager to be born cousin, Hale Morris Christian, Junior was born two hours later. Both she and Genieva shared a recovery room. They both also had to have Cesareans. Kolby, Junior weighed in at twelve pounds. Hale, Junior weighed eleven pounds. Doctor Pritchard was so proud since he successfully delivered both babies.