“I love you, too. That was awesome. I missed you.”
He trails little kisses along my neck and over my cheek until he finds my lips. “I missed you too.” He rolls off me. “I’m squishing you.”
I roll to face him. “I like the way you squish me.” I kiss his lips again and love the way I feel all wet and hot and kind of sticky. “I think a shower is in order. I can’t believe I oozed milk all over us.”
His hand moves up and down my arm as he looks at me. “I think it’s cool.” Then he rolls away and gets up then comes around the side of the bed and grabs me up in his strong arms. “And now I’ll give you a nice long shower to get rid of the stickiness.”
I gaze at his handsome face as he carries me. A thing I was never sure he’d be able to do again. “I’m glad you hunted me down, Jude.”
“Me too,” he says then kisses me. “You’re the best trophy ever.”
I think he is!
JUDE
“You see that footprint right there, Carter?” I ask him as we walk through the woods to our hunting blind.
“Coyote?” he asks.
“Good job, buddy. Do you have the new camera I bought you in that backpack full of snacks you brought with you?” I ask him as we start walking again.
“I sure do. I hope to add some new animals to my collection today. When do you think we’ll see one of those jack-a-lopes, Uncle Ram told me about?” he asks as he steps over a fallen tree.
“I’m afraid your uncle was kidding you about that. Those aren’t real,” I tell him as I chuckle.
“He showed me a picture,” the little six-year-old tells me as he looks at me from underneath his orange hunting cap.
“Some people put little deer horns on stuffed jack rabbits. That’s how he showed you a picture. I’m not about to start lying to you about anything, Carter. But your Uncle Ram’s just pulling your leg, son.”
“Well how about me and you get a picture of something and add some things to it and pull his leg right back?” he asks with a grin on his little face.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about. I saw a fish one time that had the bottom half of it covered in hair. That had to be a joke,” I say as we get to our hunting blind and I help him climb up to the long seat that’s up in a tall tree.
“I like it up here, Dad,” he says as he climbs up and gets all settled in.
I pull the safety bar up in front of us and settle in for our front-row seat to nature’s movie studio for the next few hours. “I like it up here too, Carter. My grandfather and I would sit up here almost every morning and every evening during hunting season when I was a kid.”
“Yeah, but you actually shot the animals with a gun, Dad.” He looks at me and shakes his head. “You said I can’t have a gun yet.”
“You’re a bit on the young and small side yet, son. Learn how to shoot them with a camera and later on when your old enough to make your own decision about actually shooting them then we’ll talk about getting you a gun and teaching you how to shoot. It might not be a thing you want to do.”
He nods and points to a squirrel at the bottom of our tree. “You think he’ll come up here?”
“No,” I say and point to a hole in the bottom. “I think he’ll go into that hole. I bet that’s his home.”
We sit and watch the little animal scurry around for a while then he slips into that hole and Carter seems amazed. “How did you know that?”
“When you spend a lot of time in the woods, you learn things. So how was school today?” I ask him as we settle back and look up into the tree above us. The sun’s light is filtered through the already sparse leaves as fall is setting in well and most of the leaves have fallen off the branches.
“It was okay,” he says then he bumps his shoulder to mine. “I think this girl likes me. Her name is Trudy and she’s kind of pretty. She’s missing one of her front teeth right now but I can see past that and see that she’s pretty.”
“Well, that’s good. But the main thing is this,” I tell him. “Is she nice?”
“Well, she had an apple in her lunch today and she asked me if I wanted it cause she hates them now on account of it was one of them she bit into and that’s how her tooth came out. So I think that was a nice thing for her to do,” he says then points at a cardinal as it flies into the tree and lands on a branch not too far from us.
“You should get out your camera,” I tell him.
As he takes his backpack off and digs through it to find the elusive camera, the bird flies away with the noise. But he finally finds it and takes it out. “I’m ready now.”
With a nod, I look around and so does he. A little baby deer comes out of the brush and I touch his shoulder to get him to look that way. He pulls the camera up and takes the picture then shows it to me as he whispers, “I got it!”
“You did!” I whisper back and pat him on the back.
When I was a kid with my gramps I just thought I loved doing this. But I found out it’s even better on this side of the game. The teaching side.
Every single day these kids teach me a little something I never knew about myself. I learned from Rogan that I am an expert diaper changer. I’m much faster than Mercy is at it. A thing I wish I hadn’t gloated about so much because now she uses that to get me to do most of the diaper duty.
Mia taught me that I can braid hair like a professional. She likes the way I do her hair so that’s another thing that I’m the go-to guy for. And Carter has taught me that being a good role model is my top priority. That little guy watches my every move so I have to be on my game when he’s around.
Never did I think the thing that would make my life better than it had ever been would be having a family to call my very own. Life is good and it just keeps getting better.
MERCY
Sitting in a rocking chair on the wrap-around porch of the ranch house we recently bought, I rock little Rogan to sleep as I watch Jude teaching Carter and Mia how to rides the horses he just brought home for them.
He spoils these kids the same way he was spoiled. Not a thing comes out of their mouths that they have the slightest interest in that he doesn’t show up with one day out of the blue.
At first, I was all over him about doing that. But in true Jude fashion, he was going to do what he was going to do. So, like everything Jude-related, I got over it and let him have his way. There’s no stopping the man, anyway.
That determined spirit he has might seem like a real pain in the butt at times but it got him through a patch of his life that would’ve been devastating if he didn’t have that. So I have to respect that aspect of him.
Jude has made my life so much more than what my initial plan was. To become a lonely woman who lived her life merely to work and raise kids and leave romance and relationships out of it.
He forced his way into my world and I can’t stop thanking God that he did that for me. Pulling the baby off my shoulder, I look at his sleeping face. He’s a combination of me and the man I love with all of my heart. A testament to our love and our commitment to one another.
Our family will be strong because if Jude and his love for us all. And I’ll never take that man for granted. He is a gift to us and I’ll always treat him like that.
The day Jude Hurst came into my life is a day I’ll never forget and I will cherish the gift I was given on that day for the rest of my life, and then some.
The End
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