Risking Fate (9 page)

She turned around and sat on the little ledge just staring at my naked body. I loved it when she looked at me, knowing all the little
things
she could do to make me crazy. I leaned down and kissed her sweet
lips. “I love this
.”

She looked up at me and smiled, before leaning back against the wall and
closing
her eyes with a big smile on her face. “Not as much as I love you.”

I climbed out and grabbed her a towel, before starting to get dressed myself. “Now do you see how there are benefits to you peeing your pants?” I was trying to make her feel better about her little uncontrolled accidents.

“I can’t
believe
you still want me sometimes. I feel so
embarrassed
when that happens.”

“Miranda, stop saying that.
You can’t help it right now anyway. How much of a dick would I be if I judged you for something like that. Baby, you can’t gross me out. Remember I have already seen you have one child. I am totally prepared for two more.”

She reached up and touched my face. I loved when she smiled at me.
“We should get back. I promised Van I would help her with dinner.” Miranda stood up and walked toward the bedroom.

I followed behind her and sat on the bed as I finished dressing. “
Can I have one more kiss?”

She slipped on her shoe and leaned down to kiss me. I grabbed her wet hair and held her against my mouth. I peeked to see if her eyes were open and they weren’t. I loved that.

“Can we go now?” She asked as she pulled away.

“Your mouth is magnificent.” I pulled her against my body. “I love all of things you can do with it.”

“Ty, stop or I will want to stay and you and I both know you need time to
recuperate
, besides, I want to get back to Colt and Van and I know you do too.”

I sighed feeling defeated, even though I knew she was right, in fact my wife was
almost
always right and she knew it.

I pouted the whole way back, not because I thought Miranda would change her mind, but because I wanted her to want more later. The truth was that Miranda got so tired during the day. On most nights, I would cuddle with her on the couch and end up carrying her to bed after she’d fallen asleep.

My fascination with Miranda was cut short when we pulled up to the house and saw Noah and Iz hooking up a wagon to Sam’s collar. The poor dog just sat there while the two Bopsy twins tried to figure out how to tie a knot. Lucky for the dog, neither of them knew how.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked as I approached them.

They put their hands
behind
their backs like it kept us from seeing what they were up to. “Nothing!” They both replied at the same time.

“It doesn’t look like nothin’.” Miranda walked up to Sam and unraveled the rope from around his collar.

They both looked at each other and refused to look at us. “Do you know that you could have hurt Sam? How do you think your dad would have felt if something happened to her?” I looked at Noah and waited for him to reply.

Noah shrugge
d his little shoulders. “He’
d be real sad.”

“That’s right, he
would
be real sad. You need to get
your
butts in that house and leave the dog alone. Understand?”

“Yes, Uncle Ty.”

Izzy never looked back at us as she ran into the house. She knew I was disappointed in her.

“Trouble with a capital T.” Miranda started laughing behind me.

I grabbed her hand as she walked up the steps with me. “Yeah, wait til they become teenagers.”

“If they are anything like we used to be then we are in big trouble.” Miranda just shook her head and laughed as she talked.

“You got that right.”

Van was feeding Christian as we walked in the door. I shielded my hands in front of my face to prevent from seeing her bare breast. “God damn woman, put that tit away!”

“I’m feeding my daughter. You want another taste?”

I started gagging immediately just thinking about how bad that shit tasted. “Hell no! I would rather eat dog shit.”

Miranda was laughing behind me as I walked straight into the kitchen. Colt was opening the crock pot, checking on a pot roast.

“That smells great.”

He agreed, “Yeah, Savanna is goin’ to make her gravy once she’s done feedin’ Christian.”

“Hope she doesn’t add any of that breast milk in it. That was fucking nasty dude. Have you ever tried that shit?”

Colt started shaking his head while he laughed. “If you must know, yeah I did. I didn’t think it was as bad as you’re makin’ it out to be. My daughter likes it and that’s all that matters.”

“Yeah I guess. I’m going to have to start feeding Miranda sweets. My boys ain’t going
to like
that bitter shit.”

“Ty, you’re so damn simple. Talk about somethin’ else please.” Colt was disturbed.
As funny as it was, I knew when to cool it.

“Your son was outside trying to tie the dog up to pull him and Iz in the wagon.”

Colt dropped the lid to the
Crockpot
and made a dash for the front door. “I stopped them. Sam is fine.”

Noah and Iz were upstairs playing.
We could all hear them talking to each other
. “Noah Mitchell, get your tail down here right now!”

“What Dad?” He stood at the top of the stairs waiting for his father to respond.

“How many times d
o I have to tell you not to tie anything on the dog? How many, Noah?”

The little guy shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry.”

“Do it one more time and you’re goin’ to get it. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” Noah went running away from where we could see him. I saw Colt shaking his head and walking back toward the kitchen.

“Damn Cuz, I think I’m even scared to touch your dog.”

“Shut up man. This ain’t the first time he tried that shit. Not only could he seriously hurt her, but he could have hurt himself. He needs to learn to listen.” Colt grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and passed one to me. He opened his an
d began drinking it before the r
efrigerator door shut.

“So what were you going to give him? You have a paddle or do you prefer a stick from a tree?”

Colt cocked his eyebrow. “He was goin’ to get my bare hand on his ass, that’s what he’s goin’ to get. You wait til those boys are born and start causin’ you
grief
. Don’t be callin’ me whinin’ about it. Your ass can handle that shit yourself.”

He was right, I knew he was. Colt was trying to teach his son what was right and I respected that. Being that all I had was a little girl, it was harder for me to be so stern with her.
Honestly
, Miranda would
probably say that I didn’t know how to be stern with our daughter. She always said I was too easy on her. I just hated to see her sad. I wanted to do whatever it took to make my little girl happy, even if it was bending the rules sometimes.

I wondered if I was going to be different when the boys came. Would I be able to be harder on them, because they were boys? Would I know what to do when they got into trouble?

“I’m really in for it
,
ain’t I?”

Colt took another drink of his beer. “I reckon you have a lot of learnin’. Noah is
my son and I love him more than my own life, but that kid likes to cause mischief. Mom says that I was just like him, I just don’t remember
gettin
’ into things like that boy does. Sometimes I think he is testin’ my last nerve.”

We sat down at the table and Colt started shuffling up some cards. Our family loved to play cards. “What are we playing for?”

“You already owe me twenty bucks,” Colt teased.

“Bullshit. You bet me, I didn’t bet you
,
dick. Besides, you knew all along that shit was nasty.”

Colt began laughing again. “If you could have seen your face after that first swig, man that was priceless.”

“It was gross, that’s what is was. Those poor babies don’t even understand. No wonder they cry all the time. Their food tastes like ass.”

He shook his head while he
began
dealing the cards. I could hear the girls talking in the other room. They probably wouldn’t even come and sit with us. Since they couldn’t drink, they usually spent their time watching romance flicks while Colt and I stayed up and played cards. I knew we weren’t able to stay to play with everyone tomorrow night, so it was just Colt and I. “I say we play for kid duty tomorrow mornin’. If I win then you and Randa need to take the kids over to my moms and get up with them in the mornin’. If you win they can stay here and I will take away the golf cart keys so they can’t ride out to the
main house
.”

“You got yourself a deal, Cuz.”

We played a game of five hundred rummy, keeping it close the whole time. It went faster with just two people and in no time we were neck and neck and on the determining last hand of the night. The kids had passed out upstairs in the playroom on the bean bag chairs after watching a movie. Savanna and Miranda were sound asleep on the
couch, while Colt and I had the baby monitor in the kitchen, listening in case Christian woke up.

I decided I was going to change things up and hold all of my
lay down cards in my hand until I could just go out at once. Colt took his time, collecting and laying down the cards as soon as he got them. I had four jacks and two queens in my hand. All I needed to do was pick up one more queen and I won the game. Lucky ass Colt picked up the card he needed first and threw down three aces. He didn’t have a discard, so he was floating until his next turn.

I
closed
my eyes and drew my last and final card. This had to be a good one or I was o
ut of the game and lugging
sleeping bodies back on one golf cart. My card was a queen. I threw down everything I had in my hand and discarded the remaining card.

Colt pounded his hands on the table. We had been drinking for a couple of hours and I could even tell we were being louder than normal. “You prick. That was cheatin’.”

“Bullshit! There is no rule saying you can’t do that.” I reached my hands up in the air and started to stretch, even adding a yawn to my appearance. “I guess I need to take my wife and get her tucked in. We’ll
see you guys in the morning. Not too early though. We like to sleep in.” I winked as I stood up.

“Asshole! That shit shouldn’t have counted.”

“You lost Colt. Get over it!”

“Whatever, I will see your cheatin’ ass in the mornin’.” He gave me a shake of the hand and a half hug as I walked out of the kitchen. I reached down and picked up Miranda and Colt got the door for me. Whi
le I was sitting Miranda down, h
e
reached
in the other golf cart and got the keys. I saw him holding them up to show me the kids wouldn’t be paying us another early visit. I waved as we pulled away from the house. I won fa
i
r and square. There was no doubt in my mind he was going to steal my play and use it on the family tomorrow after we left.
I couldn’t help laugh about it as we made our way to the main house.

Miranda was half awake when we pulled up, but I
insisted
on carryi
ng her anyway. She didn’t weigh
that much, even being
pregnant
and sometimes it made me feel like her hero.

I would have liked to take advantage of having another night alone, but my wife was already back to sleep when her head hit her pillow. I took off her socks and her jogging pants and covered her up before climbing into bed beside her. I couldn’t help but sit there and
watch her sleeping. Inside of that belly was my boys.
I couldn’t wait to meet them and teach them how to live. I loved them so much already.

I found myself stroking her stomach with my fingertips. Within seconds they were moving all around in there. I fell asleep with my hand across her stomach, while my boys moved all around beneath it.

Chapter 7

Miranda

As much as Ty and I loved to visit, we hated having to leave more. After a very nice brunch,
we
said goodbye to our family and started
our trip back home. Baby Christian’s
christening
was coming up and we knew we would
be back
in few weeks to see everyone again.

It was great that for holidays and family affairs, Ty and I always got to be with our whole family. We didn’t have to fight over which side to go to like other couples.

It
also
meant a lot to me that Bella could be with both my mother and Ty’s parents. Even John had become attached to my little girl after dating my mom for going on three years. I wasn’t really sure, but it seemed like somewhere down the road, they may even consider getting married.