I slip my feet into my boots at the front door, shrugging on a random Carhartt from the hooks on the wall as well. I left mine behind at Dad’s when I fled, which really sucked, becauseFebruary in Montana was fucking cold. Especially when you’re sleeping in your truck.
I’m sure I probably look ridiculous, with already-wild curls, messy from sleep, and my SpongeBob pajama pants tucked into my boots. Maddox has probably seen me worse off, though.
Though the only way I’d know for sure was to ask him, and I didn’t think I’d ever be brave enough to do that. I had a feeling Maddox was the one who’d brought me home from the bar on my birthday. Most of the night had been a blur, so I really didn’t remember anything beyond Kenny leaving, and she’d been just as surprised as I was when she found me in her bed the next morning. I’m sure she asked around after I left, but I never wanted to know who had the misfortune of seeing me like that. It was the first and only time I drank.
Maddox is sitting on the ground across from a painfully-pregnant looking heifer in her stall. His eyes immediately dart to the barn door as I slip in, hyper-alert for a second before he relaxes. “What’re you doing out here?”
“Do you want kids?” I ask as I close the barn door behind me, my mind not firing on all cylinders yet apparently.
Maddox looks confused as hell, which is fair, considering the question was out of left-field. I suppose it’s also not really something a woman should ask a man ten years older than her unless there’s something between them. Maddox had made it painfully clear that would never be the case.
“What?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it. Callie has zero bed manners,” I explain, trudging over with my arms crossed in front of me, trying to stay warm.
He laughs. “My cabin’s unlocked if you need a place to crash,” he offers, and my stomach flips at the idea of sleeping in a warm bed that smells like him, but I sit down beside him instead and lean back against the wooden wall. “It’s cold as hell out here, Tex. You should go back inside where it’s warm.”
I tug an edge of the horse blanket he’s got across his legs. “Share your blanket then.”
He sighs but allows me to steal most of the blanket anyway. I scoot closer until our thighs press against one another’s and pretend it’s the blanket’s fault. I probably should’ve put my jeans back on because my pajama pants don’t keep me from feeling the heat of his thigh. If he gave me a chance, I bet I could make those thighs tremble while I sucked his cock into my throat.
“I thought you didn’t calve til the end of next month?”
“Didn’t really plan for this one. There was a break in the fence last May and a steer got into the heifer pasture. I trust I don’t need to explain the birds and the bees to you.”
I snort. “No, I think I got it. Poor girl. What’s her name?”
“Heifer.”
“Heifer?”
He grunts, but doesn’t correct himself.
“You can’t just call her ‘heifer'. That’s demeaning. She needs a name.”
“There’s a thousand cattle on this ranch, Tex. Can’t name all of them, and even if we could, I wouldn’t remember them.”
“Well, clearly this one’s special enough to have you up in the middle of the night with her. You think she’ll have trouble delivering?”
Maddox shrugs. “It’s her first calf, so I just want to be cautious. Having it during the winter’s probably already stressing her out enough, and the calf could get cold stress or have trouble nursing right away.”
His voice sounds as exhausted as his eyes looks, but even though he tried to make it sound like this heifer was just one out of a thousand or so on the ranch, he’s still staying up and worrying about her and her calf.
He yawns, covering it with the back of his hand and I take the pause in conversation to admire him. I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to him with no one else around before. I’d neverbeen able to just observe him like this. He’s carried the stress of a man twenty years older than him ever since his dad passed. Every day was a workday—nature didn’t take sick days, so he couldn’t either.
Even in his exhaustion, Maddox was gorgeous in the most rugged way. He had the type of hands that made me want to be manhandled, and I frequently imagined him pushing his fingers through my hair and shoving my head down on his cock.
His absolutely massive cock, despite me claiming otherwise the other night. I think I could’ve lived my whole life without knowing how pretty of a cock he had, considering it didn’t seem like he was ever gonna let me see it again.
His brown hair was just long enough that I knew I’d be able to get a good grip on it while he ate me out, and his eyes matched Kenny’s so closely that it sometimes tricked my mind into thinking he would be a safe confidant.
I could try to pretend that’s all there was—just a raw sexual appeal and a mental misunderstanding—but those two things alone wouldn’t have me trudging through the snow in the middle of the night. Something about him had always made me want to be greedy with him. Steal another second of his time, flirt just a little harder to squeeze out an extra eye roll, say just the right thing to make the corner of his mustache twitch as he tries to hide a smile.
It wasn’t like he had a winning personality or anything. He was a grouch, no doubt about it. But if you paid close enough attention, you could practically feel how much he cared—about everything, everyone, so much I worried he’d break under the pressure one day.
I knew that in the morning, despite having been up all night, he’d go straight into chores before the sun even rose. He’d do a million little things to take care of his mama and his sisters and the ranch and the staff without even giving himself a moment to breathe. No one would even bat an eye because that’s just what Maddox did. He took care of everyone.
And then Kenny would text me later, ranting about Maddox harping at her for one thing or another, twisting that care into malice somehow, misunderstanding. In a way, I was sort of grateful that she didn’t realize how lucky she was. How incredible was it that she was so loved, it was her mind’s default setting? That she didn’t see any novelty in it?
