She chuckled, put her knife down, then gazed at me. “You are when it comes to my boy. There ain’t nothing wrong with that. That means you feel safe with him so you can be soft. Baby, when you first got here, you was so tough. The world was on ya shoulders. You was a soldier in a battle against your own mind.
“Slowly, you trusted. Slowly, you opened up. Slowly, you let us love you. Now look at you . . . my soft, bratty daughter-in-law.” Her eyes matched the warmness of her smile.
It was such a fulfilling feeling to have people that loved you. I never thought that I would have a mother figure in my life. When we went on our horse rides, she poured into me so much in ways that I didn’t know I needed. “I never really thought about it like that.”
Vic did make me feel safe to be a person that I didn’t even know existed, a person that was hidden deep down that I never had a chance to let out. I damn sure didn’t feel safe to be soft when I was deployed. Even when I wasn’t deployed, I didn’t feel very safe.
In this chapter of my life, I could relax. I knew that if I missed something, there would be someone right behind me to catch it. Vic had me at a place where I didn’t have to do anything that I didn’t want to do. I worked because I loved to work in the shop and on the farm. He told me a while ago that I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to.
I glanced over my shoulder at Pop Carl, who was in the middle of a documentary that had his full attention. That man was serious about his documentaries. He was a quiet soul, but a firecracker all at the same time.
The alarm alert went off to let us know that the front door was opened.My man is home.When I heard Mama Vicky giggle, I glanced at her. She just shook her head with an arched brow. There was no need to ask what she thought. I wasn’t a mind reader, but I knew.
His footsteps were light, almost inaudible. My smile was as wide as the Amazon River when he came around the corner. He came straight to me where I sat at the island. His body leaned down so that he could wrap his arms around me. “Hey, baby.”
“Hey. How was work?” I kissed his lips. In a whisper, I said, “I missed you all day.”
He stood to his full height. “Hey, Mama and Pops. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
Mama Vicky waved him off. “You better speak to your rib first. You see ya daddy over there ain’t worried about you.”
We looked at Pop who was still stuck on his documentary. Mama called out to him. He glanced our way. “Hey, boy.”
He couldn’t be bothered. Vic and I laughed at his unbothered ass. Vic grabbed my hand. “Come with me, love.”
I followed him to our bedroom. He closed the door after we were in the room. When he turned to face me, I wrapped my arms around his waist. “You wanna take a shower together?”
He gave me that ‘I could have whatever I liked’look. “We can certainly do that. First, I want you to take this though.”
He lifted a bag that I didn’t realize he had in his hand. See, it was things like that. When I was around him, it was like I didn’t feel the need to be hypervigilant anymore. The old me would have scanned him when he walked in from head to toe, and I would have seen the bag. When he walked in today, all I saw was his face and smile.
“What is that?” I took the bag from him to pull out the contents.A pregnancy test.“I’m not surprised. Let’s see if that forty-two-year-old sperm still works.”
I turned to run off. I wasn’t fast enough, which made me burst into laughter when he caught me and threw me over his tall ass shoulders. He smacked my ass. “Yeah, we’re about to see.”
He put me down once I was in the bathroom. I wasn’t shy around him, so I didn’t care that he stayed in the bathroom while I took the test. It didn’t take a very long time since I had to pee anyway. I set the test on a disposable towel on the counter, and Vic set the timer before we went into the bedroom.
“So, what are you going to do when I make you a baby daddy, Dawson?” I asked him with a smirk.
His arm went around my waist, and he pulled me into his side where we sat on the bed. His other hand dug into his pocket. “I’m too old to be anyone’s baby daddy. I’ll be your husband though, Winters. Are you going to let me change that Winters to Dawson and be my forever?”
He moved his arm from around me so that he could open the ring box. My eyes widened. It was the most beautiful marquise-shaped diamond buds set in vine-like metalwork that wound toward a center stone. He knew that I liked white gold. I wasn’t sure if it was white gold or platinum. My words were caught in my throat.
“Baby, you gonna answer?” Vic’s voice brought me out of my daze.
My eyelids blinked rapidly. “Yes! Yes! I want to be your wife.”
He took the ring out of the box, then slid it on my finger. “We can have any kind of wedding you want. I want you to have whatever your heart desires.”
“Can we just have us on the farm with our family? I just want the people I love and the people who love us,” I told him.
I had no family. It was just the Dawsons. When I was in the military, I wasn’t the friendliest person. I didn’t attach myself to people. It was a trauma response from foster care. My move toPlasterswas the first time that I allowed myself to truly be loved. It was the first time that it got late and I stayed.
The alarm went off. Vic and I both got up to see the result. I got to the counter first. He stepped behind me, then engulfed me in his arms. His lips went to my neck, then my ear. “That forty-two-year-old sperm got up in there and made it happen.”
He smacked my ass. He walked out of the bathroom, then out of the room. I heard him yell to his parents that I said yes and that I was pregnant. Pop abandoned his documentary for that news.
My life had changed so much in a little over a year. I still had my issues that I dealt with, but thanks to Vic, I didn’t have to deal with them alone. I had love to surround me in the times that it got dark. In the times that it seemed too late to stay. All I had to do was commit to the strength to stay.
