Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next night, Kenzi tucked the blanket up around Hattie’s middle. She eyed the other side of the tiny mattress and couldn’t bring herself to lie down in a ball. Her arms needed to stretch, but she was so tired she couldn’t lift them over her head. In an act of desperation, or brilliance, she shuffled into Nash’s room and fell on his bed.
He was in the shower and she’d be up before he got back. She’d get up soon.
Just a minute more …
With a moan, Nash landed on the other side of the mattress, bouncing her into consciousness, though she wouldn’t dare say she was actually awake.
Nash moaned, and she echoed the sound. “Your socks are dirty,” Nash muttered.
“I don’t care.” He could have lit the bed on fire and she wouldn’t move.
“Is Hattie asleep?”
“She conked out atonce upon a time.”
Nash grunted. Kenzi didn’t care that he’d converted to caveman communication—talking took too much effort and was overrated.
What she would have told him, if she could draw the energy, was that Hattie had played hard all day long. She trailed after Gladys’s grandsons as if she had every right in the world to be a part of their troop. To their credit, the boys included her as one of their own, with the grand exception of handling her like a delicate flower. Between chores, Kenzi checked on the three of them and found one of the boys holding her hand to steady her on a hay bale or standing behind her, ready to catch if she dropped a bottle of milk she was determined to carry for the calves. Kenzi had smiled at each turn, grateful to know there were little gentlemen in the world.
Kenzi rolled to her side, the muscles in her back and arms yelling at her to just hold still. “I hurt everywhere.”
“I concur.” Nash rolled to face her, tucking both his hands under his cheek. The movement was childlike and made him boyishly handsome. “I take it back. You can run the farm. I never want to see another cow again.”
She laughed and then groaned as her body protested. “I’m so tired …” Her eyes fell shut and she relaxed into the goose down pillow and drifted off to sleep.
Something tugged at Kenzi’s face. Chubby little fingers pulled at her cheek and nose. Her eye opened out of some deep primal need for self-preservation. That was the only way the lid would lift open, because she didn’t have the willpower to care if a tiger was about to gnaw off her arm. He could have it; she had another one.
What she saw was a cherub-faced girl with hair in all directions and big, big eyes. “Auntie,” she whispered. “I can’t sleep.”
It took a moment for Kenzi to realize that she’d fallen asleep in Nash’s bed. The clock on the nightstand said it was just past eleven. “Okay. I’m coming.” She worked to clear the fog from her brain enough that she could navigate the hallway without injuring herself. When she went to get up, her hand was stuck.
She turned to find Nash’s fingers laced through hers. When had that happened? She couldn’t remember the moment they came together and who had reached for whom, but the gesture was so sweet it ran through her like a sugar rush. She gently extracted herself and turned Hattie around so they could go back to their room.
Once they were comfortable, she pondered on the man who had worked alongside her all day long. Nash had thrown himself into every task today, be it milking, feeding, or cleaning pens. He’d tried to drive a tractor and failed miserably. Kenzi mentally laughed in remembrance. She wished she was still next to him, that she could wake up next to him every morning. Strange as it may be, she was in love with her husband.
