“That happens when we get older,” Granny stated as she poked at her belly. “After we eat, we should dig out the old pictures from the attic. You all need to know your Bastian ancestors.”
***
Somehow it took until eleven that night to look through the pictures. Granny had failed to say just how many boxes of pictures there were in the dusty old attic. Totes overflowing, cardboard boxes packed full, old handmade quilted photo albums packed with images from the late ’30s to about ten years ago. The matriarch sat in her rocker as she regaled Dahn with stories from the bygone days when you had to take a roll of film to a tiny hut or a local drugstore, drop that roll off, and wait for two weeks to see your pictures. Dahn was unable to grasp such a thing. I’d have been doubtful too if not for my mother telling me about such things in the dark ages of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. By eleven thirty, we were all in bed.
Lady had been walked for one last potty run and placed in the laundry room with fresh water, a pat on the head, and a marrow bone treat.
At midnight, I was lying awake in my bed, listening to the heartrending sound of a dog softly howling. I had no clue how to handle this predicament, so I called Aiden after I’d read thirty-seven online articles, all telling me different things.
He answered after about ten rings. Maybe I should have called his service, but he had said if I had any questions, to call him at home. So…
“Yeah?” His voice was thick with sleep, sexy, very sexy.
“Hey, it’s me. Me Ford. So Lady is crying in the laundry room, and it’s midnight. I don’t know if I should just let her cry like people say to do with babies or if I should go down and bring her up to my room.”
“Wow, this is…” He chuckled gruffly. “Sorry, I’m still trying to parse. I fell asleep on the couch watching oldERshows, and my neck is not playing nice with me. Give me…ouch, damn, that hurt. Shit. I’m too old for couch sleeping, it seems.”
“I’m sorry for waking you up,” I said softly as if my whispering would erase the fact I’d woken him from some badly needed sleep. “It’s just…” I paused as a soft, plaintive wail rose from the first floor. Snores filtered through the walls, so it seemed no one else was hearing the first-floor heartbreaking concerto. “She’s not stopping. So, do I let her cry herself out?”
“I’m not sure that’s the recommended way to deal with sleep issues with babies. Some people think it breaks trust between the child and the parent and may even harm the little one’s nervous system.”
“Dang. So what about dogs?” I was already kicking off the covers. “I don’t want her to not trust me or ruin her nervous system.”
“No, hey, just take a breath. I can hear how stressed you are.” I was already out the bedroom door with my phone to my ear. “I’m sure she’s not emotionally scarred. Did she go out before bed?”
“Yes, she pooped and peed.” I rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps, the creaky floorboard grating loudly. Lady stopped crying instantly. “And I didn’t play with her or give her anything to eat. Just a little bone served with praise for doing her duty.”
“Okay, that sounds like a good start to bedtime routines.” He drew in a breath as I opened the laundry room door. Lady trotted around, wagging her tail, licking my face when I bent over to get her bed from the floor. She followed me closely as we went back to my room. “She seemed to rest well in the pen here, so perhaps she’s not used to being inside, and that’s causing stress. Also, she’s had a busy week. Did you bring her home to a quiet house?”
“Well, the homecoming was kind of…Bastian.” That made him laugh. I liked it when he did that. “Everyone was on the porch. There was a banner. Granny made dog treats. Dahn had to be told to leave her be a dozen times, and she was really good with him being a nuisance, but I did keep the muzzle on as you suggested but saw no signs of any aggressive behavior or posturing.”
“She could just be overstimulated.” I tossed the dog cushion onto the floor and crawled back under the covers. My head just touched the pillow, phone to my ear, when a black nose appeared over the top of the mattress. Moonlight shone in on her red head, brown eyes finding mine as her eyebrows twitched. I patted the bed. Up she came, no sign of discomfort in her nicely healing backside. Soon the cone could come off—after the stitches came out in five to nine days—and she’d be ready to learn how to be a ranch dog. I hoped. I really hoped so hard. If someone claimed her, I might lie down and die. I wasn’t sure I could lose much more in my life. Lady lay down beside me, her butt in my face, nose facing the door as if on watch duty. She heaved a mighty sigh and fell silent. “The thing with allowing a puppy or dog to get into your bed is that once you establish that behavior, it’s harder to break.”
“I think it’s too late.” I turned the phone to snap a picture and sent it to him in our messaging app. A second later, I heard him snickering.
“Ah, well, you probably have a forever bed partner now,” he said.
“That’s okay. It’s been a long time since I shared a bed with someone.”
“Were they ginger like the dog?”
That stalled me for a second. “I…no, they weren’t ginger. They were brunette.”
“My last hookup was blond. I like blonds. With blue eyes and exceptionally large…hearts.”
I barked out a laugh. “I thought you were going to say large cocks.”
“Those are never frowned upon.”
No, no, they weren’t. But medium-sized normal dicks were nice too. My mind began to wonder about Aiden’s cock. Was it cut or uncut? Big? Short? Fat? Thin?
“Ford?”
“Sorry, I was thinking about…things.”
“Like bed partners?”
“Sort of.” That was a terribly tempting thought, so I leaped into something that would cause less brain itches and cock plumping. I was not going to beat off with the dog in the bed beside me. No way. What would Lady think of me if she saw that? “Thanks for talking me through that.”
