He brushed his hands down her back, stroking and soothing. He rolled them to their sides and kissed her cheeks, feathered his fingers over her collarbone, tracing the delicate lines. Her eyes still showed hurt, but a trace of something else lit the corners. Hope? This was as good a time as any. He smiled at her.
A loud pounding on the door of the cabin jerked him from where he was headed.
“I’m going to kill them, whoever it is.” Blake dragged himself away from her warmth and stumbled to the door. He yanked the door open a crack, using his body to shield the cabin from prying eyes.
Joel’s white face filled his gaze. “I’m damn sorry for interrupting, but we just got word. Mama and Daddy collided with a moose on their way home tonight. The truck’s a wreck, and they’ve been taken to the hospital in Red Deer.”
Chapter Twelve
Blake sat in the easy chair in his father’s hospital room, listening to the gentle sound of breathing. Jaxi lay curled up in his lap, her warm breath drifting over his neck, bosom pressed against his arm.
They’d checked in on his ma first. The nurses told them with the pain medication it was unlikely Marion would wake before morning. His dad, however, would be woken soon to monitor him for a concussion.
Blake was grateful neither of them had been more seriously hurt. Although his ma was going to be right ticked when she heard the news.
As he waited for his dad to wake, Blake looked at the bit of woman in his arms. Soft, yet strong, and definitely all woman. He couldn’t believe she was here. After denying them both for so long, it felt right to have her warmth penetrating all the way through to his heart. Even if a bit of him was scared shitless they’d made love unprotected.
“Blake?” His dad’s voice scratched a little.
Blake went to put Jaxi down, but his father stopped him.
“You’re fine sitting right there. How’s Marion? She okay?”
“Ma’s fine, no new injuries. Although she’s going to be upset when she hears they recast her arm, to be sure it was still set proper. She’s got extra weeks to wait until the new cast comes off.”
Mike’s face said it all. “Hell, I should have been more careful.”
“Don’t go blaming yourself. Those moose are damn near invisible, right until they jump out and commit suicide,” Blake commiserated. “It’s not mating season so you couldn’t have expected it, and that corner is a scary son of a bitch to take. We’re all just glad you weren’t killed. Maybe a busted leg and head aren’t too high a price to pay.”
“Leg? Marion break a leg too?”
Blake shook his head, worry creeping in. “You didn’t notice you’re wearing rather stiff long johns, Dad? It was a clean break but you’re carrying plaster now too.”
His dad shuffled the sheets to examine the thigh-to-foot white cast. “Well, hell. Nope, didn’t notice a thing until now. Damn pounding in my head is drowning out everything else calling for attention.”
“Yeah, well, you may have a concussion, but they said that should clear up plenty quick.” Jaxi shifted in his arms, and Blake snuggled her in tighter, brushing back a curl that had fallen over her face.
He looked back at his dad to see a rather large grin waiting for him.
“So, does the fact you’re finally holding that girl in your arms mean you’re over being worried about what you never needed to worry about in the first place?” Mike leaned back, his smile stretching from ear to ear.
“You knew? You knew I wanted…?” Blake trailed off. Just how much did he want to talk about this with his dad?
Mike snorted. “Son, the entire county has known for years you had it bad for Jaxi. I don’t know if it’s because you’re our firstborn or what, but you have a bad habit of trying to do what you think will please everyone else. You can’t do that without missing out on what’s going to please the people that are the most important to you.”
He sat and thought that through for a minute. It was true. Small issues still poked him. “You don’t think she’s too young for me?”
“Pfftt. How much older am I than your mama?”
Blake frowned and couldn’t come up with an instant answer. “I’m not sure, sir.”
Mike nodded. “Right, because it doesn’t matter one bit if there’s a difference between us. Is the age thing what’s been holding you back all this time? I wished I’d known. I didn’t understand how you could be so stubborn to let her loose for so long. Heck, even your little brothers thought about—”
“I know what they were thinking and that’s finished. Jaxi and I are…” Blake hesitated again, this time because he wasn’t sure what to say. They were lovers, heck, they’d talked about babies.
But he didn’t know where they were, right now.
Mike raised a brow. “You’re what? Don’t tell me you need a little more time to figure this one out. After all the girl’s done the past few years to get ready to be the best rancher’s wife possible?”
This conversation was too full of missing information for Blake. He felt as if he was the one with the head injury. “You want to explain?”
Mike pointed at Jaxi. “She took me for coffee the summer after her high school graduation and showed me a couple flyers from the local colleges. Asked me to mark the classes that would teach a woman to be a real help around a ranch. Someone able to pitch in, make sure things got done, and done right.
“She and Travis had just broken up, and I wondered if she was trying to get back on his good side or something, but when I suggested that, she laughed in my face. Well, politely—you know how she is. She said she’d been with Travis for one reason, and since they were through she was going to concentrate on something more important.
“Every semester she brought me another one of them flyers, and sometimes she’d mark a few classes to see what I thought—and some of them were plenty interesting. She’s spent three years working and training for the position of rancher’s wife. Hate to see all that training go to waste. Or get picked up by someone else smart enough to see what a treasure they’ve got waiting for them.”
Blake kissed Jaxi’s temple, and she cuddled in, sighing lightly. It seemed he was a bit more stupid than he’d dreamed. He needed to think this through a little more before committing to anything, but being with Jaxi felt awfully right.
Curiosity tickled for a minute, and he looked into his dad’s happy face.
“So, what kind of classes were ‘interesting’? I don’t think those were the cooking or horse-care kind.”
Mike shook his head. “Oh, no, you need to ask her. I was sworn to secrecy. You’ve got yourself a damn good woman, son, and I hope you don’t do anything to mess it up.”
Blake sat back more comfortably, the beating of Jaxi’s heart solid against him as he and his dad discussed work plans for the next couple of weeks at the ranch.
The sound of a throat clearing jerked Matt to a stop. Discovering it was Daniel who sat in the dark of the living room was a whole lot better than being caught sneaking into the house at three a.m. by his ma or dad. No matter that he was twenty-eight, some things never changed.
“What you doing still up?” Matt whispered out of habit, since the rolling thunder of their dad’s snoring wasn’t shaking the rafters.
Daniel nodded toward the chair across from him, and Matt took a seat. “Waiting for you. Blake phoned about thirty minutes ago to confirm everything’s okay. Ma and Dad had an accident.”
“Shit. Bad?” Matt leaned forward. “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
“Didn’t want to worry you until we heard more details, but they’re fine. Blake says they’re banged up and under observation for the night. The emergency crew thought the situation was worse at first than it turned out, so they got taken to Red Deer. Blake’s driving back with Jaxi tonight—”