Page 18 of Before You Can Blink (Rust Canyon #4)

That might be the case when it came to our unplanned pregnancy, but I still wasn’t convinced my city-born wife wouldn’t walk when she learned I’d poured every penny to my name and then some into this piece of land.

Living above the bar would seem like a luxury resort compared to our new accommodations .

This right here would be the ultimate test of our wedding vows, to see if Daisy would still be willing to take me for worse and for poorer because that’s what I currently was.

The truck rolled to a stop out front of the only structure on the property, an honest-to-God log cabin built in the mid-1800s.

Daisy stared at it through the windshield before turning to me. “What is this place?”

Swallowing around the lump formed in my throat, I rasped a single word. “Home.”

That’s when her blue eyes went comically large, and her plush lips parted as an exhale rushed past them. “Home?”

“I bought it.”

Her gaze volleyed between me and the wooden structure. “The cabin?”

“Not just the cabin. All the land around it too,” I clarified.

She took a steadying breath, trying to process this new information. “How much land?”

“A lot. Roughly two thousand acres.”

“Two thousand.” Near-maniacal laughter sounded in the cabin. “What in the world are we going to do with all that?”

“Breed and raise horses.”

“Hor—” Daisy’s words halted abruptly before she tried again. “What about the rodeo?”

“Daze, I’m not going back to the rodeo.”

Stunned, she stared back at me, and that’s when I saw the relief written in her eyes. “You’re not?”

“No, baby.” I shook my head. “At least not as a competitor.”

Her eyebrows drew together, causing a wrinkle to form between them. “I don’t understand. ”

“Won’t happen overnight—and it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of work—but the long-term plan is to get into stock contracting, to become the ones who supply the bucking horses that rodeos use at their events.”

“And we live there ?” She gestured to the cabin.

I lifted my good shoulder. “That’s the idea. I know it’s not much—”

“It’s not,” she agreed, cutting me off. “But we’ll make it ours.”

Her words were simple and few, but they filled me with hope. Against all odds, my wife was on board and willing to stand by my side as I navigated this new venture, which would hopefully provide stability for our family.

November

My toes had gone numb, turned to cubes of ice, which forced me to crawl out from beneath the blankets to feed more firewood into the cast-iron stove set at the far end of the single-room cabin. If it was this cold in fall, winter would be brutal.

The idea of Daisy suffering through that, pregnant no less, was like having a serrated knife shoved into my gut before being twisted for maximum impact.

I hated that we were essentially roughing it, almost as if we’d stepped back in time a century and a half to when the first settlers decided to stop their wagons and make this place their home.

My wife deserved so much better than this, but any time I voiced that sentiment, she was quick to shut it down, declaring that she wasn’t some delicate little flower—like her name might suggest—and that we were building this new life together or not at all.

Daisy’s determination matched my own, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that’s the only way this was going to work .

Padding across the bare floorboards in the darkness, I threw two thick chunks of wood into the metal drum and latched it closed again. Hopefully, that would grant us a few more hours of heat before we needed to be up and about for the day.

I snagged a thick wool sweater off the back of the couch and threw it over my head before climbing back into bed, curling around my wife’s back.

She sighed when she felt my arms loop around her waist, where they automatically found her bump. The hard ridge was becoming more noticeable by the day, and already, flutters of excitement batted against my ribcage in anticipation of the moment we’d begin to feel movement beneath the taut skin.

God, if the Jett from even six months ago could see me now.

My lips found the crown of Daisy’s head, and I murmured, “Go back to sleep.”

No sooner had those words left my mouth than a sharp knock came at the front door.

I bolted upright, and Daisy followed suit.

We were as isolated as it got out here. Sure, people knew this was where we lived, but no one outside of Wade or Murph ever went out of their way to visit. And certainly, never before the sun made its appearance.

Moving off the mattress, I muttered a quick, “Stay there,” to Daisy as I crept closer to the door.

Before I could ask who was on the other side, there came a shout of, “Get your lazy ass up, Jett. We’ve got work to do!”

Wade. Of fucking course.

I wrenched the door open, growling, “Do you know what time it is?”

My best friend flashed me a giant grin. “Time to build you a barn, brother.”

Rearing back, I stared at him, slack-jawed. “What? ”

His eyes lifted toward the sky. “Jesus, falling off that horse scrambled your brains worse than I thought.”

“Not sure I’m the one who needs his head examined,” I shot back. “Seeing as how I’ve already told you I’m at least a year out from getting anything built out here.”

With a snap of his fingers, Wade declared, “And that’s where you’re wrong.

” Stepping back from the doorway, he gave me a clear view of the horizon, where several pickups were parked about a hundred yards away, along with a flatbed truck containing stacks of lumber.

Giving me obnoxious jazz hands, my buddy proclaimed, “Ta-da!”

“What’s going on?” Daisy’s voice sounded from beside me as she slipped an arm around my waist.

So much for staying put.

“Mornin’, Mrs. Sullivan.” Wade tipped his hat. “Think you can help me get it through your husband’s thick skull that we’re here to build a barn, so you two crazy kids get this thing off the ground?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I held my hands up. “I don’t want any charity.”

“It’s not charity, Jett; it’s community . Big difference.”

“Forgive me if I’m having a hard time seeing that, considering I didn’t pay for that truckload of wood over there, and can’t afford to compensate those folks for the labor.”

Wade clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re gonna have to trust me on this, seeing as I’ve been the one ranching for the past three years while you were off chasing glory on the back of ornery horses.”

Grumbling under my breath, I shot him a look that made it damn clear I wasn’t pleased with his interference.

But the smug smirk that curved on his lips betrayed that he knew full well he had me bent over a barrel.

I’d look ungrateful as hell if I sent away all these people who’d come out here before dawn on a Saturday out of the goodness of their hearts to ensure we got off on the right foot on our new venture.

“Get dressed. We’ll see you out there.” With that, Wade turned on his heel and waltzed off.

Still reeling from the turn of events my day had taken that would speed up the timeline on how quickly we could get this horse breeding business up and running, I hadn’t noticed Daisy had left my side until I heard her bustling about the cabin.

Spinning around, I shut the front door to keep the chill out, only to find her stripping off the countless layers she wore to sleep.

“What are you doing?” I leaned against the wall, arms folded.

She barely spared me a glance, rummaging through the chest of drawers for clean clothes. “Gonna run into town, see if your mom and Naomi can rustle up a hearty breakfast.”

Guilt churned in my belly, effectively killing my appetite.

My reluctance to accept charity stemmed from the fact that we were already receiving so much of it, to the point where I felt like an absolute failure as a man, as a provider.

Ma was almost single-handedly keeping us from starving by providing food from the restaurant.

Beyond that, she coordinated with the ladies in town to lend Daisy some of their Sunday best in larger sizes because we couldn’t afford to buy maternity clothes, and she couldn’t very well wear my T-shirts to work.

I blew out a heavy breath. “Don’t worry about bringing anything back for me. I’m not hungry.”

Daisy stopped dead in her tracks, blinking at me for a full minute before her head tipped back, and laughter filled the air. “I meant for all those people out there. The least we can do is feed them.”

Heat crawled up the back of my neck. “Oh, right. ”

Stepping closer, she rose on her toes to press a kiss to my lips. “Take a deep breath.”

I followed her command, though it did nothing to loosen the tightness in my chest.

“And another.”

She placed a hand directly over my heart, which seemed to do the trick. The tension seeped out of me, almost as if on command.

“That’s better.” She pecked my cheek before pulling back. “Now get dressed so you can hold down the fort until I get back.” Daisy landed a swat on my ass, and then she was out the door.

Great. Of the two of us, my wife was the social butterfly, and without her by my side, there would be no hiding my discomfort over the generosity being bestowed upon us.

There were more people milling around this field than ants at a picnic.

A good chunk of them were from the Livingston Ranch, Murph and Wade among them, but there were also folks from town whom I’d known my whole life, eager to pitch in and lend a hand where needed, even though they had zero construction experience.

My eye caught on a trio of dark-haired boys trailing Tanner Winfield, owner of the cattle ranch on the far side of Major County.

The older two held opposite ends of a wooden beam, working together to carry it from the flatbed truck to where the adults were creating a frame for the barn’s exterior wall.

The littlest one didn’t even reach his Daddy’s knee as he bounced along beside him, eyes wide as he gestured to the crane that had been brought in.