I’d give her a few minutes to recover, but then it was time for round two.
As I lowered down, sitting on the bed, still holding her in my arms, she curled tightly against me. I laid back against the pillows and her body melted into me. I ran my hand up and down her back and soon her breathing pattern changed to a slow and steady one.
She was asleep. As much as I’d wanted to be with her again, this was almost better. This is what she needed. Sleep. And giving her what she needed was all I ever wanted to do.
CHAPTER 37
Skylar
“Roses are red, violets are blue, I can’t get to the phone right now, too bad for you.”
A long beep sounded, and I glanced down at the time on my dash, it was four fifty-five my time and California was three hours behind. It was almost 2 am in San Francisco, but Ash had just posted a picture of a half-eaten pie on Instagram and tagged it #aftermidnightsnack.
“Hey Ash. So, guess who broke into my house last night? Or I guess, earlier this morning. If you guessed Richie, then, ding, ding, ding you would be right. He used the money he stole from me to take the bus all the way to Georgia. Guess what he wanted? If you guessed money, you are two for two. Just for the record, I didn’t give him any. I made him leave. Well, technically, Hank made him leave. Richie set off the alarm, Hank came busting through the front door. Literally. It was a whole thing. Anyway, not a dull moment here. Call me back when you can. Love you!”
I disconnected the call and music began playing from my speakers again.
Life truly was full of surprises and I wasn’t just talking about Richie showing up. I still couldn’t believe what I was doing. If someone would have told me a week ago, a day ago, that I would forego sleep to go to a workout class where I was going to do hard labor, I’d have told them that they were gravely mistaken.
But here I was, pulling up to a farm before dawn when I could be tucked like a bug in a rug in my bed catching up on much-needed sleep.
Hank had to be at a job site early, so he’d left before dawn. I tried to go back to sleep but, to be fair, my bed didn’t seem as appealing once Hank left it. It felt empty.
Which was strange considering I hadn’t shared a bed with anyone except Luna since before she was born. But, then again, Hank took up a lot more room than Luna.
As I pulled down the long dusty road, I was concerned that I’d made a wrong turn until I came to a clearing where there were a dozen parked vehicles.
“This must be the place,” I murmured to myself as I pulled in beside a pickup truck.
I cut the engine and stepped out into the chilly, morning air. I’d been hearing about this class since my first night working at the bar. Word was, I would be very sore tomorrow. Or sorer, I should say. After my second night with Hank in a forty-eight hour period, I was feeling parts of my body that I’d never even known could be sore.
I walked up to a group of at least twenty people and looked for familiar faces. At Luna’s birthday party, Reagan had invited me to come and join the early morning workouts she and her bridesmaids were doing as part of the bridal boot camp. They planned on coming every day until the wedding, which was in a couple of weeks.
“You’re here!” Cheyenne shouted, spotting me as I walked up to a large barn. “I’m so glad you came!”
Reagan, Isabella, and Nadia were all standing beside her in a semi-circle. The trio did not quite look as enthusiastic about the morning as Cheyenne did.
Particularly Nadia, who asked, “What bet did you lose?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Even eluding to my sleeplessness caused my cheeks to heat. I hoped that the women would just think it was the crisp morning air causing me to blush.
“Okay, folks!” Harlan Mitchell appeared and walked to the center of the group wearing a flannel, jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat.
I would have worried that I’d chosen the wrong attire in my sweats, sweatshirt, and running shoes, but since everyone else was in activewear I figured I was safe.
“Welcome to Farm Strong. Do we have any first timers?”
I raised my hand, as did several other people in the group. I started to tune him out when he talked about the waiver, that I’d filled out already online. And the payment, which I’d also taken care of.
My mind was going back to Hank. To the way he’d taken me up against the wall in my entry way. To how safe I’d felt waking up in arms when he tried to slip out of bed so he didn’t wake me. To how hot he’d looked when he busted through my front door.
Sure, at the time, I’d screamed. But now that I knew it wasn’t a murderer, or drug dealer breaking in, I could appreciate how sexy he’d looked. And not just looked, if I had been in danger, if Richie had been an actual threat, Hank would have obliterated him.
I saw it in his eyes. Maybe it was wrong that that turned me on, but it did.
My ears perked up when I heard Harlan say, “Okay, enough talk. Let’s get down to business! I’m gonna split you up into groups. Group A is going to start with post digs. Group B is going to bail hay. And Group C is going to move those tires out to the back barn.”
I looked at the tires he was referring to and saw that they were humongous tractor tires. Wow. We were really doing farm work. I mean, I knew it was in the name, but I’d just thought that was a gimmick. Apparently, that wasn’t the case.
After counting us all off, I ended up in Group A with women I didn’t know, but Nadia quickly changed that. She informed Harlan that I was going to be in their group, which she also informed Harlan would be Group B. Its members were Reagan, Isabella, Cheyenne, Nadia, and now me. He looked like he wanted to argue with her, but then she mentioned something about telling Mama Mitchell how he treated ladies in his class, he bit his tongue and moved on to “motivating” the rest of the participants.
“Thanks,” I said as we all walked to the barn.
“Of course, chickadee. If we have to be up at this godforsaken time, the least we can do is be together.” Nadia linked her arm through mine and for the first time I felt like I belonged.
I’d never felt like that before. Maybe it was because I’d moved around so much growing up. I’d also spent my early adult years raising Ashley when my peers were partying. Then I’d spent my mid-twenties being a single mom when most of my peer group was getting engaged and married.
Whatever the reason, I always felt like an outsider looking in. But not here. Not in Firefly. Everyone was so welcoming, and I felt like I was part of a group of friends. I was like Carrie. Or, let’s be real, I was probably Charlotte.
We all got right down to it, each grabbing a pitchfork and bailing. Despite Nadia’s many complaints, she worked as hard, or harder, than any of us. And I did notice that she put on the gas whenever Harlan would come by to supervise. I wondered what the story was there. The other thing I noticed was that in the fifteen minutes we’d been bailing, Cheyenne had checked her phone at least a dozen times.
“Is everything okay?” I asked when she pulled the device out of her pocket for the thirteenth time.
I’d only known Cheyenne for a few weeks, but I felt a special connection with her. I’d thought at first that it was because she was the little sister of the man I was crushing on, but then I realized it was because she reminded me of Ashley. Not so much in personality, Ashley was more like Nadia in that respect, but in general demeanor. It hadn’t surprised me that the two of them had hit it off at Luna’s party.