Play It Safe

Epilogue Him and Me. Mr. and Mrs. Cody

Five and a half months later…

“Thanks Jeb,” I said quietly into the phone, my eyes looking out the window over the sink to the barn.

“Thought you and Gray’d wanna know, Ivey,” Jeb said quietly back.

I pulled in breath then asked, “You okay?”

“My wife misses her grandbabies,” he answered meaning he did too. “But she doesn’t miss the headaches.” This meaning he didn’t either. Then he stated, “Right,” in a tone that said the conversation was imminently over. “Candace told me to tell you to talk to Gray about you and him comin’ over for dinner again. She liked that. You talk to Gray, give her a call, let her know.”

I’d talk to Gray but he didn’t overly enjoy our last dinner with Candace and Jeb Sharp. He got what they were trying to do, apologize for the behavior of their son, and he was trying to be a good guy. He didn’t blame them. Still, he didn’t enjoy it.

“Will do. Take care, Jeb.” I gave my farewell.

“You too, Ivey,” he replied then he was gone.

I bleeped the phone off and looked back out the window.

Then I smiled.

Then I walked to the backdoor and pulled on my cowboy boots even though I was wearing a tight tank, a pair of cutoff jeans shorts and no socks. I also nabbed one of Gray’s raggedy baseball caps off the hook and tugged it on my head, tucking my hair behind my ears.

It was a crazy, cowgirl look but I knew I worked it seeing as the first time I pulled on one of Gray’s hats and my boots with shorts rather than ran upstairs to find some flip-flops in order to go out and talk to Gray, my message wasn’t received for a half an hour. This was because that half an hour was spent mostly naked in our hayloft.

And during that half hour, Gray didn’t take off my boots.

I loved those boots. But after our time in the hayloft, I loved them more.

I went through the backdoor and my eyes slid through the space. There were three dozen, wooden picnic tables sprinkled across the vast area beside the house, in front of the barn and beyond. In two days, these would be covered in white tablecloths with a bucket of daisies and black-eyed susans in the middle of each one. All the trees were already strung with Christmas lights and there was an enormous kettle grill set up on a stand of bricks. And, in two days, seven dozen white and yellow balloons and a wooden dance floor were being delivered.

This was because in two days Gray and I were getting married at the church and having the reception, a big barbeque, here.

I couldn’t wait.

Still smiling, I strode to the huge, open, double doors of the barn and walked right through.

In the middle of the aisle between the stalls, Gray had one of the horses tethered. He had on his own hat, a tight, white tee, jeans, boots and work gloves and he was currying the horse.

His gloved hand with the brush strapped on kept moving on the horse’s coat but his head turned to me.

He looked me top-to-toe and when his eyes came back to mine, he grinned.

God, that dimple.

Loved it then, loved it the day before, loved it the first time I saw it and would love it for eternity.

I grinned back and wandered to Answer’s stall. Answer wandered to me and shoved his head over the door. I wrapped an arm around his jaw and with my other hand stroked his nose.

He snorted.

Gray’s horse loved me. Then again, I bribed him with apples.

“So,” I drew out the word, “you want an early wedding present?”

Gray’s hand kept moving on the horse but his eyes had strayed to my legs.

When I spoke, they came back to me.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“It’s a big day for Buddy Sharp,” I announced, Gray’s hand stopped but he kept the brush to the horse.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Cecily’s all settled in Durango. Don’t know, maybe she’s planning a celebration for tonight since her divorce is final today. Maybe she’s planning to dive into a gallon of ice cream. Doesn’t matter, she’s there and we’re here. They also closed on their house today. Oh, and,” I kept going, “Bud has taken a job in New Hampshire. He’s packed up and he left this morning.”

I didn’t know if after Gray’s crushing set down, Buddy got smart. I did know we didn’t have any more trouble with him. This might have been because of what Gray said to him. But it was also because his hands were full.

Apparently, Cecily was done being the town pariah and she was done with Buddy doing more things to make her stay that way. She knew Buddy’s play with my father and while he was making it, she took her already packed bags and her daughters and she drove straight to Durango.

On Christmas Eve.

She’d never been back.

And she’d filed for divorce, the timing being that Bud received the papers the day after Christmas. With all his machinations and her knowing about it, not to mention she knew he’d cheated on her repeatedly but, until then, turned a blind eye, he didn’t have a prayer in the world of getting custody of his daughters. So he didn’t fight it. Apparently she got a huge settlement and an even bigger child support payment and, word was, she was already seeing somebody.

So maybe no ice cream for her.

As for Buddy, Jeb Sharp heard about his son’s Christmas Eve play and he was as done as Gray.

So he started to talk to his cronies. Then his cronies took his back.

So the day after New Year’s, Bud Sharp went to work and was told immediately that he was required to attend an emergency board meeting. At this board meeting, Buddy was informed that a variety of ranchers, orchard owners, farmers and businessmen who held their money in Buddy’s bank were threatening to pull it if the Board didn’t do something about Buddy. So they did. They told him they’d give him some money to go away quietly and asked for his voluntary resignation. Then they told him if he didn’t resign, he was fired and they’d give him no severance.

Finally, in all his years, Bud Sharp did something smart.

He resigned.

He had been out of work for five months. This was because no one in seven counties would hire Buddy Sharp.

And the settlement with Cecily wiped him out.

Now he’d found the only job he could find.

In New Hampshire.

Which was a long, long way away.

Thankfully.

Gray grinned. “That’s a great fuckin’ wedding present.”

“Yeah,” I said softly.

He took his hand from the horse and turned fully to me.

“Come here, Ivey.”

I didn’t hesitate.

I gave Answer one last stroke and went there.

Gray watched me move.

When I got there, his arm with hand not holding the brush wrapped around me and he pulled me close. Then his head slanted and dropped, mine tilted the other way and, since we had a lot of practice, we didn’t crash the bills of our hats when he laid a long, wet one on me.

And also with lots of practice, he was able to shove his gloved hand down my shorts and in my panties to cup my ass.

As usual, it was tremendous.

When he lifted his head, I asked quietly, “Want some lunch, honey?”

“Yeah, dollface,” he answered and I smiled.

He smiled back.

Then he slid his hand out of my pants and turned back to the horse.

I turned to the doors but I felt his eyes on me as I walked so I stopped and turned back.

Yep, I was right. My man’s eyes were on me.

“Okay, you walk away from me, I watch your ass,” I told him. “What do you watch when I walk away from you?”

“The prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

My heart jumped, my belly warmed and my lips smiled.

That was a really good answer.

So, still smiling, I turned and walked out of the barn to go to the house to make my man some lunch.

Two days later…

I had my hand in the bend of Lash’s arm, my other hand wrapped around a huge bouquet of little baby daisies mixed with big, beautiful white roses and my eyes were on the doors in front of us that led to the church sanctuary.

“Nervous, babe?” I heard Lash ask and I looked up at his handsome head on top of his fabulous tuxedo.

“No,” I told him honestly.

He grinned.

I leaned into his side.

His grin faded and his eyes grew warm.

“Love you, Ivey soon-to-be Cody.”

“Love you too, Lash, my awesome ex-fake-boyfriend.”

He burst out laughing.

I did too.

My music started playing then Stacy, Chastity, Macy and finally Janie strutted down the aisle in their gorgeous yellow dresses in front of Lash and me.

The wedding march sounded.

Still smiling, I walked on my high-heeled, fabulous designer shoes in my unbelievably expensive, exquisite wedding gown on the arm of my ex-fake-boyfriend who paid for both and I did this straight to my waiting, seriously gorgeous, macho man rancher cowboy.

Three hours later…

My feet moved on the wood boards set out on the grass to act as the dance floor, the song a slow one. One of my arms was wrapped around a pair of broad shoulders, one of my hands held in a hand that pressed mine to the chest of a beautiful man.

He swayed, I followed his lead and we danced cheek-to-cheek.

We didn’t talk.

We didn’t need to say anything.

This was because I knew Brutus loved me.

And this was because Brutus knew I felt the same.

Seven hours later in The Brown Palace, Denver…

I felt Gray’s breathing turn to normal against my neck as mine did the same against his.

He didn’t move.

I didn’t either.

We lay connected, my legs wrapped tight around his hips, his fingers laced in mine held over my head and pressed into the pillows.

We stayed that way a long time, him and me.

Mr. and Mrs. Cody.

Six and a half months later…

Christmas music playing, a bay and rosemary candle burning, my hands kneading cookie dough, I heard my father muttering beside me, “Fuck me, I can squirt out a fuckuva Christmas tree.”

I looked to the half a tray of perfectly formed, green-tinted, Christmas tree-shaped butter cookies he was pressing from the cookie press then I tipped my head back and looked at my Dad.

“You’re a master,” I told him.

He looked at me and smiled his huge, wild-ass smile.

“Fifty-seven years on this earth, I learn my calling is cookie making.”

“Worse callings to have,” I told him.

“That’s the damn truth,” he told me then went back to pressing out Christmas trees.

Hoot Booker stayed in Mustang and worked the late shift at The Rambler so Janie could give that up after doing it for years. He lived in the room over the bar where I used to live. He didn’t make a mint, he didn’t live in a palace and he didn’t care.

He didn’t need much seeing as he was right where he wanted to be.

See? Totally my Dad.

He was just like me.

He’d shared his story with Gray and me and there were no protestations of the wronged man. He had lived hard, played rough, did what he could to earn a living, not all of that legal and eventually found himself in a blood feud. A blood feud he ended.

But he did his time, a lot of it, and took that time to reflect.

And those reflections led to some decisions.

When he got out, he’d spent half his life in prison.

He wasn’t going to waste another second on stupidity.

Lucky me.

“Right,” I heard Gray say and I looked over my shoulder to see him on his cell walking into the kitchen eyes to his boots. “Right,” he repeated, stopping on the other side of the table and lifting a hand to wrap it around the back of his bent neck and taking in his posture made something stutter uncomfortably in me. “Right,” he whispered. “Yeah, thanks, man. Later.”

He studiously stared at his phone as he flipped it shut, kept his eyes downcast as he shoved it in his back pocket and then, slowly, he lifted his head and his eyes came to me.

One look at his face, that something in me stuttered to a halt, stalling all my systems.

“Wash your hands, Ivey,” Gray ordered gently.

Oh God.

Oh God.

Not today, not three days from Christmas.

“Mrs. Cody?” I whispered and Gray shook his head.

“No, baby. Now wash your hands, yeah?”

When I didn’t move, stood frozen to the spot, Hoot’s hand wrapped around my forearm and he murmured, “Wash your hands, beautiful.”

I looked to him then to the dough. Then I rubbed my hands clean of lumps, walked to the sink and washed them.

I was drying them, turning and nearly bumped into Gray when I did. I had barely got my body to facing him fully when both his hands settled on either side of his neck, he bowed his back and his face was in mine.

“Fast, right? I tell you fast.”

Oh God.

“Gray –” I whispered.

“That was Lash. He got word. Casey’s body was found a week ago in Oakland. He’d been shot in the head. Cops don’t know why. They’re investigating.”

I stared at him.

“Ivey.”

I kept staring at him.

“Baby,” he whispered, his hands giving me a squeeze.

Casey.

I closed my eyes, twisted my head and shoved my face in neck as the sob tore through me.

His hands left my neck and his arms wrapped around me tight.

My arms did the same.

My brother.

My Casey.

Now really dead to me.

My body bucked with another sob and I felt my hair shifted to the side then I felt my father’s big, warm hand curl around the back of my neck.

And I stood in a warm kitchen with Christmas music playing, bay and rosemary scent all around me, safe in the attentions of two men who loved me as I cried for another one who used to love me, who used to be everything to me.

Until he wasn’t.

Eleven months later…

The noise came on the monitor, my eyes opened to darkness and Gray’s arm tightened around me.

“Your turn,” I muttered into the dark.

“Yeah,” Gray muttered back, shifted, kissed my shoulder and exited the bed.

I pretended to fall back asleep.

But I didn’t.

I did what I did every time it was his turn.

I gave it time then slid out of bed silently, tiptoed out of the room and went one room over, a room that became Gray’s office when the den was taken up by Grandma Miriam.

Now it was a nursery.

The light glowed through the opened door and I approached it, with practice, without a sound.

Then I peered around to see my man in his light blue, drawstring pajama bottoms, his glorious chest bare, sitting and rocking in the rocking chair with our baby son, Holt cradled in his arm, Gray holding the bottle to his little baby lips.

Holt was my idea. Holt Cody was the only name I could come up with that was more cowboy than Grayson Cody.

I loved it.

Gray thought I was crazy but he didn’t fight me.

I watched for awhile thinking pretty much everything Gray did, walking, talking, working, sleeping, breathing, was hot.

But nothing was hotter than watching him feeding our baby.

Once I got my fill, I tiptoed back to our bed.

And, as usual, I was dead asleep when my husband came back to me.

Four months later…

A buzz of low noise filled the house as I walked down the hall in my tight, black skirt, my exquisite little blouse doing so on my fabulous, high-heeled designer pumps.

I moved to the sink and dealt with the dishes I carried, dumping the remains of food, rinsing them and shoving them into the dishwasher.

I noted it was full.

This was because there were a lot of people there.

I put in a tablet, shut it, locked it and turned it on.

Listening to the motor start, the water gushing, I stood with my hands light on the edge of the sink and my eyes slid out the window to the barn.

It was March. Next month, I’d need to plant my impatiens.

“Ivey, honey?”

I turned my head, surprised to see Macy standing right beside me.

“Hey, sorry, I was…” I trailed off then finished, “Sorry.”

She smiled and it didn’t reach her eyes.

Then she moved and I looked down to see she had an envelope in her hand.

I looked back at her.

“What –?” I started.

“She wanted you to have this,” she whispered and tears stung my nose but I held them back, lifted my hand and took the envelope.

She wrapped an arm around me sideways, gave me a brief hug, kissed the side of my head then moved out of the kitchen.

My head dropped and I turned the note over.

My name was written in slightly wobbly, cursive writing.

I closed my eyes.

Then I opened them, used my finger to slit the envelope open then I pulled out the papers inside.

There were three sheets covered front-to-back in that same wobbly, cursive writing.

At the top of the first sheet, it read,

Ivey, child,

Gray told me you liked my preserves. I never got the chance to teach you how to make them and since Gray’s great-grandma taught me and his great-great-grandma taught her, I best get on with teaching you…

Then for the next six pages she gave me step by step by step by step instructions on how to make strawberry jam.

All of them bossy.

My eyes went back to the barn as I clutched the papers to my chest but I didn’t see it, it was way too blurry.

We’d put Grandma Miriam in the ground that day and I thought I’d lost her forever.

Now, I realized, standing in her kitchen, wearing her ring, married to her grandson, planning to plant her impatiens and holding her bossy letter to me, I’d never lose her.

Not ever.

“Dollface?” I heard and I turned my blurry eyes to the door, blinking and (kind of) seeing Gray carrying Holt and coming at me.

Then they got to me.

“Baby,” Gray whispered and I kept hold of my piece of Grandma Miriam as I took hold of another piece of her by taking my son from his Daddy. “You okay?” Gray asked gently.

“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled instead of lied, curling Holt close to me.

My beautiful baby with his deep blue eyes with their dark, russet tipped lashes grabbed my hair and yanked.

I smiled a shaky smile at him.

Gray’s arm curved around my waist.

“What’s the letter?” he asked quietly.

I shook my head to get control of myself and lifted my eyes to him.

“Nothing, just Mrs. Cody being bossy.”

His brows drew slightly together then his deep blue eyes with their dark, russet tipped lashes moved over my face. Then his brows relaxed and he gave me his tender look.

Then he leaned in, pulling me and his son closer with his arm going tight around me and he kissed my forehead.

Then he kissed Holt’s.

Then his eyes caught mine and he whispered, “Say you love me, Ivey.”

I leaned into him.

Then, through my sadness, I happily did as ordered and whispered back, “I love you, Gray.”

And then I turned my neck, leaned deeper and rested my head on my husband’s shoulder. Gray pulled us both closer and I aimed my eyes out the window where I could see our barn, part of our orchard and, in the distance, the purple ridge of Colorado mountains.

Holt fidgeted and gurgled in my arms.

My husband stayed silent with his arm wrapped around his family.

I sighed.

Four months later…

My preserves turned out great.

Two years, one month later…

I sat on the porch swing and watched.

Gray was standing with Norrie beside her SUV. He’d dipped his head as she lifted up to her toes in her cowboy boots and kissed his cheek. His hand was at her waist and from my place I couldn’t see but I knew in my heart it gave her a squeeze.

They moved away from each other and she turned and waved at me.

I waved back.

She moved to the driver’s side door and Gray bent to look into her backseat where I could see the thick, burnished blond-haired head of Holt who was strapped in a child’s seat and I could also see Abel’s near-identical hair where he was secured in his baby seat.

Norrie started up the truck and waved again as Gray backed away, not waving but jerking up his chin.

Then she reversed out as he turned and made his way to me.

He had to go to the stairs because there was a lush, thick, wide border of white, pink and red impatiens all around the house including the porch. He could leap it, I had no doubt, but he never did.

Norrie drove down the lane as I watched my husband move. And as he made his way to me, he lifted his hand, doing what men do for whatever reason they did it. He grabbed the bill of his baseball cap, pulled it off, flipped it back on, pulled it off again then settled it back on his head.

I didn’t know why men did that and I didn’t ask because I didn’t care. Like everything Gray, when he did it, I thought it was hot. I didn’t want to bring his attention to it because if I did, he might stop.

He walked up the steps and came right to me, bending low to grab his beer bottle that he left on the porch floor when Norrie came to get the kids.

She did this often and she did it to give Gray and me a break. But she mostly did it because she was a grandma who loved her grandkids and she was a mother who missed her son growing up. Therefore, if she could help it, she was not going to miss any more of her family.

This sentiment was shared by Hoot who came regularly, stayed long and, not as often, but it happened, took the boys off on some adventure with their Granddaddy.

I grew up with very little.

Therefore I loved it that my boys had everything.

Gray settled on the swing at my side, immediately hooked an arm around my chest and pulled me into him, forcing my hips to twist in the seat as he pulled my back to the side of his front.

With ease borne of practice since we sat here often just like that, I lifted my bare feet and tanned legs, cocked my knees, set my feet in the seat and I settled my weight into Gray.

When I settled, my eyes aimed themselves toward the paddock where the horses were standing or wandering lazily. The sky was blue. It was late afternoon but the sun was still bright and warm. There was no sound except the whispered rush of a breeze in the leaves of the trees.

I sighed.

Then I smoothed my hand over the stylish (I thought) but still countrified, cowgirl sundress I was wearing, my hand moving over the growing baby bump that was my belly.

For awhile, Gray and I sat in silence as we often did.

Then I broke the silence.

“What do you think about the name Booker?”

I named our first boy Holt Grayson Cody. Gray named our second boy Abel Lash Cody.

Yes, Lash.

Seriously, I loved Grayson Cody.

Now, we’d found out the baby growing in my belly was another boy.

I didn’t mind another boy. The two I had were awesome.

But it was my turn to name our child.

“Booker?” Gray asked.

“Booker Frederick,” I answered.

I felt him take a sip of beer.

Then he muttered, “Works for me.”

Easy as that.

Works for me.

I grinned at the horses.

We fell silent again and the swing swayed gently.

Then it hit me I was in a swing when I first met Gray.

And now we were in a swing together on the porch on his house on his land.

Him and me.

“Baby?” I called.

“Yeah, dollface,” he answered.

“Paid in full,” I whispered and his arm gave me a squeeze.

“Say again?” he asked.

“You promised me by the time I left this earth, you’d pay me back. You should know, you paid that debt early,” I answered softly then slid my hand again over my belly and finished quietly, “Way early and way paid in full.”

Gray was silent and still a moment then he shifted and I felt his lips on my hair.

He shifted back and muttered, “Good.”

I grinned again.

Then we fell silent again and swayed.

We did this awhile.

Then Gray asked, “Feel like headin’ into town for a pulled pork sandwich and a coupla games of pool at The Rambler?”

I turned toward him and shifted up then looked into his beautiful eyes.

Then my gaze drifted up to the short, barely visible scar over his eyebrow.

I lifted my hand and, with a finger, I touched it gently.

Then I dropped my hand to his chest and my eyes back to his.

His were tender.

Yeah, oh yeah, I loved Grayson Cody.

Then I replied, “Works for me.”

Gray lifted a hand and tucked my hair behind my ear.

Then he grinned, giving me the dimple.

I grinned back.