Maggie
When I woke up to the sounds of heavy breathing and covers moving in the middle of the night, I saw the last thing I expected in the bedroom across from mine. It was well past midnight, and I was barely awake, but hearing panicked breaths from across the hallway alarmed me. Running into Jack’s room as quickly as I could, I found him in a state of utter panic and distress. He was heaving, his hands clutching his chest, rising and falling quicker than it should have been, his eyes were squeezed shut, and his legs trembled. I never thought I would find Jack in a state so extreme. It stripped him of his mask in so many ways. It pushed me to see him as more human than I had before, but I had no idea it meant panic attacks.
And to this degree?
God, it broke me.
We were still in the first few days of everything changing. I didn’t blame him for feeling stressed and overwhelmed—I feltguilty.While Jack put on his strong façade of making everything work and taking care of me every time I freaked out aboutsomething, I was unknowingly breaking him down until he hit rock bottom. Still feeling terrible and unable to admit all of this to him now, I clutched him while his breathing slowed.
“Thank you,” Jack whispered into my shoulder.
I held him tighter. My small hands on his bare, muscular torso made the moment all the more intimate. He returned with an even stronger grip around my waist. His corded muscles and the hard plane of his chest were taut, his body still revealing his heavy breaths. “Please just tell me how you’re feeling next time so this doesn’t happen again.”
“We’re kids,” he could barely get the words out. “We don’t know anything about raising a kid…or being married for that matter.”
My heart raced. He was right. We had no idea what we were doing here. We knew nothing about babies. Neither of us had good examples of marriage to look up to. And even while Jack had a great father to be influenced by, I had no idea what made a good mother. I could barely remember my own, let alone remember what it felt like to feel a mother’s love.
“Do you want to go home?” I sure didn’t.
“No.”
“Do you want to stay here?”
Jack swallowed. “Will you stay with me?”
“Always.”
Jack shifted me in his arms so I was curled into his chest and laid us down in the bed. It was the first night we had spent together that we stayed this close on purpose. I figured Jack would let me go and make himself comfortable, but he didn’t. He held me close against his chest until his breathing finally evened out and sleep took over.
I couldn’t sleep yet. Not with the sensitive and courageous and beautiful man lying next to me. My chin tilted up to try to make out his face. His eyes were swollen, and the small sliton his bottom lip suggested he bit it hard when he freaked out. His heart rate finally slowed. My left ear pressed up against it, listening to the rhythm abate.
How did it take me this many years to learn the few things about Jack I knew now? For nearly a decade, I brushed him off as a rich playboy who had little care for other women’s feelings. I deemed him unimportant because he acted as if he didn’t have genuine emotion, and I fell for every bit of the act. He pushed everyone and every feeling away until it was far enough to shield. So nothing could damage his delicate skin.
Maybe we couldn’t be lovers. But I was damn set on giving my all to our family.
Chapter twelve
Maggie
The blinding sun shone through the windows brighter than I appreciated. June in Wyoming meant the sun rose at 5:30 in the morning—another fact I did not appreciate. I stirred under the covers for a moment before remembering I wasn’t alone in the bed. A still-sleeping Jack was passed out hard beside me. I took the time to admire him before quietly sneaking out. He laid on his right side, one arm hanging off the bed and one resting on his glorious, toned stomach. Hills and valleys of toned skin enthralled me as my eyes traveled over them like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road. His blonde waves were mussed from sleep, a few small strands lazily scattered across his forehead. This man was a work of art.
Padding out of the bedroom and down the stairs, I opened the refrigerator before realizing nothing was inside except leftover pizza from the night before. We were both too tired to go out and find dinner last night, let alone go grocery shopping. It was too early to buy groceries, so I decided to make myself useful and feed the horses. Stealing a jacket off the hook by the kitchen's back door, I drowned in the oversized suede and inhaled themusky leather scent that was soJack. I took one look at my coat hanging on the hook and decided that this was the right decision.
The sun had only just risen, leaving a film of dew on the grass below my boots. I pulled the jacket over my shoulders as I headed to the barn. It was slightly foggy, making the horses look like blurred shadows in their paddocks. I clicked my tongue a few times to get their attention, and Finn lifted his head towards me.
“Come on, babies! Breakfast time!” A few more horses began walking toward the fence gate when they saw me enter the barn. Walking into the feed room that we barely unpacked last night, I reached for a few scoops of grain and shoved them into the freshly opened bag. I balanced four scoops in my arms and made my way down the aisle of the barn, emptying the scoops into the horses’ buckets. It took me about twenty minutes to prep the barn before bringing the horses inside. In each stall, fresh shavings now covered the floors, two full water buckets hung on the wall, another bucket held the horses’ grain, and two flakes of hay sat in the corner. I stuffed my cold hands in the oversized jacket while heading to the gate to bring the horses in.
Finn and Neva—one a chestnut and one a gray with flea-bitten, brown spots—waited impatiently by the gate, shoving each other out of the way. I laughed. It was always a contest to see who would be let into the barn first. A few whinnies followed behind the two polo ponies, and damn, it looked like a movie scene. The illuminated sky, still slightly orange from the sunrise, was bigger than I could’ve imagined. Small, translucent clouds dotted the horizon. Eight horses galloped toward the gate, emerging from the fog like shadows into light. The sounds of hooves clopping on grass, the vibrations below the ground from the power of the most beautiful creatures on the planet, thesnorts they let out as they began approaching the gate—all of it brought me the most peaceful and serene euphoria.
My life might have been a chaotic storm in the ocean, but these animals just did something to me. Their mellow eyes kept me safe. Their soft coats reminded me that I always had somewhere to come back to when I felt out of place. Their presence made me feel the most at home I had ever felt in my life. I owed them everything because they gave me their all without a thought of reimbursement.
A smile enveloped my face as I nabbed a few halters from the fencepost and opened the gate. I carefully entered the paddock, making sure none of the horses could slip out. It had happened before. When they were hungry, they were relentless and sneaky. When five horses’ halters were fastened, I led them through the gate in a manner that should have earned me a gymnastics medal. Angry snorts from behind made me chuckle at the horses’ jealousy for not being brought to their stalls first. I repeated the cycle so all ten horses graciously munched grain and hay in their stalls. Giving every horse a few scratches on the nose, I relished the feeling that this could be my life for as long as I wanted.
“How’s everybody doing?” A deep voice from a few yards away startled me. I nearly jumped seeing Jack standing in the doorway of the barn. His hair was tousled in that perfect bedhead wave, and he still had on his gray sweatpants that he slept in the night before—except now he sported a tight white t-shirt that stretched across his chest. The chest I rested my head on all night. I looked down to survey my own outfit: sleep shorts, an old youth polo championship t-shirt covered by Jack’s coat, and my paddock boots. My hair was tied into a rat’s nest on top of my head, but that was basically my uniform when I checked on the horses. They usually didn’t judge me for my wardrobe choices.
“Happy and fed,” I answered. “Neva and Finn were especially excited to get their breakfast this morning.” I rubbed Finn’s forehead.
“Per usual. So they must not mind the change too much.” He sounded optimistic, but I could tell he was talking about more than just the horses.
