Part 31
Wilson couldn't remember the last time he'd had a better afternoon. Sally stretched next to him and rolled over on her elbow to admire her left hand, now graced with his token of love. “What was your grandparents like? How long were they married?”
“Let's see...if I remember correctly, they married in the early '50's, and my granddad died when I was fifteen or so... thirty-five, forty years.”
Sally sighed wistfully and twisted around in his arms to face him. “Do you think we'll last that long?”
“Why shouldn't we?”
She hitched a shoulder and studied the small patch of fun between his pectorals. “In forty years, I'll almost be eighty...it's kind of a scary thought.”
He notched her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “You're not old,” he said. “You're perfect in every way...like a fine wine.”
She crinkled up her nose and turned back around. “Or a smelly block of cheese.”
He tucked her head under his chin and scooted up to spoon her. They watched the small overhead light flicker off the blue diamond. She'd been right. The ring was perfect for her. He agreed to give it to Sally because he only hoped to make his mother happy and prayed Sally understood the significance of wearing that family heirloom. He had no idea at the time that it would seem so right on her hand.
A swell of pride filled him. This precious, sweet, irritating woman would soon be his forever. He'd come a long way to get here. Maybe it was destiny...maybe it was only dumb, blind luck, but she'd become his life. And she'd be in his life for the rest of his. Now he understood all those looks that passed between his parents and his grandparents. This was a forever kind of love, and it was his.
“Granny Jo – short for Josephine – was my mom's mother,” he said, thinking back to the last time he'd seen his maternal grandmother, a feisty, plain-spoken woman with a ready smile and a plate of homemade cookies. She died in his early twenties, so... “She was a lot like you, actually.”
“Sexy, sweet and sophisticated?” she teased him. Wilson smiled and kissed the top of her head.
“Exactly.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. “Really, what was she like...and your grandfather, too. What was his name?”
“Harvey, but everyone called him Pattie.”
Sally giggled. “Pattie? Why was that?”
He thought about that for a moment. “You know...I don't really know why we called him that. I remember Granny Jo joking about it sometimes, but she'd always tell me the story wasn't for young ears. I'll have to ask mom, I guess. And they were your typical, mid-western grandparents. They owned a homestead, much like this one, with milk cows and chickens and a vegetable garden that I hated. I can't tell you how many of my summers were spent shelling purple-hull peas. My hands were a permanent blackish-blue color from the time I was four until I finished high school.”
Sally tisked. “That's a shame. I'm sure you miss it, and I'll remember to plant some in our garden next year.”
“Hmm, our garden,” he murmured, snuggling a kiss behind her ear. “I like the sound of that.”
She snuggled closer to him. “You don't mind living here? I kind of thought you might want to get a bigger place. You know, somewhere you can raise horses, like you used to.”
“I honestly think I'm done with that,” he admitted. “And I like this place. It's big enough. Bigger than my grandparent's place, and they harbored all seven grand kids over the summers. So, I can easily imagine our own children growing up here...which was something else I wanted to discuss with you.”
She peeked over her shoulder and arched an eyebrow. “I'm listening.”
He twisted a strand of her hair around his finger, enjoying the feel of it...knowing he could wrap her around his finger whenever he had a mind to. “How would you feel about starting a family right away?”
“And how soon is right away?”
He grinned down at her, knowing he was about to have a fight on his hands. “I'm hoping to have my child planted in you by springtime.”
“Oh, really?”
“Is that a problem?”
She smiled softly. “Actually, that sounds wonderful. I'll go in to my doctor next week and get my IUD taken out.”
Wow. That was too easy. He narrowed his eyes at her. Where was the snarky comments and the sassy temper and the control-freak issues? Sally never complied to anything so easily. “What are you thinking about?”
“I'm thinking how wonderful it'd be to have a baby,” she answered sincerely and with a yearning glowing through her face. Oh, sweet Jesus, he could have cried. She truly wanted to have his baby...how lucky could a man get? She stared at her ring again and said, “I've been a wishful woman for too long. Finally, I'm getting everything, wrapped up together...you, marriage, a baby...”
“Don't forget the couple million dollars I'm now worth,” he added with a grin.
Her eyes widened to swallow up most of her astounded expression, and she twisted around so fast, her knee bumped him in the groin. Pain exploded everywhere, and his hands immediately covered and protected the sensitive area. Someone shouted out something, and it sounded a hell of a lot like his voice, but all he could concentrate on was the throbbing anguish as his balls fled up into his chest cavity.
“Oh, Wil...I'm so sorry,” Sally cried out, bouncing around on the mattress more than necessary. “Can I get you something?”
Just stop moving.
“Some ice?” she offered, and his gun-shy testicles protested loudly and intensely. No ice!
“I'm okay,” he managed to get out before she volunteered to rub them down with a muscle liniment. If she came anywhere near his little guys with some Icy Hot or Bengay, this relationship was over. “Just give me a minute.”
“Are you sure I can't do anything?”
“No,” he shook his head, squeezing his eyes closed and trying to relocate his balls. “I'll be fine. It's a good thing there wasn't anything left in them. That would have hurt more.”
She sat up, hugging her knees and chewing on her bottom lip as the agony gradually diminished. “Wil?”
“Hmm?”
“I'll, uh...go take a shower...”
He nodded to show he understood, but frankly there was only so much he could focus on. Right now, the possibility of being a father ever in this lifetime took front and center in his mind. The bed shifted as she got up and clomped down the short hall to the little bathroom, her heeled boots still on her feet. The memory of those boots wrapped around his waist earlier lessened his suffering.
“Holy shit!”
Her scream ricocheted through the hazy pain still fogging his brain. He bolted out of the bed – suddenly wished he hadn't – and followed the sound of Sally's muffled curses. He found her, one boot off, the shower running, and her other booted foot holding down the head of a vicious-looking rattlesnake...only the snake didn't have a rattle. Odd, that.
“That's a snake,” he pointed out.
“Yeah,” she grimaced. “It struck me, too.”
He heard her...ran that last part by his comprehension mode again – the one still not working properly – and he froze on the spot. “What?! It bit you?!”
“I'm fine,” she said, tilting her head to the side to study her captive. “It struck the boot. I barely felt it.”
He really wished she'd turn loose of that thing...so he could kill the bastard for striking her. “Come on out of here. Close it up in the shower, and let's go look at your leg...just to be sure.”
Sally didn't seem to hear him. “You know, I think I recognize this snake.”
Wilson was steadily loosing his patience. “A good friend of yours? Good, now get out of there.”
She complied, and he exhaled roughly through his nose, shutting the glass shower door quickly. Sally bent down on her haunches to watch it coil up and glare at her. “I do know him. That's Reggie. He belongs to a guy at my deer camp. Jared...he's a wildlife officer for the state.”
He didn't give a flying fig if the creature was sent from God Himself. He wanted Sally away from it. He tugged on her arm to get her back to the bed so he could take a look at her leg. “Wonderful. Please come back so we can look at the bite.”
“He didn't bite me,” she said. “If anything, he barely scratched me through the boot. Besides, Reggie's so old his venom couldn't kill a flea.”
As soon as she stood up, her face paled and she swayed against him. “Whoa,” she moaned. “Head rush.”
Head rush, his ass. She'd been bitten by a rattlesnake. Wilson picked her up in his arms and maneuvered her to the bedroom. The boot came off with a quick tug, and...
“Ow!” Sally shouted at him. “What the hell?” She peered down. Wilson felt his heart clench up. A fang, broken off from the old snake, lay embedded in her ankle...with a drop of milky-colored venom trickling down her skin. Sally plucked the fang out and stared at it.
“Wil?...I don't feel so well...”
“That could just be shock,” he said more to himself than to her. “We should get you to the hospital.”
She dropped the fang on the mattress like it burned her flesh. “I don't think I can drive.” She rocked slowly from side to side. Wilson wasn't sure if she realized she was doing it. Panic hit him like a gunshot. Snake bites could take hours before the symptoms arise. Why in the world were they appearing this quickly? Unless...that snake injected more venom in her than normal, or she had some kind of allergy, or something?
“Time to go,” he barked, and scurried around for her dress. Obviously disoriented, Sally limply tried to dress herself, but she plainly couldn't do it. Scared out of his mind for her, Wilson threw on his jeans, his boots and a shirt, and carried her out to his truck.
He hoped to God and all His angels that he could get her to a hospital quickly. Please, don't let anything happen to her.
However, the series of event that followed showed Wilson just how diligent God was on supervising His prayers. His pocket knife stuck out of a tire, and he didn't have the time to contemplate how it got there. So he drove Sally's truck to the nearest hospital, with the sole resident of his heart curled up on the bench seat, moaning in agony. Later on, he wasn't exactly sure how it happened...but one second he was yelling at a nurse to give him some answers on Sally's status and another he was being escorted out to a police cruiser with Richard Sanborn staring at him curiously.
Not the best way to meet his future brother-in-law.
Wilson did remember calling over his shoulder, “Hey, Richard, do you mind if I marry your sister?”
Richard called back, “You realize you're being arrested right now, don't you?”
“It occurred to me,” Wilson said back, just as the back door slammed shut, and he swallowed down the fear of facing another jail cell.