Chapter 6
When Joe and I walked back into the house after our chat outside, I could feel a slight chill in the air. It felt as if the three women had been arguing over something, but none of them said anything to either Joe or me, so I decided to try to break the tension if I could.
I grinned at Lisa-Marie. "Do you know what Joe told me? He said that Pam insisted we needed a new bed so that you would have a decent workplace to make her a grandchild."
"Tom!" Pam laughed. "You weren't to tell her that. And Joe, you weren't supposed to tell Tom either."
Andrea was giggling and Lisa-Marie was blushing, but laughing as well. Joe just looked sheepish. I grinned and wrapped my arms around Pam to hug her tight.
"Thank you for the wonderful bed, Mommy-in-Law to be, but aren't you rushing things a bit? Shouldn't this kind of gift be given after the wedding?" I laughed, kissing her on the cheek.
"Ha, you two have been sleeping together for at least three years, and don't try to tell me differently. After all, I'm the one who got my daughter started on pills, so I know better than to take any BS. Now I'm hinting that she can stop using them."
"That's what we were arguing about when you came in." Lisa-Marie snapped. "Mom thinks that if all three of us are pregnant at the same time, it would be better somehow."
"It seems to me that you help each other already." I shrugged, then swung over and wrapped one arm around Lisa-Marie while still holding Pam with the other. "Besides, I'd have thought that one holdout could help the other two if there was a reason, but I'm going to leave this one up to the two of you."
"Mom doesn't like the idea of Andrea staying here for a few weeks either." Lisa-Marie added. "She thinks with Fred still around, it might be dangerous for her."
"Well, maybe I should spread the rumour that I've loaned Willy a twelve-gauge shotgun, a bag of rock salt, and asked him to sleep over here when I'm away." I grinned.
"Don't let Willy hear that, or he'll get ideas." Andrea snorted. "Heck, I'm getting ideas."
"Yeah, and the problem is that I think Willy really is looking for him." I sighed. "A rumour like that could be dangerous for Willy."
"You aren't worried about Fred?" Joe asked.
"No." I said flatly. "He knew Uncle Silas and he knows that I'm a blood relative. So by now, I'd imagine he's got an idea that I might be looking for him too. I'm not, but if I do meet up with him, I may give him a bit of free advice."
"Just as long as it isn't anything more than advice." Lisa-Marie said quickly.
I just grinned.
"Well, I don't think we're going to change anyone's mind and we need to head back toward home soon if we're going to get to our evening chores in time." Joe changed the subject. "So, do you suppose we could move that bed inside now?"
"Good idea." I nodded.
********
By the time we had struggled to get the queen-sized bed upstairs and into the bedroom, Joe and I were beat. The problem was that the old house just wasn't meant to have objects moved up and down the stairs that were the size of a box spring for a queen sized bed. Actually, the stairs weren't that difficult, it was trying to get the box spring around the corners from the stairs to the upstairs hallway that was the problem. The mattress was no problem, it bent, but not that darn box spring.
No matter what we tried, it seemed we had an inch too little hallway or an inch too much box spring, we couldn't decide which. We could almost get it past the point of lockup, but not quite. The frustrating part was that it almost looked like someone had tried to get something large up the stairs before because there was an attic hatch in the ceiling at the top of the stairs, but even that didn't give us enough clearance. Thinking it might help, I pulled off the wooden trim around that hatch, then carefully tried again. Still, no joy.
In the long run, I tore out the old hatch completely and used a saw to open it up enough to take the corner of the box spring, then it was no problem at all. We managed to get the box spring up far enough that we could tilt it and get one corner into a doorway across the hall. After that it was simply a matter of adjusting our moves to shuffle it back and forth and around corners. I think all three women were totally flabbergasted, but Joe and I just grinned and winked at each other as we finally carried that huge box spring down the hall to the bedroom.
"But now there's a huge hole in the ceiling of the hallway." Andrea sounded almost ready to cry.
"Yep." I nodded, trying to look intelligent. "And by tomorrow, there will be a new hatch in its place, then I can get in and out of the attic more easily too."
"Oh sure, and how many times do you expect to get into the attic?" Lisa-Marie asked.
"Who knows?" Pam laughed. "But he'll find reasons to have to get up there now that you mention it. Besides, you shouldn't complain too much, after all, they did get your bed into your bedroom."
Lisa-Marie just shook her head and sighed deeply. "Yeah, and he's the one who has to fix the mess. Now, how does this frame fit together?"
An hour later, the bed was all made up, Joe and I had put a temporary patch over the hole in the hallway ceiling and we'd even cleaned up the mess that cutting out the hatch and fixing it afterward had made. After we waved our goodbyes to Joe and Pam as they'd driven away, Lisa-Marie turned to me and hugged me gently.
"You're going to want to carry on tearing up the wall in the box room, aren't you?"
"Unh huh, if I can. Why?"
"Well, while you're doing that, I'm going to ask Andrea to help me upstairs. I think we should christen our new bed tonight and I'd like to move all our other stuff into that room too."
"I thought we were going to paint that room first?"
"To heck with that." She giggled. "I want to try out my new workbench."
********
I'd gotten the piping in the walls exposed and was carrying the plastic garbage bags of lath and plaster outside to get rid of them when I saw Willy and his parents drive up in Willy's beat up old pickup truck.
"Oh boy, this is going to get interesting." I thought to myself, then slipped a smile on my face and went to greet my neighbours.
I swear Willy's Dad was stepping out of the truck before it stopped.
"Look, I came to apologise to you for how I . . ." He started to say.
"You don't owe me an apology." I interrupted. "Lisa-Marie and Andrea are a different matter, but I'm sure you understand what I mean."
"Umm, yeah. I guess I do." He nodded slowly, then to my surprise he turned and helped his wife out of the pickup.
"I'll do the chores." Willy announced and headed for the barn.
"I think I'll go help Willy." I announced. "The women folk are in the house if you want to talk to them."
I caught up with Willy just as he opened the barn door.
"Here I thought I was being chicken." He grinned at me.
"Willy, that's one thing I'm not being is chicken. I know that Lisa-Marie and your sister are quite capable of handling anything your Dad will throw at them and I'm trying to isolate myself from a situation where one of my neighbours has to back-peddle to keep his head above water." I sighed. "One piece of advice that Dad gave me comes to mind. He said 'Never stick around when a man is about to have the law read to him by his woman if you can help it. Let him at least keep the dignity of not having you see him eat crow.' Or something along those lines."
"Your dad is a wise man. Mom is hopping mad at Dad and she's ready to wade in on Andrea's side."
"I could see that when she got out of the truck." I grinned. "When I saw the way your dad went to help her out of the truck, I decided it was time to make myself scarce. Besides, I thought it was about time for you to show me what you're doing to collect your wages."
"Not much, this is a soft touch." He grinned. "You've only got two cows and two calves plus a few yearlings so they need feed and I have to check that the water is okay. Then there's a few chickens to feed. Right now your pig is down at our place driving our boar up the wall because she's not quite ready for him to come visiting. I toss out some extra straw each night and toss all the manure in a pile for the morning when I'll wheel it out on the manure pile. After that there's only milking and feeding the calves. I don't imagine milking them a bit early today will hurt them any."
"I wouldn't think so."I said quietly.
I looked around the barn closer than I had before as Willy settled down to milking. It looked good. Willy was doing a good job of looking after things. Then in one corner of the barn I finally noticed a pen that I'd missed before which had obviously been set up for keeping a pig or two.
"So I've got a pig do I?"
"Yeah, you've got a Yorkshire sow. A good animal too. Silas bought her as a bred gilt, the spring before last and since then he's got three good litters from her. A few weeks ago he was sure she was coming into season and he made a deal with Dad to have her bred to our boar. She just hasn't been cooperating." He chuckled, then sobered. "Can't say I'm too happy about keeping a pig in here with the cows and chickens, too much chance of diseases crossing over, but that was Silas' way of doing things in the winter. Say, I've been meaning to ask, are you planning on making many changes here on the farm?"
"Not much as far as animals are concerned, except maybe get a few of turkeys and probably more chickens. I'm thinking of building a decent little chicken coop on skids and arranging it as a free range setup with moveable fences during the summer. Then too, I might feed out a few cattle. The organic farm prices are getting better all the time and I'd like to give that a try."
"You can't get much more organic than this place." Willy agreed. "The problem is that without fertilizer, Silas' grain yields were way below ours the last few years."
"Yeah, but he was doing summer fallow, not crop rotation. I'm looking at clover or alfalfa for two years out of five and running a continuous crop rotation. They've been doing a quarter section at the Ag. College for ten years that way and their yields are higher now than those of the neighbours using fertilizer and summer fallow."
Willy's dad came into the barn about then and Willy immediately told him about some of my ideas. We settled into a discussion on that and never did get around to talking about Andrea or Lisa-Marie. When the chores were done, we went back to the house, then after only moments, Willy and his folks left to go home and do their own chores. That's when Lisa-Marie rounded on me looking a bit upset.
"What's the idea of bailing out while I talked to Andrea's dad?" She demanded.
"Just letting him keep his dignity and letting you express your righteous anger without any interference." I grinned. "I thought that I'd let her dad at least keep the dignity of not having me see him eat crow. After all, he's my neighbour and one day I might be the one that you're chewing out for doing something stupid. I wouldn't want him to watch that."
She tried to stay looking angry, but she couldn't help breaking into a giggle. "It wasn't me that chewed him out. Andrea and her Mom did too good a job of that."
"No more than he deserved." Andrea spoke up for the first time. "Actually, Mom did most of the talking."
"I thought he looked a bit frayed around the edges when he came out to the barn." I nodded. "It takes someone who loves you to really chew you out so it hurts. Of course it takes someone who loves you to forgive you for screwing up too."
"You're just full of wit and wisdom today aren't you? " Lisa-Marie chided me gently. "But to change the subject, what do you want to do for something to eat this evening?"
"Could I do an omelette and fried spuds?" Andrea suggested. "I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's something I really like to cook when I need some comfort food. I'm in the mood to cook, if you don't mind."
"Honey, if you want to cook, fill your boots." Lisa-Marie grinned. "Since you're cooking, I'll help Tom finish cleaning up his mess in the old box room and . . ."
"Hey, an omelette and fried spuds only takes a few minutes." Andrea laughed. "You two set the table, make some toast, and get the tea ready. Then you can sit down and talk while I do the rest."
Lisa-Marie and I just grinned and did as we were told. Not long later we were all eating and I had to admit, it was great tasting, not fancy, just simple farm food.
As we were sitting at the table, sipping our tea after eating, I was looking at Andrea and quietly comparing the person at the table to the frightened woman of only a day before. She must have seen me making a mental run down of the changes.
"Is something wrong?" She asked quietly.
"No." I smiled. "I was just thinking that you look much better than you did and wondering if you've made up your mind what you want to do?"
She smiled slowly. "Well, I'd like to stay here for a couple of weeks at least. Part of it is just to be away from my folks and on my own, but part of it is just a chance to think about what I want to do in the long run."
"Will you be okay here by yourself?" I had to ask, just to be certain.
"Oh yeah, I won't have a problem." She smiled again. "I'm not worried about Fred. Besides, Willy will be coming around twice a day to do the chores, so I'll probably help him with those. Then I've got the phone and Mom is just down the road. And you guys will be coming on the weekends. I'll be fine."
"Well, I suppose we should make a run to a grocery store in the morning . . ."
"Oh forget it." She laughed aloud. "Not for me, you shouldn't. You've got flour and all the staples in your cupboards, and you've got chickens and cows, so I'll have bread and milk with some eggs for a change. If I need anything else, Mom will see that I get it. I'm not about to cost you a bundle in food bills. In fact I was thinking that I'd be able to have a nice meal ready for you two next Friday night when you get back from your week at school."
"Now I like that." Lisa-Marie grinned. "Tom, maybe we should keep her around for a while. You know, general slave duties, She could cook, clean up, do the drudge work, that sort of thing. We've sure got enough work around here to do that we could keep her busy."
"Oh yeah, I can just see her putting up with our demands." I laughed. "Besides, weren't you the one who was so all fired up about doing things around the house by yourself so they'd be done your way."
"Well, we could still fix the house up my way." Lisa-Marie grinned and winked at Andrea. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I was the boss and had the final say in what we did."
"Well, I have spent all of my life training to be a farmer's wife and doing all the stuff around a house, so that part wouldn't be hard. That's darn near slavery anyway." Andrea tried to look as if she was thinking about it. "Of course, if I was doing half of the work, I might just ask for half of the rewards."
"Oooh, and what rewards would those be?" Lisa-Marie was still smiling but I could see a tenseness in the way she held herself.
"Sorry." Andrea said quietly, so she must have seen the same thing. "I shouldn't tease like that."
"Oh come on, if I can tease you, you can tease back." Lisa-Marie reached out and grabbed Andrea's hand. "Were you going to mention helping me keep Tom happy, by any chance? If you were, I'm pleased that you like him enough to think of it that way."
"Not really." Andrea suddenly grinned again. "I was thinking of rewards remember, not duties. I was going to tease you about how he keeps you happy."
Both Lisa-Marie and I stared at her for a second, then Lisa-Marie broke into laughter.
"You wench, don't you just wish!" She laughed. "I think that eliminates any chance of our keeping you as a slave girl. We'll just have to work out a different reward system."
"Darn." Andrea tried to pout while she was grinning and it didn't work well. "Here I was hoping for a few hugs and kisses to tide me over until I found someone of my own."
"Well, maybe we can negotiate on the hugs and kisses, just friendly ones mind you." Lisa-Marie carried on. "But I have to draw the line somewhere around there. What do you think Tom?"
Unh, oh. I was being put on the spot and both of them were looking at me as if I'd better display the wisdom of Solomon on this one.
"Well, let me think about that." I temporized, playing for time.
"Oh come on Tom. Don't be chicken." Lisa-Marie egged me on.
"I'm not being chicken, but gosh, I've got to think about the neighbours. I mean all of these farmers around here have only got one woman to hug and kiss, what would they say if they knew I had two and both of them knockouts like you two are?"
"Oh, I'm sure we could keep our smooching inside the house where no one else would see it." Lisa-Marie laughed. "I think you'll have to do better than that."
"Hey, wait a minute. Did you say I was a knockout like Lisa-Marie?" Andrea demanded, smiling tentatively.
"Yeah, I think you're both really good looking, as pretty as pictures. Surely you know that."
Her smile widened and her eyes glistened. Then she suddenly got to her feet and ran upstairs. Seconds later we heard her bedroom door slam.
"Oh shit, what did I do?" I stared at Lisa-Marie.
"Just made her day. Those are happy tears." She smiled, then moved over and slipped into my lap. "Everyone today has been reminding her in one way or another that she's pregnant and she's learned to think of pregnant women as fat and sloppy, thanks to that asshole Fred and his propaganda. Then you come along and look at her like she's still gorgeous and you top it off when you casually say we're knockouts and compare us to each other. She knows you love me and like the way I look, so suddenly she realises that she's really not fat and sloppy."
"Well, she's not fat and sloppy. She looks wonderful."
"You know that, and I know that. Getting her to admit that is a different thing though."
"But she looks terrific and she's got a tremendous personality . . ."
"Yeah, I've seen you watching her personality as she wiggled it around in those tight jeans all day." Lisa-Marie teased. "If you didn't watch mine as much or even more, I'd worry."
"Well, she's got a nice butt, almost as nice as yours."
"Oh boy, you just about goofed." She laughed and then hugged me tightly.
I was going to say something, but she was suddenly kissing me. I wasn't sure what I'd done, but I thought I should find out if it made her this happy. After she was just snuggling in my lap again, I cleared my throat.
"Can you tell me what I did that makes you so damn happy?" I whispered. "I'd sure like to know."
"Oh you goof." She snorted. "It's just that you treat people so straight forward and don't try to hide what you're feeling. You take your time to think about things, but at the same time, you're so darn honest. Please don't ever change."
"Well, I don't plan on changing." I grinned. "Just as long as you don't stop changing all the time like you do. You're the one who always keeps others guessing. If you didn't do that, I might get bored."
"Whatever." She smiled. "Let's wash the dishes and then look at the mess you've made in the old box room, then we can go clean up and try out that new bed."
So we washed up the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, then we hauled the last of the plastic bags of rubble out of the old box room and I showed her where I thought the new sink and toilet would have to go in the new bathroom. After a bit of discussion we decided that we'd see if we could fit in a small shower stall too. By the time we'd done all that, it was close enough to bedtime that we shut off the lights and went upstairs.
I was surprised at the bedroom. The big bed didn't look at all out of place and Lisa-Marie had shifted the furniture in the room around so that it looked great. Since the window of this room looked out toward the road, she and Andrea had even found curtains to hang over it so no one could see in at night.
"What do you think?" She smiled as she held my hand.
"Wow. It's nice." I grinned and hugged her gently.
"I thought so." She grinned at me. "Now, I'm going to the bathroom and then hopping into bed. I think you should go see if Andrea is still awake. If she is, I'd really like you to give her a goodnight hug and a friendly kiss."
I sighed, thinking deeply at the same time.
"The goodnight hug is fine, but I'm not sure that a kiss is a good idea."
"Well that's up to you." She smiled up at me. "I don't mind if it's just a friendly kiss. If she tries to stick her tongue down your throat or something, you have my permission to swat her bottom and tell her to be a good kid. I just think that one kiss on her cheek isn't about to kill any of us and I think it will make her feel better."
I sighed, then turned away to walk down the hall and she giggled.
"What a hard job, kissing a gorgeous girl." She teased, as she slipped inside the bathroom door and closed it before I could answer.
I had to grin at that, then thought "Well, she asked me to. Lets go see what happens."
There was still light seeping under Andrea's door, so I reached out and tapped on it lightly. "Andrea, we were just going to go to bed when Lisa-Marie suggested I check to see if you were okay and say goodnight."
"Oh, just a second, I'll be right there." She answered.
It was only a few seconds before she opened the door and smiled at me. She'd obviously been in bed and had tossed on an old housecoat to answer the door. In fact as she held the door open with one hand, the hasty knot she had tied in the belt that held it closed slipped and it opened. She wasn't wearing anything under it, so I got a brief flash of her youthful flesh and her dark triangle, then she was frantically grabbing it and covering herself.
"Oh God, I didn't mean to do that." She whispered, blushing in reaction.
"I didn't mind." I grinned, then held out my arms. "Would you like a goodnight hug?"
She stared at me for a second, then her arms reached out, abandoning her flapping housecoat. Those arms reached around me and she was trying to crush me as I held her gently, then she must have lifted onto her tiptoes. Her mouth was suddenly on mine.
"Andy, I told him he should paddle your bottom if you gave him any tongue." Lisa-Marie's voice came down the hall. "We can't have the hired help getting too carried away."
Andrea broke off the kiss with a giggle and pushed me into the hall, still hugging tightly. "Stop giving me ideas." She crowed. "I was being good."
"Oh? How good?"
"Darn good." Andrea giggled, then shoved away from me. "Sorry Boss Man, but the lady of the manor looks like she needs your attention. Thanks for the hug and goodnight."
"I don't rate a hug from out new maid, huh?" Lisa-Marie teased and I realised she was nude.
Suddenly Andrea was pushing past me and running down the hall, housecoat flapping. After a brief hug and a sisterly kiss, Lisa-Marie pulled away, but whispered something to Andrea, then turned toward the bedroom. Andrea faced me, then ripped the old house coat and threw it down. The small light in the hallway was just at the right angle to emphasise her bare curves as she stalked toward me, a happy grin on her face.
"She told me to kiss you one more time, then send you in to her, all warmed up and ready to be loved."She whispered as she reached out her arms to me once more.
I didn't need that kiss to get warmed up, but then I didn't need to feel her grind her soft body against me or to have her tongue drive into my mouth either. I pulled back and dropped my hand to swat her bottom once.
"Ow." She almost stood on her tiptoes in surprise, then she giggled. "Oh well, it was worth it."
Then suddenly she was racing down the hall to her room. I turned and walked down the hall into the bedroom. Lisa-Marie laying facing me, on her side and on the far side of that huge bed. There was only one small candle burning in a small candle holder near the bed and the flickering light made her look even more desirable than usual to me. I reached one hand back to close the door.
"Oh! Don't close it, please." She said quietly.
"But what about . . ."
"Come here and I'll explain." She gestured with one finger and a come hither look.
I didn't argue, instead I walked over to the bed, quickly took off my clothes and lay down facing her.
"Okay, what's going on?" I asked as I reached out a hand to gently stroke one of her soft breasts.
"I'm not sure." She bit her bottom lip softly. "It's like I'm enjoying teasing both you and Andrea and getting you to tease each other. Does that make sense?"
"No, not really. I think if it carries on too long, someone is going to get hurt."
"Oh, I don't want that to happen." She sighed, then she smiled wryly. "Right now I want to make love and enjoy our new bed with you, but I don't want to exclude Andy either. I want her to know that it's okay to hear us or even to come watch us if she wants to."
Suddenly she was pressing me onto my back and looking down at me with a strange look on her face as she moved to straddle my body. Then she leaned forward and lay on my chest, our faces inches apart.
"She's missed so much. It's just not fair." She whispered softly. "Did you know she's had almost no sex education at all? The only year it was taught at the local school, she was home for some reason and the next year, the local religious right had managed to get it banned from the curriculum. Her mom hardly taught her anything except to use a sanitary napkin to keep her clothes from getting ruined. When she was helping me move things in here, she found a tampon and didn't even know what it was for."
"Holy shit." I stared at her.
"Yeah, but that isn't the worst of it. You know that bastard, Fred? Well he was her very first boyfriend and he doesn't carry condoms in his wallet. He's got a cock ring of some kind and he told her it would stop the sperm from coming out of the end of his dink when he put it on. He said he could still come, but that there wouldn't be any sperm in it to get her pregnant. Then of course when she did get pregnant, he pulled the standard sleaze-ball trick of telling her that it couldn't have been him. He claimed that she must have screwed someone else and gotten pregnant from them. What with all the other crap he's pulled, I'd gladly nut that bastard."
"I think you'd have to stand in line. Willy and his dad are way up there. I'm not far behind them and I think you're even behind Andrea by now."
"Probably." Lisa-Marie nodded. "Oh, by the way, she likes to be called Andy."
"She does, but she introduced herself as Andrea?"
"That was before we became close friends. She mentioned it this afternoon, but so much has happened since then that I forgot until you were giving her that goodnight kiss."
"I have a feeling I was set up on that."
"No, not really, except later, after I got my kiss from her. I told her to get nude and shove her tongue halfway down your throat." She grinned mischievously. "I hope you swatted her bottom like I warned her you would."
"Didn't you watch?"
"Nope, did my best not to listen either."
"Then I guess you'll have to ask Andy."
"Tease." She laughed softly, then snuggled closely to whisper in my ear. "But do you understand how I feel about her now."
"I'm not sure, are you just planning on educating her somehow, or what?"
"Oh, no. I just want her to know that sex can be fun. I just feel she's deprived somehow."
"And what do I do?"
"Be yourself and do your best not to get tripped, because she'd beat you to the floor and have her pants off too."
"And what if I'm not fast enough?"
"That scares me a bit, but I think I could forgive you both. Especially since I'm not exactly innocent of suggestive ideas myself." She sighed, suddenly serious. "The stupid thing is that the idea turns me on, just like the idea that she watched us last night did."
For the last few moments, she'd been grinding her pelvis down against me and sliding her body around slowly, driving me almost nuts.
"You are getting weird."
"And very, very hot and bothered. Can I ride you like this, would you mind if I start out on top tonight?"
"I thought that was what you wanted." I grinned as I used my hands and lifted upward on her shoulders. "This way I get to play with your boobs too."
She just grinned and shifted her hips and hands as she adjusted things, then she settled down slowly. I couldn't help but moan at the wonderful sensation and she sighed right along with me.
"Oh wow." I muttered softly.
She grinned and began to move slowly, then paused and sat up very straight.
"What do ya say there cowboy? Ever had a cowgirl ride ya to a standstill?" She faked a western drawl.
"Can't say as I have ma'am." I played along with a matching drawl. "Wouldn't mind seein' if ya could make good yer brag though."
"Well, hang onto yer hat son, cause I'm kickin' open the chute and usin' ma spurs." She growled, then she began to move.
For the next while she was a wild woman and I answered her in kind. It was strange, but while we were making love to each other, we were also making love to please an audience. We knew it and we played up to it. I don't think either of us is really an exhibitionist, yet that night what we did was feed on letting someone else see us on top of our own delight with each other. Still, the only words that can describe what happened is that we went wild and showed off.
When we talked about it later as we cuddled in near exhaustion, we realised that both of us knew that we were being watched. At different times, we each saw movement in the hallway, even if only in the flickering light of that single candle. As well, we were both certain that our wild moans and groans were echoed back to us at times.
"Well, did that make you happy?" I asked finally.
"Delirious." She giggled softly. "I love you. Now let me sleep, okay? I'm all rode out and tuckered."
"Goodnight cowgirl." I sighed and closed my eyes.