Page 19 of Highland Heat

When I uncovered it, he had the phone to his ear. “You need to come out to the barn.”

“You really did it. You called my mate.” Hadn’t he said he wouldn’t?

“Of course I did. And when he gets in here, I’m calling Cora. I can’t believe you tried to pull a Sue Ellen.” He smacked me on the side of the head, not hard, but enough to sting a little bit.

“I was trying to eat, nothing more.” Which was probably exactly what she had done too

My mate came bolting in, out of breath, his eyes going straight to my naked form. “Jeez, I’m not going to like this, am I?”

Micah squeezed his shoulder. “Oh, trust me, you’re not. I gotta make a call,” and he walked out.

“Mate, it’s not what it looks like.”

“Oh, it’s not that you wanted to eat that hay in there.” Why was it so easy for him to see? For the first time since we’d met, I wished he was more like Micah.

“Okay, it’s exactly what it looks like. But Micah…”

“Micah what? He stopped you, or are you saying he went up to the loft to get the hay?” My mate was not playing.

My eyes went to the ground.

“You went to the hayloft.”

“Yes?” It came out as more of a question than I’d intended.

“Come with me.” He grabbed my arm and made a beeline for the house. He didn’t drag me, making sure his pace was one I could keep up with, but there was no dilly or dallying. Once we were inside, he sent me to the shower. “Go clean off the barn. I need to call Cora.”

“No need to call her. I took care of it.” Micah came out from the kitchen with a bowl of chili in his hand. “This needs something.”

“You mean time to finish cooking?” My mate was in a bad mood, and it was 1,000,000% my fault.

“Sorry, it smelled so good.” He took another spoonful. It couldn’t be that bad. “As far as Cora goes, she’ll be here in fifteen minutes. I figured might as well eat while we waited.”

“You Highland bulls and your obsession with food,” my mate said.

I left to shower, not wanting to make things worse. My cousin was now getting the brunt of his anger as my mate went on and on about why chili needed time to cook and couldn’t be rushed. And when I came back out, Cora was there, and from her expression, she knew exactly what happened already.

“Do you know what it means when your beast wants hay so badly that nothing else tastes good at this junction of your pregnancy?”

“No.”

“It’s because your bull is trying to handle your labor and knows it will be easier for them if you’re in your hooves.” She had the same energy as my mate did now.

“Except I’m not in labor.”

“But you are. Your bull’s just hooking you up for a while, swallowing that pain for you like a boss, and what do you do? Nearly make your labor ten times more difficult than it needs to be. Your animal doesn’t know that being in hooves makes things worse, but you do.” She pointed behind me. “Get in the bedroom and let me see how you’re progressing.”

I didn’t argue, and my mate stayed by my side the entire time. She examined me. “The only shock was that you haven’t given birth already. Baby is so close. You’re going to be pushing in the next ten minutes.”

“But I don’t have any contractions.”

“Oh, you will.” She chuckled. “Don’t worry, you will.”

And less than thirty seconds later, she was proven right. The online birthing class my mate and I took talked about the slow progression of first-time labor and how at first it might just feel like your stomach was squeezing and how it could take hours or days to meet our little one.

I experienced none of that. The first contraction had me sure I was going to die and felt like it lasted a week. The second, which was only a minute later, was just as strong.

“Why did he stop keeping the pain?” For all I knew he’d been doing it since before I woke up. What a strong beast I had.