as a mere human had anything that she could trade for more time with her father.
God doesn’t punish people for talking to Him. He knows you love your daddy and that you are scared about life without him. Tonight is on Rachel, not God. Her mother’s voice was so clear in her head that she looked to both sides to see if she was actually right there.
“Okay, I get it,” she whispered.
“You get what?” Pax handed a red plastic cup over the side of the truck bed.
“That I can’t bargain with God,” she answered.
“I think we’ve all done that at some time in our lives,” he said.
She took a sip of her whiskey. The smooth warmth of it flowed all the way down to her stomach. “What do you really want out of life, Paxton? I’ve been giving that question a lot of thought lately. When Daddy’s gone, I’m going to have a lot of responsibility, so I need a plan. I need to think about where I’m going. I need to have my children now so I can teach them what they need to know so they can carry on the legacy that Daddy has worked so hard to leave to me.”
Pax crawled up from the tailgate to sit beside her. He stretched his long legs out and took a sip of his whiskey. “That’s some heavy thinkin’ there. Maybe you should concentrate on getting through the wedding first. One-day-at-a-time stuff, you know.”
“I need a plan to survive one day at a time,” she said. “Surely you’ve got a chart of some kind for the rest of your life, even if it’s a loose one.” She thought of all the time she and Pax had wasted already. If she’d gotten married five years ago, she could already have at least two kids, maybe three, and her father would have gotten to spend some time with his grandchildren. Better yet, they would have gotten to know him.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t,” he said. “But now you’ve got me spooked. I need to think about more than just the day ahead. Grandpa and Mam built the Callahan Ranch with sweat, tears, and a lot of calluses. It wouldn’t be right to let it go to ruin or sell it to strangers when my generation passes away. We have a responsibility to teach our children to love the land like we do, don’t we?”
“So my plan is that I will have my first child by the time I’m thirty. That means that we should get our divorce or annulment as soon as possible so I can find a husband, and I’ll need to get pregnant on my wedding night.” The plan sounded good in her head, and completely doable.
“You plan on doing all that in less than eighteen months?” Pax took another sip of his whiskey. “If we have to get a divorce, you can’t remarry for six months, then you’ll have to find a husband and have a baby in one year. You better adjust your calendar, girl. Maybe that first child shouldn’t come along until say thirty-five.”
Now her new plan was ruined as quickly as it was formed. She couldn’t wait until she was thirty-five to have kids, not if she got a brain tumor at fifty-five. There wasn’t a twenty-year-old in the whole state of Texas who could be taught to run a ranch by that age. She’d have to make a new plan. Dammit! She should’ve gotten married right out of high school like her mama had.
She set the whiskey to the side. “I hope I did get pregnant when we had sex without protection.”
Pax spit good whiskey all over the side of the truck bed. “Good God, Alana! What if your child, whenever you have one, has no interest in ranchin’? Ever think of that? Maybe you’ll have a son who wants to be an artist or a schoolteacher.”
“Sorry, but you can’t convince me of that. Not with both our ranchin’ blood. It would simplify things so much. I don’t really need a husband. I’m perfectly capable of raising a baby as a single mother. If I am pregnant, I won’t even ask you for child support. You can fade away into the foggy past,” she said.
“I might not have a big plan, Alana Joy Carey, but like I told you before, I will always be a part of the life of whatever child I father, so forget that bullshit. If you’re pregnant, I won’t