Chapter 10 In the Barn

RPOV

After I found Steph, and we talked, we walked over to the main house where dinner was being served. The General's staff had made a wonderful feast of BBQ and fresh veggies on the grill. It has been a long time since I had eaten a meal that good, the best part was watching Babe eat. The noises that woman make when she is eating could bring a man to his knees. When that little tidbit was pointed out to her she blushed and buried her head in my shoulder. I felt like a fucking king when she did that. After dinner we all sat around a bonfire and shared stories, I could see Babe making note of some of these stories in her head for the assignment that she is on. She listened to the stories like a child listens to a book being read to them. Wonderment in her eyes the whole time.

Now I am laying here in our stall, listening to her sleep, I can hear a Bobby and Jill are having a little fun before they go to sleep, and I can hear Lester jacking off. That man is just wired wrong. I roll to my side to look at Babe, she is curled up in a ball and looks to be cold. I pull myself up from my bag and the scoot it closer to hers. I then unzip my bag and then hers, when I lift the covers off of her, she opens her eyes and looks up to me.

"What are you doing, Ranger?" She asks.

"Shh, Babe, I am just joining our bags, you looked cold, this way, and we can share body heat." She nods. I the hook the zippers of our bags together and make one big bag. I slid into the bag and then hold open the bag for her, she climbs in next to me. She stays on her side of the bag away from me, but I notice that she is no longer cold and she then relaxes and falls asleep. I lay there thinking about all of the things that she was saying today, all of those damn sentences that she would not finish. I really want to know what they are and I am really hoping that they are what I think that they are. I am just getting comfortable enough to fall asleep when my bag mate rolls over and curls up to my side. I raise my arm and she places her head on my shoulder and then her hand rests over my heart. Her leg slides between mine, when she finally settles, she hums,

"Thanks, Ranger."

"Babe" and with that she falls instantly asleep and with a kiss to her head and whiff of her shampoo and I finally drift off in to the land of nod.

The morning light brings me out of sleep to find myself in the same position I fell asleep in, and the warm body next to me fits so perfectly, that my little solider stands up and takes notice of her curves and her warmth.

"Good morning Ranger." She kisses my neck. "Good morning little Ranger" she whispers.

"Babe" I growl "Nothing about him is little" she giggles and then wiggles herself closer to me. "You are playing with fire" I growl to her as a warning. She continues to wiggle. So I flip her onto her back and hover over her. "Baby, please." I whisper to her. She moans. I slam my lips down on hers and kiss the daylights out of her. My hands decide that they need to roam her body. Hers seem to be doing the same thing. We let our bodies do the talking as we continue to kiss and explore. We are moments away from ripping each other's clothes off, when I hear the stall door open and a throat clear.

"Can you two please, find somewhere else to do that, you are making all of the men out here hard and you need to get up anyway, because it is time for breakfast and another day of harvesting. " This coming from Tank. I groan and lay my head down on her shoulder.

"Baby, we better get up?" She nods, but when I try to pull away from her, she pulls me back to her. "Baby?"

"Why is it that you call both Babe and Baby?"

"I call you Babe, when we are around others, but I want to call you something that only you and I know that I call you that, and that is why I call you Baby, when it is just us." I lean in and give her a sweet kiss to her lips.

"Ranger?" Then she stopped. I leaned back down and gave her another kiss on the lips this one more demanding than the previous one.

"Come on Babe, let's go get dressed and get some food." I say as I climb out of the bag.

"Will there be coffee?" was her only response.

"Of course, the General never starts his day without it." I say as I slip back into my jeans and gather my stuff for a shower.

After breakfast, we made our way to the orchard, I handed Babe her harness. She looked at me funny for a moment.

"It is so that in case you fall, you don't hurt yourself." She nods and then takes the harness from my hand. I watch as she slips the harness on and then she starts walking off in the orchard. I quickly grab a stack of baskets and follow her down the path.

"So are we working in the same tree?" She asks after a while. I nod. She then stops and climbs a tree that appears to have a tree full of apples in it. I watch in amazement as she ascends the tree with little effort.

"I have never seen anyone be able to climb that tree without the truck backed up to it." The General says as he walks up to me. "Not even you." I just shake my head and then walk over to the tree and climb it just like my Babe did. I find her towards the top of the tree in a branch that would not hold my weight. Tank hands up a couple of baskets, I attach one to a clip on the line that is tied to the biggest branch on the tree and then look up at my Babe.

"Babe, hand me the apples as you pick them, I will place them in the basket and we can then lower it down to Tank." She nods and then starts picking apples, some she hands down to me others she tosses lightly. I get one basket full and lower it down and then fill the other up before I bring up anymore. Within a couple of hours the tree is down to just a couple apples that were wither rotted or not ripe enough to pick. She easily climbs down the tree and waits with a smile for me to do the same and then makes her way to the next tree.

"I told you that I like to climb." She says over her shoulder. The next tree if larger and it will take us both to complete it before lunch.

"Babe"

"Yes, Ranger" she quips back.

"Tell me something about you that I do not know?"

"Didn't we try this yesterday?"

"Yes, but this time I want to know just something about you" I can see her higher in the tree with her basket hanging from the harness. She stops working and looks down at me. I can tell that she is thinking about what she is going to say. The emotions and thoughts cross her face and through her eyes.

"When I was a kid, I jumped off the garage trying to fly, and for about a second I felt a freedom that I had never felt or have felt since that moment."

"How bad were you hurt, Babe?"

"I broke my arm, then after I got my cast off, I tried again, and then broke my leg. That was the last time I tried to fly. I having to get pins in your legs hurts like a bitch and I had to wear that cast most of the summer. It was horrible." I nodded. "Same question?"

"When I was a little boy, I wanted to be Batman." I looked up at her and she was smiling that amazing smile of hers.

"You wanted to be Batman huh?" I nodded. "What did you just like bats or did you want the cool gadgets?"
"I wanted the gadgets" She laughed.

"So you are a gadget man?"

"Babe, I don't need gadgets to make my woman purr like a kitten in satisfaction" I growled at her. She laughed again and then slowly climbed down to where I was sitting.

"Maybe sometime you could prove it to me." She kissed my neck. "That you don't need gadgets and that you could make me purr." I growled and then slammed my lips down on hers pushing her into the trunk of the tree.

"Come on you two, can we please hurry the lunch bell will be ringing soon." Tank bellowed below us.

"Leave them alone, they are in love" Mona said giving him a kiss on his lips calming the beast. Babe looked at me in shock and with her eyes she asked me the question, I knew that she wanted to know the answer to. I leaned into her and whispered in her ears.

"Baby, say the words and I will make you mine, all you have to do is trust that I will not break your heart, that I will love you." She looked at me with tears in her blue eyes. "Baby, tell me please, Baby tell me that you love me, that you want to be mine. Please" I didn't care if I was begging I had fallen for this woman. I wanted her to be mine, and dammit it was getting harder and harder for her not to be mine. She wiped the tears from her eyes and climbed the tree, started picking apples again. We worked next to each other for another hour before the tree was picked over. She lowered her full basket down and then climbed down herself. Before I could get out of the tree she was already headed down the path back to the main house, talking animatedly with Mona and Jill. I was watching her walk as I helped load up the last of the baskets into the truck, she glanced over her shoulder at me and smiled. I felt relief wash over my body, knowing that we were still okay and that she would talk to me later. Tank and I headed back to the house following the truck. My mind was completely on Steph and what was going on in my heart.

"You have fallen hard for her, haven't you?" Tank asked.

"Yes." We made the rest of the trip to the house, without another word.

Back at the house, I saw Babe, sitting at the table talking with the girls. When I walked into her sight line she smiled and waved me over to her. I made my way to her.

"I made you a plate so that you did not have to wait in line." I gave her chaste kiss and then sat down next to her.

"Thanks, Babe." She smiled and then gave me peck back. We sat there eating and talking with the guys and the girls at the table with us, before we had a little bit of free time before we headed out the next morning. I wanted some time with Steph before we headed on to the next place and I knew the perfect spot.

TBC...

In my head, I am chanting 'say it , say it say it' but stick with me, it getting a little angsty isn't.

But good news the 100th reviewer, will get to know what the special detail in the tattoo is before everyone else. So go ahead hit that button I know that you are dying to know. (insert evil laugh here) PS I don't write for reviews, but I appreciate them so please don't think that I am only trying to get more reviews. I just thought that it would be fun. I hope that you enjoyed.

Crys