It turned out that Daryl had done a lot more than talk to my dad about building a cabin. They'd already drawn up plans with my brother, and gathered all the hardware they'd need, cement and cinder blocks for the foundation, and scavenged windows and doors from abandoned houses. Apparently Raph had offered wine to trade for roofing paper and shingles, which I knew was difficult for him, and possibly more difficult for Daryl to accept but they'd both put aside their pride.
All that meant that while most of us were working in the hot kitchens or fields to preserve the late summer harvest, Rick, Daryl, and Glenn spent their days in the clearing, joined periodically by my dad, my brother Jake, and my youngest sister Daphne, who much preferred construction to canning. They used the cinderblocks to build a crawlspace foundation, after leveling the forest floor, then used the biggest and straightest of the felled logs to form the sills, on which they built the floor.
Jake had gotten a buddy to loan him his bobcat with some kind of attachment for moving the logs, in exchange for one of the pigs we'd raised, so the process went fairly smoothly, without any major injuries. I'd begun to really show, and borrowed Daphne's old maternity clothes once I got too big for my stretchiest clothes. It didn't seem to bother Daryl, and he'd even started resting his hand on my stomach sometimes, when I said the baby was kicking.
Sometimes he was asleep before I even got in the camper, exhausted from the long days of strenuous labor, but usually I'd wake up the next morning to his head between my legs, and we'd spend breakfast time tangled in bed before heading out for another day.
A few weeks after they'd begun work, toward the end of a very hot September, Daryl took me out to see the cabin after dinner. I'd been out several times when they were putting up the foundation and the floor, but we'd been frantically working in the kitchens and the past couple of weeks I checked on the progress. When we got to the clearing I gasped, stunned at how far they'd gotten. The walls were done, each log fitted flush against the ones below and above it, with a tight dovetail notch at the corners. They must have cut the holes for the door and windows that day, because the pieces they'd cut away lay around the foundation and the windows and door hadn't been installed yet.
He boosted me up onto the porch, which didn't have steps yet, so I could walk through the doorway into the cabin and look around. It was a 20x20 foot square, with a porch the length of one side, and the beams that would support the roof extended over the porch as well. I was amazed at the sturdiness of the construction, and the way it all fit together. "This is incredible," I whispered. "I can't believe you built this for us."
"Had a lotta help" he said, but I could tell he was proud of it, and I reached up to kiss him, trying to forget about how sweaty and disgusting I'd gotten over a hot stove that day, or that I was still wearing the stained t-shirt that didn't quite stretch enough over my belly along with the only comfortable maternity shorts I owned, a tattered pair of cut off sweats. Daryl never seemed to care, and I breathed in his familiar scent, combined with the smell of the freshly cut pine.
His hands slid under my ass and lifted me up so I could wrap my legs around him. I was almost at the end of the second trimester, but I still wanted him just as badly, and didn't bat an eye when he tugged my shirt over my head. It was deep dusk, and darker under the trees, but there was a bright moon rising that shone into the clearing and through the open roof, reflecting off my pale chest and the beads of sweat on Daryl's tanned skin.
I licked them off his neck, savoring the taste of him, and he quickly yanked off the rest of our clothes and slid into me, pressing me against the rough walls but keeping his hands between them and my back. He was rough and fast, but it was exactly what I needed, and my overly sensitive body responded quickly.
He set me gently down afterwards, and used my shirt to clean me up, then helped me pull on his shirt and my shorts before walking back to the camper. He was kneeling in front of me after pulling my shorts over my hips, when he pressed a kiss to my swollen belly and I knew, deep within me, that he'd moved from acceptance into a reluctant anticipation.