Title: The Swear Jar 18/X

Author: Romantique

Email: dolph1n

Classification: Raylan/Winona Family/General

Rating: M

Summary: Raylan is a new dad. This one is a stand-alone, not a sequel to 'A Change of Scenery.'

Disclaimer: It's 'Justified' hiatus time, and I'm bored. This fic is based on nothing but my imagination and takes place sometime after the end of Season 3.

Legal: These characters do not belong to me. I'm just a fan and have not made a dime. Please email me to obtain permission to post.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Later that evening

Seated across the booth from Winona at La Cantina, Raylan seemed like he was a thousand miles away.

"A penny for your thoughts," Winona broke the silence, as she dipped a tortilla chip into a dish of salsa before taking a bite.

Raylan didn't respond, still staring off somewhere into space. Finally, Winona reached across the table and lovingly squeezed his arm. Only then did he come back to her.

"Hey? Where were you just now, Cowboy? Because you sure weren't here with us," she remarked, referring to herself and Caitlin who was seated next to her in the booth, napping in her infant seat.

"I'm sorry," he said, taking in deep breath and placing his hand over hers. "Remember I told you I was goin' to see the Department shrink?"

"Yeah," she said, grabbing another chip with her free hand.

"Well, I saw her today, and she asked me a question she already knew the answer to," he began. "Problem is, I don't, and she won't tell me the answer. Said I had to figure it out for myself."

Winona was hungry. This was the plight of a pregnant woman who takes care of an infant whose needs always come first. She hadn't eaten much all day. While rummaging through the basket for more chips, she asked, "Is it something maybe I could help you with? I do know you pretty well."

"Maybe. You've never understood why I deal with Boyd differently than other criminals," he recounted. "You've said that to me before."

"Well, yeah," she responded.

"And yet, I haven't seen it the way you do," he continued.

"That's pretty obvious," she said.

"The question the shrink asked me was, 'Why is that?'" he gave her hand another squeeze. "Why do I see things differently than you or Art or anyone else at the office?"

"Because Boyd makes you think he's like your family?" she put it out there.

"Naw," he shook his head. "We talked about that today. He's not my family. I'm clear on that. So, what else could it be?"

At that moment, the waitress arrived with two hot plates and placed a platter of chicken enchiladas in front of Winona, and a combination platter of tamales and chiles relleno in front of Raylan.

"Can I bring you anything else?" the young woman asked her customers.

"Yeah," Raylan answered, passing his empty beer bottle to the waitress, while at the same time he asked her if she would be so kind as to bring him another beer.

By the time the waitress had left their table, Winona was well into her first enchilada, almost ready to start in on the next one.

"Well? Can ya'? Think of anything else?" Raylan wouldn't let it go.

The waitress immediately returned with the beer, from which Raylan promptly took a pull from the long neck bottle.

Waiting until they were again alone, Winona chose her words very carefully. "Sometimes, I wonder if you might think that you could have turned out like Boyd. Like you could have been him."

Raylan looked puzzled. "You think I could have turned out like Boyd?"

"Raylan, Honey," she reached for his hand. "I think it's only by the grace of God that you didn't turn out like him or like your Daddy. It's a testament to your strength of character that you didn't."

He listened to her, his brown eyes boring into her blues.

"Do you think that maybe you feel guilty because you came out of Harlan better than Boyd did?" she asked. "Or Ava, or so many of the people you grew up with?"

"Guilty?" he winced. "I don't feel guilty."

Winona gazed into his eyes. "I'm talking about 'survivor's guilt.' You know, the kind of guilt when you made it out of Harlan, but they didn't." She gave his hand a squeeze. "I don't know. You asked me what it could be. And that's what crossed my mind. It's not the first time."

"It's not?" he asked.

"Look, it's not that I don't think Boyd and Ava aren't responsible for their actions," she continued. "They're adults. Of course they're responsible for choice they've made. But there was a time when they were younger, and they aren't responsible for where they come from. None of us are responsible as children. It's like that saying, "There but for the grace of God go I." In a world of such random occurrences like which family we're born into, it could have just as easily been you who chose another path, had it not been for fate or God stepping in on your behalf. You're the lucky one."

Raylan exhaled and took another pull on his beer. Then, he shook his head. "I dunno," he said. "I've never thought of myself as lucky. It didn't just happen that I got out of Harlan. I worked hard to get out."

"I know you did," Winona smiled at him. "But you also had help. And maybe they didn't. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Raylan looked down at his plate and unwrapped his tamales, tossing the corn husk wrappings aside on his bread plate. "I understand what you're suggestin', but I don't feel guilty about leavin' any of them behind," he said.

Getting a little frustrated, Winona answered with, "That's all I've got. If that's not it, then you tell me, why?"

Raylan shrugged his shoulders as he took a bite of the tamale. "I don't know." Then, he huffed, "I've got a week to figure it out."

After finishing her meal, long before Raylan finished his, Winona left the table to visit the Ladies' Room. A moment later, little Cait began to whimper.

"Hey, now," Raylan's attention was immediately diverted to his daughter. "What's all the fussin' about?"

His long arm reached across the table, grabbed the handle of the baby's seat carrier, and lifted it over the table and then lowered it onto the bench next to him. He noticed that the baby was drooling. Winona had mentioned that she thought Cait might be teething. Raylan then called the waitress over and asked for a shot of bourbon. While waiting for her to return, he opened the latch on the carrier, picked up Caitlyn, and lifted her up to his shoulder while giving the diaper the old smell test. Her diaper seemed fine.

"Na-na-na-na," the baby protested.

Finally the waitress arrived with the shot. After she left, Raylan dipped his index finger into the spirit and then into Cait's mouth, rubbing her gums.

"Is that a tooth?" he asked his baby girl in astonishment, as she clamped her jaw down.

She stopped fussing. He could feel a hard swelling on her lower gums. After she worked hard to gum off all the bourbon, Raylan dipped his finger down into the shot glass again, and began rubbing Cait's gums. Only this time, the baby clamped down, really hard.

"Sonofabitch!" he exclaimed.

"Raylan!" Winona chastised him, arriving back at the table, just in time to hear him curse.

Then, she held her hand out. "A dollar please," she insisted, as she took her seat. "For the Swear Jar."

"But … she bit me!" he protested. "It hurts!"

Then, suddenly, Winona's eyes became wide. "Raylan Givens, are you actually giving that baby bourbon?!"

"I rubbed a little on her gums," he explained. "And you'll notice, she's no longer fussin'. By the way, did you know her bottom tooth just broke through the gum?"

"It did?" she asked, her eyes all wide.

Winona was all about her baby's 'firsts.'

"Just now," he nodded, still in pain, "it broke through on my finger."

"See? I told you she's been teething," Winona proudly took in the confirmation that her maternal suspicions had been right, all along.

"Yeah," he nodded his head. "I'm gonna have a bruise on this finger. Her jaws are strong."

Protectively hugging her breasts with her arms, Winona said with a pained look on her face, "Tell me about it."

Winona's previous anger turned into fascination, as she carefully watched her man with their baby.

"You've got such a nice way with her, you know?" she offered with a sweet smile.

"Is that your way of apologizin' to me?" Raylan looked up and into Winona's eyes. "You didn't know that I'm'The Baby Whisperer,' now, did ya?"

He smiled, and Winona laughed, as he dipped his finger into the shot glass once more.

"Don't give her too much of that," Winona said with concern in her voice.

Raylan shook his head. "Don't need to. She's a light weight … doesn't handle her whiskey very well … not yet."

Looking over the table, Winona looked to see that Caitlyn's eyes were becoming very sleepy.

"She'll be back to sleep in no time," he said. "In fact, why don't you order some desert?"

Her appetite hand not gone unnoticed by him.

Winona smiled again. "Well, I was kind of looking at the flan."

"Knock yourself out, little momma," he smiled. "Did you eat like this when you were pregnant with her?" he asked, referring to Caitlyn.

Raylan asked because he really didn't know. He wasn't around Winona very much when she was pregnant with Cait. She wouldn't let him be around her.

"I don't think so," she answered. "But I wasn't missing meals while taking care of a baby when I was pregnant with her. I really don't eat as much as you might think I do."

"You're not sittin' on the sofa, eatin' bonbons all day while I'm hard at work?" he teased.

She laughed again. She loved Raylan when he was like this: relaxed, funny, and witty.

"Not hardly," she answered. "You've watched Cait all by yourself. You know what it takes."

By now, the baby was sound to sleep, and Raylan was able to slowly remove his finger out of her bow shaped mouth. He promptly dunked his entire throbbing digit into a nearby glass of ice water.

Looking at his bruised finger through the frosted water glass, Winona remarked, "Wow, you weren't kidding. She really did bite down hard."

"And yet, I love her, anyway," he said and smiled, the kind of a smile that went all the way to the crinkles of his eyes, "even though she bit the hand that feeds her."

"Oh, no," Winona shook her head, smiling just as big as Raylan's. "My hand is the one that feeds her. Well, not exactly my hand," she giggled, "but you know what I mean."

"Point taken," he responded, finally removing his nearly frozen finger from the glass.

And then, the picked up what was left in his shot glass, and downed the remaining bourbon, burning the back of his throat.

After Winona finished an order of flan and Raylan another shot of whiskey, Raylan drove his little family back to their house. Even though the next day was a work day for Raylan, the night was still fairly young.

Carrying the baby and her gear into the house, Raylan headed toward the bedroom and to the crib. Winona walked up behind him and growled in his ear.

"How about you put Caitlyn to bed, and I go and change into something a little more comfortable?" she purred.

"Hmmm," he pretended to be underwhelmed. "Is this another one of those horny pregnant lady propositions I hear so much about?"

Winona reached around him and slowly, skillfully began stroking around the fly of his jeans. Standing there, holding his sleeping baby, Raylan's body immediately responded to Winona's lingering touch.

"I'll be right back," she whispered, leaving him to think about her proposition, and then, she disappeared.

Needing a few minutes to compose himself, he carefully lowered Cait into her crib and changed her diaper. The sleeping babe did not wake. He then, put on one of her clean sleepers and turned on her night light. Next, he made his way to the other bathroom to wash his hands and clean up.

A little while later, he returned to the bedroom in his t-shirt and boxers, to find Winona already in bed, waiting for him. He removed his wristwatch and placed it on the night stand, and dimmed the lamp before sliding under the sheets.

"Now," he whispered, scooping Winona into his arms, "where were we?"

They fell into a kiss, as their bodies began a perfectly synchronized dance with Winona ending up on top. She slid his boxers down over his hips and carefully lowered herself, until they were one. Raylan noticed she was showing much sooner with this pregnancy, and her breasts were ripe and full.

They gazed into one another's eyes when he reached up and cupped the side of her face in his hand. Then, slowly, she began to move, grinding her hips against his. Slow motion movements continued until their breathing quickened and hearts began to race.

Winona was randy alright. It was like she couldn't get enough of her cowboy these days. Not that Raylan minded, either, but their frequent coupling made their bodies more in tune than they had ever been. She moved and she moved until her pleasure heightened and then, she could feel her herself at the brink.

"Raylan," she moaned, at the moment of her release.

In response, he deliberately held her quivering body upright by her hips. He slowed his deliberate movements until her spasms slowed to match his speed. And then, he moved until he caught the wave of her spasms and brought her to release for a second time.

"Oh, God," she gasped, leaning forward until she was holding her spent body up by her forearms.

She leaned down and kissed him deeply, as she shook and quaked again, on top of him. Then, suddenly, she could feel him moving deeper and deeper until his own, subsequent release.

Raylan held her tight. Breathing heavily, he stroked her hair.

"Winona?" he gasped.

"Yeah?" she answered, her head now on his shoulder.

"Let's get married," he panted, kissing her on the temple, "soon."

Raising herself up, she placed each of her hands along the sides of his face and stared into his eyes.

"I mean it," he said. "I don't want to wait any longer. I want us to be married."

A smile came over Winona's face.

"Okay," she nodded.

And very slowly, but surely, they began to make love, one more time.

(To be continued…)