Page 22 of Promised to the Cowboy

I can’t quite picture the enormous man sleeping upstairs as a furious newborn.

Maggie’s fingers tighten around her mug. “Then they found the hole in his heart. I used to sit beside his hospital crib and pray he’d get to come home. That’s what I remember most—not the machines or the doctors. Just praying I’d get to bring that baby back to this ranch.”

She smiles through the memory.

“And when we finally did, I promised him—though he was far too little to understand—that I wouldn’t let him face the hard things alone.”

“His daddy loved his wife something fierce,” Maggie says. “Losing her near broke him. Some people drown in grief by crying. Others drown by going quiet. Jacob went quiet.”

“And Gabriel blamed himself.”

“He was a boy. He took responsibility for things he shouldn’t have, and Jacob let him.” She sighs. “I’ve tried to help him put that burden back where it belongs, but there’s only one person who can help him do that.”

“His father?”

Maggie nods.

“Where is he?”

“Denver.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Annual Cattlemen’s Convention. He drove over a couple of days ago. He’ll be back day after tomorrow.”

I look toward the window without really seeing the ranch outside. “Does Gabriel see him much?”

“Every day.” Maggie’s smile is sad. “They work the same ranch. Eat at the same table. But there’s a world of difference between seeing someone and talking to them.”

I think about my own father.

Gabriel grew up with a father who couldn’t look at him.

I grew up with one who barely lookedforme.

Different stories. Same empty place where a parent should have been.

Maybe we recognized it in each other that night in Bigfork. Not consciously. Just some battered part of us seeing the same thing and quietly thinking,there you are.

It’s a ridiculous thought.

People don’t fall into bed because their childhood wounds are compatible.

Attraction is attraction. Chemistry is chemistry. We were lonely, we wanted each other, and sometimes that’s all there is.

Still...

When he held me that night, it was with a gentleness that felt oddly familiar, like we’d both spent years learning exactly where people break.

I shake the thought away.

Too little sleep. Pregnancy hormones making me sentimental.

I’m not usually the kind of woman who believes the universe has a plan.

“I think Jacob’s carried his own guilt for thirty years,” Maggie says after a quiet moment. “Whether he finds the courage to lay it down before it’s too late... that's another question.”

“He said he’s scared,” I confess. “Gabriel, I mean. About being a father.”

Maggie nods as though she expected nothing else. “What exactly did he say?”

“He said he doesn’t have a map for this. That he knows what not to do better than he knows what to do.” I smile despite myself. “Then he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘I’m here. I’m staying. I’m in this with you.’”