Page 28 of Promised to the Cowboy
“We’re having a daughter,” I whisper.
He smiles without taking his eyes off the picture. “We are.”
The words settle quietly between us.
“I’ve been calling her ‘the baby’ for months. But she isn’t anymore.”
“No.” He looks over at me. “She’s our daughter.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Our daughter.”
His thumb traces absent circles over the steering wheel. “When the tech asked whether we wanted to know...” He pauses. “I realized I was hoping.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. I think...” He shakes his head. “Maybe I thought it’d be easier if it was a girl. Then I hated myself for thinking that.”
“Why?”
“Because if it was a boy...” He smiles sadly. “He still would’ve been mine to love.”
The tears come before I can stop them. “Oh, Gabriel.”
He looks back at the photograph. “I’d spend the rest of my life making sure he never wondered whether his father loved him.I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure our little girl never wonders that either.”
I reach across the console and take his hand. “We both will, Gabriel. One thing I know for sure is that our child will never lack love.”
“Hearing her heartbeat was…” He shakes his head, searching for the word.
“Incredible,” I murmur.
He nods. “I thought it’d sound... I don’t know.”
“Different?”
“Yeah.”
He finally looks at me. “I wanted to keep listening. Make sure it didn’t stop.”
My throat tightens. “It didn’t. It won’t.”
“I know.” He looks back at the little printout. “I’ve spent my whole life with doctors listening to mine. I’ve never imagined how incredible it would be to listen to my child’s.”
I swallow hard. “Me neither.”
He starts the truck then, and we drive back to the ranch, our fingers laced on his thigh, the little printout the tech gave us tucked in the visor where we can both see it.
Neither of us says much.
We don’t have to.
Every now and then, I catch him glancing up at the grainy, black-and-white picture as though he’s checking it’s still there.
I do the same.
The ranch looks the same when we get back. It’s strange how ordinary the world can look after hearing your child’s heartbeat. Horses in the south pasture. Chickens wandering far too close to Maggie’s vegetable patch. Captain Winky hanging his head over the fence, hoping someone might have forgotten to feed him.
Gabriel kills the engine, but neither of us reaches for the door.
