Page 36 of Promised to the Cowboy

Ethan snorts into his coffee. “Welcome to the family, Evie.”

Evie laughs, shaking her head. “You’re all terrifying.”

“Efficient,” Delaney corrects.

Maggie points her wooden spoon toward Evie. “You’ll thank us when you’re not trying to button jeans that gave up on you three weeks earlier.”

“She’s right,” Jenna says cheerfully. “Don’t fight it. None of us ever wins.”

“I heard that,” Delaney says, not looking up from her notebook.

“See?” Jenna grins. “Terrifying.”

She writes it all down. Evie watches her do it, and I can almost see the shift happening. This isn’t her father wiring money and calling it love. Nobody here is trying to solve her with a checkbook. They’re offering time. Meals. Rides to appointments. The ordinary, everyday work of showing up. She hasn’t quite relaxed into it yet, but I think she’s beginning to believe that accepting help here doesn’t put her in anyone’s debt.

I stand in my kitchen and watch my family fold this woman into themselves like she’s always been here, and I feel something I have genuinely never felt in this house.

Peace.

Then, slowly...

Pride.

My whole life, I’ve stood at the edge of this family’s warmth like a man at a fence, watching the herd, sure I was the one who got let in by mistake. Watching everyone else belong.

And right now, I’m not watching from the fence.

I’m the reason this incredible woman is sitting at my mother’s—at Caroline’s—table, getting folded into the family like she’s always belonged here.

She didn’t have to drive to Montana.

She didn’t have to trust me.

She didn’t have to stand beside me and tell my family about our daughter.

But she did.

And for the first time in forever, I don’t feel like the problem in the room.

Somewhere upstairs, tucked safely into the top drawer of my dresser, is a grainy black-and-white photograph of a little girl with my heart already wrapped around her finger.

I’m gonna be her dad.

For the first time in my life...

I think I might be enough.

Chapter 11

Gabriel

A week later, we drive to Billings for the specialist appointment.

Maggie and Delaney won the battle over maternity clothes.

Evie still muttered about being railroaded all the way around the stores, but she’s wearing one of the outfits today—a soft blue top and jeans that don’t make her wince every time she climbs into the truck.

She catches me looking. “What?”