Page 81 of Promised to the Cowboy

When we reach his room, he eases me down onto the edge of the bed and crouches in front of me. His thumbs brush lightly over my knees.

I lift my eyes to his. “I’ve turned your lives upside down.”

He reaches up and cups my face. “No.”

One word with so much certainty in it that I almost believe him.

Almost.

He brushes his thumb beneath my eye. “You didn’t bring this. It was already here.”

I want to tell him he doesn’t understand. That he doesn’t know my father. That he doesn’t know what happens to people who stand between him and what he wants.

But I’m so tired. So impossibly tired. My eyes droop.

Gabriel stands, tugs me to my feet, and quickly strips me to my underwear, pausing to run a gentle hand over our child. Then he pulls back the duvet and helps me into bed. “Sleep.”

“What about?—”

“The ranch will still be here when you wake up.”

“And my father?”

His jaw tightens. “We’ll deal with him.”

We.

The word wraps itself around my heart.

He leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead. “I’m just downstairs if you need me.”

I nod.

He waits until my eyes close before quietly letting himself out.

But I don’t sleep.

I breathe in the scent of cedar, clean cotton, and Gabriel. His scent clings to the pillow beneath my cheek, warm and familiar. For one perfect heartbeat, I let myself imagine this is what home feels like. Safe. Wanted. Loved.

A lump rises painfully in my throat. Because it can’t last.

My father was already coming for these ranches before I arrived. He poisoned their water. Burned their barn. Forged Gabriel’s name. He already knew exactly where they lived and what they stood to lose.

I didn’t bring him here.

But I’ve given him something new to use against them.

They could lose this ranch. Everything they’ve spent years building. Another family torn apart. They were already fighting a man with more money, power, and reach than any of them fully understood.

And now my father knows I’m here. He knows I’m with Gabriel. He knows about our daughter. The thought turns my blood cold.

Before today, the ranches were an obstacle between him and something he wanted. Now they’re sheltering the daughter whodefied him and the granddaughter he already speaks about as though she belongs to him.

He knows where I am. He knows whose house, whose name, whose table. I haven’t painted him a map. He already had one. I’ve marked the people who matter most.

And now he knows about the baby. My father doesn’t see a grandchild; my father has never once looked at a person as anything but leverage. And for the first time, the fear isn’t for me. It's for the small, innocent life growing inside me.

I roll carefully onto my back and rest both hands over the gentle curve of my stomach. Our daughter shifts beneath my palms. A tiny flutter. A reminder that I’m not making this decision for myself anymore.