Page 95 of Promised to the Cowboy

Evie

I wake before Gabriel.

For a while, I lie still beside him and listen to the slow rhythm of his breathing. One arm is stretched across the pillow toward me, his hand open where it fell sometime during the night. He looks less guarded when he’s sleeping. The line between his brows is gone, and the morning light softens the hard shape of his jaw.

Last night’s dinner comes back in pieces.

Ruth’s letter. Ben’s hand on Jacob’s arm. Gabriel looking down the length of the room as though he finally understood that the family around him was something he’d helped build, not something his existence had damaged.

I think about waking him.

Then our daughter rolls beneath my ribs, a slow, insistent movement that makes me press one hand over the curve of my stomach.

“All right,” I whisper. “I’m up.”

Gabriel doesn’t stir.

I slip out of bed and empty the bladder my daughter is currently using as a trampoline. Pulling on yesterday’s jeans and a shirt and cardigan, I go downstairs.

Grabbing a glass of water, I step onto the porch for a little air. This has become a ritual of sorts over the last week. I love sitting out on the porch before the world wakes, the ranch caught between night and day. Gray light over the pastures. Mist low along the fence line. I watch the darkness give way to the golden hues of dawn while I talk to our daughter.

The morning is cool enough that I pull the blanket from the back of the porch swing around myself.

A light comes on in the kitchen behind me. A moment later, the screen door opens and Maggie pokes her head out, white braid hanging over one shoulder.

“Morning, sweetheart.”

“Morning.”

“You hungry?”

“Not yet.”

She gives me a look that says she considers this a temporary and suspicious condition. “I’ll put the biscuits in anyway.”

“Of course you will.”

“Coffee?”

“Water’s fine for now.”

Maggie nods toward the blanket around me. “Don’t sit out here getting chilled.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She disappears back inside, muttering something about stubborn pregnant women and men who let them wander around before breakfast.

I smile into my glass as the screen door closes behind her.

The kitchen light glows warm behind me while Maggie moves around inside, close enough that I can hear a cupboard open and the soft clink of crockery.

I sway gently on the porch swing and breathe.

Home.

The word still feels new. Not fragile anymore. Just new.

I look up as a barn door bangs in the distance. Falcon is coming across the yard fast. Not running, but close. His usual controlled stride has sharpened, one hand lifted as soon as he sees me.