Page 119 of Roped

“No need, remember? You do all the talkin’ yourself.”

I poke him in the ribs again. “You’re mean.”

I both hear and feel his smile. Then, his hand moving over my belly, “Poppy if it’s a girl and West if it’s a boy.”

I go still. “What?”

“Names.”

No, I got that. It’s because we don’t know what we’re having because I want to keep it a surprise. Radisson thinks it’s nuts, but he’s going along with it because he wants me happy. In any case, we haven’t talked about names yet because I didn’t know how to bring it up. Not because he’d be upset or anything but because of the particular names I’d picked out for our baby.

“I thought,” I begin, looking back at him, “we’d name the baby Willa or Clive. After your parents.”

His eyes open and he looks deep into mine as he says, “No. Our kid gets her own name. The one we choose. Out of love, not out of what happened in the past. She could still know who her grandparents were, but they won’t follow her around like a dark shadow.”

See? We are leaving our past behind. We are building a life together, despite everything that’s happened between us and to us.

“How do you know it’s a girl?” I ask.

His lips pull up in a smile as he tugs me even closer. “’Cause I’d like another princess.”

I smile. “What if I want a cowboy?”

Something bright flashes through his eyes. “Then I reckon we’re gonna have to make another one.”

I shake my head at him. “I love you.”

He threads our fingers together on my stomach. “I love you too.”

Then, much like eight months ago when the Princess kissed her Phantom on a ranch miles and miles away, she falls asleep beside him in their bed on their ranch, dreaming of little cowboys with green eyes and little princesses with blue dresses. Safe from every nightmare out there and every danger. Because she knows her Phantom will slay all the monsters, just like she’ll slay all the monsters for him.

Because we’re fate, he and I, and together, we can conquer anything.