Chapter Ten #2
“I’m scared,” I admitted, the words barely above a whisper. “Not of Burke’s reaction. Of... everything else. Of being responsible for another person when I can barely take care of myself. Of Dennis finding out and—“ I stopped, unable to finish the thought.
Carter’s face softened. “That’s why you’ve got us,” he said. “All of us. You’re not in this alone, Danny. Not anymore.”
Something tight in my chest loosened, just a little. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
We talked for a few more minutes about morning sickness remedies—ginger tea, apparently—about prenatal vitamins, about the doctor in town who wouldn’t ask too many questions.
By the time we were done, the knot in my stomach had eased from a fist to something I could almost breathe around.
As our conversation wound down, Carter stood, gathering his notes into a neat stack. “I should get these to Macon,” he said. “He’ll want to start on the security upgrades right away.”
I rose too, suddenly aware of how long I’d been keeping him. “Thanks for... you know. Listening. And not freaking out.”
He smiled, warm and genuine. “Any time. That’s what family’s for, right?”
The word—family—hung in the air between us. For a second, I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat. Then Carter was there, one hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently.
“Go tell Burke,” he said. “He’s been looking for you all morning.”
I nodded, grateful beyond words. As I turned to leave, Carter was already reaching for the phone, his notes spread out in front of him. I paused in the doorway, watching as he dialed, his free hand tapping a rhythm on the desk.
“Macon? It’s me. We need to talk about the security system...” His voice dropped, too low for me to catch the rest, but I didn’t need to hear it. The set of his shoulders, the focused intensity in his voice—it was enough to know he was already moving heaven and earth to keep us safe.
Me. And maybe, just maybe, the tiny life growing inside me.
I stepped into the hallway and walked through the house to the front porch, closing the door softly behind me. For a long moment, I just stood there, hand pressed to my still-flat stomach, listening to the muffled sounds of Carter’s voice through the wood.
He was calling in reinforcements. Planning defenses. Making sure that no matter what happened tomorrow—no matter what the judge decided, no matter what Dennis tried—I would be protected. Not because he had to, but because I was family.
The thought made my chest ache in the best possible way.
I took a deep breath, steadying myself against the wall.
The morning sickness had faded to a dull background hum, manageable if I didn’t think about it too hard.
My hands had stopped shaking. And somewhere, beneath the fear and the uncertainty and the sheer overwhelming weirdness of it all, a tiny spark of hope had taken root.
Maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.
It always amazed me that it was a five mile drive to take a vehicle to Carter’s farmhouse, but a ten minute walk across some pasture. I still hadn’t figured out why they didn’t put a road in directly between the two places.
I walked back across the ranch yard a few minutes later, gravel crunching under my boots. The late afternoon sun warmed my face, chasing away the last of the morning’s chill.
From somewhere behind the barn, I could hear Rawley’s voice—loud, commanding, probably ordering Macon to move something too heavy for one person. Normal ranch sounds. The kind of noises that had become the backdrop to my days, familiar in a way I never thought they would be.
The path to the house took me past the vegetable garden, where Jojo was bent over a row of seedlings, his hair tied back with a bandana. He waved when he saw me, face breaking into a smile that made my chest tight.
I waved back, not stopping, afraid that if I did, I’d blurt out everything—the pregnancy, the fear, the impossible hope—and never make it to Burke.
My hand drifted to my stomach, a gesture that was becoming habit. There was nothing to feel yet—no bump, no flutter, nothing but the same flat plane of my abdomen. But knowing what might be there, growing cell by cell, made my skin prickle with a weird mix of terror and wonder.
A baby. Burke’s baby. The thought still made my head spin.
I’d spent so long just trying to survive—to get through each day without breaking, to save enough money to escape, to keep my head down and my mouth shut when Dennis was on a rampage.
The idea of bringing a new life into that chaos had never occurred to me.
It had seemed impossible, like planning a vacation to the moon.
But now...
Now I had Burke. And the ranch. And Carter, with his matter-of-fact kindness and his own secret growing beneath his heart. I had people who would stand between me and danger without being asked. People who would tear down walls and build new ones, just to keep me safe.
People who called me family.
The word still felt strange in my mouth, like a language I was learning but hadn’t quite mastered. But Carter had said it without hesitation, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like I belonged here, with them.
A small smile formed on my lips, despite everything—despite Dennis, despite the bail hearing tomorrow, despite the fear that still lived in the hollow of my throat.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t facing my problems alone.
I had Burke, and now, this tiny spark of new life connecting us forever.
The gravel path gave way to packed dirt as I approached the house.
From the open window of the kitchen, I could smell bread baking—Jojo’s sourdough, probably, the one he’d been perfecting for weeks.
The scent should have made my stomach turn, given the morning sickness, but instead, it settled something in me, a hunger that had nothing to do with food.
Burke was in there somewhere. I could feel it in the way the air seemed to charge when he was near, in the little prickle at the base of my spine that always told me when he entered a room.
He’d be working on something—fixing the sink or rewiring the porch light or just generally making himself useful in that restless way of his. Always moving, always doing, like he was afraid that if he stopped, the world might stop with him.
I needed to tell him. Today, before I lost my nerve. Before the bail hearing tomorrow sent everything spinning off course again.
But how? Hey Burke, remember that night? Well, it might have had consequences? Or maybe the direct approach: I’m pregnant, it’s yours, please don’t freak out?
Neither one seemed right. Nothing did. How did you tell someone that their life was about to change forever? That the careful plans they’d made—the ranch, the future, the slow, steady building of something that might last—were about to get blown up and rebuilt around a tiny, wailing stranger?
I paused at the bottom of the porch steps, hand on the rail.
From here, I could see almost the whole property—the barn with its peeling red paint, the fields stretching toward the tree line, the distant shape of the mountains against the sky.
It wasn’t much, as ranches went. Nothing like the spread Rawley had grown up on, with its thousands of acres and generations of history.
But it was solid. Real. A place where things could grow, if you gave them half a chance.
Like me. Like us. Like the tiny cluster of cells that might, someday soon, be a person with Burke’s eyes and my stubbornness, or my smile and his ridiculous sense of humor.
The thought should have terrified me. And it did, a little—a cold finger of fear tracing my spine at the thought of responsibility, of failure, of all the ways I could mess this up.
But underneath that, stronger than I would have believed possible, was a sense of rightness.
Of pieces falling into place. Of a door opening onto a future I’d never dared imagine.
I climbed the steps slowly, each one bringing me closer to Burke, to the conversation we needed to have.
The wood creaked under my weight, familiar now where once it had made me jump.
The screen door squeaked on its hinges as I pulled it open, then slapped shut behind me with a sound like punctuation.
The house was quiet—no TV, no radio, just the soft tick of the clock in the hall and the distant hum of the refrigerator.
I stood in the entryway, suddenly unsure.
Burke could be anywhere—the basement, the attic, out back with the tool shed door propped open, music blaring too loud for anyone to hear me call.
But something pulled me forward, down the hall toward the living room. My feet knew where to go, even when my brain was still catching up.
I paused outside the door, hand on the frame.
Took a deep breath, feeling it fill my lungs all the way to the bottom.
For the first time since that wave of nausea had hit me three days ago, my stomach stayed quiet.
No churning, no flipping, just a steady, certain warmth spreading from my center outward.
I was scared. Of course I was. Scared of Dennis, scared of the hearing, scared of being responsible for a life when I was still figuring out my own. But I was also, impossibly, hopefully alive with a feeling I hadn’t had since I was too young to know better.
The kind of hope that didn’t wait for permission. The kind that grew in the dark places, stubborn and sure, until one day it broke through into the light.
I stepped into the doorway, and there he was—Burke, stretched out on the couch with a magazine open on his chest, one arm thrown over his eyes like he’d been dozing.
He wasn’t asleep, though. I could tell by the way his breath caught when I entered, by the slight tensing of his shoulders that said he was aware of me even with his eyes closed.
“Hey,” he said, not moving his arm. “Where’ve you been all day? I’ve been looking everywhere.”
I crossed to the couch, each step feeling like it was happening in slow motion. My heart hammered against my ribs, but for once, the sensation wasn’t fear. It was anticipation. Certainty. The knowledge that whatever happened next, I wouldn’t face it alone.
“I was talking to Carter,” I said, perching on the edge of the cushion. “About... something important.”
Burke lowered his arm, green eyes finding mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. “Yeah? What about?”
I reached for his hand, twining our fingers together. His palm was warm, callused in all the places mine was soft. A perfect fit, like we’d been made to slot together.
“I think,” I said, voice steady despite the hammering in my chest, “that we need to talk about the future. Our future. All three of us.”
His eyebrows drew together, confused. “Three?”
I placed his hand on my stomach, flat for now but someday, maybe, not. “You, me,” I said, watching understanding dawn in his eyes, “and whoever’s in here.”
For a long moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even breathe, as far as I could tell. Then his face did something complicated—surprise, wonder, fear, joy, all of them chasing each other across his features too fast to track.
“Danny,” he whispered, and my name in his mouth was the best sound I’d ever heard. “Are you...?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
He was moving then, surging up from the couch to pull me into his arms. His hug was careful, gentle—always gentle now, after the bruises—but I could feel the emotion in it, the barely contained joy vibrating through every line of his body.
“We’re having a baby,” he said against my hair, voice rough with feeling. “Holy shit, we’re having a baby.”
I laughed, the sound shaky with relief. “We’re having a baby,” I agreed, and it was the truest thing I‘d ever said.
He pulled back just enough to look at me, eyes bright with unshed tears. “I love you,” he said, simple and sure. “Both of you. So much it hurts.”
And there it was—the fear, the hope, the impossible rightness of it all, crystallized into a moment I would remember forever.
Me and Burke, on a battered couch in a ranch house that wasn’t much to look at but felt, somehow, like coming home.
His hand on my stomach, my heart in his eyes, and between us, the beginning of everything.
“I love you too,” I said, and leaned in to kiss him, pouring eight weeks of terror and wonder and bone-deep certainty into the press of my lips against his.
Outside, the sun was setting, painting the world in gold and amber. Tomorrow would bring its own challenges—Dennis, the hearing, the long road ahead. But for now, in this moment, with Burke’s arms around me and the future stretching bright before us, I finally understood what it meant to be safe.
To be seen.
To be, against all odds, exactly where I was meant to be.