EPILOGUE
Amber
Three Years Later… February thirteenth
I woke up to a sharp pain in my lower back and Dalton’s arm wrapped protectively around my very swollen belly.
“You okay?” he murmured, still half-asleep.
“Fine. Just uncomfortable.” I shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t make me feel like a beached whale. “This baby needs to come out soon.”
“Doc said you’ve still got a week.”
“Doc doesn’t have a human being sitting on her bladder.”
He chuckled and pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “Do you feel like eating this morning?”
“Yes, please,” I smiled. Dalton still got up and made breakfast every morning before he started work. Now, he made it for me, Cade, my mother and my aunt when she visited. And soon for our baby.
“I’ll bring it up.” He got out of bed and pulled on jeans, then looked back at me. His gaze softened the way it always did when he looked at my belly. At our baby.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too. Now go feed me before I eat the pillows.”
He left, laughing.
I lay there, one hand on my stomach, feeling the baby move. We didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl. Dalton had said he didn’t care as long as the baby was healthy. I knew boy or girl, they’d be wearing cowboy boots before they could walk.
Another pain hit. Sharper this time.
I breathed through it and told myself it was nothing. Braxton Hicks. False labor. The baby wasn’t due until the twenty-first.
But when Dalton came back with breakfast twenty minutes later, I was having another contraction.
He took one look at my face and set the tray down. “How far apart?”
“I don’t know. Maybe—” I gasped as another one hit. “Maybe ten minutes?”
“We’re going to the hospital.”
“Dalton, it’s probably false labor.”
“We’re going.” He was already pulling out his phone. “I’m calling Cade to let him know. And your mom.”
“It’s too early—”
“Amber.” He sat on the bed and took my hand. “I’m not taking chances. Not with you. Not with our baby.”
I saw the fear in his eyes. The same fear that had been there since I’d told him I was pregnant. Fear that something would go wrong. That he’d lose me. That he’d lose this.
“Okay,” I said softly. “We’ll go.”
He kissed my forehead. “Good. Now let’s get you dressed.”
By the time we got to the hospital, the contractions were five minutes apart.
The nurse checked me and smiled. “You’re at six centimeters. This baby’s coming today.”
“Today?” I looked at Dalton. “But I’ve got another week to go.”
Another contraction hit. Hard. I gripped Dalton’s hand and tried to breathe through it.
“You’re doing great,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
The hours blurred together. Pain and pressure and Dalton’s steady presence beside me. He never left. Never let go of my hand. Never stopped telling me I could do this.
At five minutes to midnight, the doctor told me to push.
At three minutes after midnight, our daughter was born.
She came into the world screaming—healthy and angry and absolutely perfect.
The nurse placed her on my chest, and I looked down at this tiny person we’d made. Dark hair. Dalton’s nose. My mouth.
“She’s beautiful,” I whispered.
I looked up at Dalton. He was staring at our daughter like she was a miracle
“Dalton?” I reached for his hand.
“Valentine’s Day,” he said, voice breaking. His eyes met mine, and I saw everything in them—wonder, disbelief, and something that looked like healing. “She was born on Valentine’s Day.”
The significance of it hit me all at once. The day he’d circled in red on his calendar. The day he’d wanted to forget ever existed. The day he’d sworn off love.
Now it was the day his daughter was born.
I laughed, then gasped when it hurt. “Of course she was.”
“I used to hate this day,” he whispered. “I couldn’t even look at a calendar in February. And now—”
“Now it’s yours,” I finished. “Ours.”
“Now it’s everything.” He touched our daughter’s tiny hand with one finger. She gripped it immediately, and he made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. “Hi, baby girl. I’m your dad. And you just turned my worst day into my best day.”
The nurse took her to clean her up and check her over, and Dalton sat beside me on the bed. Held my hand. Pressed his forehead to mine.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For her. For you. For taking a day I used to hate and making it the best day of my life. Twice.” His voice cracked.
“Before, I would have done anything to erase Valentine’s Day from existence.
Now I’ll get to celebrate it every year for the rest of my life.
Birthday parties and cake and watching her blow out candles.
Every February fourteenth, I get to remember not what I lost, but what I gained. ”
I cupped his face in my hands. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” He kissed me. Soft. Gentle. Full of everything we’d built together. “Both of you.”
“What are we naming her?” We’d had a list and had narrowed it down to three. But looking at her now, only one felt right.
“Hope,” I said. “Her name is Hope.”
“Hope Valentine King,” Dalton said. His voice was steady now, proud. No hesitation. No shadow of the past. Just pure joy. “I hated this day. Hated everything it stood for.”
“And now?”
“Now I’ll count down to it every year. You turned my hell into heaven, Amber.”
I thought about how much had changed in three years. I’d come to the King Ranch to do a job, instead, I’d found a home. A family. A love I never thought I’d have.
I realized sometimes the best love stories aren’t the ones that are easy.
They’re the ones worth fighting for.
The ones that start with fear and end with hope.
The ones that turn the worst day into the best day.
And the ones that prove love is always worth the risk.