28. Jack
Chapter twenty-eight
Jack
T he horses were supposed to be on a set with me right now, but I decided to give them a day off. They played hard yesterday, and each horse performed exactly how I wanted. They deserved it.
After bringing them into their stalls and feeding them, I found myself enjoying the simplicity of their presence more than usual.
Maybe it was because the last twenty-four hours had been a complete whirlwind, but I just wanted to breathe in the Wyoming air and clear my head.
Life was changing so quickly, and it should have thrown me off or freaked me out.
It should have given me the anxiety that I struggled with for my entire life.
It should have made me want to run away from every problem and responsibility I dealt with and pretend the last five months had never happened, but it didn’t.
I hated to admit it, but the reason was more than just Maggie and the baby.
Yes, moving across the country after finding out we were pregnant might have sounded like a crazy idea that only two kids in their twenties could pull off without regret, but it was the best decision I had ever made.
Pennsylvania was my past. It was the place my well-intentioned father picked apart every part of my being, the place my mother decided a husband and son weren’t enough to make her stick around, the place I slept my way through to keep my anxiety at bay.
I couldn’t change living in the place that broke me.
The best part about this place was the souvenir I brought with me—the best person in my life.
The woman carrying our future in her body and my heart in her hands.
I didn’t know when I became such a family man, but I was committed to staying with and providing for my family without question.
I hadn’t had an anxiety attack since the night Maggie rushed into my room to comfort me.
At first, I wasn’t sure if it was because I was terrified of someone seeing me like that again or if she was slowly healing me with her nearness, but after realizing how deeply I was falling for her, it was pointless to believe anything but the latter.
This place was my future. It was where I was proving I could be a different person than in Pennsylvania.
Before I grew up. Before I knew Maggie. Before I became a father.
There was no way in hell I would run away from what I had now, not after how lucky I had become.
I didn’t deserve the family I had acquired, but I was going to hold onto Maggie and our little fruit as tight as I could until my arms gave out.
They deserved my everything because they were my everything.
A voice extracted me from my thoughts as I scratched Finn’s forehead.
“Am I interrupting?” I looked up to find Richard Rynne standing at the barn doorway, inspecting the stalls and the horses inside them.
He was dressed now, in a black button-down and blue jeans, and looked much less hungover than he did earlier this morning.
“No,” I shook my head. “Just feeding the horses.”
“It’s peaceful, isn’t it? Just watching them?” He stepped further into the barn to pet Brandy, my only buckskin horse. “This one’s beautiful.”
“That’s Brandy. She’s a beast on the field.”
“Yeah, I saw the goal you made on her yesterday. That was a nice game.” He seemed genuine, so maybe he had the same intentions as I did.
“Thank you. We had a nice team out there.” My accent slipped out, which made Richard give me a funny look. One of his graying brows raised.
“Can I ask why you hide that accent? Drives me crazy that you pretend you don’t have it.” He shook his head and chuckled, making me feel slightly patronized.
I shrugged. “I never really embraced my German the way my parents wanted. I decided I’d be the American kid, and it just stuck.”
“Well, it sure doesn’t stick very well. Why don’t you just pick one?”
He had a point. I had been at war with myself for a long time over who I really wanted to be. Wyoming had been a good reset for that.
“You want to go for a ride?”
I fully expected Richard to say no to my proposition, but maybe I could get to know my father-in-law and gain some insight.
He nodded and reached to rub Brandy’s neck. “I’ll take the beast.”
Fifteen minutes later, Richard had Brandy tacked up, and I was mounting Barcado.
I hadn’t gotten much of a chance to explore the trails around the club—I was honestly waiting until Maggie could ride again so we could discover them together—so I took us to the route I was most familiar with.
Maggie was ecstatic when I messaged her that we were leaving for a trail ride and told me to stay out until sundown.
I laughed at her message and felt a new wave of warmth over my body at her reaction.
“So, look. I want to apologize to you personally about how I acted last night.” Richard looked at me pleadingly as we began the walk down the driveway. Barcado snorted and nodded his head up and down as if he were demonstrating how I should respond.
“Thank you. It was hard for Maggie to see that last night, but this morning was a good start in making up for it.” Sure, he still wouldn’t be my favorite person of all time, and I was pissed at him for hurting Maggie the way he did, but his incentive to actually do something about his problem earned him the slightest more respect.
“I really do want to do better. This kid might be a second chance for all of us.”
His words held more truth than he realized.
The baby Maggie was carrying may as well have saved Richard and me in the best way.
Maybe we were more alike than I thought.
“I thought the same thing when Maggie told me she was pregnant. It wasn’t an easy adjustment for anyone, but I can understand how easy it can be to turn to alcohol. ”
Richard nodded as Brandy snorted at a fly on her nose.
“Well, I’ve got to say, the way you tried to diffuse the situation last night instead of punching the life out of me is also much appreciated. And I’m sorry about the…” He gestured to the cut on my face from the glass bottle smashed against it the night before.
“Let’s just put it behind us.” A beat passed before I could speak again.
Was it possible that I could bond with the man I had hated all my life?
Then again, I did fall in love with his daughter after growing apart from her for years—the woman I would ultimately do anything for.
“I really do care for your daughter. This baby she’s carrying—and Maggie herself—has changed me for the better in a lot of ways.
I’ve grown more in the past five months than I have in my twenty-three years of life. ”
“I can see that. As soon as I shook your hand yesterday, I knew you had changed. That’s part of why I was so cold towards you—you’d changed, and I hadn’t.
Well, that, and the fact that you got my daughter pregnant, and neither of you told me about it.
I think highly of you, Hennicke. Not only did you drop everything in Pennsylvania for my daughter, but you’ve provided a beautiful life for her out here. ”
His praise meant more than I expected it to mean.
I found myself feeling prideful at his words.
At what I had accomplished here. At the life that I had built for myself and Maggie.
If someone told me a year ago that I would be living with a woman I was not only committed to, but loved , was preparing for a baby, hadn’t had a drink of alcohol or an anxiety attack in months, I wouldn’t have believed them for a second.
“Thank you, Richard.”
Dare I say, the rest of our ride was enjoyable. Silent moments followed peaceful small talk and compliments of the beautiful scenery around us. Maybe I could form a relationship with my wife's father.
Maybe we could be a family. Together. Happy.