Chapter Six
~ Carter ~
I woke to the kind of stillness that didn’t exist in Manhattan.
It was so quiet you could hear the ancient farmhouse settling, the faint groan of timbers shifting in the walls, the huff of wind against the windowpane.
My arm flailed across the sheets, grasping for Macon’s body, and hit nothing but cool cotton and the soft indentation where his hip should have been.
For half a second, my heart hammered—same old story, Carter wakes up alone—but then I remembered last night: his hands, his voice, and the marriage license tucked into the top drawer of the bedside table, the silver band still biting the skin of my finger.
I blinked into the grainy pre-dawn, the bedroom stripped of all color by the hour. My hand went to my stomach, automatic, and I smoothed the curve just above my navel.
I was four months in, and every morning it seemed bigger, more undeniable. The baby—our baby—felt like a second heartbeat beneath my palm, a small, stubborn insistence that the future was a real thing and not just something you lost sleep over.
I rolled onto my back and looked at the ceiling, counting the knotholes in the wood until my pulse settled. No panic, no leftover dreams. Just a stretch of quiet so wide I felt like I could disappear into it and be okay.
Macon’s side of the bed was a disaster zone, the blanket twisted up and half-slung to the floor. There was a slip of paper on the pillow, folded in half. I squinted at it, then propped myself up on one elbow to read: Gone to fix a fence line before the rain. Back soon. Eat something. —M
It was the most Macon note ever—no hearts, no punctuation, just the facts. The pen had dug so deep into the paper I could feel the impression on the other side. I held it for a minute, then tucked it under the edge of the lamp, where it wouldn’t get lost.
The lamp was one of the only things I’d brought from my old apartment, a hunk of frosted glass shaped like a bad souvenir, but I liked the way it glowed.
I sat up, the bedsprings groaning under my weight, and let the flannel shirt fall open over my shoulders.
It was Macon’s—smelled like him, too, that mix of cedar, sweat, and whatever soap Jojo stocked the bathrooms with.
I pulled the shirt tighter around myself, then pushed off the blankets and padded across the cold floor to the window.
The sun wasn’t up yet, but the sky had started to go from pitch to a dirty pink along the horizon. The fields were thick with fog, rolling off the river and pooling in the low spots, so the whole world looked like it was dissolving.
In the distance, the goats wandered near the fence, little blips of white and brown, and further out, the barn roof caught a smudge of light from the east.
I pressed my forehead to the glass, fingers splayed to catch the cold, and tried to imagine what it would have been like to wake up to this as a kid.
No traffic. No garbage trucks screeching under your window.
No angry neighbors. Just the hiss of wind and the soft shuffle of animals and, if you listened close, the low hum of a diesel pickup turning over somewhere on the property.
This was my life now. Four months pregnant, married to a man who could build a house with his bare hands, living on a farm run by my brother and his own very pregnant omega.
My entire wardrobe now consisted of three pairs of borrowed jeans, two hoodies, and whatever shirts Macon would forget to wear.
The only things I missed about Texas were the food delivery apps and the ability to walk to the corner store for a midnight ice cream run. Out here, you planned for cravings the way you planned for blizzards—by stockpiling and praying the roads wouldn’t ice over.
I touched my belly again, thumb tracing the line of my navel. The skin was taut, a little itchy, but otherwise the whole thing was a non-event. No morning sickness, no cravings beyond the usual carbs, just an expanding sense of unreality.
Sometimes I’d catch myself in the mirror and not recognize the man staring back: hair grown out and wild, a hint of stubble because who was I trying to impress, and this new, softer version of my body, more roundness than angles.
I let my mind drift back to last night—the dinner, the jokes, the pie at the diner, the way Macon had picked me up and carried me into the bedroom like a scene from a movie.
The way he’d made love to me, slow and deliberate, like every touch was a new promise.
I remembered the sound he made when I wrapped my legs around him, the way he said “mine” against my skin, the way his hands never strayed far from my stomach, like he was already protecting what we’d made.
My chest went hot at the memory, then cold, then hot again. I pressed my fingertips to the window until the numbness crept up my arms.
“Get a grip,” I whispered, but there was no edge to it. Just wonder.
Below, the goats started their morning chorus, a racket of bleats and complaints as Jojo opened the barn doors. I watched him for a minute, a small, sturdy figure in an oversized sweatshirt and rubber boots, moving through the herd with a calm that was almost hypnotic.
He paused to pet one of the kids, who head-butted him in the shins with all the menace of a marshmallow.
He laughed, the sound echoing up to the window, and for a second I was jealous—not of the goats, but of his ease with the world.
I’d spent most of my life pretending not to care, and he just did.
I watched as Jojo hauled a small bale of hay across the yard, his hair pulled back in a loose knot, face flushed pink from the cold.
I could see now why Rawley adored him, why even Burke and Jackson had gone soft in his presence.
There was a gravity to Jojo, like he was the sun and everyone else just orbited around him.
I wondered if I’d ever be that kind of person, or if my role would always be the satellite, never the center.
A crow landed on the fencepost just outside the window, tilting its head at me like it was in on some private joke. Its feathers gleamed blue-black in the rising light, and I stared at it until it hopped once, then took off in a whirl of noise and motion.
The sky was lighter now, the pink bleeding up to orange and then to gold, the clouds backlit in a way that made everything feel cinematic. I leaned my forehead against the glass and closed my eyes, breathing in the stillness.
For the first time in months, I didn’t feel like a ghost.
I peeled myself away from the window and shuffled back to the bed, dragging the edge of the comforter over my shoulders.
I sat on the mattress, knees drawn up, and looked at the note again.
The words were spare but solid, a promise in every letter.
I pressed the paper to my lips, then tucked it back under the lamp.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand, but stopped. I didn’t want the news. I didn’t want the emails. I just wanted this—this room, this morning, this ridiculous borrowed flannel that made my skin smell like home.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach, squeezed once, and let myself smile. Maybe I could do this. Maybe I could be the kind of man who woke up alone and didn’t spiral, who watched the sunrise and saw a future in it. Maybe I could be enough, for Macon, for the baby, for myself.
The thought was terrifying. But it also felt a lot like hope.
I buried my face in the pillow that still smelled like him and let myself drift, the dawn creeping across my skin, warming me from the outside in.
* * * *
I made it to the barn before the coffee machine had finished hissing.
Montana mornings always seemed to move at double speed—five minutes of sky, and the whole world was awake.
I trudged through the dew, boots leaving dark bruises in the grass, and let the chill bite at my ankles where the cuffs rode up.
Rawley’s barn was just as I remembered it: red siding faded to the color of dried blood, loft windows bleary with years of wind, the whole building leaning slightly east, like it wanted to get a better look at the river before it gave up and fell over.
Inside, the air was syrupy with the scent of animals and old straw.
The goats had already started their morning insurrection, butting the metal gate and hollering for anyone with opposable thumbs to liberate them.
Beyoncé was ringleader as always, balancing on the salt block and glaring at me with the contempt of a dethroned queen.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re starving,” I muttered, popping the latch.
The goats surged forward, a tidal wave of fur and sharp knees.
Panic and Disorder, the two most antisocial of the herd, elbowed their way to the front and tried to climb my legs.
I set a scoop of feed in the trough, then another, and let the animals swarm me.
It was impossible not to smile around them.
Even in the city, I’d always preferred the company of things that didn’t demand explanations.
The goats wanted two things: food and a good head scratch.
Sometimes both at once. They nuzzled my hands, lips tickling the skin, and I let myself forget everything else—the emails, the family, the ghosts of arguments still hanging in the kitchen.
I worked my way through the stalls, refilling water buckets and tossing hay into the racks. Every time I bent down, my belly pressed against my thighs, a constant reminder that I was, in fact, growing a person and not just faking it for attention.
At least the goats didn’t care. If anything, they seemed more attached than ever, crowding around me, nipping at my sleeves, taking turns head-butting my shins in solidarity.
I was elbow-deep in the mineral bin when I heard footsteps at the barn door, soft and deliberate.
Jojo.