25. Chapter 25
Tana
By the time we get Sable loaded, my lower back is already barking and the baby has decided tonight is a fine time to start treating my ribs like a fence line worth testing.
I keep one hand braced on the trailer wall and breathe through it while Sable remains unsettled, but still with us.
The emergency lights from Wade’s truck wash the yard in red pulses that make everything feel sharper than it should …
Cassie’s braid stuck dark against her jacket, Rebel’s blue shirt pulled tight across his shoulders as he checks the partition one last time.
"You need to sit down," Rebel says quietly.
"I need the route copy in your hand and Eli off that left hinge unless he wants it kicked into next week," I say.
His mouth twitches once, and then he turns and does exactly that.
The fact that he doesn’t argue lands like one less thing pulling at me when I can’t spare the strength for another.
Sable throws her weight once against the divider and then settles, breathing hard. Doc is already in the passenger seat of the transport truck with his kit open across his knees.
I step back from the trailer and the next pain catches low and hard enough to stop me clean. It isn’t my back. My hand goes to my stomach before I can hide it, and I notice Rebel looking my way. He’s across the yard and in front of me before anyone else has even turned.
"Tana."
The way he says my name cuts through the yard noise so clean it feels like everything else drops back a step.
I breathe once, shallow. Then again, slower, trying to sort horse ...stress, exhaustion, and the unmistakable tightening banding through my middle into something I can name without inviting chaos too early.
Another contraction rolls through, this one clean enough to strip every useful lie off the moment.
I look up at him with one hand still spread low over my belly and say, "We may have two emergencies."
For one suspended second, nobody moves.
Then the whole yard seems to split neatly in two around the facts of my body and the fact of the mare in the trailer.
Rebel’s hand comes to my elbow, light and steady, there to brace me without trying to take the decision away. "How far apart?" he asks.
"Too soon to know," I say, though we both hear the weakness in it.
Doc is already down from the truck by then, moving fast enough that the door hasn’t finished shutting. He looks from me to Rebel to the loaded trailer and doesn’t waste a second pretending this is going to stay simple.
"We can’t handle the mare and Tana's situations at the same time," he says.
"No kidding," Cassie mutters.
Another tightening starts low and works forward, slower this time, but broad enough that I have to grip Rebel’s forearm to stay inside it without folding. He turns his arm under my hand so I can hold harder without apologizing for it. That, more than anything, is what makes me lift my eyes to his.
He's frightened. I can see it plain, but he's not making his fear my problem.
"Tell me what you need first," he says.
The contraction eases enough for me to breathe. I look at the trailer, at Doc waiting, and at Wade already braced for whichever order lands first.
The old me would have split in two trying to save everything at once.
"Sable needs to go," I say. "Doc can ride with her. Cassie can drive."
Rebel's hand closes around mine, warm and exact, and he says to Wade without taking his eyes off me, "You’re with them. I’m taking Tana in."
The yard explodes into motion around us, but Rebel stays calm, and the steadiness of him gives me something to brace against when the next wave tries to fold me in half.
"Look at me," he says. "Breathe all the way out first," he says. "Then again. Take it slow."
I let the breath go in pieces, jaw tight, and he waits me through it without filling the space with panic. When the contraction loosens, he brushes his thumb once over my knuckles and says, "Can you walk to the truck, or do you want me to carry you?"
The question is so matter-of-fact it nearly undoes me.
"Walk," I say.
He matches his pace to mine as we move across the yard, hand firm at my back, body angled to catch me if my legs decide they’ve done enough for one night. At the passenger door he opens it, takes my elbow, and waits until I find the right angle to get in around my belly.
By the time we hit the county road, Sable is ahead of us and my body has stopped pretending this might be a false alarm.
Rebel drives one-handed, the other hand braced over mine where it grips the door pull hard enough to hurt later.
The cab smells like wet denim, leather, and the sharp clean bite of the peppermint he shoved at me from the console because he remembered I get queasy when pain and adrenaline hit at the same time.
Headlights cut over the slick blacktop in a hard white tunnel.
Up ahead, the trailer lights swing through the dark and stay steady.
My phone's on speaker in the cup holder with Wade’s voice coming in and out under the rattle of tires. Sable is still moving. Doc wants her kept walking once they unload. Her pulse is still elevated, and her gut sounds seem to be improving.
Another contraction takes me fast and low.
This is too soon. I am not ready for this to be tonight.
I fold over it as much as the seat belt and my belly will let me, one hand clamped over the underside of myself, the other crushing Rebel’s fingers where he has laced them through mine without comment.
He doesn’t tell me to breathe this time. He waits until I drag air back in on my own, then says, "They just pulled into the clinic with Sable."
That gets my eyes open again.
"Good."
My voice comes out shredded, but it’s still mine.
"You did that," he says.
I turn my head and look at him. "We did that."
His eyes glance over to me and then back to the road. In the dash light, the strain shows in the way he keeps his grip firm and his attention narrowed, but he doesn’t seem to be panicking.
The next update comes through the speaker a minute later. They're unloading Sable. Doc thinks they got in front of it.
The relief that moves through me is not clean enough to enjoy before another contraction rolls in, stronger now, leaving no room to pretend my body is going to wait politely until Sable is safe.
Rebel squeezes my hand once and says, already turning toward town, "All right, sweetheart. Sable’s in. Now I’ve got you."
The hospital room is too bright, too warm, and full of small noises that feel insultingly ordinary for a night that is changing everything.
A monitor ticks out the baby’s heartbeat in quick bursts. The nurse with the silver braid checks my dilation, says a number that changes the pace of the whole room, and after that everything narrows to breath, pressure, and Rebel’s hand in mine.
I used to think this would be the moment that felt most like being trapped.
Instead I feel steadied in every way that counts.
Rebel's at my side with his sleeves shoved up.
He wipes my forehead with the corner of a cool cloth, and counts for me when I lose track.
When I curse him, the hospital, and every horse I have ever loved for leading me to this night, his mouth tips at one corner and he says, "I hear you," like I’m still myself inside this pain and not just a body he has to get through it.
That matters more than I can say while another contraction takes me under.
When it breaks, I drag in air and hear myself make a sound I’ve never heard before, rough and frightened and furious with the work still left in me.
"You’re doing great," Rebel says, his forehead touching mine for one brief second before the nurse tells him to give me room. "You and the baby. I’ve got you both."
There was a time when words like that would have sounded like ownership dressed as comfort. They don’t now. Now they sound like a promise made by a man who has finally learned the difference between holding on and holding up.
I bear down again with his hand locked in mine, and when the room shifts around the first wet cry, something opens in me that has nothing to do with pain. The baby is here. I’m still here. Rebel is still here.
By the time the room quiets and somebody finally dims the lights, Sable is at the clinic, Rebel has settled into the chair beside my bed, and the sky outside has gone black.
When morning comes pale through the blinds, Wade has already texted the first update from the clinic.
Then the weight in my arms stirs.
Our daughter makes one offended little face in her sleep, fists tucked up by her cheeks, dark hair already damply curling at the crown. The sight of her hits me fresh every time, with a tenderness that still feels too large for a room this small.
Rebel’s in the chair beside the bed, crooked from sleeping there badly, hat on the floor, one hand still resting on the blanket near my knee as if even asleep he could not quite convince himself to let go of us.
When he wakes, it happens all at once. His eyes open, find the baby, then me, and something in his whole face settles into a shape I don’t think I will ever get tired of seeing.
"Hey," he says softly.
I look down at her, then back at him. "Hey."
He stands and comes to the bed slowly, giving me time to hand her over or keep her where she is.
I shift the blanket back a little instead, making room.
He sits on the edge of the mattress and bends close, one hand careful at the baby’s back, the other brushing my hair off my forehead with a tenderness so habitual already it startles me.
There's no speech, only the three of us in the washed-out morning light, the ranch still standing, and the whole hard road behind us finally leading somewhere that looks like a life.
"Wade texted," Rebel says. "Sable passed manure before dawn and tried to bite Doc when he checked her again."
I laugh, quiet enough not to wake the baby. "That sounds like her."
His mouth curves. "He also said Cassie’s already telling everyone you called it before any of them had their coffee."
"Good. They should stay humble."
He huffs a laugh and then looks at me openly, with nothing hidden behind control or caution.
"Come home with me … for good this time," he says softly. “Not just because of the baby. Because I still want the life we talked about, and now I’m asking again.”
Those words would have been dangerous once. Now they are only honest.
"I will," I tell him. "On one condition."
He lifts a brow. "Only one?"
"You remember it’s my ranch too."
His hand covers mine over the baby’s blanket, warm and certain. "Of course …That was never the part I was going to argue."
I believe him. More than that, I believe us.
When he leans in and kisses me, it is gentle enough not to disturb the baby between us and sure enough to tell me what the rest of our life will be built from: not fear, not power, not survival dressed up as love, but the daily work of showing up clean for each other.
Outside, the day at Wild Mercy is already beginning.
This time, when we go back, we will go back together … with our daughter, to our ranch and our forever fields.