Chapter 8 Millie
EIGHT
Millie
My everything felt good.
My head…my heart. My fingers and toes and my whole body were buzzing, and between my thighs.
I shifted and groaned.
Okay…that felt good too, but a little achey.
It didn’t take me long to realize that Gage was gone.
The bed was still warm on his side, or maybe that was just me—maybe I was just radiating it from the inside out, some kind of internal glow I hadn’t had access to before he’d rocked my world last night.
I stretched my arms over my head and pointed my toes and felt every single muscle in my body register a polite complaint.
Worth it.
Very worth it.
I stared up at the ceiling. The light coming through the curtains was early, pale gold…barely dawn, maybe just past it. The cottage was quiet, but I could hear the goats outside, the cattle lowing, and a horse’s neigh every so often.
And…chickens?
They probably had chickens too. Or maybe a neighbor did.
Because I lived on a ranch. I lived on a ranch with no job other than to let the smoking hot rancher get me pregnant.
I pressed my palms to my face and laughed into them, muffled and stupid and a little giddy. I was on a ranch and I’d spent the night with a man I’d met only twice and we had—multiple times—very enthusiastically attempted to get pregnant.
Which—
My hand moved before I'd made a conscious decision, flattening against my lower belly under the sheet.
Hi, I thought, feeling faintly insane. Are you in there?
Nothing answered. Obviously. It was far too early for anything to answer. I knew that. I'd done the research, I knew how all of this worked biologically, knew it could take months even under ideal circumstances.
But.
Last night had not felt like not working. Last night had felt like something clicking into place. Something that had been waiting.
I pressed my palm a little flatter and stared at the ceiling and let myself, just for a moment, imagine it.
Me in this house, pregnant…curled up with Gage, his hand on my belly, whispering in my ear how perfect I was—
But that wouldn’t be how it was, right?
Once I was pregnant…there would be no reason for him to keep doing this. He would support me through the pregnancy, make sure the baby checked all the boxes for inheritance, but we weren’t actually together.
I didn’t know how I felt about that.
I turned my head, doubt surging through me, only to realize there was a note on the other pillow. I sat up and reached for it, the sheet pooling around my waist and my hair tumbling over my shoulders, then I unfolded it.
Millie —
Didn't want to wake you. Had to get to the cattle before sunrise.
There's food in the fridge—coffee's in the cabinet above the maker. Help yourself to whatever.
My mother makes breakfast at the main house around 7 if you want a real meal. Fair warning: she will have opinions and she will share them. You don't have to go. But she's a better cook than I am and she already knows you're here.
Back by noon.
— G
P.S. Watch out for Dolly. She’s a biter until she gets to know you.
I laughed out loud at that, alone in the quiet cottage. Yeah…she sounded like my mom. It made me more comfortable, at least a little, to realize this world wasn’t so alien after all.
And actually—it reminded me that I needed to call my mom.
I rolled over to find my phone, which was plugged in and charging on the bedside table. Daniela had texted me multiple times, all begging for details.
DANIELA
okay but how is he
millie
MILLIE
it has been four hours since you arrived at a ranch with a hot cowboy and you have not texted me once which means either you're dead or you're having sex and I need to know which
please be having sex
okay I'm going to assume you're having sex and I'm choosing to be happy for you instead of worried. you're welcome.
it is midnight. MIDNIGHT. call me.
I'm going to sleep but I want DETAILS in the morning. full report. don't leave anything out.
good night I love you I hope he's everything the truck suggested
I snorted and kept it simple when I texted back.
MILLIE
good morning. i’m alive.
Three dots appeared almost instantly. She'd been waiting.
DANIELA
GOOD MORNING?? that's all I get??
I smiled and typed slowly, making her wait.
MILLIE
I'm well-rested. had a great night. really…really good night's sleep.
DANIELA
Millie Joanna I swear to god
MILLIE
very comfortable bed.
DANIELA
I HATE YOU
I laughed hard enough that I had to put the phone down for a second. When I picked it back up she'd sent four more messages.
DANIELA
was it good
okay don't answer that I know it was good you wouldn't be this smug if it wasn't
how many times
actually don't answer that either I'm not ready
MILLIE
I'm going to go have breakfast with his mother now, bye.
DANIELA
his MOTHER??
call me after. I need everything. I mean it. EVERYTHING.
also…are you okay? like actually?
I looked at that one for a moment. The way she'd tucked it in at the end, after all the jokes—that was pure Daniela. The humor first, always, and then the real question hiding underneath it.
I typed back honestly.
MILLIE
yeah. I really am.
DANIELA
good. he better deserve you.
I looked at the note still sitting on the pillow beside me.
I smiled.
MILLIE
I think he might.
Then I got up to find the coffee.
I called my mother on the way over, and she asked all the requisite questions—how’s the ranch, were you comfortable, how’d you sleep?
I didn’t have nearly the level of detail in my answers for her as I did for Daniela…
but I assured her that the place was beautiful, that I was comfortable, and that I’d slept wonderfully.
She asked if I'd met the family yet and I said I was headed to do that right now, actually, and she made a sound that was half excitement and half warning.
"Be yourself," she said. "But also…be a little bit of your best self."
"That's contradictory advice, Mamá.”
"No it isn't. Your best self is yourself. Just without the nervous rambling."
"I don't nervously ramble."
"Millie."
"Occasionally," I said. "When prompted."
She laughed. "Call me later. And eat something."
"That's what I'm going to the main house for."
"Good." A pause, warm and familiar. "I'm glad you're okay, mija."
"I'm really okay," I said.
And I was.
The morning was already warm, that thick Hill Country warmth that settled over you like a veil.
The path to the main house wasn't long—maybe a few minutes' walk across the property—and I'd pulled my hair up and found a clean sundress in one of the boxes I still hadn't unpacked, pale blue this time, and done approximately nothing else to prepare for meeting Gage's mother.
Which was probably fine.
Probably.
Dolly fell into step beside me about halfway across the yard, materializing from somewhere without announcement.
"Good morning," I said to her.
She looked up at me with those dark eyes and then looked away, unimpressed but present.
"He said you bite," I told her.
She didn't dignify that with a response.
"I'm going to take this as a good sign," I said, and she trotted ahead of me like she was leading the way.
The main house was bigger than the cottage but not ostentatious—white paint, a wide porch, hanging baskets of something purple and trailing. I could smell coffee from ten feet away and something else underneath it, something that made my stomach growl embarrassingly loud.
Biscuits.
That was biscuits.
I knocked on the screen door.
"It's open," called a voice from inside—warm but brisk, the voice of someone who had never once waited for help and didn't intend to start.
I opened the door.
The kitchen was bright and a little cluttered in the way of kitchens that actually got used—dried herbs hanging from a hook, a stack of mail on the counter, a dog bowl by the back door that probably belonged to Dolly.
A woman stood at the stove with her back to me, silver-streaked hair in a braid down her back, wearing jeans and a faded flannel with the sleeves rolled up.
She turned around.
She had Gage's eyes. That same dark, direct quality—the kind that took you in and filed you away before you'd finished introducing yourself.
She was maybe sixty, maybe a little past it, and she was beautiful in the way of women who had never once tried to be anything other than exactly what they were.
She looked at me for a long moment.
I stood very still and tried not to nervously ramble.
"Millie," she said. Not a question.
"Yes, ma'am."
“Good. I’m Peggy—and you don’t need to call me ma’am.
” Something in her expression shifted—the faintest softening around the eyes.
"He said you were pretty." She turned back to the stove.
"Sit down. Coffee's on the counter, cups are in the cabinet above it, and I hope you eat biscuits because I made too many. "
I let out a breath I'd been holding since the driveway.
"I love biscuits," I said.
"Good," she said. "Then we're already off to a better start than I expected."
I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the big wooden table and watched Peggy Holt move around her kitchen the way women who have owned a space for decades move through it—without looking, without hesitating, every reach and turn automatic and sure.
"Cream's on the table," she said, without turning around. "Sugar's in the blue jar."
I helped myself to both.
She smiled over her shoulder. “Sweet girl,” she said. “I’m the same way, though my boys would never tell you that.”
She brought the biscuits to the table in a cast iron skillet, set down a jar of honey and a dish of butter, and then poured her own coffee and sat across from me like we were going to have a meeting.
Maybe we were.
"So," she said.
"So," I said.