35. Rory
Rory
Ikeep waiting for the other shoe to drop, to find out that things aren’t as perfect as they seem. Nothing can be this good forever.
I lean back against the sofa cushions and tilt my hand from side to side, letting the three diamonds catch the light. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. That’s what a three-stone ring is supposed to signify.
It’s the perfect symbol of my relationship with Nate, and the diamonds he chose make it even more special.
The stones on either side are from our mothers’ engagement rings: one from my mom, one from Nate’s. And the stone in the center is brand new. Put together, it feels like the perfect symbol of our relationship.
“Talk to me, Rory,” Nate says, settling on the couch next to me. “What’s going on inside that beautiful head of yours?”
I lean my head against his shoulder. “Just thinking about us. How happy I am.”
Nate laughs. “Bullshit, Rory. I’ve known you too long to fall for that. Remember, we’re not keeping anything from one another. Not anymore.”
I study my ring as I work up the courage. “It’s just that…”
Nate doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t fill the silence or assume.
He just waits.
I take a breath and let it out. “I might not be able to give you children. And…I know that’s important to you.”
The weight of that truth lifts from my body as I say it out loud.
Nate shakes his head. “No. That’s—”
“Don’t downplay it, Nate,” I say, pushing back. I won’t let him compromise for me. I’d rather put it all out there now before it’s too late, before he feels trapped. “I know it’s what you want.”
“Hey.” Nate leans forward and sets his hands on my face, one on either cheek. “This isn’t anything new. I was there when Dr. Graham told you that there was a chance you wouldn’t be able to get pregnant, remember?”
My time in the hospital is a little fuzzy, probably thanks to the pain meds I was on at the time, plus the absolute bombshell of having an ectopic pregnancy in the first place. But he’s right. He was there.
I don’t remember a single time during my hospital stay when he wasn’t right next to me.
Still, I want to have everything out in the open. No secrets. Nothing hidden.
“I just want to make sure we talk about it. And if you want to rethink the whole engagement thing—”
My words catch in my throat. It would kill me to walk away from Nate. But I love him enough that if that’s what he needs—someone who isn’t broken, who can give him children—I’d do that for him.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for this man.
Nate grips my chin between his thumb and forefinger as he holds my gaze. “I need you to hear this, Rory. I love you. More than anything. Do I want kids? Hell yeah. But I want them with you.”
I blink back the tears that start to form. “I do, too. But what if I can’t give you children?”
“Don’t care, babe.” Nate laughs. It’s soft, casual, like he truly doesn’t care about this complication.
“Raising a bunch of hellions with you would be the greatest adventure of my life. Maybe we’ll have kids that are biologically ours.
Maybe not. I don’t care. Seriously. There are about a million ways to make a family, Rory.
The one thing that matters is love. And we’ve got that.
Hell, we’ve got so fucking much of that. ”
He folds me into his arms, pressing his chin to the top of my head before he drops a kiss there.
“I love you,” I whisper.
Because I do.
More than anything.
Nate kisses my forehead, then my cheek before his lips find mine, and when he does, the sweetness gives way to need.
He barely brushes a touch across my lips before he deepens the kiss.
It’s exactly what I need.
I nip at his bottom lip when he uses his tongue to pry my lips apart. While he explores my mouth, I reach out and fist my hands in his shirt.
He’s gentle as he shifts us on the couch, and once I lie back, he moves his body over mine.
It’s been almost three weeks since my surgery. I’m recovering well, I think, but Dr. Graham was clear on the no sex thing: six weeks. No exceptions.
“Nate,” I whisper, in case my earlier message wasn’t clear. “I can’t have sex. Not yet.”
He grins and leans down to kiss me again before he answers. “I know, babe. But the doctor didn’t say anything about making out, did she?”
“No, but—”
He cuts me off with another deep kiss, long and languid, and by the time he pulls back, I’ve almost forgotten what my hesitation was.
“No buts, baby.” Nate gives me a small peck on the lips. “We made out on couches for a long time before we ever slept together. I loved every second of it back then, and I love it now.”
“We were in high sch—”
Once again, he covers my mouth with his.
This time, I melt into his kiss.
He runs his fingers lightly across my cheek, down my arm. He grips my hipbone, then slides his hand back up my side.
Every touch is electric.
Maybe we had it right in high school before real life made things so complicated.
I wrap my arms around Nate as I kiss him back. The past year has been a whirlwind of ups and downs. I can barely remember what it was like to be the girl who drove up to High Lonesome with a rescue dog that she had no clue how to care for. The girl who thought her life was falling apart.
Things have changed so much since then, and yet, in some ways, I’ve come back to who I was before.
“I love you so much, Aurora Kelley,” Nate says, his words muffled against my lips. “I’m so fucking glad you finally agreed to marry me.”
Same.
And because I don’t have words to express how much he means to me, I press my lips to his.
As I turn onto the dirt road, my spirits are already lifting. I’ve been sitting on the couch, recovering, for just over four weeks. This morning, I had an appointment with Dr. Graham, who said I could get back to just about everything I normally do.
Riding isn’t on the list of approved activities just yet, and neither are barn chores. Nate asked specifically about those.
He knows me too well.
He should, after all. He’s my fiancé.
I stretch my left hand out to rest on the steering wheel and admire the ring. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the novelty of having something so shiny and so gorgeous on my hand.
While Nate shut down any chance I had at using a loophole to get back to work right away, Dr. Graham said I was fine to drive, at the very least.
I park by the barn and slide out of the driver’s seat. I’m still tender, but I’m getting back to my old self, little by little.
Spam hops from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat and out my door. He must be excited, too.
I take a deep breath through my nose.
Hay and dirt and horses and pine.
“Hey, you!” Mandy calls, setting down a wheelbarrow. She lifts a hand in greeting. “I was hoping you’d stop by soon. How are you feeling?”
“Just glad to be back here. I missed it.”
“Hey, this place missed you, too, kiddo.” Mandy leaves her wheelbarrow behind as she comes over to me and wraps me in a hug. “I did, too.”
“You’ve visited me all the time, Mandy. And it’s not like we didn’t talk.”
“A text doesn’t count.” She pulls back to study me for a minute, then hugs me again. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Rory. You scared me.”
Her words send a stab of guilt through me. I should have figured it out sooner. Should have recognized the signs, or something.
I was just so deep in denial that I refused to see anything that I didn’t want to see.
“Thank you,” I say, returning the hug. “Thank you for everything. You saved my life.”
Mandy waves a hand in the air. “Oh, don’t you worry about it.”
I’m not about to let her get off that easily, though.
“Seriously. My doctor said my tube ruptured, and I was bleeding into my abdomen. If you hadn’t called for help when you did, I…” I swallow around the lump that grows in my throat. “I might not be here. So yeah. Thank you.”
Mandy’s gaze shifts, looking over my shoulder into the distance. She’s silent for a minute. “I should have told you more.”
“About what?”
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Come on. Let’s go up to the hayloft.”
If Mandy is putting off chores, this seems like a serious discussion.
“Okay. This is a loft conversation?”
She nods. “If there ever was one.”
We settle in a corner of the loft, each of us sitting on a hay bale.
Allie and I spent hours upon hours up here when we were kids, but this is the first time I’ve sat up here with Mandy, in the space that’s been the one for deep conversations and heart-to-hearts.
I don’t have any context for how to approach this.
She leans forward and runs one palm across her face before setting her hand on her knee. “I’m sorry, Rory.”
I shake my head. “Mandy, I’m fine. Really. It was one of those fluke things.”
She holds up a hand. “That’s not what I mean. I’m glad you’re doing okay now. I swear, my heart stopped when you passed out in front of the barn.”
My memory of the event is fuzzy at best. I remember a stabbing pain in my belly, then spots in my vision just before everything went black.
The next thing I remember, even a little, is waking up in the hospital and Dr. Graham telling me what happened.
My memory really isn’t clear until about the day I was discharged.
Mandy twists her fingers together in front of her, like she’s trying to work out how to tell me something. “Here’s the thing. You asked me about pregnancy tests.”
My mind flashes back to the conversation that I’ve replayed several times in my head. It was after that first test. Before I got what I thought was my period, which Dr. Graham explained was something common in a lot of pregnancies, even those that don’t go on to be viable.
“I remember that.” I try to keep my tone neutral. It seems hard enough as it is for Mandy to bring this up again, and I don’t want to keep her from filling in those blanks I’ve been wondering about. “You were saying that pregnancy tests can be wrong.”
“Yeah.” Mandy rubs her hands along her thighs.
I’ve never seen her like this. She’s always so confident, sure of herself. I’m not sure what to make of this version of her.
“Well, any test has a margin of error, right? It’s not like—”
“Rory.” Mandy finally looks at me. “That’s the thing. I shouldn’t have told you that story.”
“But you—”
“I left it too vague. Too open to interpretation.” She rocks forward on her hay bale seat, then back. “The point is, you’ve always come to me for advice and trusted me. And I’m sorry that I didn’t get it right this time.”
Now I’m more confused than ever. “Mandy, it was a story. That’s all.”
Did I put a lot of stock in the idea of a false pregnancy test? Maybe. But other than that, Mandy shouldn’t be taking any blame. Certainly not enough to have her face twisted into a mask of worry.
“That’s the thing, Rory. It was a story, but it was true. And stories are only helpful when they provide context.”
At this point, she’s completely lost me. She’s always been the first one to tweak context to make her point. But in all of the years that I’ve known Mandy, she’s never been one to talk just for the sake of talking.
There’s always a moral to the story. A lesson to be learned.
“I shouldn’t have left so much out. Sometimes I forget that you’re an adult now and not the teenager who spent so many hours at the barn.”
She shakes her head, and my stomach flips at the gravity of her expression.
Mandy scrubs a hand over her face again, then meets my gaze. “Here’s what I should have told you.”