12. Evie
Evie
That evening, I sit on the porch step with one of Maggie’s good water glasses—heavy-bottomed, probably older than I am—watching the light turn copper over the pasture.
The horses are settling for the evening. Captain Winky is easy to pick out now. He grazes with one ear tipped toward the barn, listening for me.
A week ago, I’d have called that a coincidence.
Now...
Now I think he knows I’m his person.
The thought warms my chest.
So does the fact that I know exactly where Gabriel is without having to look. Somewhere in the machine shed with Daniel, probably pretending to listen while Ethan argues with a piece of equipment that offended him.
Eight days.
That’s all it’s been.
Eight days since we heard our daughter’s heartbeat.
Eight days since Gabriel looked me in the eye and called her our girl.
And earlier, he told me—again—that I was family.
I turn the glass slowly between my palms.
Family.
I’ve spent my whole life traveling light. One duffel bag. One horse. One truck. Never unpack too much because sooner or later, you’ll be leaving again.
Now I have maternity clothes hanging in the wardrobe upstairs.
Peppermints in my pocket because Captain Winky expects them.
And every morning, without fail, Maggie pours me decaf and feeds me like she thinks I’m growing a football team.
It’s terrifying.
Not because I want to run.
Because I don’t.
“Can I join you, or would you prefer to be left alone?”
Startled, I turn to see Jenna.
“Please.” I pat the step beside me. “Anything to stop me arguing with my own thoughts.”
She grins and sits beside me, one hip bumping mine as she lowers herself onto the step. “I hear Gabriel filled you in.”
I nod. “Yeah. What a shitshow.”
Jenna chuckles. “That’s one way of putting it.”
I smile into my glass. “Gabriel said he wanted me at the meeting tomorrow. Told me I’m family.”
Jenna raises an eyebrow. “And how do you feel about that?”
I don’t answer straight away because I don’t know how to explain what that sentence has done to me.
“It’s always been just my mom and me. Then just me when I joined the rodeo circuit. I’ve never been anybody’s family before. Not like this.”
Not where Delaney plans my maternity wardrobe with military precision. Where Maggie remembers I like extra butter on my toast. Where the Suttons make plans for next month as though they simply assume I’ll still be here.
“I keep waiting for someone to realize they’ve made a mistake.”
Jenna smiles. “They won’t.”
“You sound awfully sure.”
“I am.”
“How?”
“Because this family adopts people,” she says with a smile.
“Not just here at Stoneridge, either. Over at Havenridge too. Shay, Luna, and Kitty all arrived carrying more hurt than hope, and Henry, Angus, and Tom gave them somewhere safe to land. Delaney found that with Daniel. I found it with Ethan.”
I blink. “All of you?”
Jenna laughs. “Yeah. Believe it or not, Ethan literally found me in a ditch.”
She takes a sip of water, her smile softening.
“Maggie fed me. Delaney organized my life before I’d even figured out where I’d put my toothbrush.
Daniel quietly made room for me, like there’d never been any question I belonged here.
And Ethan...” She looks down into her glass, the smile turning unmistakably fond. “Ethan loved me.”
She looks back at me. “By the time I realized what had happened, it was already too late.”
“Too late?”
“Yeah.” Her gaze drifts toward the ranch house. “This place had already become home.”
I look back across the pasture. “I don’t know how to do home.”
“No one does the first time.” She looks at me, her brown eyes steady. “They’re doing the same for you, Evie. They already have.”
I turn my empty glass between my hands. “That’s the scary part.”
Jenna tilts her head.
“Not because I don’t want it.” I smile, but it feels fragile. “Because I do.”
Maggie left a pitcher of iced water on the porch table, and Jenna quietly tops up both our glasses.
My gaze drifts across the pasture to where Captain Winky is grazing with the others. “I’ve spent so long making sure I could leave that I don’t know what it looks like to stay. If Gabriel wants me to stay.”
She studies me for a second. “Oh, he wants you to stay, Evie.”
“Because we’re having a baby.”
Jenna’s expression softens immediately. “Oh, honey.”
“He says all the right things.”
“Because he means them.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s Gabriel,” she says, like it’s obvious. “Before you turned up here, we all knew something had happened to him.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“He wasn’t himself.” She shrugs. “Not that Gabriel’s exactly an open book on a good day. But he was... somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else?”
“He’d drift off in the middle of conversations. Stand staring out across the pasture like he’d forgotten why he’d gone outside. Ethan asked him what was wrong.” She laughs softly. “Gabriel said, ‘Nothing.’”
“And you believed him?”
“Not for a second.” She shakes her head. “Then you showed up.”
“Pregnant.”
“Pregnant,” she agrees. “That part surprised us.” She smiles. “Finding out there’d been a woman behind all that distracted brooding? That explained a lot.”
I look down into my glass. “You really think...”
“I know what Gabriel looks like when he feels responsible for someone.” She tips her head. “I’ve seen it with his brothers. With Maggie. With the horses. This isn’t that.”
I swallow. “How can you tell?”
Jenna laughs quietly. “Because he watches you when you aren’t looking. He checks where you are every time he walks into a room. He remembers whether you’ve eaten. And did you notice how he leaves whatever he’s doing the second you call his name?”
I frown. Have I noticed?
Maybe.
“I thought that was just Gabriel. Quiet. Steady. The kind of man who notices everyone.”
“He does,” Jenna says. “But not like he does with you. That’s not obligation, Evie.” Jenna’s voice is gentle now. “That’s a man who’s already chosen you.”
I don’t answer. I don’t know how. But I suddenly know I want that to be true so badly that it scares me.
She bumps my shoulder with hers. “Can I give you a piece of advice?”
I chuckle. “Pretty sure you’re going to anyway.”
“Gabriel will never pressure you, Evie. He’ll wait as long as it takes because he’d rather wait forever than make you feel cornered.”
She lets that settle before adding quietly, “So if you want him, be brave. Go get him.”
Jenna is right. I’m the one who closes the distance.
At the Honey Pot, I closed it, climbed off my barstool, and walked into the path of a man with mismatched eyes because for once in my life, I wanted a thing that didn’t come with strings attached.
I set rules that night—my rules, my terms—because it was new and it terrified me and rules felt safer than feelings.
They didn’t work then either.
I thought I wanted one night. Turns out I wanted the whole thing.
After dinner, the ranch settles into its evening rhythm.
I know where everyone will be.
Maggie in the kitchen. Daniel finishing one last job. Ethan pretending he's finished work when he isn't.
And Gabriel...
Gabriel will be upstairs, washing the dust of the day off.
I climb the stairs before I lose my nerve.
I knock.
For a moment, I think he hasn’t heard me.
Then footsteps.
The door opens.
Gabriel fills the doorway in a faded T-shirt and jeans.
His eyebrows lift. “Evie?”
For one ridiculous second, I forget every word I rehearsed. “Hi.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Hi.”
Neither of us moves.
He studies my face. “Is everything okay?”
That’s the question, isn’t it?
I let out a breath. “I... don’t know.”
His whole expression softens. “Come in.”
He steps back without another word. No pressure. No assumptions.
I walk past him into the bedroom. It’s exactly what I expected. Neat. Quiet. The bed made. His boots lined up against the wall. A photograph of his mom on the dresser beside one of him and his brothers when they were kids.
I hear the door click shut behind me.
When I turn around, he’s still standing a few feet away, giving me space.
Waiting.
“I’ve been thinking,” I say.
He smiles faintly. “I figured.”
“I’ve done a lot of that lately. I’ve spent most of my life leaving before anybody had the chance to ask me to stay. I got good at it. Convinced myself it made me independent.”
His eyes never leave mine.
“But it just made me lonely.”
Pain flickers across his face. Not for himself. For me.
“I don’t really know how to”—I wave a hand helplessly between us—“do this.”
“Do what?”
“The baby. The ranch. You.” My voice catches on the last word. “I don’t know how to let someone matter this much.”
For the first time since I walked into the room, Gabriel moves. Just one step. Enough that I can reach him if I want to.
“I don’t either,” he says quietly. He gives the smallest shrug. “I’ve never done this before.”
A smile escapes me. “No?”
“No.”
“I would’ve thought...”
“What?”
“That someone like you...”
He shakes his head. “There hasn’t been anyone like you.”
I go very still. “I keep wondering if this is all happening because of the baby,” I whisper.
His answer comes before I’ve even finished. “No. I wanted you before I knew about our daughter.” He swallows. “I just never thought I’d get the chance.”
He lifts his eyes to mine. “I looked for you.”
For a heartbeat, I can’t breathe.
Gabriel doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t tell me where he looked or how long he hoped. He doesn’t have to. The admission itself feels intimate, another piece of himself placed carefully into my hands.
This is a man who keeps everything locked behind quiet smiles and steady hands.
And he’s just told me I mattered enough to go looking.
The wall I’ve been trying to shore up finally gives way.
All week, everyone has been telling me I belong.
Gabriel has been telling me I’m family.
But this...
This is a man choosing me.
I cross the space between us, lift my hands, and rest them lightly against his chest. Over the heart he’s spent years believing was somehow less than whole.
“It isn’t just the baby for me either,” I whisper.
His breath catches.
“I know what I want now.”
“What?”