Chapter 21 #2
So, so sweet. I think they come here because the canyon has the perfect conditions for mating. But for a traumatized girl who isn’t ready for all that, it’s also perfect for a sweet family first date.
The canyon, like me, can be different things at different times.
One day in the future, I’ll bring Hope here just the two of us, and I’ll get down on one knee. Maybe she’ll wear a sundress for me and I’ll show her, after she agrees to be my wife, that my kisses are truly endless, and we, too, can enjoy the mating conditions in this secret refuge.
She glances up at Bellamy. “Do you want to get down and explore?”
“Can I put my feet in the water?”
“It’s cold,” I warn them.
“We’re from the coast, Cowboy,” Hope says as she helps Bellamy down. “We know cold water.”
And when they take off their boots and socks and wade in, shrieking and laughing, I’m hit by another wave of this is everything feelings. This joy, this precious happiness, is what I’m going to protect.
“You don’t want to come in?” Hope asks as they climb out of the shallow pool.
I take Bellamy from her and dry her feet on my t-shirt. “I was just enjoying watching you freeze your toes off.”
“It’s brisk, but lovely.”
“I’m more of a geothermal hot springs kind of guy.”
“Ooh, I love a hot spring.”
“Then that can be our second date.” I turn Bellamy around so Hope can put her socks and boots back on, then I set her down and we watch together as she tromps off to inspect the marble slabs.
Hope watches her nervously, but lets her roam.
“Is it hard to not hover?”
“So hard,” she confesses. “But she’s really enjoying her freedom on the ranch. And this seems pretty safe?”
“I wouldn’t have brought you here if it wasn’t.”
She visibly relaxes at that promise. I climb onto a flat slab and pat the stone next to me. “Can we watch Bellamy from here?”
“Yep.” She joins me, stretching out her legs in front of her. Then she glances sideways at me. “Tell me something most people don’t know about you.”
Easy. “I wanted to be a veterinarian once upon a time.”
“What happened?”
“The reality of how much school cost really hit me in my last year of high school. And the army was good for Ridge. He was making good money already. So I enlisted instead. Figured the army would pay for school later. And then I grew up and realized I could just buy horses and land and didn’t need to pay for school. ”
“You don’t regret it?”
“No. I like what we’re building on the ranch. I know I’m going to be learning from the school of life forever.” I nudge her fingers with mine. “How about you? You ever think about going to school?”
“I don’t know how I’d juggle it with kids.”
That isn’t a no. “People do.”
“I’m…” She shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Tell me.”
“I like being a hands-on mom. As horrible as it was sometimes on the homestead, and how that wasn’t really what I wanted for myself…
I got to be with her every minute of every day.
And that was what we both needed.” She gives me a sad little smile.
“I really did like the midwife who helped me give birth. I thought about maybe doing something like that, but it’s a lot of school. Maybe one day I’ll be a doula.”
“What’s that?”
“A birth support person.”
“I can see that. You’ve got healer vibes.”
“Do I?” She looks pleased. “Thank you. When I was in high school, there was a hot second when I thought I might want to be a doctor.”
“Oh yeah?”
“But then I got pregnant, and I wanted to be a mom even more.”
“You still could.”
She laughs, but it’s a thin sound. “Zane.”
“I mean it. There’s nothing about being a mother that means you can’t go back to school. The timeline’s different, that’s all. You’re twenty-two. You’ve got time. Maybe after this baby, you’ll feel differently. And we’ll—”
She jumps to her feet. “We don’t need to get ahead of ourselves.”
But it’s hard not to let my dreams race into the future.
I leave it alone, though.
We explore around the base of the waterfall, then slowly make our way back, Bellamy insisting she can walk the entire way.
Which means by the time we get to the garage to pick up Hope’s car, the three-year-old is fast asleep in her carseat in my back seat. “She’s tuckered out from the hike.”
“I’ll carry her to your car.”
“It’s okay.” She squeezes my forearm. “Let her stay sleeping. You can drive her back to the ranch, and her carseat can stay in your truck. I probably won’t be driving her anywhere in my car for the next while anyway, right?”
I catch her hand in mine and lift her knuckles to my mouth. “That you trust me with your daughter means the world to me. I’ll drive very safely.”
She leans over the console and brushes her mouth against mine. “See you soon, Cowboy.”
“Not soon enough, City Girl.”
She hops out and meets Cash in the doorway of the garage.
He waves to me when she gestures and explains that Bellamy is asleep in the truck.
He hands her keys over, and she gives him a tight hug, which makes him shoot me a helpless look over her shoulder.
He’s never known what to do with unexpected affection. I laugh into my fist.
She’s not a stranger to my family. I was worried about her meeting my brothers, the big brutes, but so far, she’s charmed Ridge and Cash with ease, because she’s meant to be, meant to soften the hard edges of my family.
Time to follow her home.
She slides into her driver’s seat.
I reverse out of the parking lot, making room for her to pull out in front of me.
Following her out of town, déjà vu courses through me as we pass the spot at the top of the road where we first met. Same two vehicles, a week apart. Very different energy. Now I feel like this is completely right. Nothing holding me back, no hesitation.
I don’t care what people think when Hope has a baby in seven months. Fuck the world. Fuck the gossips. She’ll be my wife and that will be my baby. The first baby in our little family to be born with the name Kincaid since my mother, fifty years ago.
The same name on the gate that Hope drives under, safely returning her to our refuge after a successful trip out into the world.
Somewhere in the Gulf Islands, my brother’s contact is watching a compound. Danger lurks in the future.
Let him come, I think.
Let him come and find out what this family does when someone tries to take what’s ours.