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Eli tried to clear his throat, but it was no use. His heart was stuck where his words should be, but somehow Beth knew. She always knew when he needed her to fill in the blanks.
“I want to raise a family on this ranch,” she told him. “And teach our kids to ride horses and to dance. I noticed there’s no dance school in Meadow Valley, and yet the population of small humans seems to be growing exponentially. I might need to do something about that.”
Eli spun her in his arms so they were both facing the woods that led back to the field and from there back to the ranch. He rested his hands on her abdomen, already impatient to watch it grow. All he ever used to see was everything he’d lost, and while that loss would always be there, he was finally able to open his eyes to everything he’d found and the possibilities yet to come.
“You know I’m going to insist on weekly doctor appointments while you’re in New York,” he whispered against her ear.
Beth laughed. “I’d expect nothing less from you.”
“And you need to be careful riding. Midnight’s carrying double the precious cargo now.”
God, he loved her, and he loved the baby he’d have to wait months to meet. He loved and he loved and he loved, and how the hell could this day or this moment or this life get any better than it was right now?
“And I’m going to fly out every other weekend. Maybe even every weekend,” he continued.
She clasped her hands over his and shook her head. “You can’t miss all your Saturdays with the boys at Trudy’s café. And we rehearse on Saturdays anyway. How about once a month, and you stay for an extra-long weekend?”
He kissed her neck. “Okay, but we’re never leaving the hotel room while I’m there.”
“Good,” Beth replied. “Because I won’t have energy for anything more than sleep.”
He stilled. Right. Of course. The baby was going to change a lot of things for them. He’d adjust.
“Eli?” She guided one of his hands up and beneath her T-shirt, snapping open the front clasp of her bra. “I’m not tired now.”
“Marry me,” he growled into her ear.
“Definitely,” she replied. “And remember how that whole contraception thing doesn’t really work on me? Why don’t we pretend to make a baby on purpose and see how that goes?”
Okay, so maybe this was how life topped itself for today. But that was the thing. There would be moments like this when the happiness he felt seemed unfathomable, but there would also be moments like the one in the airport the first time he and Beth said goodbye. What mattered was that between here and there, they would figure it out together, his mighty dancer and him, their ranch, her dancing, his clinic, their baby, and today…no condom.
That night, Beth turned to him in bed. “I want to tell you something,” she started.
“Tell me anything.”
She kissed his clean-shaven cheek, which she said she’d tolerate for the summer, but she expected the beard back by winter. Every holiday season, she wanted to remember what he looked like when he showed up in New York and told her he was in this with her for the long haul. She even made him promise to take her back to Rockefeller Center every Christmas Eve—while she was still dancing and even after she wasn’t—to tell her again. He had no problem agreeing to that.
“Last year, on that day with Trudy and Frederick?”
“Yeah?” he said softly. It felt both a million miles away and like it just happened yesterday.
She ran her fingers through his hair. “When Trudy and I were alone, she tried to explain to me what it was like loving a pet. She said that it was a wonderful thing to love them and have them love you back, but you enter into the contract knowing that you’ll outlive them. And I didn’t get it, you know? I didn’t get why you’d enter that kind of contract knowing that it not only had an expiration date but one that ended in grief.” Her breathing hitched, and Eli realized she was crying.
He swiped his thumbs beneath her eyes. “It’s okay,” he told her. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
Beth nodded. “And then she told me…she said, ‘If I give up the possibility of pain, I’d also be giving up the possibility of joy. Years of it, which is what I’ve had with Frederick.’” She pressed her hands against Eli’s chest. “This… Us. It hurt a lot in the beginning. And then again in the middle. But it so easily could never have happened at all, and that’s the scariest part. I sometimes wonder, What if I’d never gotten hurt? What if I’d turned down Delaney’s invitation? What if I hadn’t been brave enough to kiss you that day in your office? I think of all these questions where the answer is us maybe never falling in love and never having to go through the parts that hurt. But being with you also brings me more joy than I ever imagined a person could experience. It’s the most wonderful, terrifying thing to get to love you, Eli Murphy, but I get what Trudy was saying now.”
“That I’m your pet?” he asked with a half smile.
She gave his shoulder a playful shove. “Eli…”
“Sorry, sorry.” But he was still smiling. “I get it too,” he admitted.
And from the look in her clear green eyes, he knew she trusted that he did.
He wouldn’t give up the years of joy he had with Tess just to escape the pain of loss. And did it terrify him to be this happy with Beth, to love her and the baby he’d only known about for mere hours so damned much? Of course it did.
But Eli Murphy didn’t live in the land of what if anymore. He couldn’t predict the future nor prevent the painful moments from happening.
But he could be in it right now, in this moment, and not take a single second for granted.
“Not one second, Mighty Dancer,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t trade a single moment I get to spend loving you. And loving you and loving you and loving you and loving…”
Yeah, Eli Murphy was pretty damned sure that tonight and every night thereafter, he won.
