Then she left the two of us alone with two printed photos of that small, grey shape.
Our baby.
Millie stared down at it, brow furrowed. I’d seen clearer pictures of tornados and rainstorms on radar…but I didn’t care.
It was the best thing I’d ever looked at.
“You’re amazing,” I murmured.
She looked up at me. “It really wasn’t that hard,” she laughed. “I mean…living in a gorgeous man’s house and making this happen in any way possible? Not all that bad.”
I reached out to cup her face, tilting her chin up toward me.
“This is…it’s not something I ever really wanted or thought I’d have,” I said. “Been too busy with the business and the ranch and—” I paused. “Then came you. Everything I ever wanted.”
She exhaled, her shoulders sinking, and her eyes sparkled in the darkness of the ultrasound room.
Then she just said, “Yes.”
I frowned, cocking my head.
She couldn’t mean?—
“I know it hasn’t been six months,” she rushed out, “but…I want to be your wife, Gage. I want this baby to come into the world with us married?—”
"Millie—"
"I know what I said." She shook her head. "And I know how this looks. Two months, knocked up, saying yes in an ultrasound room." A short breath. "I don't care how it looks. I've spent my whole life making things happen on other people's timelines—other people's weddings, other people's events, other people's perfect days." She looked down at the printout. Back up at me. "I want my own. I wantyou. Not because of this—" she touched her stomach, "—but because you sat down next to me when there were four empty chairs and you didn't even try to hide it."
I looked at her for a long moment.
"You sure?"
"I've been sure for weeks." Her eyes sparkled. "I just needed to stop waiting for something to go wrong."
I took the printout out of her hands carefully and set it on the tray. Took her face in both hands. She was still up on the exam table, which put us almost eye level, and I looked at her straight on in the dim room—the fairy lights catching in her eyes, the diffuser going, the AC still cranking away against the July heat outside.
"Then yes," I said.
She blinked. "I askedyou."
"And I'm answering." I took her mask off to kiss her once, firm. "Yes."
NINETEEN
Millie
The Creekside Diner had a porch the size of an afterthought—four tables, a ceiling fan that moved the heat around without actually reducing it, and a view of the main street that made you feel like you were watching Briar Hill happen in real time.
Gage had wanted to come. I'd told him I was fine, that I was meeting Haven for lunch, that he didn't need to escort me everywhere just because I was eighteen weeks pregnant and starting to show. He'd looked at my stomach and then at my face and I'd pointed at the door and he'd gone, but not before kissing me in a way that made Haven, waiting on the porch steps, cover her eyes.
"You two are disgusting," she said, when I came out.
"You're just jealous."
She snorted. But she was smiling.
We got the corner table, the one with the good sightline to the street. It was a Tuesday in October and the air had finally broken, that first real cool front of the season coming through overnight, and the whole town felt like it had exhaled. Haven ordered sweet tea before she sat down and I did the same, which still felt like a small victory—the first trimester had takencaffeine from me entirely, and for six weeks the smell of tea or coffee alone had been enough to send me back to bed.
