“You remembered,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and then reached for the nursery door. “One more,” I said, already turning the handle.
The nursery was exactly what Danny and Carter and Jojo had presented to me three days ago—a solid oak crib with a carved headboard, matching dresser and changing table, a nursing chair in the corner with a footstool. The walls were painted soft warm yellow, curtains to match, a mobile made of carved animals hanging over the crib.
Clothes were already folded in the dresser drawers—tiny onesies and sleepers and the weird little hats that newborns needed to keep their body heat regulated.
Toys sat on the shelves—soft blocks and cloth books and a stuffed bear with button eyes. Danny’s quilt was draped over the chair—handmade, the pattern specific to Black Butte Ranch, the craftsmanship visible in each perfect stitch.
“I told them not to go overboard,” I said, voice carrying the warmth of a man who’d been handed exactly what he wanted without having to ask for it. “They didn’t listen.”
Jasper stood in the middle of the room with both hands over his belly, shoulders shaking slightly, eyes fixed on the mobile turning slowly in the breeze from the open window.
I stayed in the doorway and gave him the space.
After a moment that might have been thirty seconds or might have been three minutes, Jasper turned to look at me, his face doing something complicated—not quite a smile, but adjacent to it, a softening around the eyes that made my chest tighten.
“Can we go back downstairs?” he asked. “I want to see the kitchen again.”
I nodded, accepting what he’d offered without pushing for more, and guided him back down the hallway with one hand on the small of his back. The stairs creaked slightly under our weight—the sound of new wood settling—and then we were in the kitchen again, afternoon light pouring through the east windows, the mountain visible beyond the tree line.
Jasper moved to the center of the room and turned in a slow circle, taking in the worktable, the shelves, a space built exactly to his specifications. His hand came to rest on the counter edge, fingers pressing into the wood with enough force to whiten his knuckles.
“What do you think?” I asked, keeping it simple.
I held myself very still—the same stillness I brought to anything where the outcome mattered and I had no control over it. Jasper turned to look at me, mouth opening to answer. Then his hands went to his belly, his face changed entirely, and he said—in a voice completely different from anything that had come before it—“I think I’m going into labor.”
The wrongness of the moment—perfect timing, imperfect timing, the calculation of a life that was happening whether we were ready for it or not—landed somewhere beneath my sternum.
I crossed to him in two long strides, one hand coming to rest on the small of his back, the other already reaching for my phone.
“How long?” I asked, voice carrying the calm I used for tactical briefings.
“Twenty minutes,” Jasper said, each word precise. “Maybe thirty. They started in the nursery. I thought it was just the baby moving, but—“ He broke off, his breath catching as another contraction visibly moved through him.
I had the phone to my ear already, Carter’s number dialed, my free arm around Jasper’s waist supporting his weight as the contraction peaked and then gradually eased.
“It’s happening,” I said when Carter answered, keeping it simple. “We’re at the new house. North section. Bring the bag from the farmhouse and call Dr. Marsh.”
Carter said something I didn’t fully catch—something about timing and distance and the certainty of a man who’d done this before—and then the line went dead as he ended the call.
Jasper’s hand had found mine, his grip tight enough to register as pressure against my knuckles. “I’m not ready,” he said. “We just got here. The house isn’t even—“
“It’s exactly right,” I said, the simple statement carrying more weight than its three words should have been able to. “Just like you.”
Jasper made a sound that wasn’t quite a word but carried meaning anyway, and then leaned into me, his weight solid against my chest, his breath warm against my neck. The mountain hadn’t moved—wouldn’t move—would go on sitting exactly where it was regardless of what happened in its shadow.
I understood, with Jasper pressed against my side and the rhythm of his breathing changing with each contraction, that we had handled this exactly the way we should have. Not dramatic, just the simple fact of a life that was happening whether we were ready for it or not.
We were already home.
Chapter Twenty-One
~ Jasper ~
I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter with both hands, holding my breath and counting silently as pain radiated through my lower back. When the contraction passed, I glanced at the clock on the microwave—11:42—and did the quick math with the flat, precise efficiency of a neonatal nurse who had stood on the other side of this calculation at least a hundred times. Two minutes. The gap between contractions was now two minutes.
Two minutes meant active labor. Two minutes meant no window left to get to the Black Butte clinic, especially not with the mountain road between us and town. Two minutes meant this baby was coming here, whether we were ready or not.
