For one more second, I stand there and listen.
Mason’s boots cross the porch. Janey moves around in the kitchen. The old dog barks like he's still young enough to protect everyone in this house.
This is what I'm afraid of losing.
The messy, impossible, already-loved thing that’s taking shape under our roof.
I push the conversation down deep where it can’t touch the day yet, but it stays there, as I follow Mason inside.
No matter how much I want this, all of us together, I can’t shake the fear that Janey might be better off with one of us.
And God help me, I don’t know whether I’m more afraid she’d choose Mason, or that she’d choose me.
Chapter 15
Janey
The afternoon sun is warm on my shoulders as I sit on the front porch with a glass of lemon soda, watching Buck attempt to chase a butterfly across the grass. It has been a surprisingly peaceful day. I helped with a few light chores this morning, took a nap after lunch, and now I'm pretending to do anything other than overthink every single thing in my life.
The sound of tires on the gravel drive pulls me from my thoughts. A familiar truck comes into view, Wade and Caleb’s, and my heart lifts the moment I see Joelle waving from the passenger seat.
I stand as they park. Mason and Brookes step out from the barn, wiping their hands on their jeans, big grins already spreading across their faces.
“Look who decided to visit,” Mason calls out.
Joelle climbs down carefully, walks straight to me, andpulls me into a tight hug.
“Hey, you,” she whispers against my hair. “How are you holding up?”
Before I can answer, little Caleb, freed from his car seat by big Caleb, toddles over and wraps his chubby arms around my leg. “Janey!”
I laugh and scoop him up, pressing a kiss to his curly head. “Hi, sweet boy.”
Wade and Caleb greet Mason and Brookes with backslaps and easy conversation. The four men fall into ranch talk almost immediately, covering fences, cattle prices, and the new bull they're thinking about buying, as if the whole world can be covered in detail before they’ve even gone inside.
Joelle leans close to me. “Can we talk for a minute? Just us?”
I nod, already nervous, and hand little Caleb back to Wade before leading her through the house and out onto the back porch, where the pasture stretches wide and quiet beyond the rail.
We settle into the rocking chairs. Joelle looks out over the land for a moment, her hand drifting lightly over her middle, then she turns to me with soft eyes.
“I wanted to tell you in person that I’m pregnant.” A bright, nervous smile breaks out across her face.
For a second, pure joy rushes through me. “Joelle. Oh my God.” I reach over and squeeze her hands. “That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you.”
She laughs, and the sound turns a little watery at the edges. “Thank you. I wanted you to hear it from me first.”
“Yeah. The grapevine is fast in these parts.”
She grimaces. “I’m still vexed with Wade. He had nobusiness interfering in your life that way.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “They’ve been amazing. And staying here has been good for me.”
“It’s all the fresh air and wide open space. I love it.” Joelle rests her hand on her still-flat belly, smiling softly.
I'm genuinely thrilled for her. Joelle deserves this: the love, the stability, the and growing family. She deserves a happy pregnancy, filled with joy and anticipation, rather than the stress and worry of the last one. But beneath that happiness, a more complicated emotion rises. Our babies will be so close in age. Second cousins. They could grow up together, running around this ranch, wild and sun-kissed, causing the same kind of chaos their fathers probably did.
The picture in my mind is beautiful, but it’s such a leap into the future that fear crowds the edges.
