Because I was staying.
On this mountain. In this house. With this man.
Breaking every rule Momma ever taught me.
EPILOGUE ONE
Bridger
One Year Later
Roxie bolted from the breakfast table.
One second she was sitting across from me, laughing at something I’d said about the new commission I’d taken. The next, her face went pale and she was running.
I heard the bathroom door slam. Then the unmistakable sound of retching.
I was up and moving before I’d even processed it.
I found her on her knees in front of the toilet, one hand braced on the seat, the other pressed to her stomach.
I knelt beside her, gathering her hair back from her face.
“I’ve got you,” I said quietly.
She heaved again, and I rubbed slow circles on her back.
When she finally stopped, she slumped back against the wall, eyes closed.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“Don’t be.” I grabbed a washcloth, ran it under cold water, and handed it to her.
She pressed it to her face with a shaky hand.
“That’s the third morning this week,” I said.
Her eyes opened. Met mine. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”
“Something you want to tell me?”
She bit her lip—that thing she did when she was nervous—and uncertainty flickered across her face. “Maybe?”
“Maybe?” I repeated.
“I took a test this morning. Before breakfast.”
“And?”
“It was positive.”
We were having a baby.
I let that sink in. A little piece of her mixed with a piece of me. It was the most terrifying, beautiful thing I’d ever known.
“Bridger?” Her voice was small. Uncertain. She looked at me as if she was afraid the sudden reality of it might scare me off. Not in this lifetime. Or the next. I knew with absolute certainty that this was how my life—our life—was meant to be. “Say something.”
I pulled her into my arms, holding her tight.
