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“Well, I imagine we’ll fight again. We’re not saints. And you’re really annoying, so it’s bound to happen.”
She coughed out a laugh but it disappeared as quickly as it arrived. “You won’t want to stay after I tell you, though…”
“As long as you didn’t give away any more milk like an idiot, then I can’t really see that happening.”
She just shook her head, unable to tell him whatever it was that had her this distressed.
“Nicole,” he said as gently as he could, “you need to tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help otherwise.”
All he wanted to do was to help her. Whatever was within his power he would do, anything to stop her looking so small and helpless, like the world was weighing down on her, crushing her more with every passing second.
Nicole took a deep, shaking breath. “I fainted in the milking shed…” she began, before visibly losing her nerve and trailing off.
“Yeah, I know that part. Do you know what caused it?”
She squeezed his hand tight before she spoke.
“I’m pregnant.”
Brendan had to think for a second before his brain actually processed what she’d said.
“You’re… so, we…?” Despite apparently losing function over his power of speech, she’d understood what he was asking and nodded. He was the father. The child was his.
He was going to be a dad. A dad! He was going to be a dad to a scrunchy little newborn that would someday grow into a little kid and then a teenager, then an adult, and he would get to be there to watch the whole process, watch them grow because he was going to be a dad. Brendan thought he might pass out himself. He needed to talk, to tell Nicole that it was okay, that he wasecstatic, but he just couldn’t get his voice to start working again.
Nicole finally dared to look at his face and found him grinning ear to ear.
“You—” she stammered, looking at his smile suspiciously. “You’re not mad?”
“No, Nicole, I’m not mad.”
She thought on that for a second before nodding and speaking again. “So… you wouldn’t be mad if, say, hypothetically… it was twins?”
“They can tell that early?” Brendan didn’t know whythatwas the first thing to come falling out his mouth, but he was just going to blame it on the shock.
“Yeah,” said Nicole, actually huffing out a little laugh. “The wonders of technology, huh?”
“So, I get to play with two babies, then?” he said, feeling lightheaded at the thought of it. Was it possible to get high on oxytocin? Because that’s what it kind of felt like right now.
“What?” Nicole asked, her chin starting to quiver beyond her control and her eyes growing wetter by the second so that it was a wonder she could see at all.
“Well, I’m going to do more than justplaywith them, obviously,” he said. “But there’s going to be two babies? To feed and give baths and watch stupid cartoons with?”
She was staring at him in shock. “You’re really not mad?”
“Nicole,” he said, trying to make sure that what he was saying sunk in for her. “I have never been more excited in my life. I’m the exact opposite of mad.”
Her chin started to tremble a little bit harder, tears now spilling down over her cheeks like waterfalls.
“I want to stay,” he said, brushing them off her face as gently as he could. “If you’ll have me back here. I want to stay and keep learning about this place, learn everything I can from you. I want to stay and raise our kids. Because then these twins would be number five, then, wouldn’t they?”
“Number five?” Nicole asked.
“They’ll be generation number five to run the farm.”
That’s when she started crying for real, the relief visible in her shoulders as Brendan closed the gap between them and scooped her into his arms like he had wanted to do so many times before. Now that he had her in his grasp, he was never letting go.
EPILOGUE
