One year almost to the day since a black SUV rolled up the Guardian Peak access road and the most intimidating woman I'd ever seen stepped out in heels and looked at me like I was wasting her time. One year since she called me Mr. Donovan andI decided I'd spend however long it took to hear her sayHayeslike it mattered.
Took four days. Still the best four days of my life. Until every day after.
I have a plan. Of course I have a plan. I learned from Boone that having a plan doesn't mean you control the outcome, but it means you've done the work. The plan involves the ridge trail, the one I took her up that first morning when I wanted to show her something beautiful and ended up almost kissing her on a rock at seven AM. The same ridge where she told me about her ex-husband and I told her about the women who wanted the uniform and not the man. The place where she started becoming mine, even if neither of us knew it yet.
I'm going to hike her up there at sunset. The March light on the eastern peaks will be gold and pink, and the valley will be doing that thing where the mist settles in the lower elevations and the whole world looks like it exists just for us. I'll have the ring in my jacket pocket. I'll say something about the view, and she'll say something dry and brilliant, and I'll get on one knee and ask her to marry me.
That's the plan.
The plan goes sideways at oh-nine-hundred.
"Hayes." Lex closes her laptop and looks at me through the screen door. Her expression is the one I've learned to read as her processing face. Calm exterior, rapid calculation underneath. "I need to tell you something."
I push off the porch railing where I've been pretending to drink coffee and not stare at her. "Okay."
"Come sit."
I sit in the chair beside hers. The morning is cool, the pine trees are doing their thing, and somewhere down the hill Cade's dogs are barking at a squirrel. Normal Saturday. Except Lex'shand is resting on her stomach in a way that's not normal. Not a casual placement. A purposeful one. Protective.
My heart rate spikes.
"I'm late," she says. Direct. Clinical. The surgeon delivering a diagnosis. "Eleven days. I took a test this morning while you were on the range with Ryder."
The world narrows to the woman in front of me, her hand on her stomach, her blue eyes watching my face with the careful attention of someone who is not sure how this information will land.
"And?" My voice comes out hoarse.
"And I'm pregnant."
The porch, the mountain, the pine trees, the barking dogs, all of it goes very still and very bright. Like someone turned up the contrast on reality and suddenly everything is more vivid than it was ten seconds ago.
"You're pregnant."
"Approximately six weeks, based on timing." She's watching me with those pale blue eyes, and I can see the calculation running underneath. My age. Her age. The fact that she's forty-one and this wasn't planned and the medical risks at her age are different and she's already running the numbers on every possible outcome. "I know this wasn't part of the plan. I know we haven't discussed children in concrete terms. And I know that at my age, there are factors to consider that..."
I'm on my knees in front of her chair before she finishes the sentence. My hands cover hers on her stomach, and the warmth of her skin through my flannel shirt is the most grounding thing I've ever felt.
"Lex."
"The statistical probability of complications increases significantly after forty, and we should consult with a maternal-fetal medicine specialist before making any..."
"Lex."
She stops. Her mouth is still slightly open, mid-sentence, and her eyes are bright with the barely contained emotion she always tries to manage with data and analysis.
"I love you," I say. "I love you, and I want this. I want this so much I can't breathe right now."
Her composure cracks. The tears come fast, the way they did in her penthouse doorway a year ago, and she presses her forehead against mine and makes a sound that's half laugh, half sob.
"I'm forty-one," she whispers. "I'm going to be an elderly primigravida. That's the medical term. It literally means elderly first-time mother."
"You're going to be the most capable, brilliant, terrifying mother any kid has ever had. And elderly primigravida is the worst medical term I've ever heard. Who named that?"
She laughs. A real laugh, wet and shaky, her hands turning over to grip mine on her stomach. "I'm scared, Hayes."
"I know. Me too."
"You don't look scared."
