“You think it worked?” Her voice is barely a whisper now. Shy in a way I rarely hear from my bold, beautiful wife. Her hand drifts to her belly. “Tonight?”
My heart slams against my ribs. I cover her hand with mine. Big over small. Rough over soft. Both of us pressing gently against her warm skin.
“If it didn’t,” I say, my voice thick, “we’ll try again in the morning.” I kiss her hair. “And after breakfast.” Another kiss. “And before lunch.”
She laughs, sleepy and warm. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m thorough.”
She drifts off with a smile on her lips, her body soft and heavy against mine. Her breathing goes slow. Steady. The kind of deep sleep that only comes when you feel completely safe.
And I lie there in the dark. Holding my wife. Listening to the quiet of our land. Feeling her heartbeat against my skin.
This woman showed up at a St. Patrick’s Day fair and knocked my entire world sideways. She tried to fight it. Tried to talk herself out of me. Out of us. Told herself she was too old, too divorced, too done.
But I saw her. All of her. And I wasn’t about to let the best thing that ever happened to me walk away over something as stupid as fear.
Now she’s here. In my bed. In my arms. Wearing my ring. Carrying my name. And maybe, if I’m the luckiest son of a bitch in Texas, carrying something else too. I press one last kiss to her temple. Breathe her in. Then I close my eyes. And smile. My wife. Damn, that sounds good.
Nineteen
Epilogue
Beau
I notice the tits first. Not in a bad way. There’s no bad way to notice my wife’s tits. But they’re different. Fuller. Heavier. Straining against her tops in a way that’s new. Her nipples are darker. More sensitive. She hissed when I sucked them last night. Not the good hiss. The too-much hiss. And Ina’s never too-much about anything I do with my mouth.
Then the coffee.
My wife drinks coffee like it’s a religion. Two cups minimum. Black, no sugar. Don’t talk to her before the first one. Tuesday morning she poured a cup, brought it to her lips, and set it back down. Untouched. Reached for the orange juice instead.
I didn’t say anything. Just watched.
On wednesday she fell asleep on the couch at eight. My woman, who stays up past midnight arguing with reality TV like the contestants can hear her, out cold before the sun finishedsetting. I carried her to bed. She mumbled something about being tired from the heifers. The heifers were fine. Miguel told me so.
Thursday she skipped breakfast. Stood in front of the fridge for two minutes, closed it, and ate three saltine crackers standing at the counter. Then she went outside, took a deep breath of hay-scented air, and looked vaguely green.
I know bodies. Spent my entire career reading the signs…the subtle shifts in behavior, the physical changes, the things an animal can’t tell you with words but tells you with everything else. Watched a hundred cows carry. I know what it looks like before anyone confirms it.
My wife is pregnant.
I don’t say anything. Not yet. Because I want her to have this. The discovery. The moment it becomes real for her. I’m not going to take that away by being a know-it-all with a behavioral genetics degree and an obsessive fixation on her body.
But God, it’s hard to keep my mouth shut.
Friday night. Our bed. She’s lying on her stomach in one of my T-shirts…stretched across her tits, riding up over her ass, her braids fanned on the pillow. I’m on my side, my hand tracing slow lines up her bare thigh. Her skin is warm. Smooth. She smells like her lotion and my soap and something new under. Something softer. Richer.
I slide my hand up. Over the curve of her hip. Across her belly. And I rest it there. Palm flat. Fingers spread. The way I’ve done a hundred times since that first night in the bullpen.
But this time something’s different. Nothing I can see. Nothing I can measure. Just a fullness under my hand. A warmth. A quiet, steady hum of something that wasn’t there before.
My chest cracks open so wide I can barely breathe.
“Ina.”
“Mmm?” She’s half asleep. Her eyes closed. Her lips parted.
“How long have you known?”
