Chapter Nineteen
~ Macon ~
There was a hint of a smile on my face as I stood on the porch with my daughter strapped to my chest and let the wind come through me like a prayer. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, just Montana blue and the ghost of summer heat dissolving into fall.
Out in the yard, Carter was spinning in a circle, arms wide, hair loose, laughing loud enough to startle the magpies off the fence. I’d seen grown men do a hell of a lot worse to celebrate, but none of them ever looked that free.
The baby slept, her head slumped sideways in the carrier, mouth leaking a drool line onto the front of my shirt. I covered her ear with my hand, as if I could keep the world quiet by force of will.
Didn’t matter; she slept through the cackle of goats, the thump of horses, the old radio in the kitchen cranking Jojo’s favorite station. I hadn’t been able to sleep at all, but Margot could’ve out-napped a cinder block.
Carter tripped over a lump of sod and went down to one knee. He popped back up, dusted off, and looked back at the porch with a sheepish grin. In the sun, his hair had gone lighter, and his skin was two shades deeper than the day he’d arrived.
There was muscle under his t-shirt now, not just from carrying the baby, but from fixing fence and hauling sacks of concrete and lifting hay bales even after I told him a hundred times to leave it to me. He was still soft in the middle, but there was a core to him that nobody could take apart.
The house behind me still smelled like paint, fresh-cut pine, and the peppery edge of Carter’s favorite coffee. Every piece of it was perfect. I’d seen to that with my own hands—leveled every stud, shaved every door, triple-checked the plumbing so thateven at full scream, Margot’s bathwater would stay steady and hot.
Carter said it was a fortress, a cathedral, a home, but I just thought of it as the best thing I’d ever built.
On move-in day, we’d stood at the threshold while Carter insisted on carrying Margot over the new threshold himself, superstition or not. He’d kicked off his shoes, bounced her in his arms, and announced, “This is the one. We’re never moving again.” I’d looked at the floors—oak, planed to a mirror finish, the joinery tighter than a bank vault—and nodded.
Margot squawked in her sleep, wriggling against my chest. I adjusted the carrier, patting her back until she sighed and went limp again. She was only three months, but already strong; when she was hungry, she’d latch on to Carter with a death grip, and when she was mad, she’d go red from the tips of her ears to the soles of her feet. Carter said she was going to be president, or a dictator, or maybe just the terror of kindergarten.
I figured she’d rule the world, either way.
The front yard was a mess, half-seeded with wildflowers and half dirt patch from the last dig for the septic upgrade. Carter had big plans: pollinator gardens, native grass restoration, a playhouse for the baby.
For now, it was just a canvas, but I could already see the outlines of what it would be. He never said it, but I knew he liked that I left the fences a little crooked, the mailbox set at an angle just like the one at Black Butte Ranch.
Carter was big on tradition, even if he had to invent it himself.
He came up the porch steps, slightly out of breath, and leaned into me with his hands on my shoulders. He looked down at Margot, then back at me, then up at the porch ceiling, which I’d stained a deep blue at his request.
“Did you know that in Morocco they paint their ceilings blue to keep out evil spirits?” he asked.
I grunted. “Pretty sure they use blue for insects, not demons.”
Carter grinned, thumb tracing the edge of the baby carrier. “Well, it’s working. I haven’t seen a single ghost all morning.”
“Except me,” I said, and reached for his waist, dragging him in with one hand. He didn’t resist. He never did.
He pressed his cheek against the side of my face, careful not to jostle the baby, and whispered, “I can’t believe it’s ours. I keep thinking I’ll wake up back at the ranch, or worse, in Texas.”
I tightened my hold. “You’re not going anywhere.”
He nodded against me. The stubble on his jaw was sharp, but he let me kiss it anyway. In the sun, his eyes were gray and clear as the high-altitude sky. He looked nothing like the man I’d met a year ago—terrified, invisible, hands shaking at the dinner table.
That man was gone, replaced by someone who could laugh at himself, who could hold my hand in town without a tremor, who could raise a daughter in a state where most people thought a family like ours belonged on a wanted poster.
“I want to show you something,” Carter said, pulling back. He grabbed my hand and led me through the front door, straight into the heart of the house.
The living room was a Macon O’Reilly showroom: built-in bookcases, a mantelpiece so smooth you could use it as a shaving mirror, a coffee table with dovetails I’d stayed up half the night to perfect. Every window faced the mountains, the light so clean it made even the old rugs look new.
Carter had lined the shelves with every book he’d ever owned, plus a few from my own battered collection, the spines forming a mosaic of color.
He didn’t stop there. He led me down the hall to the nursery—a room painted a strange but appealing green. There was acrib, a changing table, a rocking chair—mine, first one I’d ever made—and toys already scattered across the floor. On the wall, Carter had hung a framed photo of the ranch back in spring, when the pasture was choked with wild iris and the goats stood like sentinels in the mist.
Carter knelt beside the crib and gestured for me to set Margot down. I unbuckled her, careful as a bomb tech, and laid her on the mattress. She stretched, made a face, and then curled up on her side, still asleep.
