He closed his eyes, the word “family” seeming to wash over him like a physical touch. Then he leaned forward, dropping his forehead into my open palm in a gesture so trusting it made my throat tight. His skin was warm against mine, alive and real and here. So different from the first time I’d touched him, when he’d flinched away like a wounded animal.
When he looked up again, his eyes were shining with unshed tears. I watched his throat work as he swallowed hard.
“I want that with you,” he said, the words simple, but carrying the weight of everything between us—the fear and hope and impossible journey that had led us here. “A home. Our home.”
He stood up suddenly, wrapping his arms around me with a fierceness that took me by surprise. I held him just as tightly, one hand cradling the back of his head while the other pressed against the small of his back. He buried his face in my shirt, and I felt the dampness of tears soaking through to my skin.
“Thank you,” he murmured against my chest. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”
I pulled back just enough to cup his face in my hands. “Never,” I said, the word a vow. “Not in this lifetime or any other.”
We stood together against the porch railing, the golden hour light washing over us, painting everything in honey and amber. The ranch spread out below us—the main house where Rawley and Jojo lived with little Ethan, the newer farmhouse where Carter and Macon had built their life, and now, somewhere in between, the future home that would be ours. A perfect triangle, connected and separate all at once.
“Does this mean we’re staying?” Danny asked, the question cautious but hopeful. “For good?”
I brushed my thumb across his cheekbone, wiping away the tear track there. “If that’s what you want. This can be our forever place, Danny. You, me, and the little one.”
His hand drifted to his stomach—still flat, but holding all our tomorrows. “I never thought I’d have this,” he admitted, voice catching. “A home. A family. People who actually want me around.”
“Not just want,” I corrected, pressing my forehead to his. “Need. I need you, Danny Jenkins. Like air or water or blood pumping through my veins.”
He laughed, the sound watery but real. “That’s the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“And I meant every word of it,” I grinned, relief and joy flooding through me.
We stayed like that as the light faded and the first stars appeared, wrapped in each other’s arms, the deed forgotten on the table behind us. We didn’t need the paper to tell us what we already knew—that we’d found our place in the world, that it was here, with each other.
“When can we start building?” Danny asked eventually, his voice steady now, filled with that quiet determination I’d fallen in love with.
“Tomorrow, if you want,” I said, pressing a kiss to his temple. “We can meet with the builder, start picking out designs. Carter’s already planning the nursery, according to Macon.”
Danny laughed again, the sound filling the space around us with warmth. “Of course he is.”
He turned in my arms to face the valley again, leaning back against my chest as we watched the last rays of sunlight disappear behind the mountains. His body was solid against mine, a perfect fit, like we‘d been designed to hold each other just this way.
“Our home,” he whispered, testing the words. “Our family.”
I wrapped my arms more securely around him, one hand settling protectively over his stomach. “That’s right,” I agreed. “Ours.”
And in that moment, with the stars coming out above us and the future spread out before us like a promise, I knew that whatever came next—Dennis, the pregnancy, the terrifying leap into parenthood—we’d face it together, standing on our own piece of earth, in a home built with our own hands. Day by day, just like I’d promised him, but now with roots that went bone-deep.
Chapter Twelve
~ Danny ~
I gripped the edge of the seat as Burke pulled into the courthouse parking lot, my stomach doing a nauseating flip that had nothing to do with morning sickness and everything to do with the building looming ahead of us.
The morning air bit at my cheeks through the half-open window, crisp and cold with the promise of an early frost, but it wasn’t the temperature making me shiver.
I couldn’t stop staring at the courthouse—all that stone and glass and authority—knowing that inside, my brother was waiting. His bail hearing had been set back a few weeks when he got into a fight in his cell and sent another inmate to the hospital. Hopefully, that would add to his time behind bars.
Burke’s hand found mine across the console, warm and solid and real. “You okay?” he asked, voice pitched low like we were already in a place where voices carried consequences.
I nodded, then shook my head. “No,” I admitted. “But I’m doing this anyway.”
He squeezed my fingers, not saying the obvious: that I didn’t have to. That I could wait in the car, or at home, or anywhere else while he and Rawley handled the hearing.
He knew me better than that.
