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Eleven months of a receipt in my glove box and searches that turned up nothing, and this entire time, three hours north of me, she grew my baby in her belly?

Another gust slaps my numb cheeks hard, and Lainey runs onto the porch of the Butterfly House and whips open the door before slamming it shut.

She had my baby and didn't even give me the chance to hold it, name it, or show up for a single one of the milestones every other father on this ranch gets to brag about at Sunday supper.

The pit in my stomach widens, turning more sour.

I don't know if it's a boy or a girl. I'm clueless about its birthday, middle name, whether it's got my mother's stubborn chin or Lainey's sharp green eyes. And every single one of those unknowns claws at me worse than the cold ever could, or the eleven months of not knowing where she was. It's worse than anything I've carried since the afternoon I returned to an empty apartment and a receipt tossed under the bed.

I press the heel of my hand against my sternum, like that might do anything at all to slow the pounding underneath it, and it doesn't. Nothing about my body's listening to reason right now. My lungs keep dragging in air too fast, my pulse hammering too hard. Underneath all of it, there's a feeling I don't have a clean word for, a knot that isn't quite fear or joy or the rage I probably ought to be aiming at myself for not asking one simple question eleven months ago.

"Jagger?" Mason's voice cuts through the ringing in my ears, and I turn to find him and Phoebe wearing the same questioning expression.

"What's going on?" Mason asks, peering closer. His expression shifts fast from curious to alarmed. "You look like you got hit by lightning."

"She ran that way." I point toward the guesthouses, my hand trembling, my voice not quite my own.

"Okay…" Phoebe says slowly, crossing her arms tight around her chest and tilting her head.

"Lainey. She just ran from me and into the Butterfly House,” I state.

Phoebe frowns, glancing between me and the direction Lainey disappeared. Her diamond catches the gray afternoon light every time her hand moves.

Mason steps closer, his voice growing a protective edge I haven't heard out of him since we were kids. "Lainey's here? The Lainey?"

I can't answer. Answering requires explaining eleven months, a receipt in my glove box, and a rumor that never got corrected. It includes a sentence about a doctor's office that still needs clarification. None of that comes out in words a man can say standing in a pasture with his brother and his sister-in-law both staring at him like he's lost his mind, while wind cuts straight through all three of us.

"I have to go," I say instead, already moving.

"Go where? Jagger." Mason grabs my arm, fingers digging in hard enough to leave a mark.

I shake him off harder than I mean to, already breaking into a run before he can finish whatever he's about to say.

He calls after me, "Jagger!"

But I don't stop. The ground's frozen hard enough that even through my boots it hurts, but I don't care. I push myself faster across the pasture toward that guesthouse with blood pounding so hard between my ears, I can't hear the wind, Mason hollering behind me, or my own ragged breathing tearing out of my chest in white clouds.

A kid.

I have a kid, and the woman who I made that kid with just ran from me like I'm the worst thing that ever happened to her.

Maybe I earned every ounce of that fear on her face?

My chest burns worse than my legs do. By the time I hit the second cattle guard, cold air scrapes raw down my throat with every breath. I don't slow down, and can't think past the next fifty yards, because thinking too hard right now feels like it might buckle my knees clean out from under me.

I cover the distance in under two minutes, lungs burning, thighs screaming from a sprint I haven't run since high school football. The Butterfly House comes into clearer view, its interior lights a warm yellow and glowing behind curtained windows that do nothing to slow the dread building in my chest.

I rush up the porch steps and shove through the front door so hard, it bangs against the wall.

An older woman, with silver threading through her red hair, has both arms wrapped tight around Lainey, who happens to be sobbing into her shoulder like the whole world just ended.

The older woman's head snaps up first. Her eyes land on me, and whatever softness was in her face a second ago evaporates entirely. It's replaced by an expression so lethal, it stops me dead in the doorway. Her jaw sets like poured concrete. Her eyes narrow to slits, dark and furious, and every single line on her face rearranges itself into the exact look a man only sees right before he gets hit with a skillet. And her skillet is fully loaded, and aimed to kill me.

Each word becomes its own separate threat. "What have you done?"

Lainey sobs.

"Ma'am, I'm⁠—"