Page 31

I can feel my heart beating in my throat, a steady thump that accompanies Beau and me the whole way to the doctor’s office.

Today, we’re having our anatomy scan. I felt the baby move for the first time last night, which has helped relieve some of my anxiety, but I’m still nervous about what today could bring as they go over every inch of the baby’s body and look for abnormalities.

A warm breeze ruffles my hair as Beau pulls into the OB-GYN office parking lot and picks a spot far away from where I had my meltdown at our first appointment, just as he did at the last two.

I can’t help but look at it now, remembering the girl I was huddled on the ground, heaving and unable to breathe in the frigid air.

The way Beau’s hands and voice were the only things to settle me down.

It seems so long ago. It seems like yesterday.

Time has felt funny these last few months, like it’s somehow both stuck in Jell-O and moving forward at the speed of light.

I’m grateful for it, for the way this time we have—just the two of us, while we figure things out—has been trapped in amber.

I’m grateful for the time to fix our broken pieces and put ourselves back together so we can be the best versions of ourselves when we bring someone new into our lives.

Beau turns his gaze on me, finding my hand smoothing absentmindedly over my stomach the way it has more and more often of late, his eyes going soft at the gesture.

I used to wonder why pregnant people did it so much, if they were trying to emphasize their bump, but now I know it’s because you can feel it.

The baby growing inside you, your organs stretching and moving to make space, the flutter of tiny kicks.

It’s a certain kind of magic that can’t be explained, something I feel so lucky to experience.

Something I never could have imagined when I was drinking tequila straight in a bar a few months ago.

“How’re you feeling?” Beau asks, his hand landing on the headrest behind me, causing his shirtsleeve to snag on his biceps.

I never quit noticing him. It would be impossible to, but lately he’s seemed so much more physical, more real.

I’m gripped by the need to touch him, but I hold myself back, the way I have time after time, grasping firmly to keep my word, to not push either of us further when I’m not sure I won’t pull away.

Instead of answering him immediately, I let myself really think about the question.

I feel good for the first time in months.

For the past few weeks, after Beau leaves for the ranch in the early mornings, I’ve been slipping outside to walk.

It feels good to move my body in a way that isn’t productive.

I’m walking because I like feeling the sunrise on my skin and the wind in my hair.

I like moving my body and working up a sweat.

But I’m not working toward anything. At first, I was trying to walk a certain distance each day, but as I’ve continued doing it each morning, I’ve stopped paying attention.

I’m walking to clear my head, and I like it.

Locking my eyes on Beau’s brown ones, I say, “I feel good.”

He inclines his head, looking like he’s not sure if he believes me, and I don’t blame him. I can’t count how many times I’ve told that lie, how much I’d even begun to believe it. But right now I’m telling the truth.

“Really,” I say. “I promise.”

A smile curls one edge of his lips, pulling my attention from his eyes to his mouth. I’ve found my attention drifting there more and more of late.

“Any nerves about today?” he asks.

I drag my gaze from his distracting smile and focus on the brown of his eyes.

The sun is reflecting on them today, bringing out the flecks of gold that can only be seen in natural light.

I shake my head. “Not really.” And to both of our surprise, it’s the truth.

I smooth my hand over my ever-growing bump.

I officially look pregnant now, not like I just ate too much at lunch.

“I felt the baby moving last night, so I think everything is going to be okay.”

Beau’s eyes widen. “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I can’t help but laugh at the betrayal in his tone. “You were asleep. It was the middle of the night.”

“You should have woken me up.” He sounds incredulous.

“You wouldn’t have been able to feel it anyway,” I say, still laughing.

He shakes his head, brow furrowed, looking like a hurt puppy. “I don’t care. I want to know everything.”

My lips curl in a smile. “I guess you’d probably like to know that I can feel them now, then.”

His eyes widen comically, and he unbuckles and scoots closer to me on the bench seat, his large hand enveloping my midsection.

“You can’t feel it on the outside,” I say, laughter bubbling like expensive champagne in my chest. “Only on the inside.”

A frown tugs at his mouth, pulling the corners down. “Where can you feel it?”

My hand covers his, so much smaller, shifting it to the spot where I can feel the fluttering in my midsection, the sensation almost like a bubble popping.

Last night, I woke up and thought it was indigestion, but when it didn’t go away, I pulled out my phone to look it up.

When I realized what was happening, I did think about running across the hall to wake Beau up, and now I’m regretting staying in bed because I wish he’d gotten to experience this with me the first time.

“Right here,” I say when our hands find the spot I can feel the fluttering deep inside.

His gaze fixes on mine, wide and full of awe. “What does it feel like?”

I pause for a moment, trying to think of how to explain it. “Butterfly wings.”

At the description, his eyes focus on my stomach. “Hey, little butterfly. It’s me, your daddy.”

My heart pitches in my chest, like I just jumped off a cliff. I think I can actually feel my ovaries sighing right now.

“Can you move for daddy, please?”

I swear the baby moves at the sound of his voice, and tears prick at my eyes at the feeling of it. “They moved,” I breathe.

A smile brighter than the sun breaks across his face. “Really?”

I nod, and I swear I see a sheen behind his eyes, but before I can get a good look, he presses his lips to the spot on my stomach. I can feel the heat of them through the thin fabric of my shirt.

“That’s my baby,” he says, like he’s cheering them on at a baseball game. “You’re perfect, just like your mom.”

My chest feels full enough to burst when he finally backs up, the feeling of his kiss still lingering on my stomach.

“Come on, let’s go see our baby.”

An hour and a half later, we’re climbing back into the truck with a clean bill of health and an envelope containing the gender of our baby in hand.

I’m still in awe after watching our little baby move around on the screen during the ultrasound, knowing they were finally big enough for me to feel just a fraction of the movement.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

When the doctor asked if we wanted to know the baby’s gender in the office, take the results home, or stay in the dark altogether, Beau and I agreed that we wanted to know. But he surprised me by saying he wanted to take the results with us because he knew where he wanted to open them.

His smile is wide. “It’s a secret.”

He backs out of the parking spot and pulls onto the street, heading in the opposite direction of home.

When we hit the open road, driving into the mountains, Beau rolls down the windows, letting the summer air in.

Nineties country plays on the stereo. The smell of pine and wildflowers dances on the breeze.

My little butterfly flutters in my stomach, as if they, too, are enjoying this perfect day as much as I am.

When Beau turns down a nondescript dirt road, I know exactly where he’s headed.

A place we haven’t been to in years. A smile creeps onto my lips as he avoids rough patches in the dirt, narrowly avoiding the dense pine trees on either side.

It’s a drive he probably could have made blindfolded at one point.

It makes me both happy and sad to see that there are no longer any tire tracks in the dirt.

Happy because that means that this place is still just ours.

Sad because it just goes to show how long it’s been since we were here.

We’ve been back in Montana for a year now.

This dirt road should show the wear of the visits we’ve made, but we haven’t, and the absence of it feels particularly acute.

Finally, Beau pulls the truck to a stop and backs up so the bed is facing the valley.

There’s not even a designated spot, just a break in the trees that’s perfect to stop and look out at the wide valley below.

Beyond, the mountains rise, tall and jagged.

Trees surround us on every side and wildflowers that carry the scent of earth crop up beneath our tires.

The place feels like magic. It always has.

“Wait there,” Beau says, and hops out, coming to my side to help me down. My heart hammers in my chest at his touch, my throat thick with emotion.

When we round to the back of the truck, Beau releases the hatch, and then his hands find my hips and lift until I’m seated on the edge. Our eyes connect, and for a moment, it’s like time stills.

We’ve been here a thousand times before, and he’s always lifted me just like this.

The first time we came here as teenagers, when he told me he’d found a place he wanted to show me.

Dozens of times after, when we were dying to get away from our parents and the town, when we’d park and barely make it out of the truck before our hands and lips were on each other.

The last time we were here, a few months before my injury, on a rare trip home during my off-season.

His hands flex on my hips, fingers digging in, and a part of me wants to pull him close, drag him up until he’s laying me down in the bed of this truck, covering me, erasing all the bad memories of the last year.

But I think we’re too far past that. I don’t think we can go anywhere but forward. And maybe I’m starting to realize I don’t want to forget it all. I want to remember every aching moment of it, remember how good it feels now, knowing how painful it was then.

Beau backs up before I can move, pulling the envelope the doctor gave me out of his back pocket, and climbs up into the bed next to me. Our feet dangle, knocking together as we stare at the crinkled envelope.

“What do you want it to be?” I ask, my palm finding my bump, pressing the place where the baby is moving.

Beau slides his thumbnail beneath the lip of the envelope, flipping it up and down. “I’d be happy with either,” he says, and then his brown eyes lock on mine, the same color as the dirt beneath our feet. “But if I’m being totally honest, I want a girl. One just like you.”

My throat feels thick, and I want to cry at the sincerity in his eyes. His hair catches in the wind, blowing over his cheek, and before I can stop myself, I reach up and push it back.

His breath fans across my palm at the touch, his eyes closing, and his body seems to go both pliant and tight, like he’s sinking into the feeling, but ready to react to it at the slightest provocation.

He’s always been like that, and it’s always fascinated me.

I have visions of him, head tilted back, eyes closed, bottom lip caught between his teeth.

I always thought I had him right where I wanted him, and then he’d flip, pin me down and show me I was never in as much control as I thought I was.

I want to tell him that I don’t want to have a girl like me. That I don’t want my child to be broken like me, to be incapable of being honest with the people they love, to isolate herself when she should let people in.

“I hope they’re like you, boy or girl,” I say, and it’s the truth. The world needs more Beaus.

His eyes open, breath fanning against the wrist I still haven’t pulled from his face. I‘m entranced by the way his stubble feels against my palm. “Maybe they’ll have all the best parts of both of us.”

A smile pulls at my lips, and I lift my hand away, dropping it in my lap. “I hope so.”

“You want to open it?” he asks.

I shake my head, leaning into his shoulder, sinking into the broad strength of it. “You do it,” I tell him.

I can feel the breath let out of him as he slips his thumb beneath the lip of the envelope, opening it slowly. My heart beats wildly in my chest, a steady thump in my ears. Beau pulls out the slip of paper, and I see it the moment before he does.

I see our future spelled out in black and white, and a thousand images flash through my mind. This pregnancy has felt like many things since I watched the test flash Positive , but right now it feels real , because I can see it. I can see Beau and me and—

“It’s a girl,” Beau says, turning watery eyes on me. I watch as the future plays out for him the same way it just did for me. It feels bright, much brighter than it has the past year. The first star pricking a moonless sky.

I nod, a smile breaking out over my face. “It’s a girl.”

His hand finds the back of my head, hauling me in to press a kiss to my forehead before he bends down, eye level with my stomach. With a gentle reverence a man of his size shouldn’t be able to possess, he caresses the swell of my stomach with his thumb and places a kiss there too.

“Hey, baby girl. It’s me, your daddy.”