Page 47

In theory, a date night sounds like a beautiful thing.

In reality, it means I have to pump bottles for the Jenningses to give Nova, which I hate doing because it’s so much more difficult than just feeding her.

It also means we will have to pick her back up later tonight, and she will definitely wake up and it will be impossible to get back to sleep because she’s teething and has been constantly uncomfortable for the last month.

Dating was easier than I expected the first six months of Nova’s life.

Lottie and Clint were always happy to have extra time with her and we would keep date nights short enough to be between feedings.

But for the last couple months, she’s been in a growth spurt and constantly hungry.

And teething, which has made her in so much pain. It’s been hard on all of us.

Which is why Beau suggested a date night. Something for just us. And I’m excited, I truly am, but I’m also tired. And a night rotting on the couch sounds more appetizing than getting dressed up and going out.

My phone vibrates with a text right after I put Nova down in her playpen so I can get ready. It’s from Beau.

Beau: Wear that blue dress tonight.

He’s talking about the one Jade wore to my baby shower, the one I would have killed to fit into at the time.

I dig around for it in the closet and hold it up to myself in front of the mirror.

It’s going to be tighter than it was before, especially since my activity level has been way lower for the past nine months.

When I came back from maternity leave three months ago, I told Tonya I’d do it—I’d take over the studio.

I wasn’t sure if I was capable before, but if motherhood has taught me anything, it’s that my abilities are limitless.

We’ve been transitioning over ownership, and she’s been showing me the ropes.

It means teaching fewer classes, but I’m not interested in giving that up completely, so we’re in the process of hiring a few more teachers to help with my workload.

It’s been good. Hard, but good.

I stare at my reflection in the mirror for a moment, my free hand smoothing over the soft fabric.

I’ve been working at the studio nonstop for the last three months, usually bringing Nova with me, and I can’t remember the last time I did something for myself.

The last time I got dressed up in something other than workout clothes or jeans and a T-shirt and felt beautiful.

Maybe a date night is exactly what I need.

I take my time curling my hair and applying my makeup, pausing every few minutes to help Nova with something, and when I’m finished, I look at myself again.

The dress falls against my skin, settling over my curves.

My hair falls over my shoulders in a sheet.

My perfume, carefully applied to my pulse points, makes me smell like something other than baby for the first time in months.

Taking out my phone, I snap a photo and send it to Beau. He responds immediately.

Beau: I can’t take you out like that. Everyone on the premises will be drooling over you.

I smother a smile and respond.

Elsie: I’m only interested in what you think of how I look.

Beau: I can send you a VERY detailed message when I’m not standing next to my father.

Beau: Also, I got held up here. Want to just meet me at the ranch?

I respond, telling him I’ll be there soon, and pack Nova and her diaper bag into the car.

She babbles the whole way there, bringing a smile to my face.

When she’s not teething, she’s such a happy baby.

She reminds me so much of Beau. She has my features, but his temperament.

When she smiles her gummy smile at me, I swear sometimes it’s like looking right at him.

She may look like me, but there’s a glimmer behind her eyes that’s all Beau.

The ride to the ranch is quick, the windows down.

There’s nothing like summer in Montana. I remember sitting on our apartment balcony in Utah, watching the sunset on rare nights I made it home from the studio before dark, thinking about how they never felt quite right.

The colors were there, the blues and pinks and golds, but the atmosphere was wrong.

The air didn’t carry the smell of larkspurs and honeysuckle, and the mountains were all wrong. This is where I was always meant to be.

I turn down the long dirt road to Lucky Stars and pull beneath the familiar sign, the rusted metal stars and lasso seeming to wink at me in the sunshine.

The sight of it has always made me feel like I’m home, but it means something even more special to me now.

When we told the Jenningses the name we had picked out, Clint called her our little lucky star, and they haven’t stopped since.

I take a turn for the stables instead of heading toward the main house, since it’s where Beau told me he’d be. We pull up in a cloud of dust a moment later. “Nova, you ready to see Dada?” She’s been saying it lately, and every time, it makes my heart swell in my chest, full to bursting.

She does it now, repeating the word over and over again as I unclip her from her car seat, grinning at her tiny face. She blinks at me with wide blue eyes and smiles back. I smooth a hand over her pale fuzzy hair and press a kiss to the same spot on her cheek that I always do—her deep dimple.

Her little body curls into mine as I pick her up, and I breathe in the scent of her—lavender soap and baby powder.

“Dada,” she chants again.

I smile. “Yeah, Nova girl. Let’s go find Dada.”

But when I look up, I see what she did when I was focused on her. Beau standing in the huge doorway to the stables, one hand tucked in the pocket of suit pants that hug him in all the right places, a jacket draped over his shoulder, hanging onto a single finger on this other hand.

I blink at him, confused. “You’re all dressed up.”

He grins, something slow and seductive that makes honey slide down my spine and settle somewhere in my stomach. “I have a hot date tonight.”

I look him over, my eyes hitting on all my favorite places. His thick thighs, broad, muscular shoulders, the mustache that I have really grown to love. His hair that is never quite styled. “I think I’m the one with a hot date.”

He comes closer, moving slow enough that I can feel each step like a tether tied between us, tugging on my belly button.

When he’s close enough to touch, he leans down and kisses our daughter right where I did a moment ago before standing back to his full height, his body blocking out the bright summer sunshine enough so that I can only see him.

Sometimes I still can’t believe he’s mine. That he’s mine again . That he took me back and that we somehow made it work after everything that happened. That we put ourselves back together and made something new.

His eyes are soft as he watches me, and I know he’s seeing every thought in my mind.

Before, that would have scared me—terrified me—but I like that he can read me like this now, that he sees what I need sometimes before I do.

That he pushes me to take it before I get to a point where I fall apart again.

Sometimes I wonder if he would have been able to do the same back then if I’d let him.

Other times, when I’m watching him rock Nova back to sleep in the middle of the night or play with her on a blanket in the backyard, I’m glad I didn’t, that we went through what we did, when we did, because otherwise, our life wouldn’t look like it does now.

“I had an idea,” he says, voice a rough scrape against my skin.

“What’s that?”

He holds my gaze for a beat, and in his, I see a kaleidoscope of emotions—ones as familiar to me as my own—love, admiration, hope, longing, disbelief, contentment, and something else that isn’t quite tangible enough to describe.

“Let’s get married.”

A laugh slips out of me.

In my arms, Nova mimics it. Beau’s gaze settles on her, tender, before lifting back up to mine.

“We’re already married.”

A smile blooms over his face like a sunflower tilting toward the sun. “Let’s get married again.” He pauses for a moment, watching me. Watching as the matching smile lifts my lips. “Right now.”

My jaw drops open. “What?”

His grin turns sly. “Everyone is already at the big house waiting on us.”

I spin in the direction of the big house, like I’m able to see it from here, but, of course, I can’t, not over the rolling hills dotted with cattle and horses. “You’re not serious.”

His hand finds mine, and I feel as he slips something warm onto my finger.

I look down at it, my shock deepening. It’s my wedding ring, the one we had to coax off my finger when my hands started swelling during pregnancy.

We put it with my engagement ring in a jewelry dish on our dresser and didn’t think about it again until we got home from the hospital.

But somehow, it had gone missing. We tore the house apart looking for it, but never found it, so I’ve just been wearing my engagement ring alone since then.

“Something old,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. He drops my hand and palms my hip. “Something blue.”

When he meets my eyes again, his are glowing.

“Where did you find it?” I ask.

A laugh rumbles from his chest. “In Nova’s toy box, of all places. A few months ago,” he tells me, his thumb moving back and forth across my hip, gliding against the fabric in a way that feels distracting. “But I was saving it for this.”

“You planned all this months ago?”

His chin dips in a nod. “I planned it before Nova was even born.”

Tears prick at the backs of my eyes, and I fight to blink them away, but his palm finds my face, thumb swiping away the stray tear. “I’ve got a pair of earrings in my pocket from my mom. She wore them on her wedding day. She wanted them to be your something old.”

My throat feels thick. I’m constantly in awe of the way the Jenningses love. Of the way they love me when I treated them so badly. When I asked Beau to leave and froze them out. But they welcomed me back with open arms. I’ve never experienced love the way they give it.

I push past the lump in my throat and ask, “What’s the something new?”

A slow smile crests over Beau’s face like the sun breaking over the mountains in the morning, lighting the world up in a new day. “I thought that was obvious,” he says. “It’s Nova.”