Page 21 of Promised to the Cowboy

“I just—” I don’t quite know how to explain it. “I’d like to know it.”

She pauses, and her eyes soften. “Grace,” she says. “Evie Grace.”

I turn that over. File it somewhere it won’t get lost.

“Gabriel?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re going to be all right at this.”

I don’t answer. But her words hit me deep in my chest. Becauseall rightwon’t cut it for my child.Ourchild.

And whatever happens next, my child will never wonder if they were worth being chosen.

Chapter 8

Evie

By the time I get up the next morning, the sun’s up, and Maggie’s bustling around the kitchen.

I clock it the second I walk in. A mug of coffee is already poured, sitting at my place.

Maggie does not look up from her cast-iron skillet, which is currently producing enough scrambled eggs to feed an army.

“Sit,” she says. “Eat.”

I sit. Take a sip of my coffee. “You made decaf.”

“I made coffee. Yours happens to be decaf.” She slides a plate in front of me with an omelet, which has to be at least four eggs, plus a finely sliced tomato. “You’re too thin in the face. Sit.”

Her eyes drop to my stomach. “Both of you.”

I look down at my too-full plate so she can’t see my face. “You know,” I say quietly.

Maggie places a hand on my shoulder. “Honey, I saw my best friend through three pregnancies. You’re barely showing, butI know the signs. A woman gets a certain look when she’s carrying.”

Maggie tops up my coffee before sitting opposite me with her own mug. For a while, she just watches me over the rim.

“So,” she says eventually. “Did you tell him?”

I nod.

“How’d he take it?”

I smile before I can stop myself. “Better than I expected.” I trace a finger around the warm ceramic of my mug. “He told me about his mom.”

Maggie’s face softens in a way that makes her look older and younger all at once. “That tells me a lot about how he feels about you, Evie. He never talks about her. Not out loud.”

“He thinks...” I swallow. “He thinks he’s the reason she died.”

Maggie closes her eyes for a brief second. “I know.”

“He told me his father can’t look at him.”

The silence that follows feels heavy with years of unresolved grief.

“When Gabriel was born,” Maggie says eventually, “I held him before his daddy could bear to.” She smiles sadly into her coffee. “He was the prettiest baby I’d ever seen. Full head of dark hair. Loud little lungs.” She chuckles. “Mad about being hungry from the first breath he took.”