Page 64 of Forbidden Cowboy

“None of it matters,” Beau said sincerely, “if you can answer one question. If you answer this question, you will have my blessing. I’ll walk you down the aisle if you ever get married, and I’ll babysit your kids and let you guys have disgustingly cute date nights while I wrangle your triplets.”

“What question?”

“Does he make you happy?”

I thought about everything. His smiles, the fresh mountain air framing him while he worked. I thought about mornings making breakfast and his arms wrapped around me at night. The stars that lived in his eyes, and the exploding supernovas that I only saw when he looked at me.

“More than anything,” I replied.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sierra

After that night, everything moved a little faster.

I called the diner where I had worked for less than two months and quit. Wyatt insisted I move back in, even if I just wanted to keep my things in the room that had once been mine. I appreciated the way he was trying not to cross any invisible boundaries between us, but I appreciated the possessive way I woke up every morning with his arms around me more.

Anna was thrilled that I was back, but she was also wary of me, and rightly so. I couldn’t blame her for her behavior, and even would have accepted anger from her. I had abandoned her after I’d built enough trust with her to let her think I wouldn’t.

She was excited about the babies growing in my belly as well, and told everyone she could about her new siblings that would be coming into the world very soon.

My pregnancy was considered high risk, not only because all the usual dangers of pregnancy were tripled, but because I had been unaware of it for the first four months. Apparently, those were prime developmental stages. I was incredibly lucky that everything had progressed normally so far.

“Elsa is a really good name for a girl,” Anna said wisely to me one day.

I was sitting on a folding chair while she mucked out stables with one of the grooms. I had never been reinstated as her nanny. There was really no use in pretending our relationship was solely professional, but with no job and a lot of making up to do with Anna, I had taken to spending as much time with her as possible.

Something Eliana was not doing. She gave me looks like she thought I had gotten pregnant just to mess with Wyatt, and I knew she hated that Wyatt and I were actually trying to make things work. She’d said as much one night, when I was on my way to the bathroom and passed her in the hall.

“It feels good right now,” she said, a sly smile on her face. “Doesn’t it? The attention he’s giving you, the feeling like you’re the only woman in the world, in his world. That will fade, don’t worry.”

“What are you talking about?” I had retorted, rubbing my sleep-laden eyes.

“This whole thing you have going on with Wyatt. Please tell me you’re not stupid enough to think it will actually last.”

“Ugh, Eliana, you have no idea what you’re saying.”

I tried to walk past her, but she grabbed my arm.

“Let go of me,” I said, suddenly awake and prepared to fight her, to yell for Wyatt, to do whatever I needed to be released from her grip.

She did as I commanded, however, and I felt my heart beat return to normal.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “But you think I don’t know? Those first couple of years were perfect. He was a doting husband, but then it all changed. He wasn’t in love with me, and I wasn’t in love with him—we were just two idiots playing at love.”

I refused to let my own insecurities show on my face.

“I’m not you,” I replied.

“Not yet,” she said, and then she was walking down the hall away from me.

Of course, I hadn’t mentioned anything to Wyatt about Eliana’s midnight message for me. It was too dire to think about, even if I did find myself dwelling on her warnings when I felt most vulnerable. I tried to take the high road. I knew Eliana was only in the house still because of Anna’s wish for them to continue reconnecting, and I didn’t want to interrupt that. I comforted myself with the knowledge that if I told Wyatt the woman made me uncomfortable, he would more than likely ask her to find somewhere else to live.

I pulled myself out of my meandering thoughts about Eliana to see Anna leading a beautiful mare into the stable. I couldn’t accurately say she was beautiful, given I knew next to nothing about horses, but her coat was smooth and her eyes were bright with intelligence. She had a beautiful cherry coat, though, and stayed obediently still while Anna connected her to a lead on one of the posts in the stable.

“This is Melisandre,” Anna said fondly, petting the horse, who snuffled at her affectionately, “Dad really loves her. I think she’s his favorite horse. When you went back to Denver, he rode her every day. She’s really nice to me too.”

She scratched Melisandre’s nose, and the horse let out a pleased huff.