“I love you,” Maya said when they pulled back. “I always will.”
“I am looking forward to our family,” he told her. “But I’m just fine with now, too.”
“We can still practice, even if we can’t get pregnant.” Maya arched one eyebrow. “It’s getting late.”
“It’s not midnight yet.” But his pulse gave a throb. Practicing with Maya was always a good time.
“We could celebrate at home. Just you and me.”
“Hell, yeah.” Lance stood up. Offered her his hand. He didn’t need a crowd to celebrate the new year. Not with Maya by his side.
Maya clung to her husband’s hand as they said their goodbyes and slipped out the front door. It was a clear, frigidly cold night and stars twinkled overhead, the air cutting through her lungs as she took deep breaths.
Life was so wonderful that sometimes she thought she might be dreaming it all and dreaded waking up. She couldn’t remember how she’d managed to navigate her days before she had Lance by her side.
He was tender, caring and damn funny. Together, they managed to joke their way through the hardest times. That was a good thing, because in the year or two after their marriage, life had been hard. Adjusting to going to school while still accomplishing their chores at home had taken a lot of compromise. When they’d taken on building a small house on the Ridley property—or the North property, as they’d all come to call it in the Cooper/Turner clan, since the property edged both Thorn Hill and the Flying W on the north end of their ranches—it had almost been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
It had forced them to make decisions that they hadn’t been entirely ready to make: How many children might they someday have—and how many bedrooms and bathrooms should they build? What style of home did they prefer? Did they want bedrooms upstairs or down? A million little details that could be hard to decide at the end of a day that was already too long.
They had sorted them out in the end, though. Jed and Virginia had taken the homestead on the Flying W, as Jed had requested after finally becoming engaged to Virginia. Mary and the twins had stayed in the house with them, Mary helping with chores that the older couple found difficult, and the twins providing lively company for them before heading off to college at Montana State. These days Liz was pursuing a fine arts degree and Justin was going for a degree in livestock management and resources. They came home often on weekends to help out with chores and connect to family. When Maya thought back to the way Liz had been so lost when she arrived in Montana, she always breathed a prayer of thanks that her stepsister had found her way.
Noah and Olivia had taken on the old home at Thorn Hill and were slowly accomplishing a series of projects to fix it up while maintaining the historical elements of the house. Maya wasn’t sure how they managed it with everything else they did, but each time she visited, it seemed like something had been accomplished—and something else was midstream, meaning there was always a pile of boards or boxes of flooring in a corner, but Maya was sure the end result would be a beautifully restored home.
Liam and Tory had decided to expand upon their cabin, almost doubling it in size in anticipation of the children they were planning. Steel and Stella had built their home on the opposite side of Pittance Creek from her and Lance on the North property. Maya had appreciated how easy it was to accommodate all the members of their large family, and there was already talk of what would happen when the twins were out of school. For two families who had spent a hundred years feuding over one thing or another, they were all mighty cozy now, she thought.
“You’re quiet,” Lance said when he pulled up in front of their beautiful two-story home.
“Thinking about how good we’ve got it.”
He parked the truck and cut the engine, then leaned over to steal another kiss. “We’ve got it damn good.”
“Yes, we have,” she agreed, leaning in to kiss him again.
“We gonna sit out here and freeze to death, or are we going inside?” Lance asked some time later with a chuckle.
“It’s pretty out here with the stars, but that big warm bed of ours is calling my name.”
“Mine, too. After all, we need to get a lot of practice in before it’s time to get real about our family.”
“Exactly.” She kissed him one last time. “Lots and lots and lots of practice.”
“How are you feeling?” Liam asked Tory. “Is it okay to keep you on your feet like this?” They were slow dancing, and he liked the way her belly pressed against him, a little bulge that reminded him of their child they had created together. Ever since Tory had become pregnant, he’d felt so protective of her—and proud of her, too, which she found funny.
“You’re proud of me for getting pregnant? I worked a hell of a lot harder to get my law degree,” she always said.
He was proud of her for that, too, of course, and he was happy that Chance Creek now had a lawyer far younger than any of the others in town, who were all nearer to retirement than they were to their college years. He knew other people in town felt the same way. It took lawyers and doctors and teachers and all kinds of service providers to keep a place thriving.
“I’m fine,” she told him now, nestling in his arms. He had realized that his tough, determined wife liked his protectiveness now that she was carrying his child.
