Hung

Once the contractions ended, I turned around and looked at Dalton. I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned up to kiss him.

“I love you,” I murmured against his lips and pulled back to look in his eyes. “You sure you’re ready for this already rowdy little boy?”

He grinned and nodded. Dalton got down to his knees, pushed up my shirt, and smoothed his hands over my skin. “He’s going to know hard work when he’s old enough. He’s going to love this farm and your dad’s ranch as much as we do. And he’s going to raise his own family here, and so on and so forth.”

I started laughing and ran my hands through his hair. It was true; I did love this farm. We still had my father’s ranch and several people staffed over there to run it, but Dalton checked in on it daily, and before I’d gotten too big with the baby and out of breath just going to the bathroom, I’d been going there daily too. I loved it, loved the memories it conjured, so happy that it was ours and my father’s legacy was still going strong all these years later. It might have taken some time, but Dalton had given me one of the best gifts of my life when he’d taken me to the ranch and told me it was now ours.

As Dalton held me, I looked around at the cabin. It was our forever home. We’d been renovating it, getting rid of the outdated decor, and even creating flower and vegetable gardens out back. We were doing all those things. We were expanding, and it was perfect.

Over the last year, we’d been working on my father’s ranch, fixing up the house, cleaning up the property. We were expanding Dalton’s ranch company, so it coalesced with what my father had built. And once all the paperwork was done, once things were all legal and the property was good to go, we’d be the biggest ranch in the tristate area.

That took a lot of time and money, hence why we were taking our time and going slow, but the future looked brighter every day.

I was always meant to be with Dalton. I knew that in my heart. I think I knew that the first day I came up his driveway for my interview. Strange how life worked… how fate played the cards for you.