Southern Heart (Southern 5)
"Why?" His voice sounds worried.
"It’s nothing," I say as my palms get sweaty now and my bottom lip starts to tremble. "It’s just…" I look at him, hoping this doesn’t push him over the edge. "I’m late." He just looks at me, confused. "Like, my period is late."
"How long have you known?" he asks, not moving from his side of the island.
I look down, trying to calm myself. "Two weeks,” I say the truth.
His eyes go big as his mouth opens and closes. "Why didn’t you tell me?"
I take a deep breath and walk around the island and stand in front of him. "I was afraid."
"What?" he cuts me off with a whisper. "You were afraid of me?" The horror is in his voice as he looks at me with tears in his eyes.
"Never." I shake my head. "I was…" I wring my hands. "I didn’t know how. We never spoke about kids."
"Are you?" he asks, and I smile as big as I did when they told me the news, putting my hands to my stomach. He comes to me now as the tears I tried to keep inside roll down my cheeks. He puts his hand on my stomach. "A piece of you," he says now in almost a whisper, "and a piece of me."
"I know that it’s sudden,” I say, "and nothing like we were expecting."
"I love you," he says, his eyes still on my stomach as his hand rubs side to side. "I promise our child will never doubt the love I feel for them and for you. Our child will know what kindness and respect is. Our child is never going to see the things I saw growing up. I promise you that."
I put my hand to his cheek. "Our child is the luckiest child in the world." He looks up at me now. "Because he is going to have you as a father."
"My heart," he says, getting on his knees now in front of me. "You have my heart." He looks up at me. "For the rest of my life until my last dying breath, you have my heart."
Epilogue Two
Mayson
Five years later
"Why are you bringing her flowers again?" my four-year-old son, Tucker, asks me as we walk back to the house from the barn. It was flowers I picked along the way today as we rode our horses.
"Because I love her,” I say, and he slips his hand in mine. I didn’t know what love was when I met Chelsea, and then when I held my child in my arms, there was an unconditional love I felt for both of them that I couldn’t even put into words. He was swaddled in a blue blanket with his eyes looking into my soul. His life was a blank canvas, and I promised to make sure it was filled with all the colors in the rainbow.
"Is that why you are always kissing her?" he asks, and I look down, seeing the little cowboy hat on him.
"Yes," I answer him, "and I like to see her smile." He nods at me as if he is actually getting all of this. But I know better than that because he asks me this question every time I pick her flowers.
"There’s Mom," I say, pointing at our back door. She pushes open the door and steps out, the wind blowing in her hair. Her face lights up with a smile as Tucker lets go of my hand and runs to her. "Mommmm!"
She walks down the steps now and squats down to grab him in her arms. She hugs him close and kisses his neck as his laughter fills the yard. Another thing my son has that I never did—he smiles all the time. She puts him down now and puts her hand on her pregnant stomach.
My wife is the most beautiful woman in the world, but when she is pregnant, she is radiant. "Hi," she says when I get close enough. I kiss her lips now and hold up the bouquet. "These are so pretty." She brings them to her nose. "Shall we go and put these in water?" She looks at Tucker, who is already walking up the stairs. She turns and starts to walk up the steps with Tucker. "You coming with us?"
"In a minute,” I say, and she smiles and walks inside. I walk up the steps and look at the sun that is slowly setting. It’s something that I do all the time. The back door opens again, and I feel Chelsea put her hand on my shoulder. She sits next to me, and I wrap my arm around her. "Isn’t it beautiful?" I ask her.
"It really is." She leans in and kisses my lips. And there on the steps where I found what happiness was, my heart beats in a whole different way.