The three of us chuckled and, for the first time, everything felt a little bit lighter. Rehab was only the start. Recovering from alcoholism was a process. A battle my dad would have to fight for a long time, even after becoming sober. But he was throwing himself into getting better, and I couldn’t be happier.
“Speaking of, we should probably get to that.” I turned to Jack.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of them.” He stood and kissed my forehead.
I gave him a questioning look to make sure, and he nodded. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, baby.”
His reply brought me back to the first time we had gotten together after all those years in the backseat of his truck. The times had changed so unbelievably that I did a double take when my mind was brought back to the reality that was my life: my dad and me sitting at the table of my kitchen in freaking Wyoming. With a baby growing inside me.
“Maggie.” My dad reached his hand across the table to latch onto mine after Jack left. “I am so, so sorry for the way I acted last night. You did not deserve that.”
“Thank you for saying that, Dad. It means so much that you’re trying to fix yourself…for real this time.” For years, I assumed my father’s addiction meant he would never have control overhis alcohol consumption. That I would always have to tiptoe around him and hope he would find the will to recover.
“You know I would do anything for my daughter. And you’re not the only reason I’m doing this. I owe it to myself to get better. I’ve struggled with this for a long time, and I’m sick of hopelessly staring at the damn case of beer in the fridge,” he sighed. “This is important to me.”
“It’s important to me, too. And whatever you need, I’ll be here for you every step of the way.”
“So will I, Maggie. As soon as this baby comes, I want to join the family out here and do everything I can.” My heart swelled. He wasmovinghere. For us.
It was at this moment that I realized, no matter what, it would never just be me and this baby. I had a family who would stay by my side through thick and thin, through mistakes and minefields.
Forever.
Chapter twenty-eight
Jack
The horses were supposed to be on a set with me right now, but I decided to give them a day off. They played hard yesterday, and each horse performed exactly how I wanted. They deserved it.
After bringing them into their stalls and feeding them, I found myself enjoying the simplicity of their presence more than usual. Maybe it was because the last twenty-four hours had been a complete whirlwind, but I just wanted to breathe in the Wyoming air and clear my head. Life was changing so quickly, and it should have thrown me off or freaked me out. It should have given me the anxiety that I struggled with for my entire life. It should have made me want to run away from every problem and responsibility I dealt with and pretend the last five months had never happened, but it didn’t.
I hated to admit it, but the reason was more than just Maggie and the baby. Yes, moving across the country after finding out we were pregnant might have sounded like a crazy idea that only two kids in their twenties could pull off without regret, but it was the best decision I had ever made. Pennsylvania was my past. Itwas the place my well-intentioned father picked apart every part of my being, the place my mother decided a husband and son weren’t enough to make her stick around, the place I slept my way through to keep my anxiety at bay. I couldn’t change living in the place that broke me.
The best part about this place was the souvenir I brought with me—the best person in my life. The woman carrying our future in her body and my heart in her hands. I didn’t know when I became such a family man, but I was committed to staying with and providing for my family without question. I hadn’t had an anxiety attack since the night Maggie rushed into my room to comfort me. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was because I was terrified of someone seeing me like that again or if she was slowly healing me with her nearness, but after realizing how deeply I was falling for her, it was pointless to believe anything but the latter.
This place was my future. It was where I was proving I could be a different person than in Pennsylvania. Before I grew up. Before I knew Maggie. Before I became a father. There was no way in hell I would run away from what I had now, not after how lucky I had become. I didn’t deserve the family I had acquired, but I was going to hold onto Maggie and our little fruit as tight as I could until my arms gave out. They deserved my everything because they were my everything.
A voice extracted me from my thoughts as I scratched Finn’s forehead. “Am I interrupting?” I looked up to find Richard Rynne standing at the barn doorway, inspecting the stalls and the horses inside them. He was dressed now, in a black button-down and blue jeans, and looked much less hungover than he did earlier this morning.
“No,” I shook my head. “Just feeding the horses.”
“It’s peaceful, isn’t it? Just watching them?” He stepped further into the barn to pet Brandy, my only buckskin horse. “This one’s beautiful.”
“That’s Brandy. She’s a beast on the field.”
“Yeah, I saw the goal you made on her yesterday. That was a nice game.” He seemed genuine, so maybe he had the same intentions as I did.
“Thank you. We had a nice team out there.” My accent slipped out, which made Richard give me a funny look. One of his graying brows raised.
“Can I ask why you hide that accent? Drives me crazy that you pretend you don’t have it.” He shook his head and chuckled, making me feel slightly patronized.
I shrugged. “I never really embraced my German the way my parents wanted. I decided I’d be the American kid, and it just stuck.”
“Well, it sure doesn’t stick very well. Why don’t you just pick one?”
He had a point. I had been at war with myself for a long time over who I really wanted to be. Wyoming had been a good reset for that.
