by Eve Gaddy
“You rushed to judgment. Why were you so certain we were done? Didn’t you think the two of us were worth trying to work it out?”
“Of course I did. But I didn’t think it would be possible. I knew I’d done something unforgivable when I didn’t tell you about being pregnant. Or losing the baby. How can I expect forgiveness from you when I can’t forgive myself?”
He grasped her hands. She let them lie, unresisting, in his. “I wish you hadn’t lied. I wish you’d told me about the baby from the beginning. But the fact is, you didn’t. You didn’t feel you could trust me, and that’s on me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s on me. All of it.”
“Not all of it,” he said with a smile. “I had a little something to do with the pregnancy.” She didn’t smile. He hadn’t expected her to. “Mia, you’re not the only one who needs forgiveness. I treated you badly after our night together. I’m sure you thought it was a onetime thing.”
“I did,” she said in a low voice. “The more time that passed the more certain I was that what we’d had was a one-night stand and you regretted it.”
“I never regretted that night. What I regret is making you feel you couldn’t talk to me. I regret that you felt you couldn’t come to me. I regret wasting so much time before I asked you to come here. I’m sorry you had to deal with the miscarriage alone. I should have been there for you, and the reason I wasn’t was both of our faults.”
“More mine than yours,” she said.
“I don’t think we need to argue over who was the most at fault.” He squeezed her hands. “I love you, Mia. I don’t want to lose you. I sure as hell don’t want to lose you over something we should be able to talk through.”
“Can we talk it through?”
“Yes, if we both want to. So there’s only one question left. Do you love me?”
“You know I do.”
“Then we’ll work it out. Everything is out in the open now. We can move on.”
“No, we can’t. You’re forgetting one issue. One very important issue.”
“What’s that?”
She got up and walked away a few steps, then turned to face him. “I can’t have children.”
Wyatt frowned. “You aren’t certain you can’t have children. You haven’t even gotten a second opinion. We talked about this before, when you first told me.”
Impatiently, she waved a hand. “What if it’s true? What if my doctor is right and I can’t ever have children? I can’t ever get pregnant again?”
“And what if he’s wrong? I want to marry you because I love you. Whether you can have a baby or not is immaterial.”
“No, Wyatt, it isn’t. It matters to you. You want kids, you’ve told me so.”
“Yes, I do. So do you. If we can’t have kids together, we’ll adopt.”
“You want children of your own.”
“Any child we were lucky enough to adopt would be our own. Are you trying to tell me you wouldn’t love a child we adopted as much as you’d love our natural child?”
“No.”
“I see. You don’t believe I could love an adopted child.”
Now she’d hurt him, and she hadn’t meant to. “I didn’t say that, and it isn’t what I think. But you should have the opportunity to have your own. Your-your blood. And I can’t guarantee you’ll have that chance. With me,” she added, her voice cracking. Damn it, couldn’t he see she wanted what was best for him?
“Nobody can guarantee it, Mia.”
“I realize that. But it’s not right to tie you down to a woman who can’t have children.”
He studied her for a long, silent moment before he spoke. “Bullshit.”
“What do you mean, bullshit?”
“These are excuses, Mia. You don’t want to marry me. Own it.”
“Oh, Wyatt, that isn’t true. You have no idea how much I want to marry you.” She turned away, unable to look at him.
“If you want to be with me, none of these roadblocks you keep throwing up are insurmountable. None of them, Mia.”
She felt his hands on her shoulders. His warm breath in her ear. “We have a lot going for us. Not the least of which is, I love you.” He turned her to face him. “You say you love me.”
“I do love you.”
“Then stop concentrating on the problems. Everyone has problems, Mia. Ours are no worse than anyone else’s. We’ll deal with them.”
She searched his eyes. Love, forgiveness, hope. “You have to be sure. Sure that you want me. Sure that you want us.”
He smiled at that. “I’ve never been more certain of anything. Are you?”
“I know I want you. I know I want us to be together.” Hesitantly, she added, “And if I can’t have children...” She left it an open question.
“Whatever happens, we’ll work it out.” Cupping her face in his hands, he kissed her, long, slow and deep. “There’s just one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
He pulled something out of the front pocket of his jeans. “I’ve never actually asked you to marry me. Last time I tried to ask you, I only got as far as ‘Will you’.”
“I’m sorry. I should have—”
“Shh.” A smile lit his eyes as he put his fingers on her lips. “I’m not getting down on one knee this time.”
“I can’t blame you,” she said.
“Mia, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Marry me.”
“I can’t think of anything I want more.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“It’s a definite yes.”
“Hold out your hand.” He slipped a beautiful diamond ring on her finger and kissed her.
The ring had an old-fashioned appearance to it. A single, round diamond, with smaller diamonds encircling it, in a platinum setting. Simple and elegant. “It’s beautiful, Wyatt.”
“So are you.” He kissed her hand. “It was my grandmother’s. I thought it would suit you.”
Mia twined her arms around his neck. “I am so lucky.”
“We both are.”
“I think we’re both about to get even luckier.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really? And how would that be?”
“First, I get rid of these.” She stripped off her T-shirt, pajama pants, and underwear. Then she hooked a hand in his waistband and pulled him close. “Now, we get rid of these.” She unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, helping him shove them down and off. Both naked now, she pushed him back onto the bed, looking at him with satisfaction. He reached for her, tugged her down on top of him.
“What now?” he asked.
“Now we make mad passionate love.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He kissed her and added, “A very good plan.”
Chapter Twenty
Two months later
“I can’t believe we’re getting married the day after tomorrow,” Mia said.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into waiting that long,” Wyatt said. He’d have done it the next day if Mia had been okay with it.
“You know it would have broken Glory’s heart if we’d eloped. Two months isn’t long to plan a wedding.”
“Seems long to me. Especially since Sean and Honey had just gotten married here at the ranch. There shouldn’t have been that much to do.”
Mia shook her head. “You’re such a guy. At any rate, we’ll be married soon.”
Wyatt was sitting on the end of the bed, watching Mia take off her jewelry, then undress and put on her pajamas. “You don’t have to get dressed on my account.” Especially since he planned to take those pajamas right off her.
She gave him a reproving look in the mirror before turning around. “We need to talk. You know very well if I take off my jammies we won’t be talking.”
“Yes, that was the point.” He sighed and said, “Okay, we’ll talk first. What are we talking about?”
“You know the fertility specialist you wanted me to make an appointment with?”
“Wyatt.”
He paused and looked at her. “What?”
She walked over and sat on his lap, putting her arms around his neck. “I didn’t make an appointment with him.” She kissed his cheek, nuzzled his neck.
“Why?” He pulled back to look at her. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Something is very right. If a little unexpected.”
Right. Unexpected. His eyes widened. “You’re pregnant?”
Her smile was sweet and happy. “I am.”
He laughed. “So much for not needing birth control. How far along are you?”
“As close as I can figure, it must have happened during the snowstorm.”
“I knew I liked snowstorms.”
“Since when?”
“Since the one in Wyoming, when you and I got back together and made a baby.” He kissed her again. “Have you thought of any names?”
“Of course not. I just took the test this morning. Besides, it’s early.”
“Everything is going to turn out great this time.”
“I hope so.” She sighed, but happily.
“I have some great ideas for names,” Wyatt said.
Mia looked at him skeptically. “Do I want to hear them?”
“Of course, you do. For a girl, we name her Kaycee.”
“After the town. That’s kind of cute. I’ll put it on the list.”
“And if it’s a boy, we name him Wyoming.”
“Wyoming? What kind of name is that for a child? We are not naming our son Wyoming.”
“Are you sure?”
She gave him the evil eye.
“I’m disappointed. But you can make it up to me.”
“How?”
He tumbled her onto her back and stretched out beside her. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” he said, and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-One
He was the last Gallagher bachelor.
Half an hour before, Wyatt and Mia had tied the knot, putting an end to Wyatt’s single status and leaving Dylan the lone bachelor among the men of his family.
Maybe there’s something in the water. If so, he’d be very careful about what he drank. He liked his sisters-in-law, including the brand new one, Mia. Jack, Sean and Wyatt all seemed happy. They wanted to be married, wanted to settle down with one woman. That was great. For them.
So far, he’d take his horses over any woman. He liked women. He liked them a lot. Liked being around them, liked talking to them, liked having sex with them. But one woman? Forever?
Not him. He hadn’t met a woman yet who tempted him to give up his freedom.
Not that there weren’t some women he found pretty damn intriguing. Dr. Samantha Striker being the most recent.
Though she’d worked at Marietta Regional Hospital for close to a year now, Dylan only met her a couple of weeks before. A horse kicked Clay Landers, one of the ranch hands, in the abdomen and it was serious enough that Dylan took him to the hospital instead of waiting for an ambulance.
Dr. Striker, the trauma surgeon, had taken Clay to have emergency surgery quickly, and Dylan waited around until she came to talk to him afterwards. Wearing baby blue scrubs, a scrub cap, and with a surgical mask hanging from her neck, she looked pretty solemn, but when she saw him she put on a reassuring smile that didn’t particularly reassure him.
Dylan was no doctor, but with three brothers who were, he knew a little about medicine. Especially farm accidents.
“I’m Samantha Striker, the trauma surgeon,” she said, offering a hand. “We didn’t actually meet when you brought in Mr. Landers.”
“Dylan Gallagher,” he said, shaking hands. “No, you got him to the OR in record time.”
“Internal bleeding isn’t something to fool around with. You did the right thing bringing him in. I suspect it would have taken an ambulance quite a while to get out to your ranch.”
“Good. I worried about that, but his injury seemed serious and I was afraid to wait. How is he, Doc?”
“Before surgery, he said I could talk to the boss about the accident and his surgery. I take it you’re the boss?”
“Yes.” And it was Dylan’s half-broken horse who’d kicked the crap out of Clay. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He should be, but it’s a serious injury. He had a liver laceration, which caused internal bleeding. We repaired it, but he’ll need to stay in the hospital for some time. I don’t know how long it will take him to fully recover.”
“I’ll be short a man, but however long it takes, his job will be waiting.” He looked at her a minute before asking, “Is there something you’re not telling me, Doc?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I have three brothers who are doctors. I can tell when they’re bullshitting me.”
She smiled at that. “I knew who you were the minute I saw you. You and your brothers bear a strong resemblance to each other. And no, I’m not bullshitting you. He should recover fully from the accident.”
“Those are carefully chosen words. If I were on his HIPAA could you tell me what it is you’re worried about?”
“Are you on his HIPAA?”
“No. So I’ll just wait until you talk to Clay and he’ll tell me.”
She pulled off her cap and rubbed the back of her neck. Thick, wavy, blonde hair reached her shoulders. Damn, a very pretty blonde. Dylan really went for blondes. And redheads and brunettes. But especially blondes.
“I’ll give you a call when he wakes up.”
“Thanks. Say, Doc, what are you doing tomorrow night?”
She blinked at him. “Are you asking me out?”
“Why, is that a problem?”
“Not exactly a problem. But I have a boyfriend.”
“Damn. That’s too bad. Let me know if you two break up, okay?”
She laughed. “You’ll be the first to know.”
The End
Meet The Gallaghers of Montana
Sing Me Back Home
Book 1
Get Now!
Love Me, Cowgirl
Book 2
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The Doctor’s Christmas Proposal
Book 3
View the series here
The Cowboy and the Doctor
Book 4
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Return of the Cowgirl
Book 5
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About the Author
Eve Gaddy is the best-selling award-winning author of more than seventeen novels. Her books have won and been nominated for awards from Romantic Times, Golden Quill, Bookseller’s Best, Holt Medallion, Texas Gold, Daphne Du Maurier and more. She was nominated for a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Innovative Series romance as well as winning the 2008 Romantic Times Career Achievement award for Series Storyteller of the year. Eve’s books have sold over a million copies worldwide and been published in many foreign countries. Eve lives in East Texas with her husband of many years.
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