by Hanna Hart
“Pickles,” he repeated curiously.
“No, nothing weird like pickles and applesauce. Just pickles. Pickled anything, actually. Beets, cauliflower, pickled eggs!”
“I’m pretty sure pickled eggs fall under the ‘weird craving’ category,” he laughed. “Does Imogene like pickled things?”
“Nah. I mean, just pickles, but I don't think her taste buds are refined enough to enjoy beets quite yet,” she said with a wink.
“Then she's a smart girl. Beets taste like dirt.”
“Delicious, delicious dirt,” she said.
“I can't believe I kiss that mouth,” he teased.
Sophia continued her trip down memory lane, flipping another page and pointing to a photo of her with a giant belly, holding it like a heavy bowling ball.
“There’s me at nine months,” she said.
“You were really beautiful, even when you're ready to pop. I wish I knew you then.”
Sophia exhaled and then turned to meet his eyes. “So do I,” she said in an unusually small voice.
“Did you miss me?” he asked. “Ever wonder what I would have thought about you being pregnant?”
“All the time,” she said, enunciating each word.
“I would have loved you anyway,” he smiled.
An uncomfortable silence followed, but he couldn’t be sure why. Sophia pressed her lips together and set a firm hand on the photo album.
“What if she were yours?” she asked, staring into his eyes.
“How would I have felt?” he chuckled. “Pretty mad, I'm guessing.”
The uncomfortable silence emerged again, and Nash tilted his head to the side curiously.
“Why?” he asked.
Sophia inhaled, and Nash could hear the nervous flutter of her breath. She flipped to forward a page where all of Imogene’s birth records had been taped.
His eyes skimmed the page, looking at her birth weight, her name, baby hospital bracelet, and then followed Sophia’s finger to a printout of her estimated date of conception.
He looked at the date, then at her, shrugging. “What?” he asked.
She tapped her finger under the date again, and then he realized what she was trying to say.
Her date of conception was a month and a half before their breakup.
They were still together.
“What’s this?” he said, tracing his finger under the information and rereading it just to make sure he had it right.
He met her eyes, and the guilty look she gave him said it all.
Nash flipped the pages forward frantically, looking over the photos of baby Imogene, and he started to feel sick.
She looked exactly like him. No—she looked exactly like his sister.
He set a hand on his stomach, feeling sicker by the minute.
“Don't tell me this, Sophia. Don't tell me you did this to me,” he said, practically stumbling over his words.
“I tried to tell you,” she said meekly.
“When?” he snapped, trying to keep his voice down, remembering that Imogene was sleeping upstairs. “How?”
“I tried to call you, but you'd blocked my number! Then I went to Gage and—”
“Sophia, I was mad at you!” he fumed. “I was heartbroken, but you don't let somebody blocking you determine whether you will tell them that you are about to have a child together!”
“I didn't know how you'd feel!” she said, and he could see the tears welling up in her eyes. “You were so angry with me, and I was so furious and hurt and—”
He slammed the book shut and dropped it on the table. He needed to get up off the couch and so started pacing the room, desperately trying to keep his dinner down.
“I loved you!” he said as aggressively as he could while keeping his voice low. “How do you think I would have felt? I would have come home to be with you!”
“I'm sorry. I should have told you. I didn't know what to do at the time and—”
“Who knows? Why didn't anybody tell me?” he asked frantically, rubbing his fingers against his temples.
“Just Lauren and my uncle know, that’s it,” she said.
Tension filled the room, and Nash no longer knew what to say. Should he jump for joy? Yell at her? Should he be thankful that he had a child or resentful to Sophia for taking her away from him?
He had so many reasons to be angry that he couldn’t land on just one.
He kept thinking, if she had just told him she was pregnant, he would have come back to Dallas. He would have been with Sophia whatever way she wanted—marriage or no—and then he never would have met Kenzie, and then maybe she would still be alive.
His thoughts circled around and around until there was no catching them. He needed to be alone and far, far away from Sophia.
Chapter Eighteen
Sophia
It had been two days since Nash found out he was a father, and they hadn’t spoken save for a smattering of text messages. He said he needed time to think, but Sophia knew what that meant.
Time to think meant time to run.
She’d talked the topic to death with Lauren over the last forty-eight hours, asking repeatedly if she had done the right thing, and every time, her friend would answer the same way, “One hundred percent, you did the right thing.”
She knew telling Nash was essential to making their relationship work this time. She needed to be honest with him. She needed to give him the chance to be a dad and give Imogene the chance to know who her father was.
“She's still young,” Lauren said by way of defending Sophia. “It's not even like he missed all that much. He can still come in, and Imogene can grow up knowing he was here father. Think about it. By the time she's twelve, he'll have been in her life for ten years. Ten!”
“I know what you're trying to say, and believe me, I really appreciate it. But how would you feel if you missed out on the first two years of Bertie's life?”
Lauren's face fell, and Sophia knew she had made her point.
Those moments with your children were precious, and no mother would trade them for the world.
“I know in the grand scheme of things two years isn't that long but think about it...” she continued. “It was long enough for Nash to go off and get married.”
“He loves you,” Lauren said. “He'll come around. He said he needs time to think, and I believe him. But he'll be back around.”
“But how do you know?” Sophia agonized. “Because it's the now knowing part that absolutely terrifies me.”
“I know,” the blonde reaffirmed. “His love for you is real. It always has been. And yes, he missed out on some parts of Imogene's life. The pregnancy, her first steps, her first words…but guess what? He's here now, and there's no way he's going to pass up the opportunity to be a father. There's just no way!”
Sophia looked over to where Imogene lay on the floor, coloring, and felt suddenly settled.
She wanted to say that Nash would never walk away from this. She wanted to believe it with her entire being. But the truth was she just didn't know.
“You need to go out and clear your head,” Lauren said sweetly. “Why don't you take a drive and I'll stay here with the kids for a while?”
“No,” Sophia mumbled, but Lauren could tell it was half-hearted.
“Go,” Lauren said with a laugh. “Go for a drive, clear your head, and stop obsessing over this for a minute, okay?”
It didn't take much convincing to get Sophia out of the house. She got in her car and drove around the countryside for over an hour, thinking about the proposal, thinking about her pregnancy with Imogene, her chance meeting with Nash, and hoping beyond hope that he would come back to her.
She knew it was silly, but she couldn't help the vision of a happy family dancing in her head. She pictured Sunday morning breakfasts, family trips, and Nash teaching Imogene how to ride a horse.
She pictured what life would be like for Imogene to grow up on her father's ranch, and suddenly, she was overcome with emotion wo
ndering…what would happen if Nash didn't come back around?
Or what if he wanted to be in Imogene's life, but he couldn't forgive Sophia for her lies?
She vowed to herself that if he could forgive her, she would spend the rest of her life making it up to him. She would be the woman he deserved—one that was honest and kind. She would love him like he deserved to be loved back when they were first together.
Most importantly, if she got the blessing of having him come back to her and one day, he decided to take a chance on her and propose again, she would say yes.
It was with these thoughts in mind, these blind hopes, that she started to make her way back to the house and to her sweet little daughter.
And then something magical happened.
She pulled down the wide, two-lane country road leading up to her beautiful Tillsonburg farmhouse and saw Nash’s truck in her driveway.
He came back.
Chapter Nineteen
Nash
Nash spent the first night away from Sophia at his house. It felt so strange to be there—not because it had been the house that he had shared with Kenzie, but because he was a different person now than he had been when he was last sleeping in his own bed.
He was a father now.
He wondered what Kenzie would have thought if they'd known it back then. He wondered if she'd tell him to be involved in Imogene's life and knew immediately the answer would have been yes.
Wandering the empty halls of his home, he realized how much he missed Sophia and Imogene. His daughter.
He had a daughter. The concept still seemed so foreign to him.
He was still angry with Sophia for keeping it from him, but in a way, he understood her decision. He had been hard on her in the breakup. He cut her out because she hurt him, and he wanted to hurt her right back. If he had been more understanding, if he had just waited, none of this mess would have happened.
Maybe they would have stayed together and lived a perfect life as a family of three…or maybe they would have resented each other
What Nash knew for sure was that the time they spent apart was for the best. It helped them both mature and transform into the kind of people who were supposed to be together. Good people who had love, compassion, and patience for one another. People who wanted the best for the other person; people who weren't so caught up in their selfish desires that they walked away from what was truly important.
So, Nash wouldn't walk away this time.
Now that Nash had Sophia back in his life, he didn't want to be without her. It had only been two days, and his need for space had already diminished. He wanted to see her and tell her everything he had been feeling for the past couple of days.
He went to her house down the road, and for the first time in months and months, he felt like he was finally coming home.
Only Sophia wasn't home. She was out on a drive, or so Lauren said. She was at the house watching Imogene with her son Bernard.
When Nash pulled his phone out to call Sophia, Lauren smiled and put a hand out to stop him.
“She left it here,” she said and gestured to the phone sitting on the entryway table. “She said she just wanted to think.”
“Ah,” he said, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Well, then, do you mind if I come in and wait for her?” he asked. “I need to talk to her.”
“Sure,” she said, opening the door to let him inside.
The two of them made small talk in the front hall before Lauren gave him a knowing stare and, rubbing her arm, said, “Have you talked to her?”
“Sophia?” he asked, and Lauren shook her head.
“No, Imogene.”
“Oh,” he said, feeling suddenly nervous. “No, not since…you know, not since the other day.”
She offered him a warm smile, and he took it as a good sign. She nodded to the living room and said, “She's in there if you want to talk to her. I can take Bertie out on the porch for a bit.”
Nash looked into the living room, nervous, and then felt suddenly settled. “That would be nice,” he said. “If you don't think Sophia would mind.”
Lauren smiled and called Bertie into the hallway. “We're gonna go outside and play for a bit, okay?” she said to the little boy, and he excitedly agreed.
When the blonde exited the farmhouse, Nash stood in the entryway, palms sweating. He peered through the open doorway into the living room and watched Imogene playing with a set of oversized dolls, placing them around the room in different hiding spots.
His heart jumped as she looked up at him. He could see it now—how much she looked like a Haven.
He had been worried that seeing her, it wouldn't sink in—that he wouldn't feel a connection to her. He wondered if the news that he was a father would feel more like a fact about someone else, but when he saw Imogene again, he felt something in his soul cry out.
“Whatcha doin'?” he asked as he stepped further into the room.
“I'm playing with my doll,” she said sweetly.
“Yeah? Do you like having all of your toys to yourself?” he asked, and the little girl nodded fervently. “Do you ever wish you had any brothers or sisters?”
“I have Bertie,” she said. “He's like a brother.”
“I guess that's true,” he agreed, sitting on the floor in front of her and marveling at the beautiful little creature. The whole time he'd known Imogene, he'd known she was special; he just didn't know why.
Now that he knew she was his daughter, he looked at her with new eyes.
“Mom says he'll always protect me,” Imogene continued, though it took him a moment to decipher her toddler-speech.
“I have brothers, too,” he said. “And that's what we do for each other; we protect each other. And you know what?”
“What?”
“I'll always protect you, too,” he said.
Imogene gave a wide, childish grin, and his heart lilted. She looked so perfect, he wanted to reach out and touch her just to make sure she was real. Then it really sunk in. This was his daughter. He and Sophia had created a life together, and what a perfect little life it was.
“You have brothers?” Imogene repeated with curiosity.
“Yep,” he said. “I have a lot of brothers.”
It seemed he had her attention then, and she dropped her doll and said, “Do you have a dad?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “I do have a dad.”
“Does he have a name?”
Nash laughed. “Yes. His name is Joshua.”
“Do you ever call him that?” she asked, and Nash's eyes went comically wide.
“I wouldn't dare,” he said. “I think if I did, he would ground me for a year!”
“I don't have a dad,” Imogene said, and Nash's stomach jumped.
“No?” he said, unsure of how to respond. “Well, that's okay. Your mommy grew up with an uncle instead of a dad and she turned out pretty amazing. And you know what? You're pretty amazing, too.”
Imogene smiled at that and ran over to hug him. He heard the front door open as the girl threw her arms around him and looked up to see Sophia standing with a bag of groceries in her hand.
“Come on outside, Imogene,” Lauren called from behind Sophia. “Let's go play!”
“Okay!” Imogene said excitedly as she ran to the door. “Bye, Nash!”
“Bye,” he said with a laugh and watched her leave the farmhouse.
“What are you doing here?” Sophia asked in surprise.
“You think I could stay away?” he asked, and she broke into a small smile, then immediately broke down crying.
“I was so scared I wouldn’t see you again.”
“What?” he asked, rushing to her side and pulling her into his arms. “Sophia, no. I could never leave. I will never leave you again, you hear me?”
She nodded and buried her face in his chest. “I’m sorry—” she began, but he rubbed his hand along her back and said, “No need.”
Sophia blinked in surprise
and looked up at him, looking so content and small in his arms.
“What do you mean?”
“I was upset the other night,” he said. “I felt like I missed out on a life with her and with you. And I still feel that way, but then I thought about it…”
“And?”
“And,” he said, “how lucky am I that I got a second chance with you? That I get to be Imogene’s dad? That I am her dad,” he corrected. “She’s amazing, Sophia. I already knew that before, but talking to her now, she’s so…she’s so smart and beautiful.”
Sophia smiled and reached up to kiss him. Her lips felt like warmth and comfort against his, and when they parted, he said, “I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?” she asked.
“I didn’t know that this is what it would feel like.”
She blinked. “Feel like to what?” she repeated.
He leaned down again, knowing he’d found the family he’d been looking for all along—getting his second chance at love.
“To be happy,” he said.
** Do you love sweet cowboy billionaire romance? If so then check out Book #1 in my Brookside Ranch Brothers Series called “A Cowboy Billionaire Best Friend's Secret”. If you loved this book then you will love the Brookside Ranch Series ! ***
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