He was immediately struck by terror. Because she looked afraid, and anything that scared Sammy struck him deep.
“I... I just took a pregnancy test.”
It was like the mountains all around the horizon had tipped in on themselves and crumbled. Like the world had gone concave, leaving only the place they were standing on. His boots were rooted to the ground, that same ground that he had worked all these years. That familiar, unchanging earth. And yet, it was all new now. Everything was. It would never be the same again.
“It must’ve happened that first time,” she said.
“I know when it would have happened,” he said.
They had used a condom every time since.
“I know I said I wasn’t going to...”
“Look, I wasn’t opposed to getting you pregnant,” he said, because there was nothing else to say. It was true. That first night he had fully intended for the sex they’d had to result in the pregnancy she was looking for, because the alternative was that she was going to go find it with another man. He had been happy enough that she had decided to put it off. But that chance had been there.
And he knew what had to happen next. As sure as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow and that he’d work this ranch like he’d done every day for the past seventeen years.
“We’re getting married,” he said.
Her face popped up, her hair swinging with the movement. “No,” she said. “No. We don’t have to do that. I mean... Why can’t we just live here? Live here in this place and... I don’t know. I can be in the camper. And you can be in the house and we can be together sometimes and...”
“Because it’s not enough,” he said.
“Why not?”
“That’s not how families work.”
“It is how families work. It’s how our family has been for the past seventeen years.”
He gritted his teeth. “We’re not family, Sammy.”
She jerked as though he slapped her. And he hated the look of pain that crossed her delicate face. “No. Of course not. I mean, not that way. I get it.”
“That isn’t what I meant. I just meant that we can be family. The way that my parents were family. That’s how it should work.”
“I’m not going to do something like that just because that’s how it should be.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because believe me, marriage is not just the answer to everything. I lived in a house with a horrible dysfunctional marriage and will not raise a child in an environment where two people are stuck together.”
“Are you comparing us to your parents?”
“It’s just... Look, I know how bad it can get.”
“Are you scared of me?” he asked.
She looked horrified by the very thought. “No,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you. But I’m afraid of what that forever stuff does to people. I’m afraid of the misery that you’ll expect because you signed a piece of paper. Because you stood up and made vows in front of everybody and said that you would. And we are happy. We’re happy like we are.”
“We are not going to stay like we are. There’s going to be a baby. And that changes things. It changes things a hell of a lot, Samantha. We can’t undo it. We can’t undo what is.”
“But why not?” She blinked furiously, the terror rolling off her and turning into something else inside him. It was one thing when she was afraid of something and it wasn’t him. He wanted to fight that battle for her. He wanted to fight every battle for her. But he didn’t know what the hell to do when he seemed to be the battle. When she was looking at him and acting like his proposal of marriage was the worst thing that could possibly happen. “Why can’t we make a new reality? That’s what you did here. And all right, maybe you don’t consider me part of the family, but I’ve always considered myself part of it. I wanted to be here. So badly. Because I lived in that life that was supposed to be right. A mother and a father who were married. And I was miserable. Every day I had to apologize for being. And when I left there, when I came to you, I promised I wouldn’t do that anymore. And I haven’t. I got to grow up in the most amazing place in all the world