POV: Ivory
Three months of normal. That's what we'd built since Ryan's wedding — ninety-something days of routines so steady I'd almost forgotten what chaos tasted like.
September had cooled the mornings just enough to make coffee on the porch feel earned. The triplets were in first grade now, seven years old and full of opinions about everything from breakfast to bedtime.
The ranch was turning profit for the second quarter running. And I was twelve weeks pregnant with a baby who'd already made it clear she had Colt's stubborn streak — kicking at exactly the wrong moments, like when I was elbow-deep in a mare's birth canal.
Life was dangerously, suspiciously good.
I found Kameron at the barn doors that morning, loading fence posts into the truck bed. He spotted me crossing the yard and that devil's grin spread wide.
"There she is." He dropped the post and pulled me against his chest like I'd been gone for days instead of twenty minutes. His hand settled warm on the slight curve of my belly. "How's our little one this morning? Giving you trouble already?"
"Colt's little one," I corrected, though there was no heat behind it. "And yes, she kicked me in the bladder at four a.m., so I'm running on spite and prenatal vitamins."
Kameron shrugged, his ice-blue eyes catching the early sun. "Ours. All of them are ours, Ivory. I don't care whose blood runs through which kid. That baby is mine the same way Luke and Levi and Lily are Colt's. That's how this works, and you know it."
I did know it. The borders between yours and mine had dissolved so completely that the kids themselves couldn't tell where one father ended and the other began. Lily still called Kameron Dad and Colt Papa, but the words had become interchangeable, tossed between them like a ball in a game only the three of them understood.
"You're impossible," I told him.
"And you love it." He kissed me slowly and thoroughly, one hand still warm on my belly and the other tangled in my hair. The kind of kiss that tasted like coffee and certainty.
I pulled back before we ended up doing something inappropriate against the fence posts. "I need to find Colt before my nine o'clock call. Mrs. Henderson's mare is colicking again."
"Tell Colt the south fence needs checking. Posts are leaning after last week's wind." He released me with that lazy, satisfied look. "And eat something, firecracker. You skipped breakfast."
"I ate a granola bar."
"That's a crime against nutrition, not a meal."
I flipped him off over my shoulder and headed for the main barn, his laughter following me across the yard.
Colt was exactly where I expected — clipboard in hand, reviewing feed inventory with the focus of a man who believed spreadsheets could solve anything.
His sandy hair fell across his forehead as he wrote, and the morning light through the barn slats painted him in gold.
"Hey." I slid my arms around his waist from behind. "The baby kicked this morning. Hard. I think she's already trying to break out."
He turned in my arms, and the clipboard hit the hay bale without ceremony. His hand found my belly with the reverence he reserved for exactly two things — our children and the land beneath our feet.
"Where?" His voice dropped low, focused. "Show me."
I guided his palm to the right spot and we waited. Five seconds. Ten. Then that firm little push against his hand, right on cue, as if this baby already knew her father's touch.
Colt's face transformed. The control that lived behind his hazel eyes — that careful, measured steadiness I'd learned to read like weather — just dissolved. His lips parted. His eyes went soft and wide and absolutely wrecked with something I'd never seen on him before.
Pure and unguarded wonder.
"She's strong," he whispered.
"She gets that from me."
He laughed rough and surprised, and kissed me with both hands framing my face like I was something he couldn't believe he got to hold.
I didn't see the truck. Didn't hear the engine idling fifty yards up the fence line. Didn't notice old Tom Wheeler sitting behind his steering wheel, watching me press my mouth to Colt's the same way I'd pressed it to Kameron's five minutes ago.
By the time Tom put his truck in gear and pulled away, I was already inside the barn discussing feed prices, completely unaware that my entire world had just developed an expiration date.
The rest of the day unfolded the way good days do. I treated Mrs. Henderson's mare, had lunch with Marisol at the café, and picked the kids up from school at three. Levi told me about a dinosaur book.
Luke skinned his knee at recess and wore the Band-Aid like a badge of honor. Lily made a new friend named Sophia who also liked purple horses.
The kind of normal and safe afternoon that makes you stupid enough to believe it'll last.
The text came in the evening. I was washing dishes while Kameron wrestled the kids through homework at the kitchen table. My phone buzzed on the counter.
Call me. ASAP.
I dried my hands, stepped onto the back porch, and dialed.
Marisol didn't bother with hello. "Tom Wheeler told his wife. His wife told Janet Brennan at the post office. Janet told Pastor David's wife within the hour. And Mrs. David told half the church prayer group by dinnertime."
Her voice was tight, furious, scared. "Three versions are circulating already, Ivory. The first says you're sleeping with both of them. The second says they're sharing you like some kind of arrangement. The third says the kids don't even know who their real father is and the whole thing is — I'm not going to repeat what the third one says."
I gripped the porch railing until my knuckles went white. "How bad?"
"Like "bad" bad. I'm sorry, honey. I tried to shut Janet down when she came into the café, but it was already out."
I said something that wasn’t really important and hung up. I stood on the porch, staring at the dark pasture while the sky turned from blue to black.
The door opened behind me. Colt. I could tell by his steady and deliberate footsteps which were already reading the tension in my spine. His hand reached for the handle to come inside.
"Wait." I caught his arm.
Through the kitchen window, I watched our family. Kameron had Luke in a headlock on the couch, both of them laughing so hard Luke was gasping.
Lily sat at the table, bent over her sketchpad, tongue poking out in concentration. Levi was curled in the armchair with his dinosaur book, perfectly still, perfectly content.
"What happened?" Colt's voice was calm, but his hand covered mine on his arm.
"Tom Wheeler saw us this morning. Three of us." I swallowed hard. "By morning, every person in the town will have an opinion about our family."
Colt's jaw tightened. His eyes moved to the window, then back to me. "Let them."
"It's not us I'm worried about." My voice cracked, and I hated it. I turned back to the window. "It's them."