Page 45 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

She could almost see it, like a glimmer of light in the middle of a long, dark night.

Almost.

“You just love them,” Charlotte said again. “That’s truly all you have in this world.” She leaned closer. “And it’s actually beautiful, my darling girl. Someone loving you back is a marvel, a miracle, a gorgeous communion of souls. But that’s not what love is. Love is its own reward, or it isn’t love.”

Something inside of Rosie seemed to settle at that. She took another breath, then let it out, deep and long.

And it was as if thatsomethingin her finally let go.

As if all those padlocks around her heart had not only opened, but fallen away, and she was breathing them out. Because she didn’t need them anymore.

There was no need to hide. There was only love.

She sat with Charlotte for a while, and when her mother moved to the kitchen and made them both some of that spicy, fragrant tea she loved, Rosie took it. Then she kissed her mother on both of her cheeks. Shenamaste-ed her way out of the temple, then settled in for the drive back, feeling much lighter than she had on the way out.

It was late afternoon but still light out as she came out of the back roads and onto the slightly wider and better maintained road that led to High Mountain Ranch. She wasn’t supposed to pick the boys up until tomorrow, but she turned toward Ryder’s place anyway. She bumped her way up along the road, feeling focused. Determined.

Ready, maybe.

Or not afraid any longer, which felt a lot like magic.

She sent her puzzle of a mother her thanks and trusted the universe Charlotte arranged her life around would deliver it. It would have to, as Charlotte didn’t believe in cell phones.

When she got to the Airstream, she could hear laughter inside. She didn’t knock. She walked right in and found her boys and the man that she loved desperately whether he loved her or not at his table, playing with heaps of Play-Doh.

And it was everywhere. All over the boys, in their hair, and more fascinatingly, all over Ryder, too.

He looked up at her and grinned, all slow delight, and she understood then that this had always been a lost cause. She been lost long ago.

There was only one way to find herself again.

It seemed counterintuitive. She knew that. It was impractical, and she knew that too.

But she was going to do it anyway.

“There you are,” Ryder said, as if she’d been meant to be here all along. Here, with her family, covered in the muck they’d made because when they did it together, it was art.

Maybe that was a lesson too.

The boys raced over to her and put their hands—covered in that maybe not so artsy muck—all over her, but her eyes were on Ryder.

The boys were telling her every single thing that had happened since she’d been gone, in unintelligible words and high-pitched noises, or maybe she couldn’t understand them because she was looking at him.

“Let’s do it,” she said.

For a moment he didn’t get it, then he did. His whole face changed. Suddenly, everything in him went still.

Intent.

She almost wanted to shiver.

And then, slowly, Ryder smiled.

“You sure?” he asked.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” she told him, and she meant it.

“Good,” he said. “Because neither have I.”

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