Lying in bed the next morning Callie had questions she wanted answered.
"Just ask me," Ford prompted her before she'd said a word.
"How did you know I wanted to ask you something?"
"I just know. Now go on with it. Whatever it is, it's bugging you."
"Does me being pregnant remind you at all of...you know...when you and Meritt were first together? It bothers me that I've put you back in the same boat, I guess."
"I'm not in the same boat, and you aren't Meritt," he quoted. "I'm in love with you. I was never in love with her. You really are pregnant. She never was. I'm older, wiser, been through some shit and now I know exactly what I want and she's lying on me in our bed."
“What if people think the baby is the only reason we’re together?”
“Like I keep saying, people will think whatever the hell they’re gonna think, but I figure in fifty or so years, after our kids are grown and running this ranch and we’re still together in our rocking chairs on the front porch, people will figure out that it wasn’t just for the kids.”
Callie couldn’t have asked for a better answer than that, but it brought on another question. "Does it bother you that I'm so much younger than you are?"
"I thought I wasn't supposed to say anything about that anymore."
"Okay, but if you were supposed to."
"No. It doesn't bother me. I just never want you to feel like you gave up any part of life for us. If there's something you want to do, I want to make sure it happens."
"I don't feel like I'm missing anything. I do want to keep taking pictures and maybe open a studio, but mostly I just want to be with you and with our baby. I know I'm younger, but I've lived through a lot of shit, too. You tend to grow up pretty fast when you have a childhood like mine. I was the one who had to raise my parents."
"Yeah, I figured that out all on my own. I think I might've finally figured out something about the two of us as well."
Contentment soothed her, still a heady sensation for a girl who finally belonged right where she was. "What's that?"
"Nobody gets to get out of this life unbroken. That just ain't how it works. So, if you get lucky enough to find the person who has the broken pieces that fit yours then you hold on tight and kind of put each other back together."
"Ford," she choked, "I love that."
"Yeah, well I love you."
"I love you too."
"Is it bad that I hate your parents?"
Callie chuckled at that. "Hate is a strong word."
"Fine, I really dislike them."
"I'm not a big fan of theirs right now either, but holding grudges isn't going to be helpful. I just want to keep the baby away from Meritt and away from my dad."
Ford turned so he could stare down at her. "Honey, I had no idea you were worried about Meritt like that. You know I will never let her get anywhere near you. I will protect you and our kids until my dying breath."
"I know, but I might need you to remind me of that every now and then."
"I'll say it every damn day if that's what you need. And it won't just be me either. There are a whole bunch of Holders who'd go to the mat on your behalf. We take care of our own. Speaking of that," he reached into his bedside table and extracted the ring box he'd purchased a few days before.
"Oh my gosh." She sat up in bed and pulled the sheets up over her naked breasts. "You're doing this now. Here?"
"I can put it back 'til later, but I want you to have it. I'm impatient. You know that." He started to return it to the drawer, but she caught his arm.
"No. I want to be impatient, too."
Smirking at that, he kicked off the sheets and blankets. "You want me to put on some shorts before I get down on one knee, or are you okay with me being nekkid?"
A fit of hysterical giggles broke over her. "I like you nekkid."
"That's my girl." He got on his knee, and Callie tried to remember how to breathe. "I love you Calico Anna Monroe the first, but I'd really like to make you Calico Anna Holder if that sounds good to you."
"It does," she assured him. "It sounds perfect!"
He slipped the most beautiful oval diamond ring she'd ever seen on her finger. "Oh my gosh!" She stared down at it in disbelief. "It's perfect."
"Just like you, baby."
"Thank you." She pulled him back up into the bed with her. "You really are my sunrise, you know that."
"I don't think so," he corrected her. Callie's brow furrowed. "I decided we're the whole endless Oklahoma sky. An unending number of sunrises. We go on forever and ever."
"I love you, Ford Holder," she gushed again as she climbed in his lap and gently placed the hand with her ring over the Holder brand tattoo on his arm. Callie Holder. She grinned at everything that was to come. Every road she'd taken had all led her right here. She didn't need a sign to know she was right where she was always meant to be.
Her whole entire life she'd believed she was nothing more than a thousand questions, but she'd fallen in love with the answer to them all.
A week later, Callie was laid out on a cold exam table in a doctor's office in Tulsa. An ultrasound tech was squirting jelly on her stomach. Ford was attempting to hold both of her hands without getting in the tech's way.
"I'm good. I promise," she assured him.
"Okay, let's see if we can't figure out how far along you are," the tech explained.
“I don’t think I’m more than a few weeks along,” Callie tried to explain.
“Your doctor thinks you may be further along than that.”
Callie gasped as the grainy, black-and-white image appeared on the screen. "Oh my gosh. I can see it. It's...real."
Ford stared at the screen in dumbfounded awe.
The tech chuckled at them both. "You appear to be almost ten weeks along."
They turned to stare at each other. "The first time," Callie whispered.
He nodded his agreement. "Guess the universe was listening."
"It always does."