Emma had a rough night. After hot sweats, minor contractions and a whole lot of pressure in new places, she phoned the doctor first thing in the morning. They told her to come in right away. Not wanting to bother anyone else on the ranch, she called for car service. On her way out the door, she saw Dylan and Garrett announce the ranch’s new plans to the Silver Bells employees. She walked into the cold mountain air as they applauded and celebrated the news. In the end, Dylan had made the right decision and she was happy for the jobs he had saved.
Her exam left her craving the comforts of home. Chicago almost felt foreign to her and the lodge was nothing more than a room. When she said the actual word home aloud, Jax’s house had immediately come to mind. It would take a long time for her to shake Dylan from her system.
“Emma?” Belle said from a chair in the waiting room. “Is everything all right?”
“How did you know I was here?” Emma asked.
“I didn’t. This is my doctor. She doesn’t have an office any place else. Just here.”
“Oh.” Emma sat down beside her. “Where’s Harlan?”
“At work.” Belle took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “What happened?”
“My blood pressure is back up and I’m almost two centimeters dilated. The baby has already dropped. Here, I thought I’d been experiencing another round of Braxton-Hicks when I noticed I wasn’t carrying as high as I had been hours earlier. She gave me a round of steroid shots in preparation for an early delivery. Further travel is out, and I have been ordered to take it easy. Limited exercise, very short walks and no sex.”
“You must be terrified.”
“I am.” Emma fought back the tears that threatened to break free. “The doctor estimates her at almost five pounds, so that’s good. But her lungs haven’t fully developed yet. Hence the steroids. My baby’s not even born and she’s receiving medical treatment.”
“Mrs. Slade, we’re ready for you,” a nurse in pink scrubs said to Belle.
“I’m just having a routine checkup. I shouldn’t be long. Do you want to wait and we can talk?”
Emma nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
She sat back in the chair, attempting to remain calm and think logically. How did millions of women give birth every year, just as they had done for thousands of years, without complications? She thought she had done something wrong but the doctor had assured her that snowshoeing and sex weren’t to blame. Neither was her stress. It contributed to her high blood pressure but not the other preterm delivery factors.
As much as Emma wanted to see her little girl, neither one of them was ready. She hated going through this alone. She wanted to call her mom but she couldn’t stomach one of her what’s going to be is going to be speeches. She knew if she called Jennie, her friend would be on the first flight to Montana and insist on staying with her for the next seven weeks. She was that generous of a friend, and Emma wouldn’t allow her to jeopardize her job because she was scared.
Belle’s exam had taken less time than Emma had anticipated. Harlan was at work and Ivy was visiting her biological mother for the day, allowing Emma and Belle to have the house to themselves.
“How about we make a girl’s day out of this?” Belle handed Emma a cup of herbal tea. “We can kick back and watch romantic comedies for the rest of the day.”
“I don’t think romance is the best thing for me to watch after what happened last night.”
“Oh, that.” Belle’s eyes widened. “Garrett had mentioned that you and Dylan had an argument over the ranch.”
“I don’t know who I’m madder at. Dylan or myself.”
“I don’t really understand what happened. Garrett said Dylan had asked him to become his partner on the ranch and you got upset. Full disclosure, he also asked Harlan and Wes to go in with him. Wes said no, but Harlan hasn’t made up his mind yet. I think it would be a good idea, but maybe there’s something I’m not seeing. Is this about your company not getting the ranch?”
“Yes and no. While I was trying to convince Dylan to sell to me, I decided I wanted to buy into the ranch. Before I had a chance to tell Dylan, he made the offer to his brothers, which I totally understand. While I can’t help but be annoyed that he won Garrett over with my ideas, I’m crushed that I gave him three chances to tell me he loved me and he didn’t. I told him I thought he would have said the words, and he just stared at me. So, who’s the fool? Me? I feel used. He has everything he wants while I get to go home to a demoted position because once this baby is born, I can no longer afford to travel all over the world. That had been my biggest job requirement. So I’m stuck with a paper-pushing job I hate, at least until I find something else. In the meantime, I’m having my baby in Montana and then I have to move into a smaller apartment when I get back to Chicago. This is not the start to my daughter’s life that I had expected.”
“So he didn’t say the words?” Belle asked.
Emma sipped her tea. “The bottom line is, Dylan and I don’t trust each other. That came to a head the night Harlan thought I was going behind Dylan’s back when I was just doing what my boss had instructed me to do.”
“I was furious with him for getting in the middle of that. I am so sorry for the undue stress that put you through.”
“I appreciate it, but I understood where Harlan was coming from, too. Dylan had brought me to a particular place on the ranch a few times. A spot Jax had also shown me. The more time I spent there, the more I had envisioned a beautiful open-air wedding chapel where the ranch could provide destination wedding packages.”
“Dylan was telling us about them last night. They sound wonderful. I would’ve loved something like that. Both of my weddings were completely unconventional, and I wouldn’t mind a third.”
Emma set her teacup on the end table. “Okay, so all those ideas Dylan told you about last night, they were mine. Some had been a part of my original proposal package and the rest, like the chapel, were all ideas I wanted to actively be a part of. The more I thought about them and talked about them, I saw myself helping Dylan see them come to fruition. Not sit on the sidelines and watch him do it with somebody else. Dylan kept asking me to stay in Montana so I naïvely thought he wanted me to be his partner in every way. When I heard him ask Garrett to be his partner instead and then mentioned Harlan and Wes, I was crushed.”
Belle patted Emma’s thigh. “You got your feelings hurt.”
“I sure did. Now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, maybe I overreacted. In the same respect, I don’t know what Dylan expected me to do for work if I said yes and moved to Montana. I’m not the type who would be happy answering phones. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not what I want. I want to be a part of the bigger picture. That has been my job for the last six years. I am a commercial real estate analyst. I make a living looking at the bigger picture. After listening to Dylan, it was obvious he didn’t see me the same way. He said he had at one point, but once he took on partners, things were different.”
“You wanted to be included.” Elvis jumped on the couch between them, spun around a few times and laid down. “The dog gets it. He wants to be included, too.”
They both laughed, breaking the tension. Emma scratched the dog behind the ears, only to have him roll over on his back for belly rubs. “I think Dylan believes this is about him not selling the ranch, but it’s not. I knew he was going to be a tough sell going in. He has every right to explore his options and ask his family to join him. Although, he already told me Garrett had turned him down once before. If he had said, ‘I love you,’ I could have overlooked it all. I can’t move sixteen hundred miles away from my life for a man who doesn’t even know if he loves me.”
“I would probably have felt the same way.”
Talking to Belle made her feel better. It helped justify her feelings and allowed her to see where she may have been a little too harsh with Dylan. In all actuality, he hadn’t really done anything wrong. He was looking out for his best interests. Their relationship had been far too new for either one of them to consider her involvement in the ranch. If anyone had the clearer head, it had probably been Dylan for realizing that fact. That didn’t make it any easier to accept.
Belle was the last person Dylan expected to receive a phone call from that evening. After she had filled him in on Emma’s doctor visit, she clarified why Emma was so furious with him. Belle admitted to violating the girl code by telling him all of it, but she felt they both needed to give the other a second chance before giving up completely. Dylan didn’t understand how he could have been so blind.
He checked his watch. It wasn’t too late to stop by her room. That’s if she would open the door for him. He didn’t think any amount of singing in the hallway would change her mind this time after the way he had completely disregarded her feelings.
Surprisingly, she answered after the first knock. “Let me guess... Belle.”
“She felt horrible for breaking your confidence, but she’s worried about you, and so am I. I owe you a huge apology.”
“Dylan, it seems like that’s all you’ve done since I’ve arrived. No more apologies. We have both made mistakes. I invested too much of my heart into this place and I wasn’t even aware I was doing it. I don’t know if it was you, Jax, Montana or maybe a combination of all of it, but Silver Bells really grabbed ahold of me.”
“It tends to have that effect on people.”
“I just wish I had seen it before this visit. Maybe I could have prepared myself better.”
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Dylan said. “That’s the lesson I’ve learned since you arrived. I thought I had built up enough resistance to protect myself from ever falling in love again. You can’t protect yourself from that.”
Dylan noticed her suitcases now sat where the Christmas presents had. He scanned the bed and the dresser. There were no blue and pink bags, no baby clothes lying around, no signs of Emma.
“Are you leaving?” Belle had told him Emma was prohibited from traveling.
“I made open-ended reservations in Kalispell. I think it’s best if I put some distance between...us.”
“I don’t want you to go. And I don’t think you want to, either.”
“Our relationship happened way too fast. Maybe if time had been on our side and we had met under different circumstances, we may have had a chance. I cannot focus on that or worry about it, anymore. My baby may arrive sooner than later. I need to prepare for the fact I’m having my child in Montana. I don’t have any of the comforts of home and before you offer, no. I can handle this on my own.”
“What about your job?”
“I have made peace with the lesser position. It’s relatively stress-free and will allow me to spend more time with my daughter. I have some money to fall back on so we won’t have to move right away, but I will have to move soon. It will all work out in the end. I have a job and a roof over my head, I just need to give birth to a healthy baby.”
“Emma.” Dylan lifted her hands and held them against his chest. “I understand you not wanting to be with me anymore. But I do love you and I still want to be with you.”
“Please don’t.” Emma looked up at him. The life and fire he had once seen in her eyes was gone. “You’re only saying that because Belle told you that’s what I wanted to hear.”
“That’s not true. I mean every word. I don’t want you to give up on us, but I understand. I wish you would at least stay here, where you don’t have to worry about money. It will be one less financial burden. I don’t want you to think of it as a gift, I—”
Dylan noticed the cradle and rocking horse on the opposite side of the room away from her luggage. “You are taking those with you, right?”
“Under the circumstances, I don’t think I should. They’re beautiful and I think you should give them to somebody you plan on spending the rest of your life with. You worked hard on them.”
“I built them for your baby. It doesn’t matter what happens between us now, tomorrow or ten years from now, these are for your daughter. I want her to have them. You don’t have to tell her about me, just...please.”
Dylan choked back a tear, an emotion he didn’t know he was capable of. He released her hands and stepped away from her. “I will leave you alone now. Just, please, take the cradle and the rocking horse.”
Dylan couldn’t escape her room fast enough. He ran down the lodge’s stairs and into the cold. He couldn’t bear the thought of Emma leaving or never seeing her child.
How could he have made so many mistakes?