Page 65 of Saved By the Mountain Man

Tears rolled over my cheeks. I cried for me. And I cried for him.

“You’re not a monster,” I said softly. “Tanner, you didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have,” he said, his voice filled with self-loathing. “I should have done more to prevent it.” He scrubbed his hands down his face and took a shuddering breath.

I shook my head, reaching for him to cup his face in my hands. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened. You were trying to do your job. And you left to protect me. That’s what matters. That you’regood.”

“There’s nothing good about me,” he said, and he sounded so broken I couldn’t bear it.

“If you didn’t have a heart, a conscience, you would have stayed and kept doing that work for Vito. You wouldn’t have run, and you wouldn’t have looked after me, protecting me so that he wouldn’t get to me. I wish I’d known, wish I could have been there for you, but…” As if all the darkness of the past suddenly faded now that he’d told me, the pain lifted from me, too. “I understand why you did.”

He looked into my eyes, his own filled with tears. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“I already have,” I said softly. “And you need to forgive yourself, too. You did what you thought was best, and that’s all anyone can ask.”

I took his hand and pulled him so that he would stand. When he was right in front of me, Tanner pulled me into his arms. “I love you, Rae. I want to do life with you. You and the baby. I don’t want to run from myself anymore. And I won’t ever do anything to ever lose you again. I can’t live without you.”

“I love you, too, Tanner,” I whispered against his shoulder. “And I want a life with you. All of it. The good and the bad. We’llface it together.” I pulled away and looked into his eyes. “It’s better together, you know. We’ll be a team. We’ll work together and take on whatever comes next.”

He swallowed hard and nodded before he stroked his fingers through my hair. His eyes locked on mine, and he kissed me, his lips tender. I sighed into his mouth when he slipped his tongue into mine.

Could this be real? Was it all over?

Finally, I was ready to believe that I was safe. We had been through so much alone, fighting our own battles and our own demons. But we had found our way back to each other.

The doctor returned, interrupting us. He grinned, holding a portable ultrasound machine. “We’re going to do a quick scan to check on the baby,” he said, setting up the equipment. “I thought maybe it would be nice to meet the little tyke.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “Really?”

“Why not?” the doctor asked.

He ordered me to lie back and applied the cold gel to my stomach, and I shivered slightly. “This will help us get a clear image,” he explained, moving the wand over my abdomen.

Tanner was next to me, his hand wrapped around mine. He wasn’t going to let go.

I held my breath, my heart pounding with anticipation. Tanner squeezed my hand, his eyes never leaving the screen. The room was silent except for the soft hum of the machine. Then, a sound filled the room, a rapid, rhythmic thumping that echoed in my ears.

“That’s the baby’s heartbeat,” the doctor said with a smile. “Nice and strong.”

Tears welled up in my eyes as I listened to the sound of our baby’s heartbeat.

“Tanner,” I whispered. “Do you hear that?”

“I hear it, babe,” he said, and his voice was thick with emotion. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

The doctor showed us the baby, just a little nugget right now, but I fell in love with the gray bean on the screen anyway.

Tanner leaned down and kissed my forehead, and I tangled my fingers in his hair for a second. It was hard to believe that the little thing growing inside me was a combination of me and Tanner.

A little miracle. After all we’d been through, this was the perfect ending.

The doctor finished the scan and handed us a printout of the ultrasound image.

“Everything looks good,” he said, smiling. “You’re about eight weeks along. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said.

He nodded with a broad smile, shook Tanner’s hand, and then he left us alone again. It was like he knew we needed all the time together to process what was happening, what we were feeling.

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