Page 111 of Training the Heart

One tear spills over her cheek before she whispers, “Wade … I’m pregnant.”

My grip on her tightens involuntarily. Two little words.

Two little words that pull all the available air from my lungs and will forever separate my life into equal parts, the parts before this moment and the rest that is to come.

My breath hitches and I feel like time stands still.

I look into her eyes, and I know as sure as my heart beats that it’s no longer gravity holding me firmly to the earth beneath my feet.

It’s this woman and the child she carries.

My child.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Ivy

Icompare the quiet in this moment to the seconds before a race begins. One moment there are thousands of people waiting with baited breath, you could hear a pin drop it’sthatquiet, the next the bell rings and all hell breaks loose when those gates fly open and the horses are off.

Only the gates never open. Wade stands before me, eyes wide, full of a thousand questions. He pulls me to his chest but he doesn’t speak, and after a few seconds he paces into my living room and he drops to the sofa, his legs spread wide as he leans back, one arm resting on his thigh as the other scrubs his face. It’s like I just put my cowboy into shock.

In true Ivy fashion, I start to ramble.

“I know I’m asking a lot by telling you this,” I start to say, trying not to cryagain.I can’t help it because apparently pregnancy makes me an emotional trainwreck.

“Not because you wouldn’t love this baby, Wade, because I know you would. In fact, imagining you with him or her makes my heart physically ache …”

He still doesn’t speak, he just looks up at me, so I take a seat directly across from him on the coffee table and take his hand.

“The reason I’m asking a lot is because by telling you this, I’m possibly asking you to suffer heartbreak with me, and I’m sorry … I’m so sorry …” I trail off.

“I know we’re new … I know this might be the last thing you expected. I even thought about not telling you, keeping it to myself so if it’s not meant to be, you wouldn’t have to go through this with me, but then I knew. I knew you’dwantto go through it with me.”

Something about those words seems to pull him from his trance. Wade drops to his knees and pulls me into his chest in one quick movement, holding me tight.

“How long have you known this, Ivy? How long have you been dealing with this on your own, sweetheart?” He pulls back and cradles my face as he asks, looking down at me, kissing my lips once before I can answer.

“Just since this morning.”

He breathes out a sigh of relief with that.

I tell him the entire story as he listens intently, never once stopping the stroke of my cheek with his thumb. Before I can fully finish speaking, soft kisses meet my forehead, my cheeks, my lips, my shoulders through my hair. Everywhere he can dot kisses, he does, and he doesn’t stop, as if the love he gives me has a direct correlation to how my body will accept this pregnancy, and maybe it will?

Wade smiles at me, a real fucking smile, and it’s like sunshine breaking through the clouds.

“Don’t you dare apologize to me for this … because this? This is fucking incredible, a miracle. We don’t know what the future holds, but we’re in it together, sweetheart … no matter what comes,” Wade says, and I don’t miss how his voice almost breaks when he does.

I breathe out a heavy sigh of relief as he pulls me back in.

“My dad always used to say there are two ways to look atsomething, the way you’re afraid it will turn out and the way youhopeit will turn out. We have to stay positive,” he whispers in my ear. He pulls back and looks at me again like he just doesn’t quite know what to do with me.

It makes me giggle as I watch him, behaving almost like a squirrel, a reallybigsquirrel, not able to decide which direction to go in.

“Do you have your own doctor?” he asks, raking a hand through his hair.

“No, my doctor when I left Jellico was Brad’s family doctor. And I will go for an ultrasound next Monday. Dr. Evans offered.”

“Monday,” he repeats, nodding. “A week from now?”

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