Page 33 of My Cowboy Bodyguard

That realization jerks me out of the sex bliss. “Honey, I didn’t use a condom.”

She stretches out on me, our bodies still connected.

“I got caught up like you did but I’m okay if you are. I mean it’s not like we don’t want kids, right?”

“Right,” I say, holding onto her and turning so that we’re side by side.

“I think you and I will make a beautiful home and we’ll be able to give our children so much love. Everything we didn’t have as kids.”

She’s quiet for the space of a heartbeat, then says, “Would you tell me what happened to you after I left?”

I hate it. Hate talking about that shit. But I don’t want any secrets from the woman I love. “That one guy, the one who was the size of a fucking mountain who made us kids steal and shit, he pushed River into a well…anyway…I learned how to fight after that. “

I pause to take a breath. The past always makes me edgy.

“It’s okay, Leo.”

“I learned how to fight and when that asshole went after River again, I tore his ass up. He was taken to the hospital with a couple of broken bones and I was…”

“Disciplined,” Amanda says because she knew the drill.

“But I survived. Those dark days were awful but at least I experienced love after I was adopted. I trained to become a bodyguard and made a lot of money. I used the majority of it to help the kids who experienced the Home who weren’t as lucky as me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Different things. Like I paid for college for some of them. Rehab for others. Paid for therapy for them. Helped a couple with deposits for places to stay. That sort of stuff.”

“That’s why you’re a hero.”

I take a moment because my throat gets tight. “I’m not a hero. At the back of my mind when I was helping others, my thought was that I hoped someone was helping you. I guess I was trying to good deed the universe or whatever it is into a tit for tat for your sake.”

“Oh, Leo. Youarea hero whether you can see that or not.” She toys with the bottom of my beard. “Do you ever think you’ll want to go back to working as a bodyguard?”

“No. I was already thinking about returning to the way of life that saved me long before I got the call that the ranch was in trouble.” I hug her closer, grateful that even the current situation going on with the ranch turned out to be a good thing for me because I came home and found her.

And because that happened, it gave us both the wings we need to fly free from the past into the hope and future that our love promises to give us.

Epilogue

Amanda

Leo and I have been married for twelve weeks and a day. And I know everybody probably says it, but for me, it’s true. It’s perfect. Other than the fact he still tries to be super protective.

No matter what he’s in the middle of doing, he’ll stop to make sure he picks me up from the bookstore. He makes sure that someone is with me when I leave for work whether I drive or one of his brothers “just happened” to be going into town.

I’m sitting behind the counter at the bookstore during a lull and I’m thinking about what I want to have for lunch when my stomach doesn’t like that idea. At all.

I press my hand tightly against my abdomen. Maybe I’m queasy because I skipped breakfast.

Then it hits me like a thunderclap. Lately, I’m always queasy. I leap to my feet and the room spins. I reach out for the counter and grip it like a lifeline, waiting for the dizziness to stop.

The bell over the door chimes and I look up into Ruly’s surprised, then concerned gaze. I hear her say my name then the world starts going dark.

When I come too, I’m in a room at the town’s small hospital with Madison, one of the town doctors, and she’s checking my vitals. Ruly is beside the bed and smiles her relief when she sees I’m awake. “You scared the shit out of me,” she says.

“What happened?”

“You had a bout of low blood pressure because….” Madison beams at me. “Congratulations. You’re pregnant.”

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