“Can You Nurse Him Just for Once”? the Cowboy Pleaded — And the Obese Girl Held the Baby Close

Chapter 10

Spring came gently, melting the snow and revealing a world reborn. The ranch emerged from winter battered but intact. The barn needed repairs. The garden needed replanting. But the animals had survived, the house was sound, and the family was healthy.

And then Norah discovered she was pregnant.

She had suspected for weeks, but she didn’t dare believe it. Not after last time. Not after the silence, the stillness, the tiny body that had never drawn a breath.

But the signs were undeniable. The sickness in the morning. The tiredness that weighed on her like a blanket. The way her body was changing, preparing, hoping.

She told Thomas on a warm spring evening, standing in the garden where she had first planted seeds.

“I’m pregnant.”

Thomas went completely still. “What?”

“I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby.”

His face crumpled. Tears spilled down his cheeks. He pulled her into his arms and held her so tight she could barely breathe.

“A baby,” he whispered. “Our baby.”

“Ours.”

He pulled back to look at her, his hands cradling her face. “Are you scared?”

“Terrified.”

“Me too.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “But we’re going to be fine. We’re going to be more than fine. We’re going to be a family.”

Norah closed her eyes. “A family.”

Grace toddled over to them, her unsteady steps carrying her across the garden. She grabbed Norah’s skirt and looked up with Thomas’s eyes.

“Up,” she demanded. “Up, up, up.”

Thomas laughed and scooped her into his arms. “You’re going to be a big sister, little one. Do you know what that means?”

Grace blew a raspberry.

“I think that means she’s excited,” Norah said, smiling.

The months passed. Norah’s belly grew. The ranch flourished. The town, slowly, began to accept them.

Mrs. Henderson had moved away, her gossip-mongering finally catching up with her. The preacher had been transferred to a different parish. The boarding house was closed, its doors shuttered.

And Norah Hayes, once the fat widow, once the cursed woman, once the invisible ghost of the Saturday market, had become something else entirely.

She was a wife. A mother. A woman who had been through hell and come out the other side — not unscathed, but unbroken.

She was proof that love could heal even the deepest wounds.

The baby came on a golden autumn morning, the same season Grace had been born. But this time was different. This time, there was a midwife who had come willingly. This time, there was a husband who held her hand and whispered encouragement. This time, there was hope instead of fear.

The first cry split the air, loud and strong and full of life.

“It’s a boy,” the midwife said, her voice thick with emotion. “A healthy, perfect boy.”

Norah reached for him, her arms trembling. The midwife placed the baby on her chest, and Norah looked down at his tiny face, his scrunched-up features, his little fists waving.

“Hello,” she whispered. “Hello, my son.”

Thomas was crying, tears streaming down his face as he leaned over them, his hand touching the baby’s head with reverent fingers.

“He’s perfect,” he said. “He’s absolutely perfect.”

“What should we name him?” Norah asked.

Thomas looked at her, his eyes full of love. “Thomas Junior. After his father.”

Norah smiled. “Thomas it is.”

They lay together, the three of them — no, the four of them, with Grace asleep in her crib in the corner — a family complete.