I moved through my shifts at Doc Perkins’ clinic like a ghost.

Three days since the harvest festival. Three days of examining horses and cattle while my body still held memories I couldn’t shake.

That afternoon I found an excuse to stop by the main house of our ranch where they usually help. My father sat at the kitchen table, hunched over his ledger with reading glasses perched on his nose.

“Hey, Dad.” I leaned against the doorframe. “Got a minute?”

“Always for you, sweetheart. What’s on your mind?”

“I need to coordinate my veterinary rounds with the ranch hands this week. Doc Perkins wants me handling the north pasture cattle on my own now, and I don’t want to get in anyone’s way.”

He nodded without looking up. “I can give you the schedule. Most of the boys are working fence lines through Friday.”

Great. That’s the entrance that I need.

I kept my voice carefully casual while trying to figure out how to meet them. “What about Banks and McKenna? They’re still working the north pasture?”

My father finally glanced up. Something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe, or curiosity about why I’d ask. If only he knew…

“Kameron took off for the rodeo circuit, told me yesterday before he left. Some talent scouts saw him ride at the county fair last month. Made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, apparently.”

My stomach dropped through the floor and I gripped the doorframe harder. “And Colt?”

Dad shrugged and turned back to his ledger. “McKenna got offered a management position at a ranch in Texas. Left the same morning as Banks. Didn’t even give proper notice. Just packed his truck and drove off at dawn.”

The same morning yesterday. Both of them. Gone.

Without even… F**k.

“That’s inconvenient,” I managed. “Good hands are hard to find.”

“Tell me about it. Had to scramble to cover their work.” He shook his head. “Never figured those two for runners, but I guess you never really know people.”

Yeah, apparently you never don’t.

So I just excused myself before my face could betray me and my father would figure out that something happened between his lonely only daughter and two hot reckless cowboys.

No one ever will.

* * *

The next two months were pretty brutal as I threw myself into work.

Every sick animal, every emergency call, every chance to prove myself to Doc Perkins—I took it. If I stayed busy enough, exhausted enough, maybe I could forget the taste of whiskey and the sound of my name on their lips.

Stop remembering how it felt to finally have what I’d wanted for so long, only to lose it by sunrise.

The signs were there, screaming at me in a language I refused to translate.

The morning coffee that suddenly made me gag. The world tilting sideways when I stood too fast. My jeans getting tighter despite barely eating.

I blamed everything else—stress, exhaustion, heartbreak. Anything but the truth.

Until the morning I was examining Mrs. Henderson’s mare and the barn started spinning. I barely made it outside before emptying my stomach behind the fence.

Then I remembered that my period won’t come.

The math was a cruel joke.

Eight weeks since the harvest festival. Eight weeks since I’d sandwiched myself between two cowboys and pretended I could play their game without consequences.

I drove to the pharmacy, then sat on the cold tile of my bathroom floor an hour later and four positive pregnancy tests lined up before me like a verdict.

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “F**k. F**k. F**k.”

No… It can’t be, right? From one reckless night? Just like that? I need to know for sure, I need uncompromising confirmation. These tests could be just cheap (not cheap at all) shit at last.

So I needed to be certain before I let myself fall apart completely.

I called the clinic and made an appointment for an ultrasound. Then I called Marisol.

She’d become my closest friend over the past months, since her mother opened the bakery and was sending her to our ranch to buy some good flour and eggs.

The Universe has a strange sense of humor, really.

The sharp-tongued cheerleader from my high school, who once had no business getting along with some ugly ducky like me back then, now runs her family’s café and somehow became my lifeline.

She’s also the only one who knows about that harvest festival night.

Pulled my secret out of me one night a few weeks ago when I’d stayed too late at her counter after a long work day, drinking beer and pretending I wasn’t falling apart.

The room went silent except for the sound of three rapid heartbeats filling the speakers. Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.

He followed me in, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall. “Triplets, Ivory? Triplets?”

I poured myself water with hands that only shook a little. “Not your concern.”

“The hell it isn’t!” He grabbed my arm, forcing me to face him. “My baby sister is pregnant with three kids and won’t name the bastard who did this to her?”

“Did this to me? Nobody did anything to me. I’m a grown woman who made a choice.”

“A choice that’s going to ruin your life. You’re twenty-two years old. You just started your career. Three babies, Ivory. Three.” His voice rose. “You can’t keep them.”

I couldn’t believe that he was making decisions for me. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. This is insane. You won’t even tell us who the father is.”

“End this.” I pulled my arm free. “Are you really telling me to get an abortion?”

“I’m telling you to be realistic. You have no support, no husband, no—”

“I have myself. That’s enough!”

The front door opened. My father stepped inside, his face a grave.

He’d heard. Of course he’d heard.

“Ivory.” His voice was quieter than Ryan’s, but the disappointment in it cut deeper. “Your brother has a point. This is… a lot to take on alone. Maybe you should consider all your options.”

“My options.” I looked between them—my father with his worried eyes, my brother with his righteous anger. “You want me to get rid of my children because they’re inconvenient? Because I won’t name some man who can make this acceptable?”

“We want what’s best for you,” Dad said.

“No. You want what’s easiest. What won’t embarrass the family or complicate your lives.” I moved toward the door and held it open. “Both of you. Out.”

“Ivory…” Ryan started.

“Out. Now.”

They left. Ryan with a final warning look, my father with a heavy sigh that aged him ten years. I closed the door and pressed my back against it.

My hands found my stomach—still flat, still hiding the three lives growing inside me.

“It’s just us,” I whispered to them. “But I promise you, that’s going to be enough.”