Marcy and Amber accompanied me to my first ultrasound exam. I was ambiguous, unsure of what I was going to make feel, but oddly curious to see visual proof of something I still wasn't quite sure I believed. Namely, that I was pregnant with Dallas Corbett's baby. It still didn't seem real. Other than the weird breast tenderness, there was still no signs. I didn't feel nauseous, my appetite was the same, my belly still looked the same.

My friends were very sweet and protective of me, which I admit I enjoyed. It felt good to be taken care of. When we walked into the clinic Amber ran ahead and opened the door and Marcy pointed to a small lip I needed to step over so I didn't trip.

I laughed. "You guys are like a couple of worried husbands!"

Marcy grinned. "Two husbands! That sounds great. Well, maybe boyfriends instead of husbands. Then I don't have to make two packed lunches for them in the morning."

When it was my turn to see the nurse all three of us watched, fascinated, as a small, dark splotch in the center of the screen came into view.

"Do you see that?" the nurse asked. "Do you see the heartbeat?"

She pointed to a small spot that looked almost like the fluttering wings of a butterfly and I immediately burst into shocked tears. Amber and Marcy were right there, putting their arms around me, murmuring reassurances.

Twenty minutes later, when we were back in the car, I still felt like I was in shock. Amber turned to me.

"Are you OK, Tia?"

"Yeah. I – yeah, I'm OK. Just a little surprised, maybe? I'm not sure I actually believed any of this was real, you know? And now –"

"Now you've seen it," Marcy said, from the back seat. "Now you know it is real."

"You know we've got your back, right?" Amber asked. "Whatever you decide."

Whatever I decided. I knew what that meant. And up until I'd seen that smudge on a computer screen, it had all seemed fairly simple. Either I was going to have a baby, or I wasn't – and it was my decision. But something had changed.

"I feel really strange," I said. "Do you think we can pull over or something?"

Amber pulled over and squeezed my hand. "Are you sick? Do you want me to go to Parson's and get you a ginger ale?"

"No," I replied. "I don't feel strange like that. I feel – I don't know how to explain this. I feel different after seeing it. After seeing the heartbeat. It feels like, oh my God I feel stupid saying this, but it feels like a baby now. It feels like... mine."

There was so much going on inside my head that afternoon, so many thoughts rushing by before I had a chance to really grasp or examine them.

"That makes sense," Marcy said quietly. "What are you thinking?"

I looked up at her, and then at Amber."I'm thinking about my parents. About Dallas. About myself. I'm not saying my parents would have been happy – they definitely would not have been. But, this baby is a part of them, isn't it? I saw that heartbeat on the screen and I just thought, that's their grandchild."

Amber surprised me by sniffling and wiping a tear off her cheek. "Sorry," she laughed, her voice cracking slightly. "I don't know why I'm getting all emotional. It's OK, you know. It's OK if you feel attached or if you want to consider having this baby, Tia."

I didn't even know that's what I was waiting for until she said it, but it was. Permission to feel, to want. Even though I knew – we all knew – what most people would say about a single nineteen year old with no college education having a baby. I saw that heartbeat and it was like none of it mattered, like some instinct deep inside me was asserting itself.

"Is it?" I asked worriedly. "I'm scared. I know what people say about young women having babies, especially if they're single. But I – I want to. I can't explain it, but I do."

"People say all kinds of things," Marcy told me. "Too young to have a baby, too old to have a baby, too poor, too this, too that. Listen. Look at me. You've got us. You've got your great-aunt and your great-uncle. Who knows, you may even have Dallas Corbett if he's interested in playing his part. What I'm saying is you have a lot of people who will help you – you're not alone."

We sat in silence for a little while as I processed my own emotions.

"Yeah," I spoke up, finally. "I want to have this baby. Maybe it's stupid but I don't even feel doubtful about this, not right now. I want to."

"Then you will," Marcy smiled at me. "And we're here one hundred percent."

"Oh my God," I breathed, putting my face in my hands and breathing deeply. "Oh my God. I'm having a baby? I'm having a baby?!"

We drove to Amber's apartment and they refused to let me help make dinner.

"We're going to be worse than any man," Marcy warned me, laughing. "No more opening doors for you. or lifting anything heavier than a purse."

There was one topic that we'd only briefly touched upon in the car. Dallas. Marcy and Amber were waiting for me to bring it up, giving me space. After we ate, I finally did.

"So... Dallas."

Amber looked at me pointedly. "Yeah, Dallas. I saw him a few days ago outside Parson's. I swear I almost punched him in the face."

"Did you?" I asked. "You saw him? You didn't say –"

"No, Tia, I did not say anything. I'm a super secret-keeper these days, remember? But I did, um – well, I was a little rude. Told him I thought he was using his horse as an excuse to be an asshole."

I put my hand over my mouth. "Did you? You didn't!"

"Oh you're damn right I did. It's funny, I don't even know why I was so mad. Well, I do – he should have known better, but –"

"So should I," I cut in.

They both looked at me and Marcy nodded. "You're right. You should have known better, too. But he's twenty-six, Tia. He's experienced. He knew you were a virgin. You both screwed up, I'm not saying it's all his fault. I'm just saying I think he's more responsible. You aren't just younger than him, you were in a vulnerable position for a couple of reasons. Your parents, plus the fact that it was your first time."

"It just pissed me off to see him walking around like he didn't have a care in the world," Amber added. "Looking all full of himself like he always does. I know what you've been going through, Tia, and it just made me want to kick his ass a little."

We all waited for someone else to mention the elephant in the room. In the end it was Amber who did.

"So when are you going to tell him? Or are you even going to tell him?"

I sighed. "I don't know. I have to tell him. And even if I don't sooner or later it's going to be obvious I'm pregnant, isn't it? Part of me just wants to get it over with. I've even thought about sending him a text instead of doing it face to face."

That was true. Texting Dallas Corbett the news that I was pregnant with his baby wouldn't have been right. But it would mean avoiding the look in his eyes when he found out, and the possibly bad reaction he might have. Not that he had any right to a bad reaction – the situation was as much his fault as mine. But, mostly, it meant avoiding the feelings in my own heart, the ones I was doing my very best to ignore in the hope that they would just fade away.

"Maybe you should text him," Marcy said. "He doesn't strike me as the type of guy who's going to be an involved father."

"What you should probably do is call a lawyer," Amber added. "If you're going to have this baby, Tia, he needs to do his part. It might be better for you to just let someone else handle it."

"I don't have any money," I responded. "Not enough for a lawyer, anyway."

Amber told me that her mom knew someone in River Bend who might be willing to do some work for a family friend at a reduced rate. But I didn't want to call a lawyer. I didn't say it out loud, because I was trying to keep up the pretense of being strong and in control for my friends, but it all sounded so cold and practical. Maybe that was how it was going to be? There's nothing like becoming a parent to highlight the need for practicality. I remembered my dad telling me something like that once when I saw a photo of him with his band, the one he quit two months before I was born.

I didn't stay too late at Amber's house that night. They were both great, full of optimism and reassurance. Without that and without them, who knows how I would have handled the whole situation? But when I got back home and fell into my bed, there was no hiding from the truth. I was terrified. Grateful for all the support I was already receiving, but terrified. What was I going to do?

I toyed with the idea of going back to Philly. The pull of the familiar was strong, but I knew I'd be even worse off there. Dani would let me stay with her, I knew that, but what would I do? Pregnant, nineteen, no qualifications? I would just be a leech, and that wasn't something I could tolerate. So was it just going to be River Bend, Montana and a low-paying job at a grocery store, then? Was that going to be my life, mapped out before I was even twenty years old?

My parents didn't raise me to be a snob. They raised me to be proud of my roots, humble though they were. But they had hopes for me – college, a career and yes, a family. But not a family before I was in my twenties and unmarried. I cried a little, thinking about what they would say to me if they were still alive, how disappointed they would be.

No matter how much I tried to tell myself that there was nothing wrong with River Bend and a job at Parson's Grocery, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was letting myself down somehow.

And alongside all of those doubts the stubborn certainty I'd felt that afternoon in the ultrasound clinic, the conviction that the baby growing inside me would be born, and that no matter what, I would do my best to provide him or her with a decent life, remained.

* * *

Less than a week later, after an evening shift at work, I found Dallas Corbett waiting for me beside my car in the otherwise deserted parking lot. My traitor heart leapt as soon as I saw him and I looked away, embarrassed, hoping he couldn't see how difficult it was to hide how I really felt.

"Tia," he said, his voice as deep as thunder in the distance.

"Dallas," I responded standoffishly, because I didn't have a single clue what to say. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans and he looked so damn good. I swallowed my emotions, berating myself internally. This is what got you into trouble in the first place.

"I need to talk to you."

I almost laughed. He needed to talk to me? He didn't have any idea what that might actually mean.

"Yeah?" I asked. "What about? I'm really tired. I just got off work and –"

"I wouldn't have come down here and waited to see you if it wasn't important, Tia. I'm not asking you for anything, there are just some things I want to say to you and since you blocked me on your phone I didn't know what else to do. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I – yeah, will you just hear me out?"

The word 'no' was on the tip of my tongue. And the fact that I didn't really have a whole lot of real reasons to be angry at Dallas somehow didn't matter as much as it should have. I was angry at him. Why? Because I'd let myself get too invested, too hopeful. That was my fault, not his. Still, part of me wanted him to pay for hurting me.

"Uh –"

"Tia, please. I promise you I'm not going to ask you to do anything you don't want to do. But – this is important to me. I need to say these things. And after I do, if you want me to stay out of your life, I will. You have my word."

"OK then," I shrugged, feigning a lightness of tone that didn't reflect what was in my heart. "What is it?"

"Can we go somewhere? Not here, I mean? I don't want to do this in a parking lot."

I unlocked the car. "I don't want to go to your house, Dallas. And we can't go to John and Jenny's, they think you're a dick."

Dallas smiled sadly. "I know. Everyone does."

"You get that that's your fault, though, right?" I asked, looking up at him sharply. "When you act like a jerk, Dallas, people think you're a jerk. That's how it works."

He nodded. "Yeah, that is how it works. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, if that's what you think. Not about that, anyway. The good citizens of River Bend have every reason to think I'm a grade-A asshole."

"So you do feel sorry for yourself?"

"I – Tia, can we please not do this here?"

"Well where should we go?"

Dallas was standing quite close to me. Close enough for me to be able to smell the scent of hay and outdoors on his skin.

"Why can't we just go to my place? There's no one there, if that's what you're worried about."

I couldn't look at him. I had to stay in control. "No, it's not that. I don't want to go to your place because I – I don't trust myself."

He took a step towards me when I said that and I held my hand up, inches from his chest. "No. Don't do that. This is exactly why I don't want to go to your place."

"You're right. I'm sorry, you're right Tia. It's difficult to be around you, you know? I'm so, uh, it's so – never mind. It doesn't matter. I know somewhere we can go. Do you want to drive?"

"Well it is my car."

Dallas laughed. "It is. OK, it's not far. Just go left on Old Ware Road."

So we got into the car and I followed his directions, pretending all the while that the simple fact of being next to him was having no effect on me. About ten minutes later we got to a natural rock outcropping in the hills that surrounded River Bend, overlooking the town itself.

"Oh!" I said, surprised at the view. "This is nice. Is this a park or something?"

"Nah, it's just somewhere I bring Beau sometimes, when he needs to have his energy burned off. I thought you might like to see River Bend from a new perspective – and no one's going to bother us up here. Maybe a hungry bear or two, but no people."

I turned to him, worried. "What? Bears?"

He chuckled. "Nothing to worry about, Tia, I'm kidding. I mean, there are bears in these woods, but they don't come down this close to town too often. And we're in a car. Don't look so petrified, city slicker."

It felt so natural to be with him. I didn't want it to feel like that. I wanted it to be awkward and uncomfortable, so I didn't have to second guess any of my assumptions. We looked out over the town, surrounded on all sides by dark wilderness.

"So," I said, a couple of minutes later. "I really am tired, Dallas. What is it you wanted to say?"

He leaned back in his seat and looked out the window, sighing. "Honestly, Tia, I don't even know where to begin. I guess the most important thing is, I have a problem. And everything else, everything I've done, everything that's happened to me and how I've handled it, all kind of centers on this problem."

"Oh," I said, very quietly. "Yeah. The baby."

"It's not the baby – I don't want to get ahead of myself here, but it turns out no one even knows if he's mine. Maybe his own mother doesn't know. I will know, soon. But he isn't the problem. You are."

"I –" I stuttered, hurt. "I'm the problem?" If Dallas thought I was a problem then, he didn't even know the half of it. I held my tongue, though, knowing it wasn't the right time to say anything.

"Yes," he said, turning to face me. "You are the problem. You are the biggest problem I've had for a long time, Tia Kinsley. That's why I moved out here to Montana – to avoid problems. And ever since I met you, I'm starting to wonder if that might have been really stupid, or maybe just badly misguided."

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused. "I don't know what you're –"

"I can't do it," Dallas said, shaking his head. "I just can't do it, Tia. I can't keep pretending I don't feel what I feel for you. That's what I mean, when I say you're a problem. You are. Because I thought I could just give up on humanity. I thought that was the rational thing to do, after seeing the things I've seen. It made sense, you know? At the time? But you're good. You're a good person, you're beautiful and warm and funny and smart and I've spent weeks doing everything I can to forget you. And I can't. That's the plain truth."

Dallas Corbett wasn't the only person in River Bend who had spent weeks trying to convince themselves that they didn't feel the things they did. And what he was saying was, I realized, everything I wanted to hear. But he didn't know. He didn't know I was pregnant with his baby. And having feelings for someone isn't the same thing as wanting to raise a child with them. Before I could say anything, though, he continued.

"It's like I said back in the parking lot – you don't owe me anything. I'm not asking you for anything. I just wanted you to know. I don't want to be an old man sitting out on my porch and thinking 'what if.' If you want me to leave you alone, I'll leave you –"

"Dallas –"

We reached for each other at the same time. There was nothing, in that moment, that I wanted more than the touch of his hands and the feeling of his mouth on mine. There was nothing that mattered more than being close to him. When he pulled me onto his lap and held me tight against his body it felt like drinking a cold glass of water after wandering a parched desert for weeks.

"I missed you," I whispered, pressing my face into his warm neck. "Dallas, I missed you so much."

"Me too," he replied, through the kisses he was trailing down my cheek. "Jesus, Tia, me too."

We were desperate for each other, out of breath and tearing clumsily at our clothes within seconds. When he managed to pull my shirt off over my head, yank my bra down and bury his face in my breasts, I didn't bother trying to suppress the high-pitched sighs escaping my throat.

"I need you," I murmured, already lost to reason and rational thought. "Dallas, please..."

He looked up at me, then. "You have no idea what that does to me, do you? To hear you saying my name like that? You don't know, Tia. You don't know..."

The car was small and Dallas was big. There wasn't enough room to maneuver. He reached down beside the seat, trying to find the handle. Suddenly, the seat shot backwards, hard enough to send me crashing into him. I giggled, but only briefly, because his hands were on my hips, pulling at my pants, shoving them down my thighs. There was that power I'd sensed in him before, the need that just drove me completely crazy. I couldn't think, I couldn't do anything except respond to him.

I bent forward and opened my mouth, sliding my tongue over his as he fumbled with his belt. There was a feeling of emptiness, of a void inside me – physical, yes, but emotional, too, and psychological. And he was the only person on earth who could fill it. I looked down when he pulled his thick, glistening cock out of his pants, and actually felt my own mind veer away from itself.

"Oh Dallas," I gasped, seeing what I'd done to him, aching for him. He grasped one of my hips and pulled me into position. I liked that, I liked being put where he wanted me to be. And then I felt him against my opening and looked up again.

"Tia," he breathed, closing his eyes tightly and then opening them again. Neither of us could wait. I lowered myself onto his sweet length, crying out his name. Nothing had ever felt so good in my life. I didn't stop, either. I kept going until he was all the way inside and I couldn't speak or breathe.

"Baby," Dallas moaned. "Oh Tia, you feel so good, baby. You're perfect. You're –"

His voice dissolved as I raised myself up and then down again, riding him. It felt like that first time again – fevered, uncontrollable. I couldn't slow down and I couldn't get enough of him. Every time he thrust up into me it felt better and better, until I could feel the first little tickles of orgasm in my core.

"Dallas," I squeaked, digging my fingers, hard, into his chest. "You're going to make me – Dallas, I'm going to –"

And then he stopped me. He was so much stronger than me, it was nothing for him to simply grab my hips and prevent me from moving.

"Not yet," he growled, kissing my neck. "Not yet, Tia. I'm not finished with you yet."

When I managed to focus on his face I saw that he was smiling. "What?" I asked. "Dallas. Please, I need to..."

He pulled me, very slowly, back down onto him. "What do you need, Tia? Do you need to come? Is that what you need?"

"Yes," I gasped, trying and failing to move faster again.

"Do you have any idea how hot that is?" he asked, holding me down on his cock. "That makes me want to come. I could fill you up right now, Tia. Right this second. Is that what you –"

"Yes," I pleaded. "Yes. Dallas, please come inside me. I want you to come inside me. I want –"

With a groan, he loosened his grip, allowing me to move again. "I know what you want," he breathed, cupping my breasts in his hands. "You're going to get it, baby. Fuck, Tia. Ohhh..."

I wrapped my arms around him when I felt myself getting close, needing to be as near to him as possible. "Oh my God," I whispered as the pleasure built inside me."Oh my God, Dallas."

'Come for me," he panted, quickening his thrusts. "Tia –"

I threw my head back and screamed his name when the white hot bliss exploded out through my body and the feeling of being full of him sent me right over the edge. And as soon as I was there, Dallas was, too, driving himself up into me and locking my body to his as he came.

"I love that," I told him, smiling because I couldn't help it, because coming that hard just made it impossible to feel anything but a kind of warm, overwhelming affection. "I love making you come."

I didn't even have the energy to crawl off him, so instead I stayed where I was on his lap, snuggling up against his chest as we both caught our breath.

A few minutes later he laughed. "Well, that went better than I expected."

"Yeah," I said, still not fully back in the real world yet. "I don't think I can even be around you without, uh –"

"Without fucking my brains out?"

I smiled."Yeah, that."

He opened the door a few minutes later and we hopped out to pull our clothes back into place – it was almost winter by then and the nights were chilly. Before I could walk back around to the driver's side, Dallas caught my wrist.

"Come back to my place. Stay the night."

I wanted to stay the night with him. More than anything. But the truth was, we hadn't really talked about very much, because neither of us had been able to control ourselves. He saw me hesitating.

"I'm not just asking so I can fuck you again, Tia, if that's what you think. I actually kind of didn't even get started. You know, with everything I wanted to tell you. And I still want to have that conversation. Are you working in the morning?"

"No," I replied. "I'm working in the afternoon, though – same shift as today."

"Come back with me, then."

I wasn't hesitating because I didn't want to go with him. I was hesitating because I did. It was like we'd both suffered a momentary bout of lust-driven insanity, and now reality was forcing itself back into our temporary bubble.

In the end, I went. I couldn't say no. I don't know what kind of girl would have had the strength to say no to a night in Dallas Corbett's arms, but it wasn't me. When we got back to his cabin Beau came bounding down the front stairs to lick my hands and run circles around me.

"Look at him," Dallas chuckled. "He's almost as happy to see you as I was."