Plenty of dramas center on a love triangle, but only Virgin River’s love triangle comes complete with another trifecta: a boyfriend, a dead husband and a paternity reveal that could change everything, forever. Fans of the series have been asking the same question since Season 3: Who is Mel Monroe’s (Alexandra Breckenridge) baby daddy, and what will it mean for her relationship with Jack Sheridan (Martin Henderson) once the identity of her unborn child’s bio-dad is revealed?

Warning: There are major Season 3 and Season 4 spoilers ahead.

First, some context. At the end of Season 3, viewers learn Mel is pregnant. It’s an emotional moment — and understandably so, considering Mel’s Virgin River origin story. While she was still married to her former husband, Mark (Daniel Gillies), Mel gave birth to a stillborn baby. Shortly thereafter, Mark died in a horrific car accident (while the couple was arguing the merits of IVF, no less). Both of these tragic events lead Mel to move to Virgin River and start a new life, and that’s when she meets Jack and the rest of Virgin River’s cast of Northern Californian eccentrics.

Mel and Jack don’t officially become a couple until Season 3, complicated by the fact that Jack is awaiting the birth of his twins with his ex-girlfriend Charmaine Roberts (Lauren Hammersley). However, after a fraught conversation about whether or not Jack wants to have more kids, Mel and Jack break up.

Distraught, Mel flees to her sister’s house in Los Angeles and makes the decision to get inseminated using an embryo created with Mark. However, Mel has also recently had sex with Jack, thus creating a cliffhanger for Season 4: Is Mel pregnant by Jack, or is the baby actually Mark’s?

Who is the father of Mel’s baby in Virgin River? 

Season 4 makes fans wait until the finale to learn the truth: Jack is unequivocally the father of Mel’s baby, and they’re having a little girl. As if that news wasn’t a reason to celebrate — allowing Virgin River fans everywhere to emit a collective sigh of relief — Jack also proposes to Mel, and she says yes. 

Of course, in Virgin River, there’s always something else coming just around the bend. In the Season 4 cliffhanger, Charmaine reveals Jack is not the father of her twins (gasp — talk about serious Season 3 dé​jà vu for fans who thought they had it all figured out.

Mel & Jack Speak with the Fertility Doctor | ‘Virgin River’ S4E1We like to keep things as complicated as humanly possible.