“It probably reminds her of her favorite blanket,” Clinton chuckled.
Holding a baby made Taryn realize how much she wanted a family. She still had plenty of time to consider that idea. After all, she was only thirty, and lots of women didn’t get married and start a family until they were almost forty.
Taryn nudged Clinton on the shoulder. “Have you about got that basket of wool finished yet?”
“What?” Clinton frowned.
“Your expression told me that you were woolgathering,” she answered.
“I was thinking about my mother. She was like Jorja and didn’t like kids. After I was born, she gave me to my father—no, that’s not right.” He shook his head. “She made an agreement with him. For a big cash settlement, she handed me off to my father and left town. She never looked back, and I’ve only seen her a couple of times: once when she came to her mother’s funeral and then when she returned to Shamrock for her grandmother’s services. I was about six or seven.”
“That’s rough,” Taryn said. “I bet that’s why you didn’t want Zoe being put into the system. You’re going to make a wonderful father when you get around to having a family.”
“Thanks. I had a good father. He passed when I was in the service. I still have the best grandfather—but sometimes I worry about whether I have enough sense to choose a woman who would be a wonderful mother. Neither my grandfather nor my father have ever done a goodjob when it came to choosing wives, and maybe poor judgment in that area is hereditary.”
Taryn turned and looked right into his eyes. “I disagree with you. Choices can’t be blamed on heredity. I think that you’ll make a wonderful husband and father, Clinton. Proof is in the way this baby has bonded with you and the kindness you show everyone.”
Chapter Six
Taryn couldn’t count the number of times she had stretched out on the sofa in the trailer and rested her head on the arm. As far back as she could remember, she had spent a lot of time either in the flower shop, playing out in the gravel parking lot, or taking naps on that very sofa. Anna Rose had invited her to go to the bar and have a few drinks with her that evening. Jorja had asked if she wanted to go to church and find a place to help with Vacation Bible School.
Taryn had declined both just so she could have some peace and quiet. Five days of working with her cousins all day, then coming home to spend the evenings with them would have tarnished an angel’s halo.
Someone knocked. “Anybody home?” Clinton stuck his head in the door.
“Come on in. I’m the only one here,” Taryn answered, but her limbs felt so heavy that she didn’t move from her position.
He had a diaper bag thrown over his shoulder and was carrying Zoe in his arms rather than in her carrier. “She’s fussy tonight and nothing seems to help.”
Taryn reached out her arms, and Clinton gave her the baby. She loved the way that Zoe cuddled against her shoulder and the trust Clinton had in her to just hand over the baby anytime she asked for her.
“She usually has her bath right after supper, takes a bottle, and sleeps until five or six the next morning. But tonight, she’s fighting it.”
With her back to the sofa, Taryn cuddled Zoe up next to her chest and started to hum a lullaby that Nana Irene had sung to all three cousins. In seconds, the baby’s eyes fluttered shut, and she wiggled down into a comfortable position and went to sleep.
Clinton settled into a well-worn recliner and popped up the footrest. “Will you come live with me and do that every night?”
“Why, Clinton McEntire, we’ve known each other less than a week, and we haven’t even been out on a date,” Taryn teased.
Clinton wiped his brow in a mock gesture of shock. “I’ve got women coming out my ears who have visions of wedding cakes. What I need is a nanny, not a girlfriend.”
“Well, that’s about the sexiest thing a guy has ever said to me,” Taryn said with a giggle. “We don’t need a nanny, darlin’. Between the two of us, we’ve got this. Why don’t you stretch out on that recliner and take a nap while she’s sleeping? You’ve been running hard all day.”
Clinton covered a yawn with his hand. “You don’t have to ask me twice. You are a good friend, Taryn.”
“So are you,” she told him.
Friends aren’t a bad thing,she thought.I like Clinton, and I’m not a gold digger like these women circling him with lassos.
Jorja left her air-conditioned car and stepped out into the hot breeze flowing across the church parking lot. “Vacation Bible School, Friday through Sunday, 6–8 p.m.”—that’s what the sign outside the church said. She figured she would show up as a volunteer and they’d put her to work somewhere that evening. She was not expecting folks to gather round her the moment she walked into the sanctuary.
“Is Irene really not going to help with VBS this year?” Ora Mae Stephens asked. “We’ve worked together every year for more than thirty years.”
“No, she’s not,” Jorja answered. “She’s taking care of Ruby.”
Ora Mae was a tiny little woman, but what she had in spunk made up for her size. The doggie broach she wore on the lapel of her bright blue jacket seemed to go with her short gray hair, which reminded Jorja of a poodle that needed grooming.
Ora Mae patted her on the shoulder. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. I remember when you were just a little girl and came to Bible school with Irene. You were such a good little girl.”
