Christopher came back inside ten minutes later, his face split into a grin.
“Devon's drawing up the paperwork tonight. He thinks the family will accept our offer. They're motivated sellers, and we're motivated buyers.” He crossed to Becca and pulled her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her. “We're doing this. We're really doing this.”
“We're really doing this,” she repeated.
Later, after Crawford and Ciara had gone to bed and Eloise had woken for a feeding and settled back to sleep, Becca and Christopher stood on the porch together, enjoying a cup of herbal tea.
“We should call your mom,” Becca said. “Tell her the news.”
“Tomorrow. It's late, and they're probably already asleep.” Christopher pulled her close. “Besides, I’m not ready to share this news with my family. You know how they are. Before you know it, the house will become a family project with everyone’s opinions about paint colors and kitchen layouts.”
“Fair point.” Becca smiled against his chest.
They stood there in the darkness, listening to the water and the wind. Tomorrow there would be phone calls and paperwork and discussions on renovation that would test their patience and their marriage. Tomorrow the real work would begin.
But tonight, they had a dream and a plan and two families that loved them enough to help make it real. Becca closed her eyes for a moment and said a silent prayer that her mother saw everything from heaven.
CHAPTER 10
The airport in Fort Myers was busier than Maggie had expected for a Thursday morning. Families with children hauled oversized suitcases toward security lines, business travelers typed furiously on laptops in the gate areas, and a group of college students sprawled across the floor near a charging station, looking like they had been traveling for days.
In equal measure, she was excited about the birth of the twins and terrified to revisit old feelings about the Andover house and her memories with Daniel. She did her best to push away anything negative, but she couldn’t control the butterflies in her stomach.
Shaking her head as if to loosen tension, she focused on what she could control. Today was not about the past. Today was about the future, about two babies who would arrive any day now. More importantly, it was about holding her daughter's hand through one of the most transformative experiences of her life.
“You're doing that thing,” Chelsea said, appearing at her elbow with two cups of coffee.
“What thing?”
“The staring-into-the-distance thing. The deep-thoughtsthing.” Chelsea handed her one of the cups. “It's too early for deep thoughts. Drink your coffee.”
Maggie accepted the cup and took a sip. It was stronger than she usually liked, but the warmth was welcome. The airport air conditioning had been set to arctic, and she had already pulled a cardigan from her carry-on bag.
“I'm just thinking about Beth,” she said. “Wondering how she's holding up.”
“She's holding up the way all women hold up at the end of pregnancy. Barely, and with a lot of complaining.” Chelsea smiled. “I remember the last few weeks before my nephew was born. Carl’s sister called me every day to list all the ways her body was betraying her. Swollen ankles, heartburn, the inability to see her own feet. It's not a glamorous time.”
“No, it isn't.” Maggie thought about her own pregnancies, all five of them. Each one had been different, but the final weeks had always been the hardest. The waiting, the discomfort, the strange combination of desperate impatience and paralyzing fear. She had wanted each baby out and simultaneously wanted them to stay inside forever, where they were safe, where nothing could hurt them.
Paolo returned from the newsstand with a magazine tucked under his arm and a bag of trail mix in his hand. He had dressed comfortably for the flight, khaki pants and a soft blue shirt. He looked relaxed, but Maggie knew him well enough to see the slight tension around his eyes. His mind was on Sanibellia, his plant nursery business. It was his baby, and being away from it for this long didn't come naturally to him.
“The flight's on time,” he said, checking the departure board. “We should start boarding in about twenty minutes.”
“Good.” Maggie leaned into him slightly, drawing comfort from his solid presence. “I want to get there. I hate this in-between feeling.”
“The waiting is always the hardest part.” Paolo wrapped anarm around her shoulders. “But soon we'll be on the ground, and then we'll be at the farm, and before you know it, you’ll be holding those babies.”
“Not too soon, I hope. Beth needs at least another few days. The doctor said thirty-eight weeks would be ideal.”
“Babies come when they want to come. They don't care about ideal.”
This was true. Maggie had learned that lesson with Michael, who had arrived two weeks early in the middle of a snowstorm, and again with Beth, who had stubbornly refused to budge until she was nearly two weeks late. Children started asserting their independence before they even took their first breath.
The boarding announcement crackled over the intercom, and they gathered their things and joined the line. Chelsea chattered about the book she planned to read on the flight, a mystery novel that their book club had chosen for the month.
“Linda St. James isn’t too pleased with me these days. I never have time to read, and every time she talks about our failed book club, I get a tinge of guilt.”
Chelsea laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Linda isn’t Linda if she’s not complaining about something.”
