“Oh. My. Heck. Bay.” He tucked one leg underneath him in his excitement. “I know just the place. There’s this farm kinda close to where my grandpa lives, and he hastonsof ducks.”
“See?” Bailey grinned at him. “I knew you’d know where to get ducks.”
Now, if she could survive the next few days after the giant Young family found out she was moving back to Coral Canyon, Bailey might be ready to take that next step toward that new chapter in her life.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Tex Young stood a healthy ten feet from the fryer, the steam pouring off of it and into the Wyoming sky oddly comforting. Movement next door caught his attention, and he looked toward the side door on Wade and Cheryl’s house.
Wade emerged, easily holding the door for his sons, Bennett and Wyatt, who both carried dishes of some sort. Though the oil frying the turkey bubbled noisily, Tex still heard Wade say, “Be careful now. I’ve got to fix that bottom step.”
“You said I could do it, Daddy,” Bennett said, and he did indeed step carefully onto the bottom step before making it to the sidewalk.
“Nothing’s stopping you,” Wade said, following his boys down the steps.
“Will you show me how?”
Wade put his arm around Bennett’s shoulders when he reached the sidewalk too. “Sure, bud. We can do it this weekend. It’s only going to get colder.” Wade looked over to Tex then, and he lifted his hand in a general wave of hello for all three of them.
“Uncle Tex, I made candied carrots for our feast tonight,” Wyatt said, and he seemed pretty jazzed about that.
Tex grinned at the nine-year-old. “That’s amazing, buddy. Where’s your momma?”
“She’s still working on the rolls,” Wyatt said, and he arrived at Tex’s concrete driveway pad first, turned, and went up the side steps and into the house. Bennett followed him, but Wade came to stand next to Tex, who hovered next to the corner of the house, using it as a wind block.
“You’re moving really good these days,” Tex said.
“Modern medicine is a miracle,” Wade said, his eyes glued to the pure white steam pouring out of the top of the frying pot. “How long has this been going?”
“About twenty minutes,” Tex said. “Abby’s got another one for me inside, and I was thinkin’ about getting a chair.”
Wade grinned at him. “I’d sit out here with you.” He turned toward the back corner of the house. “I’ll get us some chairs.” He moved off to do that, and Tex’s heart filled with happiness to see Wade walking so well. He and Abby had funded her brother’s new prosthetics, and they’d taken several months to order, tweak, and finally get right.
Before Wade returned, a truck pulled up in front of Tex’s house, and Trace parked in the newly leveled and graveled area Tex had built for such a thing. He waved to Trace as well, then watched as his younger brother twisted and said something to the people in his pickup.
He had three children under the age of ten too, and Tex sometimes wished he and his brothers had gotten married and started their families at a much younger age. “You did,” he muttered to himself, because if Bryce or Harry ever heard Tex say that….
He’d be skewered. They’d mentioned a time or two that they felt left out of the greater Young family, because they came from first marriages and didn’t truly fit. Tex could admit that life for his oldest—Bryce at age thirty-three—had been and was vastlydifferent than it was for his younger three children—Melissa, who’d be fourteen soon, Carver, eleven, and Pippa, eight.
Almost twenty years separated his two oldest children, and Tex could see Bryce’s point of view.
Finally, the locks on Trace’s truck popped, and he opened the door first. He slid to the ground, his cowboy boots shiny and dark brown, tucked up under his jeans. “Howdy,” he called before turning toward the back door.
He opened that too, and Clay and Keri spilled out of the truck, while his wife, Everly, collected their youngest—Avery—from the back on her side.
“Straight inside,” Trace said sternly, and his nine-year-old and six-year-old headed Tex’s way.
“Stay over on the sidewalk,” he called to them. “I’ll come give you hugs over there.” He moved out of the safety of the corner of the house then, his smile only growing as he went past the piles of snow he’d shoveled off the driveway and front sidewalk and toward his niece and nephew.
“We already gotted a lecture about the fryer,” Clay said.
“Did you?” Tex laughed as he swept the little boy up and into his arms. “Well, your daddy’s probably just makin’ sure you stay safe.”
Clay grinned down at him. “You shoulda heard me play the guitar for family night, Uncle Tex.”
“No one invited me to family night.” Tex pressed a quick kiss to Clay’s cheek and set him on his feet. “Go find Carver and tell him to get out the guitars. Maybe you can do it tonight.”
