It so is, both Ty and Colt said.
I third that, Jake said, and Finn laughed right out loud.
“Finn!” Edith called. “Dinner’s on.”
“Daddy!”
He got to his feet and exited the shed to find his wife and his little boy standing on the edge of the back porch. His heart filledwith love all over again, and he started toward them in a fast stride.
“They named him Denim,” he said as he jogged up the steps. He swept his arm around his wife and pulled her close. “I love you, Edee.”
She leaned into him and watched him in the semi-standoffish way she had. “Dusty’s not too old for us to have another baby,” she said.
“Daddy, I hungry, and you in the barn too long,” Dusty said in his cute little three-year-old voice.
Finn grinned at her and swept their son into his arms. “They’re all having boys, Edee. What makes you think we’ll get a girl?”
“Prayer?” she guessed, and he laughed and took her hand in his.
“We’ll talk about it after dinner,” he said, and then he led the way into their farmhouse, once again on the teeter-totter of whether or not they should expand their family or not.
Can’t I just be happy for my much-younger friends when they have their babies?he asked himself…and God.But I’ll do whatever will make my wife happy and what You want me to do.
And Finn would, just as he always had. Now, if they could just come to an agreement on this topic once and for all, Finn would be happy—no matter which way the Lord told him to go.
36
Elaine could sit on a couch or in a recliner or on a bed and hold a newborn baby twenty-four hours a day. There was something so serene and special about them, and she’d always thought babies brought a little bit of heaven with them when they came to earth.
The precious baby boy in her arms, Zuke Todd Reynolds, Tate and Clara Jean’s son, made a gurgling noise, and Elaine started humming as she patted him, her hand covering his entire back. She couldn’t believe she was once this tiny—and even smaller, because she’d come with two of her brothers at the same time.
She’d only weighed four pounds and two ounces at birth, and her momma and daddy hadn’t been able to bring home any of the triplets for three weeks. Zuke was only eight days old, and Elaine had come that day so Clara Jean could take a nap and have a clean house when Tate got home from the grocery store. His mother had come from Lubbock when Clara Jean had had the baby, but she’d left on Sunday.
Clara Jean and Tate had taken over full-time parenthood duties in the last two days. Of course, they weren’t really alone,as Clara Jean’s mother lived here, and all of her aunts and uncles too.
And the vast majority of us cousins, Elaine thought, once again giving baby Zuke a quickpat-pat-patto soothe him back to sleep. He settled into slumber in her arms, and she looked up to the TV, which she’d turned on and then muted.
She’d never wanted to live in a bubble until very recently. Now, she moved between them, never branching out beyond the safety of her house or the office building where she ran her women’s center.
She hadn’t been out to eat since the encounter with Brandt, and she ordered all of her groceries from Wilde & Organic, where she parked in the marked stall and let the grocery boys fill the back of her car with her milk, eggs, and bread.
She still filled her own car with gas, but she used to stand next to the car and watch the numbers tick up or check emails, but now she quickly got back in the car and locked it, watching everyone around her as if she might become their next victim.
She hated living like this, but she didn’t know what else to do. She still hadn’t told anyone about that night. Colt, as sweet as he was, texted her almost daily now, and he’d stopped by a couple of times a week, every week, always bringing something from the farm store or a bushel of apples, her favorite soda, one of Three Rivers’s famous cinnamon rolls, or a new tube of toothpaste when she casually mentioned she’d forgotten to get some that day at the store.
He never stayed long, and he always asked her how she was doing—reallydoing. Elaine felt like he was one of the only people she could talk to right now, which confused her. She’d always been close to Conrad and her mother, but now she felt distant from them.
Everyone else, in fact, existed at a surface level, because they didn’t know about Brandt. Her cousins, siblings, parents, andeveryone knew she’d broken up with him, but she’d provided no other details as to why or how.
A knock sounded on Clara Jean’s door, and Elaine pulled herself out of her thoughts, irritated that she’d once again given more time and energy to Brandt when the man deserved none. She really wished she could move past this quicker, so she could feel like herself again, and she could stop giving him more of herself.
He hadn’t deserved her when they’d been dating, and he certainly didn’t now.
“Just a minute,” she called. She scooted to the edge of the couch and pushed herself up with baby Zuke in her arms. He grunted and grumbled again, and Elaine carefully placed him in a bouncy seat, supporting his head every inch of the way.
Then she hurried to the front door so whoever it was wouldn’t knock again. Tate and Clara Jean were well known around town, and they had good neighbors, family members, and friends from the grocery store who’d been bringing them food, treats, and baby gifts if they hadn’t been able to make it to the shower a couple of weeks ago.
Elaine opened the door and found Colt Franklin standing there. A rush of heat hit her, and she told herself it was from the October afternoon and not the ruggedly-hot-handsomeness of Colt himself.
