“Sam,” she said, turning to the older girl. “When I move back home, will you come over to my house for a playdate?”
Hazel found herself tearing up as Samantha turned to the little girl with a huge grin. “Of course! And you’ll have to come back here too. We have to make sure that nobody takes over our fort in the woods.”
Camille shook her head emphatically. “Nobody can do that. It’s our fort.”
Samantha gave Camille a high-five, and Hazel loved seeing the easy camaraderie that had formed between the two girls.
“We just want to say again,” Shannon said softly, leaning in closer to Hazel, “how grateful we are to you for taking us in. You could have just offered us a place to stay, and that would have been plenty generous enough. But instead, you made a home for us and welcomed us into every part of your lives. You’ve made what had been a really difficult experience something beautiful—and something I’m so thankful happened. I’m sure we would have become friends eventually anyway, but maybe we never would have become friends like this. And that means the world to me.”
Hazel found herself blinking back tears, and she leaned over to give her new friend a hug. “It means the world to me too. Our whole town worked together to help everyone—I mean, that’s how you got connected with us in the first place, because of the team that organized the hosting. I’m just—I feel really proud of our town, and I’m so thankful everything worked out the way it did. Our family has been so blessed by having you stay here with us.”
“I’m honestly sorry to see you go,” Jacob said, clapping Weston on the shoulder. “But I’m thrilled that your home is back to normal and that you’ll be able to move back in.” He lifted his wine glass in a toast. “To the Fishers’ repaired home!”
“Hear hear!” Hazel said, and everyone joined in the toast, even the girls, who held up their glasses of soda.
The meal continued, and they all chatted more, talking eagerly of the future and making plans together. When everyone had finished eating dinner, Hazel and Jacob stood up to get the dessert. Although Shannon and Weston offered to help, Jacob insisted they had it covered, urging their guests to relax and enjoy a little more garlic bread with their wine.
As soon as Jacob and Hazel were alone together in the kitchen, he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a big squeeze.
“Is that why you told our guests to stay at the table?” she teased in a whisper. “Because you wanted to cuddle?”
Jacob grinned impishly and gave her a big kiss. “Well, yes. But also, I’m curious.”
“What about?” she asked him, surprised, as she opened the freezer to get out the tub of vanilla ice cream.
“You seem like there’s something on your mind,” he said, opening the oven and taking out the pan of blondies that had been keeping warm in it.
Hazel’s mouth popped open for a moment, and she felt floored that he could read her that well. She hadn’t thought that her hopes of having another baby had been showing up on her face at all. After all, they’d all been sitting and thinking quietly for a while, she could have been thinking about anything.
“Well,” she said slowly, wanting very much to tell him what she’d been thinking about but not wanting to bring it up all at once. She didn’t want to jump-scare him with such a major life suggestion all at once. “I’ve been watching Samantha and Camille, and I love the bond the two of them have. It makes me so happy to see Samantha acting—well, like a big sister. It’s so sweet. I’m really proud of her.”
Jacob smiled as he began to cut up the pan of blondies into generous portions. “I agree. Those two are really cute together. I like to think of Samantha being a big sister. I think she’d be a really good one.”
There was a kind of wistful quality to his tone that made Hazel freeze in the middle of dishing out ice cream. “Yeah?”
He nodded, smiling. “She’s got a big heart like that.”
Hazel cleared her throat gently as she continued to scoop ice cream onto the blondie squares that Jacob had set onto dessert plates. “Yeah, I think so too. I mean, Camille is hard to resist. I think all children are at that age—I’ve really loved watching her whenever Shannon and Weston were away. It allowed me to relive those precious moments of having a little one that age.”
For a few electric seconds, neither of them spoke. Hazel could sense that Jacob was moving more slowly than usual, and a quick glance at his face told her that he was waiting for her to say more, listening expectantly for her next words.
She cleared her throat again gently. They’d both stopped working and were just standing there, looking at each other. “What would you think of expanding our family?”
Jacob immediately threw his arms around Hazel. “You mean it?”
“Yes,” she said, laughing and delighted by his reaction. “You want to?”
“I do.” He nodded, looking thrilled, as he went back to cutting the last blondie slice needed for dessert. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, actually. But I wasn’t sure how to bring it up with you.” He looked down at the slice he’d cut and laughed when he saw how big it was. “Oops.”
“I kind of had an epiphany when Samantha talked about being a big sister the other day,” Hazel said, taking the knife from him and trimming the blondie down to a more reasonable size. “She said, ‘If I was a big sister’ and she said it kind ofwistfully like she wanted to be one. It just melted my heart and it made me realize how much I want that too.”
“I do too,” Jacob said. “I would love to have more kids with you, honey. I wasn’t there when Samantha was little, and I’d love to have that kind of parenting experience with you.”
They wrapped their arms around each other and shared an excited kiss.
“Where’s the dessert?” bellowed a high-pitched voice from the dining room.
They pulled apart, both laughing. They heard the sound of Shannon shushing Camille and reminding her not to be rude.
