Page 110 of Roping Her In

“Sure, I will.” Hailey met her gaze head-on. “He makes me happy. I’m pretty sure I’m in love with him.”

“Oh, we know that, honey,” Glory Rose said. “But there’s more that builds happiness than who you’re with.”

Clara Jean nodded. “Of course you are.”

Hailey didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She and Jake hadn’t exactly reached an impasse. They simply weren’t progressing anymore. She hoped and prayed that their relationship hadn’t run its course already, and she drew a breath to tell these women she trusted the truth.

“You guys, he asked for time, okay?” She looked around at everyone, knowing she could trust them with this. “And I’m just trying to give him what he needs, so he can figure out where his sanctuary is.”

She picked up a plate, ready to be done with this. “Now, I’ve been working in the hot sun all day, and then I had to make doughnuts with my momma. Can we please eat?”

“In your ideal world.” Camila too picked up a plate, much to Hailey’s relief. “What would he do?”

Hailey scoffed, pulled a bun out of the bakery bag Elaine had brought, and started piling pulled pork on it. “In my ideal world, he’d bang down that door right now, tell me he loves me and can’t live without me. He’d say he wants to marry me tomorrow and that he’ll move into the farmhouse with me.”

She grinned around at the other ladies. They all smiled, their eyes filled with love and laughter.

Hailey tore her gaze away from it. “But Jake’s stubborn, and I’ve never seen him knock down a door.” She shrugged one shoulder and added coleslaw to her pork before she moved down the line and picked up some potato chips and took a big scoop of the frog eye salad that Clara Jean had brought from Wilde & Organic.

“I can talk to him if you want,” Elaine said, in her not-so-casual, trying-to-be-casual voice.

“Don’t you dare,” Hailey hissed at the same time Lila Mae said, “Nope. That’s not a good idea.”

Hailey grinned at Lila Mae and then moved over to the table and took the first seat. “Enough about me. I want to hear about you and Trap’s baby names.”

“No, I already did an uncomfortable thing,” Lila Mae said. “Someone else has to go.”

They all moved through the line, each of them denying that they had anything uncomfortable they needed to talk about. But once they got to the table, Joelle cleared her throat, and Hailey sure was glad someone else had something.

“It might be a comfortable-slash-uncomfortable thing.” She popped a chip into her mouth. “But Austin and I moved into the house, so we have air conditioning.”

“That’s great news,” Marta said, grinning. “What’s the uncomfortable part?”

“The mattress Austin got is terrible.” She rolled her shoulders and arched her back, her smile coming much slower.

Hailey caught up to the situation about the same time as everyone else, and Elaine said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake. He’s a millionaire. Go get a new bed, Jo.”

And Marta simply started laughing and laughing, while Ruby said, “I’ve got an extra bed at my house I want to get rid of.”

Hailey grinned and grinned, enjoying these women as they all but threw their utensils at Jo.

Once they’d settled down, Clara Jean raised her fork and glanced around. “Tate and I are going to have another baby.”

A collective gasp rose up, and then congratulations started to go around. Elaine lightly slapped her cousin-in-law’s hand. “That’s not uncomfortable news,” she said.

“It is for me,” Clara Jean said dryly. “I’ve been throwing up for weeks.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, honey,” Ruby said. “And JJ will kill me, so this is definitely an uncomfortable thing, and none of you can breathe a single word of it outside these walls.” She zeroed in on Elaine and cocked her eyebrows.

Elaine finished chewing and swallowed. “You can’t say it then. You know I can’t keep a secret.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Glory Rose said. “You didn’t tell us about Brandt for months.” She shook her head and glared at Elaine. “She’s the master secret keeper. Go ahead and say it, Ruby.”

“JJ and I are going to have another baby too,” she said, and she reached across the table and squeezed Clara Jean’s hand. “He’ll be thrilled that you are too.”

Talk of their husbands, and due dates, and their idyllic small-town lives with their cowboys broke out. While Hailey really enjoyed their energy, the conversation only served to remind her once again that she wasn’t the same as them. Every single woman at the table was married and had a child, or would very soon, and she and Jake had pressed pause on their relationship.

He’d called her earlier that day, but her momma had just arrived, and Hailey had been outside helping her to bring in the bin of doughnut ingredients.