Page 68 of Roping Her In

Your water broke. He signed with one hand, not quite daring to let go of her with the other.

She nodded and pointed to the bag beside the bedroom door as they approached. Mitch swooped forward and grabbed it. He helped her out of the bedroom and down the hall toward the living room before another contraction arrived. She grabbed onto the door frame, her knuckles turning white, and held very still.

Mitch shored her up on the left side. As he waited, he realized he only wore a pair of gym shorts. Thankfully, he spied a basket of clean laundry sitting in their living room, where Lacy had started folding it last night. After her contraction passed, he got her moving again toward the front door and snagged a T-shirt off the top of the basket and pulled it over his head.

Do you want to change your clothes? he asked.

She shook her head. “I have clothes in the bag.”

All at once, Mitch remembered Shep. He and Lacy had a plan for this, but he’d completely forgotten it. In the anxiety of the moment, and since he’d woken up on the wrong side of the bed, he had no idea where his phone was.

He detoured Lacy over to an armchair. I need to call my mom, and I left my phone in the bedroom.

She nodded. “Get my phone too, baby.”

Mitch dashed back into the master bedroom to collect their devices. He saw that it was 2:11 in the morning, but he dialed his mother anyway. They’d agreed that she wouldn’t put her phone on silent overnight, in case this exact thing happened. But she didn’t answer.

Mitch had once been dubbed the fastest texter in Texas, and he quickly sent her a message. Lacy’s water broke, and we’re headed to the hospital. Can you please come get Shep?

He dialed her again as he left the bedroom, and he found Lacy in the same position he’d left her—leaning back in the recliner, both hands on her belly. He shoved her phone in the baby bag and helped her stand again.

My mom’s not answering, he said. I’ll call her in the car.

Lacy still had to go down their wide front steps to get to the truck, and that took another contraction and several long minutes. In the car, she called his mom while Mitch got the vehicle moving. He couldn’t believe he was driving away and leaving his two-year-old son in the house alone.

Maybe we should call someone else, he said. What about Rina? Can she come over?

“I’m calling her,” Lacy said, and she worked both phones as Mitch made it to the highway and turned left. He reminded himself that he’d driven this road before, and he’d been on this path, and they’d made it to the hospital just fine. Of course, they hadn’t had a child then, and having someone come for Shep in the middle of the night had added a new layer of stress.

He glanced over to his wife when she turned on her phone’s flashlight.

“Rina’s there,” she said. “I still can’t get ahold of your mom.”

Is Rina going to take him back to her place? Mitch asked. He had to make a right turn onto the highway that went between Seven Sons and Golden Hour, and then he’d have to come back up to town and the hospital. He and Lacy were still at least twenty minutes away, but he surprisingly wasn’t worried about getting there in time. He just wanted his son to be taken care of.

He looked back over to Lacy.

“Rina’s just going to stay at our place instead of waking him up and displacing him,” she said.

Mitch nodded. We need to call my mom three times within five minutes, he said. I bet she wasn’t expecting you to be this early, and her phone’s on silent.

Lacy nodded and dialed out on his phone again. It did take three times, and then he saw her lift it to her mouth and start to speak. Relief rushed through him, because now Momma knew, and she’d go get Shep and take him back up to Shiloh Ridge. She’d feed him French toast in the morning, and alert all the Glovers that Lacy was having her baby two and a half weeks early, and Mitch’s fridge would be full of food before they came home from the hospital.

He’d be able to relax and enjoy becoming a father for the second time. He couldn’t wait to meet his darling baby girl and send pictures to everyone he knew announcing her arrival in this family he was steadily building with the love of his life.

27

JJ Walker turned left at the last junction in Three Rivers. If he continued north, he’d go past Coyote Pass, and Finn’s farm, and finally reach Three Rivers Ranch. Going west, as he now did, would land him at Henry’s, and then Ty’s, and eventually Lone Star and Amarillo.

Today, though, he turned right onto a fairly neglected drive just past the left-hand turn into Henry’s neighborhood. This lane went back to a single farm that his cousin Austin was moving onto today. He’d needed manpower, muscles, and moving trucks, and JJ wasn’t the only Walker who’d been recruited.

Trap made the turn behind him, with Ty, and his truck had been loaded with the heavier furniture items that Austin and Joelle had had in their small apartment. Colt would be behind him, and Finn and Alex had piled into his truck when theirs weren’t needed. Joelle had a pickup as well, and it had been full before JJ had even arrived at their apartment building.

Austin and Joelle had arrived ahead of him, and he pulled around in a wide arc so he could then back up to the front porch of the house. Trap did the same thing, and once he’d parked, JJ got out to get the second half of this move finished.

They’d gathered in the morning, and the sun shone merrily on its way to its zenith as JJ lowered his tailgate and reached for the closest bin. He turned to face the house, which was made of an orangey-pink brick and had a front door smack dab in the middle and two wide windows on either side.

The porch ran the width of it, but the posts looked like they could be replaced, as did the windows, and the shutters, and the roof.