Page 110

“You love this house and this land, they’ll love you right back.” Her smile wraps around those words telling me it’s not just words, it’s a memory.

“That’s right, Lauren Jane, that’s right.” He smiles the same.

Lauren pulls me aside. “I can’t kick him out of here.”

“He can have his cabin and house, too,” I whisper.

“Yeah?” she asks.

“There are five rooms upstairs.”

“Hey, Grandpa?” Lauren says, smile so bright and wide it’s blinding.

“What is it?” he asks.

“The cabin, you and Dad draw up the plan, and we’ll build it, but Kolby and I would love it if you’d stay here with the house. We’re gone a lot and, you know, I don’t want it to be empty.”

He scratches his chin. “We’ll figure it out.”

I shrug. “Someone needs to teach me how to run the place.”

“Ye, ye, yep. Gonna take time, but you’ll get the lay of the land,” Daniel says as he seems to ponder that thought.

Lo takes the time to pull the picture of our child out of her pocket, walk over, and hand it to him.

“What’s this?” he asks as he pulls it out of the envelope and smiles. “You still gonna name your first girl Jane Sunflower Seed Brooks?”

She laughs. “I’m not picking this one out of the cabbage patch, so Kolby and I will discuss.”

“Jane’s a beautiful name,” I say.

“For a beautiful woman.” Daniel walks over to a huge bookshelf. “Let me show you some pictures.”

Chapter22

Brooks Farm

Lo

Returning home from Riley’s baby shower, I find Kolby on the porch, legs stretched long across the old wicker couch he claimed as his thinking spot the first week we moved in. He’s thumbing through one of Grandpa’s dusty maintenance binders, reading it like scripture. He looks up as I step onto the porch, that easy smile I’ll never stop getting butterflies over already forming.

I hold up the slightly crinkled piece of paper between two fingers.

“The list,” I say.

His brow quirks. “The list?”

“You know.The list.Of things we talked about back beforewe moved in.”

“The one we made two weeks ago?” He grins and pats his thigh. “Bring it here.”

I sit sideways on his lap, one arm hooked around his neck, and smooth out the paper on his chest. “Garden should be checked.”

“You said you wanted sunflowers and tomatoes, and the rest, we’d do next year,” he murmurs, brushing his knuckles over my knee. “Got both.”

“And snapdragons. For Blue.”

He nods once, eyes soft. “Who’s Blue?”