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“Sounds fair.”
He grunted and pulled away.
“You’re lucky I love you.”
Shep smiled.
“We know that we’re the lucky ones.”
I remembered the cake and pushed all of them away.
“Out of my kitchen so I can finish this not so surprise cake! Go, go, go. I love you all, but you’re all terrible for business.”
They left on a trail of laughter, Rhett slipping back out the door he’d entered while Shep and Arlo went out the front. I could hear Arlo arguing with Nellie as I put the finishing touches on the cake and then I heard everyone shout surprise way too fast for it to have been Rhett. Even if he’d run around the building, there was no way. The hush that fell over the room right after didn’t make me think it was Rhett, either.
Feeling a budding sense of nosiness, I walked to the kitchen door and looked out. Standing just inside the front door was a beautiful woman with raven black hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. She wasn’t what had me gasping, though. The baby in her arms with the two different colored eyes was. The tiny boy, probably no older than Hank, had eyes like our big brother, Gray, but the scowl on his little face was Mills through and through. It was like staring at the baby version of my oldest brother.
The woman looked up as I pushed into the room and smiled but it was shaky. With everyone staring at her, all of us seeing the same thing in the baby in her arms, she looked overwhelmed and ready to run. She didn’t, though. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“I’m looking for Mills, Tate, and West Hellstone.”
Well, shit.
The End.