Page 56 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

“We did it, Alice,” he told her gruffly. “We married them off and I’ll tell you, they’re all as happy as we were. It’s your turn now. You make sure they get more time than we did. You make sure of it.”

When he made it back to the ballroom, his wonderful Belinda was waiting for him. She took one look at his face and wrapped her arms around him.

“Had to have a talk with Alice about our great victory tonight,” he said, a little more gruffly than he intended.

“She’ll take it from here,” Belinda replied, because she’d always known, his Belinda. She’d always understood. Alice didn’t haunt them, Alice was a part of them. Alice was everywhere and that took nothing away from his and Belinda’s life or marriage.

It had only ever enhanced it.

Like right now. “She’ll take it from here,” Belinda said again, nodding, as if she was already strategizing in her head. “She’s on baby duty now. Making sure they’ll come in healthy and happy.”

“That’s assuming Harlan ever decides to spill the beans,” Zeke said dryly, because it would take a blind man to miss Kendall’s condition at this point. They all lived on a ranch, for God’s sake. They knew a pregnant female when they saw one—

But they’d tiptoe around it until the happy couple was ready to share. That was the right way to handle it, Zeke knew, though he couldn’t say he liked it.

“Maybe you haven’t met your oldest son,” Belinda was saying, with that smile of hers. “He makes caution look reckless.”

Zeke laughed at that, so hard that heads turned. Belinda swatted his arm. “You really have to act more sickly.”

“I’ll try,” he promised her.

But not tonight. He let his gaze move around the room, finding his sons and his beautiful new daughters-in-law. He looked over to his youngest son, and wondered if he might be the one who handled his own business before Zeke got around to it.

He doubted it.

Because the first thing on his agenda was the enduring problem of his and Belinda’s first child. Dependable, long-suffering, deeply loyal to a fault Boone.

Belinda and Zeke agreed. It was high time for his dance around that pretty Sierra Tate to end.

One way or another.

The End