Chapter 1 #2
“How will your daughter feel about moving to a town this small, or even more so, how will you feel about leaving her?” Tripp asked.
“Poetry isn’t any bigger than this place, and Willa Rose is a grown woman. I’ll miss her something fierce, but it’s up to her whether she comes with me or stays in Poetry. If you hire me, I can go to work the Monday after Thanksgiving.”
“You can make a move that fast?” Knox asked.
“I can.”
“You are hired,” Tripp said.
“That’s great.” Hank grinned. “Can I see your shop? Parker has been telling me all about it.”
Tripp stood up and reached for his coat. “Yes, sir. The parking lot and my front yard join up with each other, so we’ll just walk over there.”
A gust of bitter cold wind swept into the cabin when he opened the door and stood to the side. Knox elbowed his brother on the arm as he passed by and pointed toward the sprig of mistletoe tumbling away from the house. “Never underestimate the power of that stuff.”
Tripp chased the stem down and tossed it inside the house before he closed the door. “I don’t like clutter in my yard.”
“Yeah, right.” Knox chuckled. “You don’t want to tempt the powers that be or make Aunt Bernie mad. She might fix you up with someone as sassy as Audrey.”
“Who are Aunt Bernie and Audrey?” Hank asked.
“Bernie is our family’s personal matchmaker,” Knox answered. “Her newest claim to fame is that she worked her magic on all seven of our sisters and on Brodie, our older brother, and he will be getting married in two weeks. Audrey is his fiancée. Tripp is next on her list.”
“Be careful if you decide to move here, Hank,” Tripp warned. “She will be trying to set you up with one of the widow women here in Spanish Fort.”
“Not me,” Hank declared. “I had the love of my life, and I’m not interested in a second round. And Willa Rose won’t be either. She and her boyfriend of several years broke up about a year ago, and she’s not over it yet. But that’s her story to tell, not mine.”
Fantastic news, Tripp thought and led the way across his yard and the gravel parking lot to the shop.
***
Why does she get two, and I can’t even have one? Willa Rose thought when she looked at Endora’s huge, pregnant belly.
It’s not written down anywhere that life is fair, the niggling voice inside her head reminded her.
Endora’s voice brought Willa Rose out of her thoughts.
“I’m supposed to be at the Paradise—that’s the family home—in about half an hour to talk about the church Christmas program. I thought we might take a tour of the town before I take you to meet some of the family.”
“I would love that,” Willa Rose said even though she didn’t want to talk about Christmas programs. Two years ago, she had helped her mother with the event at her church in Poetry.
Last year her mother was bedfast and couldn’t even go.
The happy memory from one year did little to override the sad one.
Endora pulled on her coat, but it wouldn’t zip around her middle. “Would you please drive? I’m so short that by the time I get my feet on the pedals these babies are pressed into the steering wheel.”
“Be glad to, and we can take my SUV,” Willa Rose answered.
The next time her father wanted to take a little day or even weekend trip, he was going by himself.
All Willa Rose wanted was to get back home to Poetry.
This would be the first Thanksgiving without her mother, and she had a lot to do to make it exactly like their traditional big day.
Endora handed Willa Rose her coat and then opened the door. “The weatherman says we’re in for a hard winter. For once, he might be right.”
I don’t care what kind of winter is coming around the corner. I just want to go home.
Willa Rose felt guilty about even being rude in her thinking. Endora was doing her best to be a good hostess. “If this wind is any indication of what’s to come, I’d say he knows what he’s talking about. Tell me more about this leather shop.”
“Parker remembered Hank mentioning that he was practically raised in a leather shop when he was down in that area for a revival before I met him. He figured Hank might like to take a look at what Tripp has built. I think Parker had Sunday dinner with your folks.”
That’s when Mama was alive, and she really wanted me to like Parker. God! Can’t you just see me as a preacher’s wife?
Endora crossed the yard, used her hands to brace her stomach from the bottom, and eased into the passenger seat of the SUV. “These twins are identical like me and my sister, Luna. We already have four sets in the family, and my babies will make five.”
“Four?” Willa Rose gasped.
“Yep, Mama had two sets, and then we got another one when my sister, Rae, married Gunner, and we added his girls to the family. Last Christmas we found out about Brodie and his brothers, so we inherited a fourth.”
“How do you ever keep up with a family this big?” Willa Rose tried to be attentive since she had to spend the night at the parsonage and go to church the next morning—thanks to Hank, who had promised her that they would be staying in a historical hotel but didn’t make reservations.
“I’m the baby of the whole bunch, so I grew up with the sisters. The brothers came later and there are only three of them. Do you have siblings?” Endora asked.
“Just one sister,” Willa Rose answered.
I’d just as soon never lay eyes on Erica again.
“That is so sad. Family is everything,” Endora said. “You and Hank should stay for Sunday dinner with all of us at the Paradise. I’ll introduce you to the sisters and brothers that aren’t at the Paradise this evening.”
“So, the brothers are older than you?” Willa Rose could hardly believe that one woman birthed ten kids and had time to write all those wonderful romance books.
Holy crap on a cracker! Didn’t the famous author Mary Jane Simmons know anything about birth control?
“Tripp and Knox are about a year older than me, and Brodie is three years older,” she answered. “There’s Parker’s truck, and the lights are on in the leather shop. I thought that we would probably find them in there.”
I’ll have trouble talking Daddy into leaving for sure. Why didn’t Mama insist he keep Grandpa’s tools so he could set up on his own, and why did there have to be a leather shop in this place?
“Three boys and seven girls. That means your mother gave birth to ten kids,” Willa Rose said.
“Mama didn’t birth the boys.” Endora chuckled.
“Last Christmas Brodie knocked on the door and said he was my adopted father’s son.
Daddy never even knew that Brodie’s mother was pregnant or that he had a son.
After Brodie was born, his mama and daddy adopted twins, Knox and Tripp.
They are not identical. So, we immediately added three grown brothers to the family. ”
“Y’all should have one of those reality television shows.”
“That’s an idea,” Endora said, “but we’ve got too much going on in the family to put up with cameras all the time.”
Willa Rose parked her vehicle close to the door. “If my dad is in there, he’ll have to be dragged out. The smell of leather is like catnip to him.”
“Tripp has been looking for someone to help him.” Endora slung the passenger side door open. “Maybe Hank would be a good fit. He said that he would like to relocate somewhere outside of Poetry.”
“No!” Willa Rose declared. “Daddy will never leave Poetry.”
When we get home, I will clean out the garage and help him make his own leather shop. Poetry is as big as this place. If there’s enough business here, then there should be plenty in our part of Texas.
“Let’s go on inside. I’ll introduce two of my new brothers to you—Knox and Tripp. You can meet the oldest one, Brodie, tomorrow either at church or at Sunday dinner.”
Willa Rose dragged her heavy heart out of the vehicle and walked around to find Endora already taking steps toward the building that looked like a big barn.
“This is a leather shop?”
“Yes it is.” Endora bent forward and braced herself against the wind.
“Mama did a lot of research about this place when she was writing the historical books about what happened to the original ladies who lived in the Paradise. She couldn’t find when it was originally built, but it’s over a hundred years old.
Tripp bought it and the whole community pitched in and helped him remodel it into a leather shop. Kind of fitting, isn’t it?”
“It does make for an interesting place to put in a western type of shop,” Willa Rose agreed.
“Let’s get on inside out of the cold,” Endora said as she stepped up onto the porch.
“Be careful,” Willa Rose said. “You look like you could have those babies right here.”
“They can’t come before Thanksgiving. The middle of December is what we’re shooting for.
We have moved the church Christmas program up a week from the usual in hopes that these little girls won’t make their appearance until after that.
Our family tradition is that we all gather up at the Paradise and decorate the whole place on Friday after Turkey Day.
Then the next day, Parker and I will trim our first Christmas tree together on Sunday afternoon.
He has bought two of those ornaments that have ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ on them. ”
I’ve fallen right into the middle of that old television show— The Waltons —with reruns that play on television late at night. Willa Rose bit back a groan .
“We always do our decorating on the weekend after Thanksgiving too.” She tucked strands of her long, dark hair behind her ears, and came close to cussing the wind that had made a tangled mess of her hair.
Warmth and the smell of leather rushed out of the building when Endora opened the door.
“This reminds me of my grandfather’s shop, only his was a tiny little building on the edge of Terrell,” Willa Rose said.