Chapter 34
B randon’s phone rang as he finished setting another post in the row that would become the goat enclosure.
He’d need to rent an excavator or skid steer again to move the rocks he wanted in this enclosure, because he wanted to house goats here so Lenny could get milk and possibly even cheese to sell in her online store.
They’d been brainstorming that idea for a couple of weeks now, ever since she’d told him that she wanted to sell some of the goods her land produced.
They’d done a video call with Callie Walker, who’d been raising bees for decades, and she told them that it was quite easy to get hives and that they should be producing by autumn.
Maybe not enough to sell, but for sure by the second year.
That kind of information fit so well with Lenny’s future-forward thinking, and she’d been thrilled with the idea of bees. “They take up hardly any room,” she’d said after the call. “And if we can get six or seven functioning hives, we could produce three or four hundred pounds of honey per year.”
Lenny’s chickens loved the mobile mini coops, and she rotated them every handful of days so they all got to free-range. Her strawberries had been growing nicely, and she wanted to plant five acres of pumpkins in the spring to be able to sell those next fall as well.
Brandon admired her long-term vision, and he’d been steadily working on getting two more enclosures done—one for goats and one for turkeys—and he’d started mapping out the cold storage unit that he wanted to put on the north side of her house.
He’d thought about a storm shelter as well, and he thought those two things could probably go together.
“That also needs an excavator,” he muttered to himself as his phone stopped ringing.
He’d barely had time to breathe before it started up again, and Brandon pulled one glove off and his phone out of his back pocket to see his brother’s name there. His heartbeat swooped and skipped, and he swiped to answer the call quickly.
“Dawson? What’s going on?”
“Caroline just went into labor,” Dawson said, his voice intense and clipped. “I know you’re really far away, so I just ran the kids down to Link’s, and we’re coming off Shiloh Ridge right now.”
He didn’t ask if Brandon could come. Brandon had already volunteered to come take care of Colt and Joy when Caroline had her new baby.
“I’m at a great place to stop,” he said. “I’ll text Link and Misty that I’ll be there in an hour.”
“All right,” Dawson said, not arguing that it really took ninety minutes to get from the homestead to Hidden Hills. “I’ll keep you updated.”
“Yep, go,” Brandon said, and he ended the call. He turned to face the homestead, a good hundred yards away and across the street. Lenny had been cutting and debarking the posts for the enclosure.
After a short five-minute walk, he waved his hand over his head to catch Lenny’s attention. She pulled her noise-canceling headphones off and cut the chainsaw.
“Caroline’s going into labor,” he called. “I’ve gotta head down to their place for a couple of days.”
Pure displeasure crossed her face, but she wiped it away quickly and nodded. “All right.”
He kept moving toward her, three tiny little words stuck on the back of his tongue. “You’ll be okay here?” He ran his hands up her arms, and then back down to her waist.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Lenny looked up at him and gave him a tight smile. “Will you be okay alone with those kids?”
He chuckled. “I am so good with kids, and you know it.”
He leaned down and kissed her, glad when she seemed to melt into him in the normal way. “I probably won’t be back till Monday,” he said.
As it was Friday, near noon, and if all went well with Caroline’s delivery, they might let her come home on Sunday.
Lenny looked over to the goat enclosure. “I’ll keep working on the poles, I guess.”
“If you can rent a skid steer,” he said. “You’ve got my sketch for where to put the rocks.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” she said.
He nodded, because when he came back on Monday, he’d only have three more weeks here at the homestead. And while he had accomplished a lot, he still had plenty of projects he wanted to do.
The turkey enclosure was done now and connected to the chicken palace, but he wanted to finish up the home for the goats, get a bunch of acreage plowed and ready for planting, put in the storm shelter/cold storage underground, and they’d added a smokehouse to his list. If Lenny could offer smoked turkey and chicken—and maybe ham, if she could get a few pigs on the property—that would be a lot of income.
“I know it’s not great timing,” he said.
“It’s fine,” Lenny said. “We talked about it. There’s nothing we can do about timing anyway.”
Brandon thought of Pastor Glover’s sermon, leaned down, and gave Lenny another firm kiss, and then turned toward his cabin.
He had a bag packed, all ready to go, just in case Caroline had gone into labor this week.
The thing that took him the longest was convincing Dumpling to get in the cat carrier.
He finally managed it, and as he got behind the wheel of his truck, he looked over to where Lenny worked, admiring her strength and fierce spirit, before backing out and driving off the homestead. “It is bad timing though,” he said to himself.
His parents were just a little bit too old to take on a four-year-old and a not-quite-two-year-old for a few days, and Arizona and Duke had planned a family trip to Baylor to drop Dwayne off for college.
They’d taken all of their kids, too, and since Caroline’s family didn’t live in town, that left Brandon to help with his niece and nephew.
He’d been thrilled, of course. He loved Colt and Joy, and he’d be able to stay at Dawson’s, where Caroline was sure to have the fridge full of food, plenty of hot water for showering, and cold soda pop.
Brandon made the drive as quickly as he could, pulling up to Link and Misty’s cabin on the southern edge of Shiloh Ridge Ranch only eighty minutes later. He jogged up the front steps and knocked on the door.
“Misty, it’s me,” he called, and he walked into the house the same way he did at Lenny’s.
He found all the kids—including Misty’s two-month-old baby—in the living room. She sat on the couch reading a book to Joy, and she looked utterly exhausted.
“Sorry it took me so long,” he said. “I came as quick as I could.”
“We’re fine here,” Misty said with a smile, though Brandon suspected it was nap time, and not just for the children.
Joy wiggled off her lap and came over to Brandon. He scooped her up and planted a kiss on her cheek. “How are you, little miss? Ready to go bye-bye?”
“Bye-bye!” Joy said, and Brandon chuckled. “Did Dawson bring a bag or anything?” he asked, glancing around.
“Nope. Just the kids,” Misty said.
“All right,” Brandon said. “We’ll get out of your hair, then. Come on, Colt.”
The little boy reluctantly got up and left the trucks and trains he’d been playing with. Link had two little boys as well, and they got along great with Colt.
“Maybe I can come tomorrow,” Colt said, and Misty said, “Yeah. I’ve got your uncle’s number.”
Brandon nodded his thanks at her and herded the little boy out the front door, knowing Colt wouldn’t be coming to play tomorrow.
School started up again on Monday, and her oldest son would be out of the house.
Brandon also knew Link worked limited hours on the weekend, so he could be a father to his kids and a husband to his wife.
It only took about eight minutes to get the kids loaded up, over the hill, and onto the ranch to his brother’s house. He pulled in the driveway and killed the engine. The wind buffeted the truck as he twisted to look in the back seat.
“All right, guys. Have you had lunch?”
“Yeah,” Colt said. “Misty gave us sandwiches and chips.”
He looked at Joy. “Did Joy eat?”
“I don’t know,” Colt said.
Brandon grinned at both kids. “All right, now I know your momma’s got a schedule, so I’m gonna stick to that, and I don’t want any crying until they come home. You got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Colt said, oh-so-sober.
Joy kicked her feet and grinned at him.
“Come on, baby, you say it too.” He grinned at her, because Joy was his dream baby. She loved him, and Brandon actually hoped they could take a nap together later today.
“Yesshur!” Joy chirped, and Brandon laughed.
He got Joy out and helped Colt down to the ground.
He punched in his brother’s code for the garage and took the kids inside.
Sure enough, Caroline had a schedule stuck to the fridge.
She’d gone over it with Brandon when he’d come for New Year’s Day breakfast, a journey he’d made alone as Lenny had wanted to stay on the homestead and attach her two-hundred-gallon water catchment tank.
She’d bought it with some of the proceeds from the lumber.
The rest she’d put in savings, hopefully to drill a well or buy seeds to plant more produce.
Just renting equipment cost money too, but Lenny had been looking at turning all of her overgrown land into hay grass, which she could sell this winter. She’d need a swather and baler for that too, and that meant more in rental fees.
Brandon set Joy on the couch and said to Colt, “I’ll get you a snack. Come sit on the couch and let’s watch TV.” Then he could go over Caroline’s schedule again and make sure he knew what to do for the next few days.
An hour later, Brandon had both kids down for their afternoon naps, and he stepped into his brother’s huge master shower. A groan of pure delight pulled through him, and he took a long time scrubbing and cleaning and just standing in the warm water.
He really wanted a hot shower in his cabin on the homestead. Not only that—he wanted it for Lenny.
They had no idea how deep they would have to drill to reach water, and Lenny wanted to have five thousand dollars saved before she scheduled the well-drilling truck. But as Brandon got out of the shower, the idea that Arizona could finance Lenny’s homestead improvements came forward yet again.
He knew his sister-in-law would pay for the drilling of the well and all the associated costs: the pump, the hosing, all of it—and not even expect a repayment. He also knew Lenny would never take that much charity again, but perhaps they could meet in the middle.
He brushed his teeth and got dressed and checked on the kids. With both of them still snoozing soundly, he picked up his phone and called Duke.
“Hey, we heard Dawson and Caroline went to the hospital,” Duke said.
“Yeah,” Brandon said. “I’m at their place with the kids. Haven’t heard anything else yet.”
“I’m so excited to meet that baby,” Zona called.
Brandon took a deep breath and said, “Put her on speaker, Duke. I want to talk to you two about something.”
“This sounds serious,” Duke said—and he was the poster child for Serious.
Brandon chuckled, his default nervous reaction. “I mean, I guess so.”
“Well, you’re on speaker now,” Duke said. “With all of us, actually. We went the lake today, and now we’re driving back to the rental.”
“All right.” Brandon took another moment to organize his thoughts. “I’m wondering how you guys feel about loaning me some money.”
No one said anything, not even Zona. So maybe this wouldn’t go the way Brandon had imagined.
“I’d like to start looking at diamond rings for Lenny,” he said.
It only two seconds before someone in the car squealed, and it sounded very much like Shiloh.
“I told you he was in love with her,” April said, like she’d won a bet.
“This is ex-cit-ing,” Arizona sing-songed.
Brandon ducked his head, his smile coming easily to his face.
“Yeah, I mean, maybe not right away, but what I do want to do right away also requires money.” He blew out his breath.
“Lenny used some of her lumber-money to buy a bigger tank for the greenhouse and garden area, but she needs a well in order to have water in her cabin, and enough for all the livestock she wants. I’m wondering?—”
“Yeah, we’ll sponsor the well,” Duke said.
“It’s not a sponsorship,” Brandon said quickly. “It’s a loan. Lenny will repay you.” After a pause he added, “It might take some time, but she’ll have water in the meantime—water that she needs for the crops and animals she needs to earn that money.”
“We would’ve done it on day one,” Arizona said. “No loan required.”
Brandon loved his family more than ever in that moment, and he said, “I know you would have.”
“As soon as we get back to the rental house,” Zona said, “I’ll call LeRoy and see what he’s got. When do you think you’ll be back at the homestead?”
“Probably Monday,” he said. “If not Monday, then Tuesday.”
“I can’t imagine he’ll be able to come in the next couple of days,” Arizona said. “So I’ll try to schedule it for sometime next week when you’re there.”
Brandon’s heart gave a nervous flutter, but he nodded resolutely to himself. “Okay. Let me know.”
“Are you going to tell her?” Duke asked.
Brandon sighed, another sigh of the century. “I don’t know,” he said. “If I do, she might shoot me down and I won’t be able to talk her into it, and if I don’t, she might kill me.”
He chuckled, but he wasn’t really kidding. “I’ll figure it out. Thanks so much, you guys. Love you, and have fun on your vacation.”
Choruses of “Love you, Brandon,” and “Wish you were with us” came through the line, and then the call ended.
Brandon sank onto the couch and looked up at the ceiling. “What do I do here, Lord?” he asked. “Tell her? Or just do it…and ask for forgiveness afterward?”