Epilogue
Five years later
Like Rosie told me five years ago, January was the worst month in the year for tumbleweeds.
We had to deal with them when Jackson and I got married on New Year’s Eve right there in Dell City.
A week after our first anniversary, we had to kick them out of the way to get to the hospital in El Paso to give birth to Henry, our son.
I swore that I would never have another baby in January, but Lady Luck laughed and laughed when I got pregnant and had Emily a year and six days after Henry’s birthday.
When I told Rosie that number three was due right after Emily’s first birthday, she said, “And there is the product of Carla’s boasting. The Tumbleweed has blessed you with three children, all born during the season.”
Someone once said change is like being born all over again. I believed that when we got all three children settled into the back seat of our new SUV. Clara Williams died in that poker game in Tucson, and Carla Wilson came to life the moment she walked into the Tumbleweed.
When Jackson used the toe of his cowboy boot to push tumbleweeds out of the way to make room for a double stroller that cold January evening, the lyrics of the song “Made for You” by Jake Owen came to my mind.
The words said that front porches were made for kissin’.
If that was true, then the tumbleweeds must have been made for me—to remind me of all my blessings from that first day when I arrived at the café.
Change had happened, and yet everything stayed the same.
I still loved Jackson, even though we argued—and had makeup sex—while we built a ranch-style house on the acreage he’d bought south of Dell City.
When we were designing it, I really thought we’d never need four bedrooms, but I was wrong.
Sometimes, when the kids were all asleep, I would start a small argument to see if the makeup sex was still as hot as ever, and it was.
I was still working at the Tumbleweed Bus Stop and Diner, but Rosie now lived in Jackson’s trailer and was happy to be close to Ada Lou and Nancy.
Ada Lou celebrated her eighty-fifth birthday, but she declared that after eighty, a person gets to go backward, so we only put seventy-five candles on her cake.
Scarlett and Grady have had two precious little girls and still live in the same house.
We have turned the trailer into a day care center for all our children and Tressa’s two adopted little boys.
She married the doctor—a widower—who moved to Dell City to work in the brand-new family clinic a year ago.
With the marriage license, she got twin sons in the deal and couldn’t be happier.
“What are you thinking about?” Jackson asked. “The last time you were this serious is when you told me number three was on the way.”
I leaned over the console and kissed him on the cheek. “You need to stop calling her that, or I’ll name number four Wild Card Armstrong whether it’s a boy or a girl.”
“Okay, then, when you told me Julie was on the way, and honey, you can’t name a baby that. She would be teased her whole life, and besides you are my only good luck wild card.”
“Thank you for that, and I was thinking of the last five years,” I finally answered. “They’ve been the best in my life, and I’m so grateful for them.”
“Even the tumbleweeds?” he asked as he drove us to the tiny municipal airport to get on the company plane to fly to Dallas for the weekend.
“Even those wicked things,” I answered. “But most of all for you, my family, and my chosen family. Life is good. No complaints. Not even about the tumbleweeds.”