Chapter 6
Elaine Walker sat on the couch at her brother’s house while Conrad and his wife, Glory Rose, unpacked the food in the kitchen. After all, she would take any opportunity she could to hold their baby boy, Chance.
Once they’d sorted out his reflux and found the right formula for him, he’d chunked right up.
And if there was anything better in this world than a six-month-old baby, Elaine didn’t want to know about it.
Chance sagged back into her body like a bag of sand as she pointed to the blue cartoon dog. “What does the dog say? Woof, woof.”
She loved being an aunt. The time she got to spend with Chance comforted her and reminded her that she was only twenty-seven-years-old and had plenty of time to find the just-right man for her, fall in love, and get married. Then she could have babies of her own.
For now, she loved Chance and Sari with her whole heart, though Conrad’s older daughter was at their mother’s today. Glory Rose was hosting the Walker Lady Lunch, and Elaine had arrived a few minutes early so she could have this time with Chance before Clara Jean, Camila, and Ruby arrived.
The doorbell rang then, but Elaine didn’t move at all.
“I’ll get it,” Conrad said. Glory Rose continued to pull containers out of the big brown paper bags Conrad had brought in through the garage entrance.
Around the corner and down the hall, Conrad laughed at the front door, and then Camila came into the back of the house.
During the school year, she taught second grade, but it was summertime, and she’d been keeping them all up-to-date about the happenings at Shiloh Ridge Ranch, where she now lived with her husband Gunnison Glover.
They’d been married for just over a year now, and Elaine wondered if Camila would be making any of her own pregnancy announcements anytime soon.
“I’m walking in,” Clara Jean called.
“Come on in,” Glory Rose called back, and the front door thunked closed before Clara Jean rounded the corner.
She wore a shapeless sundress in bright blue, which brought out her dark complexion, hair, and eyes even more.
Elaine looked great in blue too, as everyone in the Walker family seemed to have inherited the midnight genes.
Clara Jean groaned as she sat down and pulled her dress to stretch over her six-month pregnancy belly. She was due the first week of November with a little boy that she and Tate had been sending ridiculous names about, at least on the younger generation Walker family text string.
Elaine smiled at her. “How’s the farm?” she asked.
“It’s doing better than I thought,” Clara Jean said. “After that dust storm, I wasn’t sure if some of our trees and plants would grow back, but we’re having a great yield so far.”
“That’s great news,” Elaine said. Though she’d grown up on a rural lane just south of town with her daddy spending a lot of his time at Seven Sons Ranch, which he partly owned, Elaine could not imagine living and working on a farm.
Clara Jean had inherited and taken over the farm from her mother’s side of the family, the Wildes.
She and Tate also ran Wilde & Organic, the grocery store in town, along with Aunt Whitney’s sister and brother.
JJ had taken over the ranch, and he’d started working with Uncle Skyler’s youngest son, Gideon, as Uncle Skyler also owned part of the ranch.
Uncle Micah owned a fourth part, but Elaine hadn’t heard if her cousins Daisy, Jenson, or Laurel would be doing anything there or not.
Daisy had finished college a few years ago and worked in finance in Houston right now.
Jenson was an apprentice electrician, working on becoming a journeyman, and Laurel had just barely graduated from high school.
Trap had taken over his parents’ construction and interior design firm, MSW, and worked with Ruby on that venture, and Jason and Sawyer—more Walker cousins—worked with him.
The doorbell rang again before Elaine could ask Clara Jean how she was feeling, or what the latest update on the baby names was, and Glory Rose went to get it this time.
It had to be Ruby, and Elaine wasn’t surprised to hear her and Glory Rose chit-chatting as they came back down the hall.
Ruby carried her beautiful baby Jade in her arms, and since the little girl had recently turned one and could walk, Ruby set her down on her feet and said, “Go see Auntie Clara Jean.”
Jade stood there for a moment with eyes like a deer in the headlights, and Clara Jean cooed at her. “Come on, baby. Come over here. I’ll give you a snack.”
Jade smiled and toddled over to Clara Jean, who once again groaned as she lifted the girl onto her lap.
“I knew we’d be last,” Ruby said. “I was meeting with Trap about a client.”
“It’s fine.” Glory Rose moved back into the kitchen. “Conrad just got here with lunch, and we were just unpacking it.”
“And I’m leaving.” Conrad stepped over to Glory Rose and put one hand on her hip, as if to balance himself. He leaned in and kissed her, and she smiled at him as he pulled back.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m gonna go work out,” he said. “And then I’m headed over to Colt’s to look at his lawn mower.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Glory Rose said.
“I’ll see you later.”
“Yep.” He turned toward the living room full of Walker women and tipped his cowboy hat before putting it on. “You ladies have a good time.”
“We always do,” Elaine said, and she smiled at her brother as he left.
“I didn’t miss the latest news on baby names, did I?” Ruby asked.
“Let’s eat,” Glory Rose said. “Clara Jean can catch us up at the table.” She took Chance from Elaine and started to put him in his high chair.
Elaine pushed herself off the couch and went to take Jade from Clara Jean, so she could get to her feet as well.
She let Ruby put her daughter in a baby seat at the table, and then they stood around the counter while Glory Rose said, “We ordered from Roasters. It’s just sandwiches and chips and salads and cookies, but I got everything you guys requested, and we wrote your names on them. ” She picked up the first box. “Ruby.”
Ruby took her box and sat down. Elaine waited her turn, and when they all had their lunches, they sat around Glory Rose’s dining room table. Ruby had ordered an extra side of mac and cheese for Jade, and Glory Rose fed fish-shaped crackers to Chance.
“I want a baby name update too,” Glory Rose said. “I can’t believe he suggested Orangelo.”
“Half the time, I can’t tell if he’s kidding or not,” Clara Jean said. “I told him, just because we own a produce farm, doesn’t mean we have to name our son Kale or Chard.”
Elaine practically choked on her chocolate chip cookie. Yes, she ate dessert first, because she enjoyed eating and didn’t have a mother to tell her she couldn’t. “Chard?” she managed to choke out.
Clara Jean rolled her eyes. “It’s better than Stallion.”
“Stallion?” Camila asked. She was a solid, stalwart, steady presence in Elaine’s life, and she really loved her cousin. “I’m not repeating any of these to Gun.”
Elaine zeroed in on her. “Are you going to have a baby?”
“I mean, not right now.” Camila smiled and scooped up another bite of macaroni salad. “I’m not pregnant or anything, but I imagine Gun and I will have a family one day.”
“One day soon?” Glory Rose pressed.
“I don’t know,” Camila said. “We’ve talked about it, and we’re just enjoying being married.” She shrugged and took another practical bite of her apple. “My momma asks me every other month if I’m going to have a baby soon. I think she’s dying a little bit inside. She wants to be a grandma so bad.”
Elaine knew that feeling, though on a different level.
Her momma didn’t ask her when she was going to have a baby, but she’d spent much of the last year helping Elaine find something to do with her life.
Now that she’d opened her center for women, Elaine knew her next step would be to find a boyfriend—a man she could spend more than a couple of hours with, who she wanted to share her whole life with, and build a family with.
She had dated quite a bit in the past, but she honestly felt like she’d jumped the gun a little bit. She hadn’t known who she was, or what her life was supposed to be, or what she should do with it, until very recently.
But looking around the table at the two young moms seated with her, and Clara Jean about to become one, and Camila already married, Elaine realized on a more macro-level that she was the only single woman there.
“I actually think my favorite name that Tate has come up with,” Elaine said. “Is Zucchini, and calling him Zuke, like Zeke.”
“Please never say that out loud to my husband,” Clara Jean said, and they all laughed. “Did you talk to Trap about helping with the horse escape artist?” she asked Ruby.
“Yes,” Ruby said, with some relief in her voice. “He said he’s going to come over in the morning.”
Elaine had heard Ruby’s frustrations about the horse and how JJ wouldn’t ask for help.
She’d decided to ask Trap herself, as the man seemed to be able to make anything out of wood and nails.
Elaine knew, because he’d installed her entire hardwood floor and redone her roof when she’d bought her house in town.
Trap worked hard, and he felt like he had a lot to prove, and that gave him the motivation that perhaps some others might lack.
“Has Conrad told you guys about Easton and Marta?”
She looked around the table, and Camila said, “Nope, I haven’t heard anything.”
“They’ve been looking at diamond rings,” Elaine said, and her throat narrowed just the tiniest bit. “They couldn’t find anything they liked here in Three Rivers, so they’re going to Amarillo on the weekend.”