Chapter 21
June
The Ward house always smelled like herbs from the garden—rosemary and lavender, sage and thyme. Tonight, it smelled most strongly of sweet potatoes.
And it seemed little Hazel Ward did not like that.
Baby Hazel was fussy, and none of Rhett and Willow’s usual tricks were working.
Delilah had tried singing to her—some completely made-up song about Uncle Whit and the No Good Very Bad Preacher Man—but the song didn’t seem to satisfy her.
Whit offered a song of his own about the Delilah the witch (complimentary, of course), but she didn’t like that song either.
And, of course, Milo tried licking Hazel’s face.
That usually worked, but not even that could get a giggle out of her
Willow bounced Hazel gently on her hip, pacing between the table and the fridge like that alone might settle her. “She skipped her nap,” Willow said, shaking her head, “and she’s mad about it. Plus the fact that everything smells like sweet potato.”
“Hey—I get it, baby girl,” Beau said, trying to catch Hazel’s attention. “I don’t like sweet potatoes either.”
“Not all of us can have good taste,” Rhett chuckled.
Hazel, as if personally offended, let out a high-pitched wail.
“Okay, okay,” Willow soothed, shifting Hazel to her other arm. “I know, baby. I know.”
Hazel let out another wail, longer this time—big enough to make Milo slink under the table.
“I think that one cracked a window,” Delilah muttered.
“She’s just overtired,” Willow said, clearly trying to stay patient. “Rhett, can you go grab her blankie from the car?”
Rhett was already on his feet. “On it.”
“I’m gonna go run her a bath,” Willow added. “See if we can soak some of this baby rage out. Silas, do you mind…”
Before she’d even turned, Silas was on his feet, rising to take Hazel. He extended his arms and Hazel went to him like she’d been waiting for exactly this moment—like finally, someone was giving her exactly what she’d wanted after all this time.
And Willow stopped in her tracks—because Hazel calmed down instantly.
“Okay,” Willow said. “Well…maybe she doesn’t need a bath. Maybe she just needed Uncle Silas.”
Hazel let out one last, pitiful hiccup of a sob, then melted into Silas’s chest like butter on warm bread. Her cheek squished against the flannel of his shirt, one tiny hand fisting in the fabric.
Silas didn’t say anything—just shifted her higher, one hand supporting her back, the other curling protectively beneath her legs. He swayed slightly, patting her back.
“Yeah…take a beat, sweetheart,” he murmured. “You’re good.”
The whole room relaxed with her, conversation picking back up again, laughter humming. I’d been recounting the incident at the church to Willow and Rhett before Hazel imploded—but I couldn’t be bothered to go back to my story.
Because I was looking at Silas.
He wasn’t trying to perform anything…wasn’t making a show of it. He was just there, being his steady, calm, quiet self.
And I was smitten.
“Down girls,” Delilah murmured to me with a soft laugh. I looked over at her, frowning.
“What?”
“Your ovaries,” she chuckled. “Although…I gotta admit, there’s somethin’ about seeing a big, burly man holding a baby like she’s the most delicate thing in the world, right?”
I opened my mouth to argue—I’d never been baby crazy, hadn’t even come down on a firm decision regarding kids—but the words dried up on my tongue.
Because Delilah wasn’t wrong.
I loved Silas…and seeing him like this? It felt so right. I could imagine him holding our baby, the magic, soothing force to calm any child.
My chest felt tight…hopeful.
“You know,” Delilah said, “you’re gonna need a place bigger than the parsonage if you wanna start a family.”
I snorted in disbelief. “Delilah, I don’t think we’re even close to being there yet.”
She shrugged. “Just sayin’…Cooper Wright came into the library the other day to post about a place for sale. You could call.”
I shook my head, trying to laugh it off. “I’m not buying a house, Delilah,” I said. “I mean…I just got here, I have barely any savings—turns out divinity school doesn’t pay all that well—and me and Silas are so new…”
I was arguing with her, but I could see it all too easily—me and Silas in a little cottage a block or two from the church, walking to services on Sunday, coming home to a cluttered home office filled with notes on sermons…maybe Silas hammering away at a half-finished crib in the next room.
Delilah bumped my shoulder gently.
“It’s not a bad place,” she added. “Cooper and Jamie own it, the guys from the bookstore? A nice little starter home they lived in before they got a bigger place when they adopted their second.”
I let out a breathy laugh, shaking my head. “You make it sound so easy.”
Delilah gave me a look. “Sometimes,” she said, “things can be easy, June. Or at least…clear. Doesn’t mean you have to jump into escrow tomorrow, just means that if your heart wants something, you don’t need to talk yourself out of it.”
I hated how badly I wanted to believe that.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this place is basically paradise?” I asked. “I mean—affordable homes, good people…?”
“Hmph,” Delilah snorted. “Well—there’s no sushi, for one thing.”
“Delilah—”
“And no hospital,” she cut in, “as you are all too aware. Plus…well, we’ve had our problems here.
Fifteen years ago, the Remnant Fellowship had a chokehold here.
It wasn’t so unlike other little towns in Georgia—no good for anyone who didn’t believe in God, for anyone who didn’t look like your happy little white American family. But…I don’t know. Shit changed.”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged, casual but definitely questioning.
“Just—people started coming back who’d left, like they wanted to reclaim what was theirs and what they’d always been told wasn’t.
Jamie Wright came back home with Cooper in tow, they opened their little bookstore, adopted their little girl…
Francine Farber had dipped out for a while, but she came home with all the righteous fury of a woman who always knew the Remnant’s brand of faith was wrong.
Hell, I came back from New Orleans and knew I was safe here. ”
“You make it sound like the town had its own gravity,” I said—not as a joke, but because I was actually wondering how the hell my navigation had brought me here.
She drummed her fingers on the table. “I mean, Willow was driving nowhere when she ended up stranded in Rhett’s driveway, of all places.
I came home even though I’d never intended on staying in this hodunk town.
And you…?” Her eyes flicked to Silas, still swaying with Hazel in his arms. “You’ve been heading this way a long, long time, whether you realized it or not. ”
A chill went down my spine, the recognition that something had its hand on us—maybe the thing I called God, that great mystery. The woods outside the window rustled, even though there wasn’t any wind, like the trees were saying, Yes, God’s out here.
I turned my head toward the window, trying to catch whatever had stirred. The night outside was still, but the trees felt…alert.
Not menacing, just present.
Like they were listening.
Delilah shrugged and smiled knowingly. “All this to say, maybe you should buy that house,” she said. “I mean—you’re not planning on leavin’ anytime soon, are you?”
I shook my head, smiling as I found Silas again, rocking that baby like he was born to be a father.
“No,” I said, “I don’t think I’m going anywhere.”