Candy motioned to the nurse who was caring for the infants, letting her know that Jude’s daddy was here.
The nurse picked up the baby and brought him closer so Eric could get a better look at him.
“Isn’t he cool?” Kaley said.
“Yeah.” Eric grinned. “He’s the coolest.”
“Congratulations,” Candy said.
“Thank you.” He noticed that both she and Kaley had tears in their eyes. So did he, and Eric wasn’t prone to crying. But they were happy tears, and that was all that mattered.
The nurse put Jude back in his bassinette, and Eric imagined how warm and cozy the baby was going to feel in his arms.
He said to Kaley, “This is like when you first came into my life. The same overwhelming joy of becoming a parent.”
She leaned against his shoulder. “It’s the same feeling for me, only it’s the overwhelming joy of becoming a big sister.”
He put his arm around his daughter. “It’s such an immediate love.”
“That’s how family love is supposed to be.” She went philosophical. “This makes me appreciate how hard it was for Victoria to give me up after I was born, and how tough it was on Ryan for what he did, too. I understood it before, but I really understand it now.”
“You should call and let them know that Jude is here.”
“I’ll call right now.” She walked away and found a waiting room where she could sit and talk.
Candy moved to stand beside Eric, and he turned toward her. “You’ve been an amazing friend to my wife,” he said.
“She’s an amazing woman.”
“So are you.” He thought about her divorce and the baby she’d lost. “I never believed that I would find love and happiness again. But I did, and I hope you do, too.”
“Thank you. But I’m not ready to start over just yet.”
“I didn’t think I was ready, either.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever meet anyone. But for now, just being Jude’s godmother is enough.”
“Dana couldn’t have chosen a better person for that role.”
“I’m honored to be part of your son’s life, Eric. He’s a lucky little boy to have you and Dana as his parents.”
“We’re lucky to have him. If he hadn’t been conceived, Dana and I wouldn’t have gotten married. He brought us together.” He laughed a little. “Him and Kaley. She was pretty persistent about the marriage.”
“You raised a strong-willed daughter. But she was falling apart when Dana was in surgery. So was I. It was just so difficult to bear the thought of something tragic happening.”
“That’s why I knew I couldn’t lose hope.” He turned to look at Jude again, to admire the baby he and Dana had created.
“Did you call Dana’s mother and grandmother? Do they know anything about what happened today?” Candy asked.
“Not yet.” He’d made a conscious choice not to call until Dana and Jude were out of danger. “I didn’t want to worry them, especially since they’re so far away. I wanted to wait until I got word that Dana and Jude were okay.”
“I can call them now if you’d like. I have their number programmed into my phone.”
“That would be great.” If Candy wanted to do the honor, he would let her. “Tell them I’ll talk to them in a few hours and let them know what room Dana is in once she’s out of recovery. And tell them how spectacular Jude is.”
“Believe me, I will. I’ll go meet up with Kaley and do it now.”
Candy walked away, leaving Eric alone at the nursery window with his son, a baby whose name was associated with miracles.
* * *
Dana watched her husband cradle their child in his arms. She was in her room now, with her family by her side, including Candy. At this point, Candy was as close to family as a friend could get and Dana would always see her that way.
Dana was surrounded by love. With Eric’s help, she’d already nursed the baby. She’d held Jude so close that while he’d suckled she’d wanted to burst with the joy of it.
“He does look like both of us,” Eric said. “He has my coloring and your bright blue eyes.”
“He’s going to be quite the ladies’ man,” Candy said.
“Yep.” Kaley grinned from her chair. She’d already taken tons of pictures of the baby with her smartphone and texted the images to everyone in her contacts list. Her phone had been beeping like crazy with responses.
Candy came over and sat beside Dana. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m tired, but I’ve never been happier.” She glanced over at Eric again. He was walking the baby around the room.
“You picked a good one, that’s for sure.”
She nodded. She knew Candy was talking about Eric. “I can’t wait until Jude and I can go home with him.”
“How long will that be?”
“I’m not sure. Three or four days, maybe.”
“Just rest while you’re here.”
“I will. I want to get better.” She took yet another glance at her husband. She couldn’t seem to stop looking at him. “He already arranged to take time off from work to help me with the baby. And now that I had surgery, I’m going to value his help more than ever.”
“I’ll come by when I can. And so will Kaley.” Candy leaned in close. “You’d be proud of the way Eric kept us together while you were in surgery.”
“He told me that he stayed positive for everyone.” And it made her heart glad to hear it from Candy. She would never tire of knowing that Eric had truly conquered his fears.
Suddenly he looked over and smiled. Both women returned his smile. The baby had fallen asleep in his arms.
“Can I hold him?” Kaley asked.
“Sure.” Eric approached his daughter.
She turned off her phone and put it away. He transferred the infant into her waiting arms.
“Hey, Jude,” she said, quite purposefully. “We’re going to be saying that a lot of him.” She sang the first few lines of the song. “I downloaded it so I would know the words.”
“I’m sure he appreciates it,” Dana told her.
Kaley rocked the baby. “He seems to. Look at his little face. It’s so scrunched up.”
Eric laughed. “Yours was like that, too.”
“I know. It’s amazing how beautiful newborns are, even with those funny little faces.”
Dana said, “I think it’s those funny little faces that make them beautiful.”
Candy resumed the chair beside Kaley’s, leaving the bed free for Eric. He scooted in next to Dana and they held hands, content in the closeness.
Kaley brought Jude over to Dana and placed the baby in her arms, giving her a chance to hold her son again. Eric stroked the baby’s hair and Jude opened his eyes and squinted at his parents. They smiled, awed by the moment.
And every moment that was yet to come.
Epilogue
Eric watched Dana bustle around the diner. He’d come here for dinner with Jude. Their one-year-old son sat in a high chair, playing with a plastic truck and grinning his adorable grin. His blue eyes sparkled every time he caught sight of his mother.
Dana worked here a few days a week, and although she was still in school, she kept changing her mind about her major. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be an interior designer. She was considering psychology or animal husbandry or heaven knew what else. She was as beautifully scattered as ever. But she was also the best wife and mother in the world. Eric thanked the Creator every day for her.
Jude banged his toy on the high chair tray and said, “Mama.”
“I know, little man. Your mama is working tonight. But she’ll be off soon and she’s going to sit down and eat with us. She put in a food order for herself, too.”
<
br /> As promised, Dana finished up with her other customers, then joined Eric and Jude. She set their meals on the table and kissed the top of Jude’s head. He showed her his toy, and she kissed it, too. The boy laughed and handed it to Eric.
“Dada,” he said.
Eric took the truck and mimicked Dana, kissing the wheels of the vehicle. Jude laughed again, and Eric returned the toy.
“Eat your dinner, sweetie.” Dana adjusted the child’s bib and motioned to the finger food she’d placed on his tray.
He squished most of it, but he nibbled on some, too.
She sat across from Eric. “Hello, lover.”
“Hello to you.” He smiled. She looked like a dream, in her bright pink uniform with a silk flower in her hair. He enjoyed seeing her in her work clothes. It was a reminder of how they’d met.
“Meat loaf for my husband.” She motioned for him to eat, with the same waggling-finger wave that she’d given to their son.
He looked at her plate. She was having spaghetti and meatballs. “If Jude decides he wants some of that, it’s going to create a mess.”
She shrugged. “I brought plenty of napkins. And we’ve got baby wipes in the diaper bag.”
As always, nothing fazed Dana. He loved that about her. Eric imagined spaghetti in the kid’s hair.
The miracle kid, he thought.
He looked over at Jude. He was pouring water from his sippy cup onto his food in typical toddler fashion.
“We should have another one,” Dana said.
Eric just stared at her. “Another baby?”
She laughed. “Yes, but I was just kidding. I wanted to see the panic on your face.”
“Are you sure you’re not hankering for another one?”
“I’m positive. Our little guy is enough for me.”
By now Jude was running his truck through the food. Eric chuckled. “For me, too.”
“Ryan and Victoria are finally trying for a baby.”
“They are? How do you know that?”
“Victoria told Kaley, and Kaley told me.”
“Ah, the women’s circle. Talk. Talk. Talk.” When she raised her eyebrows at him, he quickly added, “That’s great about Ryan and Victoria. I hope it happens soon for them.”
“It probably will. Look how easily they conceived Kaley.”
She twined a glob of spaghetti around her fork. “Things aren’t going so well for Candy, though. She’s going to have to sell her house.”
“Really? Why?”
“She owed a balloon payment and it came due, and now she doesn’t have the money. She tried to refinance, but she’s in over her head and can’t get another loan. She’s going to try to sell the house herself instead of using a Realtor because she can’t afford to give away the commission.”
“I’m sorry that she’s in trouble. I wish I had the money to loan her.”
“Oh, that’s nice of you to want to help. But she’ll get through it. And who knows, maybe something really good will come of it.”
Eric didn’t see where anything good was going to come out of being forced to sell your house, but he knew better than to question Dana’s positive beliefs. She’d been right so far.
He cut into his meat loaf. “You know what’s weird? I actually know someone who’s looking to buy a house in her area.”
Her eyes lit up. “Who?”
“An old powwow friend of mine. You haven’t met him yet. I just ran into him the other day and while we were catching up, he mentioned that he was house-hunting.”
“You should put him in touch with Candy.”
“I will, but there’s no guarantee that a sale will be made between them.”
“It seems kind of fate-ish, though, don’t you think?”
“What does? Me knowing someone who’s looking for a house at the same time she’s selling hers? I suppose it does, but not everything is fate. It could just be coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence. Everything happens for a reason.” She turned to Jude. “Right, baby?”
The boy banged his toy in the mess he’d made, splashing himself and Dana. She laughed and cupped his food-splattered cheeks. He tried to reach for her spaghetti.
Here it comes, Eric thought. The bigger mess. The mother-and-son chaos. Jude had his mama’s free-spirited personality.
“You want some?” She fed him from her fork. But that only lasted for a few bites.
Within no time, Jude was squeezing bits of pasta between his fingers and pealing into happy hysterics, right along with Dana.
Eric removed the baby wipes from the diaper bag, preparing to tackle the mess when it was over. But he laughed, too. How could he not? His family always gave him insurmountable joy. They were his life, his love, his never-ending bliss.
He wouldn’t trade their nuttiness for all of the normalcy in the world. Eric liked things just the way they were.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from MARRYING DR. MAVERICK by Karen Rose Smith.
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Chapter One
Brooks Smith rapped firmly on the ranch-house door, scanning the all-too-familiar property in the dusk.
His dad didn’t answer right away, and Brooks thought about going around back to the veterinary clinic, but then he heard footsteps and waited, bracing himself for this conversation.
After his father opened the door, he looked Brooks over, from the beard stubble that seemed to be ever present since the flood to his mud-covered boots. Tending to large animals required trekking through fields sometimes.
“You don’t usually come calling on a Tuesday night. Run into a problem you need me for?”
Barrett Smith was a barrel-chested man with gray hair and ruddy cheeks. At six-two, Brooks topped him by a couple of inches. The elder Smith had put on another ten pounds over the past year, and Brooks realized he should have been concerned about that before today.
There was challenge in his dad’s tone as there had been since they’d parted ways. But as a doctor with four years of practice under his belt, Brooks didn’t ask for his dad’s advice on animal care or frankly anything else these days.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Brooks entered the living room where he’d played as a child. The Navajo rugs were worn now, the floor scuffed.
“I only have a few minutes,” his father warned him. “I haven’t fed the horses yet.”
“I’ll get straight to the point, then.” Brooks swiped off his Stetson and ran his hand through his hair, knowing this conversation was going to get sticky. “I ran into Charlie Hartzell at the General Store.”
His father avoided his gaze. “So?”
“He told me that when he stopped by over the weekend, you weren’t doing too well.”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” his dad muttered, not meeting Brooks’s eyes.
“He said you carried a pail of oats to the barn and you were looking winded and pale. You dropped the bucket and almost
passed out.”
“Anybody can have an accident. After I drank a little water, I was fine.”
Not so true according to Charlie, Brooks thought. His dad’s longtime friend had stayed another hour to make sure Barrett wasn’t going to keel over.
“You’re working too hard,” Brooks insisted. “If you’d let me take over the practice, you could retire, take care of the horses in the barn and help out as you want.”
“Nothing has changed,” Barrett said angrily. “You still show no sign of settling down.”
This was an old argument, one that had started after Lynnette had broken their engagement right before Brooks had earned his degree in veterinary medicine from Colorado State. That long-ago night, his father had wanted to discuss it with him, but with Brooks’s pride stinging, he’d asked his dad to drop it. Barrett hadn’t. Frustrated, his father had blown his top, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was his warning and threat—he’d never retire and turn his practice over to Brooks until his son found a woman who would stick by him and build a house on the land his grandmother had left him.
Sure enough...
“Your grandmama’s land is still sitting there with no signs of a foundation,” his dad went on. “She wanted you to have roots, too. That’s why she left it to you. Until you get married and at least think about having kids, I can handle my own practice just fine. And you should butt out.”
He could rise to the bait. He could argue with his father as he’d done before. But he didn’t want his dad’s blood pressure to go any higher so he stuck to being reasonable. “You can issue an ultimatum if you want, but this isn’t about me. It’s about you. You can’t keep working the hours you’ve been working since the flood. You’re probably not eating properly, grabbing donuts at Daisy’s and potato chips at the General Store.”
“Are you keeping track of what I buy where?”
“Of course not. I’m worried about you.”
“Well, don’t be. Worry about yourself. Worry about the life you don’t have.”
LOST AND FOUND HUSBAND Page 18