“Hey, Highwayman,” Allison said when he approached the delivery table. She reached for his hand and he took it.
“I love you,” he said. That was all he wanted her to hear at that moment.
“I love you more,” she countered.
He loved her with all his heart, but if through some strange happening their positions were to be reversed, he wasn’t sure he could do what she would be doing. In his mind hers was the greater love at that moment in time.
He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, tightened his grip on her hand.
“Let’s do this,” Dr. Brent Kapshaw said.
*****
He was so happy he thought his heart would burst. In his arms was his beautiful little girl—born two minutes before her squalling, red-faced brother. She had let out one feminine cry when she was laid on her mommy’s tummy then just lay there with what he thought was a smile on her tiny face as he cut the cord. Not so with Avery, he’d let out a piercing protest from the moment he scooted into the world and continued to do so even when the nurse wrapped him up to weigh him and do whatever else had to be done.
“This little booger has a set of lungs on him,” the nurse quipped.
Looking down into Bailey Jeanine Dunne’s cherubic face, he would have bet every dollar in his bank account that she was staring intently at him with her bright dark blue eyes. She’d wrapped her tiny hand around his index finger and wrapped him—body and soul—around her little finger.
“Hello, my beautiful girl,” he whispered to her and felt the tears prickling his eyes. She had a thick cap of black hair like her mommy. “Daddy is going to take very good care of you.”
He looked up from the rocking chair where he was sitting and to the sleeping face of his wife. Allison had never looked more beautiful to him. She lay with her face tilted toward him, and just looking at her made his heart swell with overwhelming love.
“Ready to swap?” Mavis Kent asked him as she came in carrying Avery. There was another nurse with her and that woman came over to gently pluck Bailey from his arms.
“Yes, ma’am,” he told her. The moment his son was placed in his arms, he frowned. “Why is his face so red?”
“Because he’s a crier,” Mavis said on a long sigh. “You’re gonna have your hands full with that one, Drew.”
There were two other women who had given birth that day—one before and one after Allison. There had been a baby born the night before so five infants were being cared for in the nursery. He’d heard a baby crying but had no idea it was Avery.
“Was that you making all that racket, boy?” he asked his son.
Avery Jackson Dunne took that moment to screw up his little face and let out a skirling cry that made his little lips quiver. The sound would have been comical if hadn’t been so loud.
“Here we go again,” Mavis said. “Rock him, Drew. He likes that.”
Setting the rocker into motion didn’t seem to help until Drew began humming “Free Bird.” The baby boy stopped his caterwauling and his little forehead puckered. It wasn’t until he reached the chorus of the song he was humming that he realized it had been Jackson Mackie’s favorite ballad. The song had been played at Jack’s funeral as Drew and other members of the Miller County Panther football team from their senior year carried Jack to his resting place. His half-brother’s little namesake seemed to like it as much as Black Jack had.
“You’re gonna be a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan, huh?” he asked the baby. The little lips stretched in what Drew wanted to believe was a smile.
“I’ll bring you his bottle,” Mavis said quietly. She—like most of the town—had been at Jack’s funeral.
He nodded in answer and started humming again. Avery stared up at him with rapt attention. The reddish tint was leaching from his tiny face but the roses in his cheeks made Drew sigh with happiness.
“Both babies are in perfect health,” Dr. Brent told Drew and Allison. “Five fingers and five toes each. Avery came out at eight pounds seven ounces. His sister is a robust six pounds three ounces. He’s nineteen inches long and she is fifteen inches long. They are beautiful little sweeties. Congratulations, mama and daddy. You done good.”
Done good indeed, Drew thought as Avery’s lids began to flicker then close. He continued to hum until the tiny lips parted and his son fell fast asleep.
*****
From the bed, Allison watched her husband and son. There was such wonder on Drew’s handsome face. Such happiness in his blue eyes. As he sat there humming, rocking their child, running his thumb back and forth across Avery’s little fist, she had never seen Drew more content. The weight of the world that had almost broken him the year before had been lifted from his shoulders. She vowed to do everything in her power to see it never returned.
Chapter Five
It was going to be the best Thanksgiving Day ever, she thought as she opened the door and slid the sweet potato soufflé into the oven. Behind her on the large butcher block island were all the fixings of a true Southern meal. All the women had brought their favorite dishes to share but Allison had baked the turkey and cornbread dressing, black-eyed peas cooked with whole okra and a big chunk of ham and now the sweet potato pudding with golden raisins, walnuts, grated orange rind, and marshmallows.
The goodies provided were as varied as the women who had made them: sweet corn pudding; Georgia potato salad with sweet pickle and sweet red pepper chunks, yellow onions, chopped celery, grated boiled eggs, dill weed, a healthy squeeze of mustard and—nothing but—Hellman’s mayonnaise; turnip, collard, and mustard greens cooked with a granddaddy of a smoked ham hock; butter beans with ham; Southern macaroni and cheese in which pungent hoop cheese had been layered half an inch high over the cooked pasta with milk and beaten egg poured over to set the dish; bacon and cheddar biscuits to be served with bowls of mayhaw jelly; deviled eggs stuffed with sweet pickle relish, minced onion, and celery and sprinkled with dill weed and paprika; whole-berry cranberry sauce into which orange marmalade and maple syrup had been folded.
Then there were the desserts: six chocolate pecan pies and two red velvet cakes—one belonging to Drew; two egg pies and one caramel cake; one orange cake that Early had decreed was his and his alone; Waldorf salad with unpeeled tart Granny Smith apples, mellow Red and Yellow Delicious apples, walnuts, raisins, and Cool Whip; ambrosia with fruit cocktail, mandarin orange slices, and flaked coconut marinated overnight in a cup of sugar.
And gallon after gallon after gallon after gallon of sweet tea.
Early had said it best when he’d gotten a look at the array of dishes: “This is some damned fine cookin’, ladies.”
The furniture from the den had been removed to make room for the four picnic tables that had been arranged in a square.
Those who had come to dinner were all those she and Drew loved dearly. The women were working in the kitchen with her, the men were sitting in the rockers out on the front porch shooting the breeze, and the kids were playing out in the backyard with the animals. Closing the oven door, she looked around at turkey place cards she had made from construction paper and pine cones. The cards held the names of all the important people in the lives of the Dunne family: Early and Bea and four of their five kids; Doc and his latest flavor of the month Annabelle Crowley, about whom Drew’s father was exceedingly fond; Miss Lillian; Rini Wexler and Gage Abbott, the pawnshop owner from Albany who was as quiet as a church mouse for a change; Lenore Parker—Drew and Early’s office manager—and her husband Thomas; Justin Connor—over from Dothan and glaring daggers at Gage; and Dr. Trip Saunders, the jovial veterinarian who had sped over from Alabama with Justin in a rebuilt ’66 Mustang that was Justin’s pride and joy and been waylaid by a Georgia State Trooper who took exception to them going eighty-five in a fifty-five.
“Your smokies have no sense of humor,” Trip complained.
Allison sighed. All was right with their world. The twins were sleeping soundly—thank the good Lord—and dinner was almost ready to be s
erved. Her husband’s loud laughter from the porch was music to her ears.
*****
As anxious as he had been for Thanksgiving to arrive so he could spend good, quality time with his extended family, Drew was really looking forward to their first Christmas together. When Walmart began shelving decorations for the winter holiday, he began buying them. There were enough boxes of lights, ornaments, and decorations in the storage room for three families—and then some. Maybe, he thought as he ladled a big forkful of mixed greens into his mouth, he’d gone a little overboard on the Christmas stuff but this would be the first Christmas he and Allison would be together as man and wife, and daddy and mommy to the twins. He had stocked up on dozens of Christmas music CDs to play and had invested—wholeheartedly if not wisely—in numerous outdoor plastic blowup snowmen, Santa and his reindeer, and what Allison told him wasn’t really a Christmas decoration, a large bouncy house.
“Well, it looked cool,” he had defended his purchase.
And knew right where he was going to put it on the front lawn.
“Let me know when you have those stupid looking snowmen in place,” Early told him. “I’ll be by with my .22 for target practice.”
He was still shoveling what he called real food into his mouth while everyone else was getting ready for dessert. Pies and cakes were being cut. Ambrosia was being ladled into bowls. Pretty soon he would need to unbuckle his belt and pop the button on his jeans or there would be no room for the red velvet cake that was his favorite.
“Drew, sweetie,” Allison said as she sat down beside him with her slice of egg pie. “We are allowed to have leftovers.” She eyed his plate where he still had three deviled eggs and a helping of corn pudding left to consume.
“Waste not, want not,” he stated.
“I like to watch a man enjoying his food,” Annabelle said. “Like father, like son.”
“I’ve never eaten that much at one sitting in my life,” Doc replied.
“I’m a growing boy,” Drew told his father.
“You’ll be an obese boy if you keep eating like that,” Doc warned.
“Allison will work it off him,” Rini said then blushed when everyone turned shocked eyes to hers. “Doing chores. She’ll work it off him doing chores.”
“It’s really not a chore to make love to my wife,” Drew muttered, and everyone—minus the Rawls’ offspring—guffawed.
Popping the last deviled egg into his mouth, he leaned back in the chair as content as a cat that had just finished a bowl of cream. He watched the people he loved eating their desserts, laughing, interacting, and knew he had to be the luckiest man on the face of the planet. He was loved and cherished by each of them and that made him feel blessed.
Chapter Six
Two days before Christmas, 2015
His daughter was the smartest two-month-old in the state of Georgia. Heck, in the whole country. Shirtless and barefoot, clad only in his worn cut-off jeans, he was stretched out on his side on the rug in front of the fireplace and she was doing what he had termed her rock-trying-to-roll maneuver. On her back, she could turn to her side. On her side, she could turn to her back.
Everything she could reach went directly to her mouth. Drool had become a cologne for him for he was constantly being doused with it. She wasn’t teething—that would come in another two months or so—but she loved to gum things just for the hell of it.
She also liked to show him she could hold her own with her brother’s ability to pee straight up in the air. She might not have a wee-wee, as Miss Lillian called it, but the girl could aim. He had discovered urine did not taste good, or feel good running down his chin.
As he watched her straining to turn completely over to her belly, her little face went through myriad expressions. She smiled readily when she was happy. Smacked her lips when she was hungry. Frowned when she concentrated and gave her daddy a look that he could only describe as worshipful.
A loud expulsion of wind and the stink of baby poo made him look over at his son, who was waving his arms and legs like a beetle that had been flipped to its back. Avery preferred to lie on his back with his chubby little legs bowed and grimace at the mobile hanging over his crib. He made grunting sounds that Allison likened to a mini-caveman.
Avery had an attitude and two expressions: grimace and I’m-pooping. The I’m-pooping expression was plastered on his rosy cheeks and turning his face that dark color of red that usually signaled the poop was of normal consistency. When there was no reddening of the face and the wind sound-stink came calling, Drew generally found the green baby poop about which Early had warned.
Neither of them were sleeping through the night and the two a.m. feedings were usually done with one eye open and the other closed.
Well, at least Drew’s eyes did that. Allison kept both eyes open to make sure he didn’t drop whichever of their children he was attempting to hold as his head lolled to his chest or fell back against the back of the rocking chair.
“I think you need to change your son,” Allison said. She was sitting on the sofa with a book and didn’t bother to look at him.
“I thought he was your son and she was my daughter,” he said.
“Your son needs his diaper changed,” she said and thumbed to the next page of the book she was reading.
He heaved a loud, woe-is-me sigh and got to his knees to crawl over to his son. Avery was grimacing, his little fists pumping in the air, and the smell coming from the child was more than ripe.
“Have you been feeding him limburger cheese again?” he asked.
“Sure I have,” she replied.
“Smells like it,” he complained. He pulled the tab on Avery’s diaper and the stench intensified. When he released the other tab and pulled the diaper down, he was greeted by a big brown clump of semi-solid poop that made his stomach lurch.
Avery grunted when his little legs were lifted into the air so Drew could clean his butt.
“Don’t you fart on me, boy,” Drew warned his son as he wiped the tiny rump.
Avery grunted again then let out a noxious scent that could have been used in chemical warfare attacks.
“Really, little man?” Drew asked.
Adding insult to injury, Avery laughed—as did his sister.
“It’s a conspiracy,” he mumbled.
“I think we should light the tree tonight,” Allison said, still not looking at him.
The tree had been up for a week, but he had asked if they could hold off turning on the lights until Christmas Eve.
“Tonight?” he asked. He finished diapering his son then turned to look at his wife.
“When we get back from prayer meeting tonight,” she said. She closed the book on her finger to keep her place. “I just want to see their eyes when we plug in the lights.”
He did, too. The only reason why he’d asked her to wait was because his first wife had insisted on putting their Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving and the pleasure of it wore off long before the holiday arrived.
“Is that okay?” she asked.
“Sure, doll. Anything you want.”
She gave him the smile that never failed to put a lump in his throat. He loved her with all his heart and soul. She was the very air he breathed, and the two wonderful children she’d given him were the blood running through his veins.
“What’s that look?” she asked, forehead creasing.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he stretched out his leg and took the cell phone from his pocket. Scrolling down with his thumb until he found Early and Bea’s number, he punched it in and Bea picked up on the first ring.
“Whatcha need?” she asked.
“Can you come over and watch the brats for about an hour?”
“If you can give me about ten minutes to take my roast out of the oven,” she replied.
“Works for me. See you then.”
He hung up and stuffed the phone back into his pocket.
“Are we going somewhere?” Allison asked.<
br />
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, we are.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
“Drew,” she said, drawing out the word.
“Allison,” he countered in the same singsong tone, and when she pursed her lips and sighed loudly, he chuckled.
True to her word, Bea showed up in exactly ten minutes. Drew hopped up and went over to Allison. He held out his hand.
“Come on, sweetie,” he ordered. She put her hand in his and he pulled her up.
“You might want to check Bailey’s diaper,” Allison said.
“I will,” Bea said. She was looking at him. Her lips twitched and she nodded. He knew she was aware of what he was up to.
Apparently his wife had realized his intent, as well.
“You are awful,” Allison chastised.
“I am horny,” he replied as he led her toward the stairs.
“A condition you seem to be in perpetually,” she commented.
“Well, now that we can do it again, I’m just making up time for when we couldn’t. Hey, just consider it an early Christmas present.”
“For whom?” she asked. “You or me?”
“Let’s just say it’s an equal opportunity present,” he answered, tugging her up the steps.
“An equal opportunity present,” she repeated.
“Yeah. One that is mutually beneficial.” He swept her into his arms and headed for their bedroom.
She had her arms around his neck as he carried her but she laid her head on his shoulder. “What brought this on?” she questioned.
“My beautiful, sexy wife,” he said as he entered their bedroom. “All I have to do is look at her and I get hard as iron.”
“You do, do you?” she asked. “Is that what happened?”
He took her to the bed then laid her down gently before crawling onto the mattress with her. Turning to face her, he reached for her hand to bring it to the thick erection pressing at the front of his jeans.
“What do you think?” he inquired.
She caressed him through the fabric and he groaned at her firm touch. Allison had a way of turning him to mush when she stroked his cock. He pressed his hips upward—offering her what she was fondling.
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