Kayla laid her hand on her stomach. “You’re probably right. I don’t rush too well anymore. When the babies get here next month, you won’t have to do so much.”
“Honey, I don’t mind doin’ anything at all. I still can’t believe I’m going to be a daddy and that I’m married to my high school crush.” Will left the vehicle running and jogged into the house. When he returned, he set a box containing small gift bags onto the back seat. “Do you think they’ll have your curly hair?” he asked as he got behind the steering wheel.
“God, I hope not.” Kayla groaned. “They can have eyes like mine and your good hair.”
“I hope they look just like you, right down to every cute little freckle on your face.”
“You are a sweetheart,” Kayla said.
In a few minutes, they turned into the church parking lot.
“Good grief!” Kayla gasped. “Look at that parking lot. The church is going to be packed this morning.”
“Don’t worry,” he laughed. “Mama will throw anyone out of our pew if they try to move in on her territory. I hope our girls have half her spunk.”
“I wish Miss Janie would have lived to see her granddaughters.” Kayla sighed.
After they’d found a spot and parked, Will opened the door for her and helped her get out of the vehicle. They spotted Dulcie and Thomas waiting for them outside the church and made their way over to meet them. Will then leaned over and laid his hand on her stomach and said, “Miss Sarah and Miss Marie, I can’t wait to carry you into church.”
“You could do that today,” Kayla sighed, “but the weight would break your back.”
“I couldn’t be happier than I am today,” Dulcie said. “And to know that y’all are naming the babies after me and Miss Janie is an honor that brings tears to my eyes. I always wished my mama would have called me by my middle name, Marie, rather than Dulcie, and now I get a granddaughter named that.”
“We do get to babysit for you once a week, don’t we?” Thomas asked. “I’ve already told all the folks at the center to expect to see babies pretty soon.”
“Of course.” Kayla nodded. “And thank you for the offer. I’m sure we’ll look forward to a little time each week.”
“Oh, honey,” Dulcie laughed. “You really do need time for the two of you. When we got Will, we made ourselves a promise that we’d always have date night, and even if we were tired, we hired a sitter on Saturday nights and went to dinner.”
Kayla still had trouble believing that Will’s folks had taken her into their family, that they’d insisted on paying for a wedding six months ago, and that they’d been delighted when they’d told them that she was pregnant.
A few minutes later, Noah parked his truck right beside Will’s SUV. As Noah opened the door and jogged around to help his wife out, Will hollered over to him, “You didn’t have any trouble finding the place, did you?”
“Not a bit,” Noah said. “We brought Sam with us, and he’s been here before.”
After Teresa, Noah, and Sam had joined the others, Teresa said to Kayla with a laugh, “Are you sure that’s just two babies in there? Looks like a litter to me. I just saw you yesterday, and you look bigger than you did then.”
“Oh, hush up.” Kayla shook a finger at her. “Your time is coming, and I fully well intend to make fun of you when you look like an elephant.”
“But you’re such a beautiful elephant.” Will slipped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “And we get a double blessing. Noah and Teresa might not get two at once.”
“I hope not,” Teresa said.
The preacher stepped up behind the lectern, cleared his throat, and said, “I don’t know that we’ve ever had a Sunday-evening crowd this big.” He chuckled before getting serious. “We are fortunate when we bring a new baby—or, as the case is with Will and Kayla, two new babies—into our church family. Our children are our future, and we need to remember that. Jesus said, and it’s written in red in our Bibles, ‘The kingdom of heaven belongs to these,’ and He’s talking about the little children. Our father in heaven sent His only son to earth to live and die for us. He didn’t send Him as a grown man but as a baby, so we need to remember just how precious our children are to our spiritual kingdom.”
Teresa pondered those words and didn’t hear a word of the rest of the sermon. If she hadn’t been ready for motherhood before, she was after hearing the preacher say those words. She and Noah would be good parents in spite of their pasts. They would use their pasts as an example of how not to be, rather than let them define their methods of parenting.
She was jerked back to the present when the preacher said, “And now, if our guest, Sam Franks, will deliver the benediction, we will all go to the fellowship hall for our potluck and baby shower.”
After Sam delivered a short prayer, Will helped Kayla up from the pew. “Twins! We’re so lucky.”
“What would you do if we had twins?” Noah whispered in Teresa’s ear.
“I’ll be grateful for whatever we get,” she said, “and I want to name our first daughter Jane. Kayla done already got the name Sarah.”
“We can always lay claim to Ruth, since that’s not only Aunt Ruthie’s name but also my mother’s middle name,” Noah said.
“I like that, but we got to get pregnant before we start thinking about names,” she said.
“What are y’all whispering about?” Kayla asked.
“We’ve decided it’s time for us to start our family. I figure if we get pregnant soon, we might have time for four kids by the time we’re forty,” Teresa told her.
“Now, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Kayla said. “Mine and Will’s daughters will have some little cousins to grow up with.”
As everyone filed into the fellowship hall, an elderly lady came up to them and touched Kayla on the arm. “You and that one right there”—she pointed at Teresa with her other hand—“I recognize you now. I used to work in the cafeteria back when Miss Janie was secretary at the school here in Sulphur Springs. Aren’t y’all Miss Janie’s girls?”
“Yes, we are,” Teresa and Kayla said in unison.
Dear Readers,
There really is a Birthright, Texas. There really is a church there, but the people I met and fell in love with are fictional. I’m having trouble as I finish the book convincing myself of that, though. Miss Janie and her girls, Sam, Noah, and Will have become very close friends of mine as I’ve gotten to know and love them through all their struggles. I hope that you fall in love with the folks as much as I have and that when you read the last page, you’ll wish for one more chapter. I’ve said before that it takes a whole team to take a book from a simple dream to the finished product that you hold in your hands today. My Montlake team is totally amazing for all they do—from edits to covers. A simple thank-you seems so small, but I want them to know that it comes right from the center of my heart. I’m sending love and appreciation to my Montlake editor, Alison Dasho; to Krista Stroever, who always manages to help me take a chunk of coal and turn it into a diamond; to the whole team who has put together this amazing book; to my awesome agent, Erin Niumata, and to Folio Literary Management; and once again, big hugs to my husband, Mr. B, who continues to support me even when he has to eat takeout five days in a row so I can write “just one more chapter” or finish another round of edits.
And thank you to all my readers who buy my books, read them, talk about them, share them, write reviews, and send notes to me. I’m grateful for each and every one of you.
Until next time,
Carolyn Brown
About the Author
Photo © 2015 Charles Brown
Carolyn Brown is a New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and a RITA finalist with more than one hundred published books to her name. Her books include romantic women’s fiction and historical, contemporary, cowboy, and country music mass-market paperbacks. She and her husband live in the small town of Davis, Oklahoma,
where everyone knows everyone else, including what they are doing and when—and they read the local newspaper on Wednesdays to see who got caught. They have three grown children and enough grandchildren and great-grandchildren to keep them young. For more information, visit www.carolynbrownbooks.com.
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