11 Years, 8 Months Later
March 23rd
Jake Ely woke with a start. He woke feeling as though he were suffocating. There was something over his face. He was pressed into the mattress in a tangle of limbs. He'd been up late last night, concerns keeping him awake, as they sometimes did. His heart was racing. Was that really the alarm clock going off? Why had she messed with the station, again?
He grinned as his heart rate slowed and he sucked in a lungful of oxygen, pushing his wife's hair out of his face. The room was bathed in the fading darkness of the night before dawn from the southern windows. Apple green walls greeted his eyes, and he reached up softly, touching his short hair. There was nothing unusual about all of this for the last decade of his life.
A sleep worn voice caused his gaze to shift to the left, "Today's the day."
"Yeah." He replied, as she moved her curls off of his pillow and turned over, throwing her leg over him. Her green eyes glowed, even as she looked tired. "Today's the day."
"How's it feel?" She asked, making no move to get up.
"Pretty good, Brat." He said, knowing that that was the understatement of the century.
"If you give me a couple of minutes, I could make your day pretty awesome." She placed her lips on the column of his throat.
"I'm sure you-" He grinned, shifting to the left slightly, in a tangle of limbs and sheets and blankets.
He was cut off by premature babbling from across the hall. "Ma! Ma! Up Up Up! Daddy Up! Kitty Up! Katie Up! Annie Up! Kenzie up! All up!"
Sam moaned. He sighed. She bit her lip. "It's your turn, Daddy."
"Mama!" Kitty called, as though she had been waiting for ages for the day to start, from down the hall, "Mackenzie's up!"
"Daddy!" her twin hollered, "Tell Kitty I'm sleeping!"
Annie, God Bless her, just snored away, ignoring his sisters, knowing they'd normally sleep for another half an hour. Jake padded across the hall, and scooped up a brown eyed two year old. "Hey, Kenzie. Let's get rolling, huh?"
She just stretched up her hands, demanding to be freed from her crib without exerting herself to make her demands verbal. After checking the weather and talking about it, Kenzie yawned. Together, he and the tiny Empress of Deerpath Ranch walked down the hall to find Sam cajoling Katie out of bed as Kitty made her bed and talked a mile a minute. "Mama, can we have pancakes for breakfast?" She hopped from foot to foot in a green nightgown, looking so much like her mother at that age, it made him almost wonder if she was going to dig around in her bed for a stuffed horse named Blackie. At seven, she was too cool for that, she said, even though he still checked for monsters under her bed, and fluffed her blankets on demand.
Annie rushed in, nearly knocking him over with her five year old enthusiasm, asking hopefully, "Pancakes?"
Jake watched as Sam stood after rousing Katie, a calm center in the middle of the chaos she'd created, and shook her head as he herded all three of them towards their day clothes and they talked about pancakes. "You're going to have to suffer through oatmeal today, ladies. Your father has to work." Jake grinned. Sam could cook, but she could never manage pancakes, either burning them or making them raw in the middle, or both.
Katie groaned, "Work's no fun..." She stretched comically, wiggling her toes and making happy noises as she went about it.
"Shut up, Katie!" Kitty returned as she pulled a brush through her identically wavy hair.
Jake spoke, "Use your words, Margaret." He took the brush from her and frowned as Katie stuck her tongue out at her twin. After settling that spat, Jake attempted to comb her hair, until Mackenzie's last echoes of sleep faded and she demanded to be put down, and rushed on little feet towards her room, hollering "Annie! nnee! Com' ere! 'ere!" Annie ran after her, half dressed, and screeched, "My Little Pony!" Siger, aged as he was becoming, skittered after Annie, knocking over a Bryer Horse stable in the process.
Sam called after them, "Annie, please go to the potty!"
"I have to go, too!" Katie said, and bolted down the hall, sounding every inch like the the Kathleen she'd one day become.
Such was the start of the morning at the Ely house, Deerpath Ranch, Darton County. His brain ran though the location taxonomy as he used his three minutes of solitude to take a shower after chores that morning. Every horse in the pasture followed Sam around, each hoping to be ridden or wrangle a treat out of the gaggle of girls that followed her or assisted with the chores. The twins were hanging out with their own horses, provided by their doting Papa. Jake wished he'd known decades ago that Wyatt would be even more mushy over the girls than he was over their mother, though why he wasn't sure. He hopped over the bath toys and the no more tears shampoo to find real shampoo. His was gone, so he bummed some of Sam's. His pride had flown out the window ages ago, he knew, as he saw nothing wrong with using rose and lavender shampoo she made herself and playing tea party. Tea party was his favorite game, as long as there was real food. Darrell laughed at him, but Darrell and Ally had a son. He just didn't get it.
Life was great. It had taken a long time to get there, though. He and Sam had continued on being whatever they were up until the end of the first year she'd been at school. She'd shown up on campus, wide eyed and beautiful, and the idiots he'd called friends had swarmed her. She'd been baffled by the attention, not knowing that he'd scared off every idiot in high school with a look and a casual mention of his brothers and his gun collection. Those days had been hell, confusing and tense, even as he'd relished in the joy of being closer to her than ever before.
He hadn't told her about the dream, at least not at that point. He'd gone crazy the second semester, as he was invited with the track team to go to Boston. He'd gone, dreading the whole thing, sweating bullets, like a man ready to face a firing squad, even though Sam had come along as an attaché from the campus paper. He rinsed his hair, recalling the rain that had fallen in Boston.
They'd been walking around the brick and oak campus, as a clap of thunder reverberated above them. Sam had grabbed his hand, and tugged him into the library as buckets of rain came down in torrents. She'd whispered, "Shh!" as he began to chide her for dripping all over the floor. At that moment, he'd seen her, in his personal space. Perdita looked at him, as alive as anyone else in the room. She was wearing a grey jumper dress, black tights, and boots. Her dark, smooth, hair had been loose, and her eyes were as perfectly made up as they had been in his dream.
He'd bumped into her as they rushed into the library. Her books had gone flying and Sam had bent to help her collect them. Perdita had stood there, confusion on her face as Jake stared, sweat beading on his body, finally venturing, "Hello?" in a soft, cultured voice that haunted his nightmares.
He'd nodded, "Hello." His mind was screaming. He didn't want her, didn't want this, didn't want to wake up years later in a world like his dream. He was in control of his life. He would choose. He had to make his choice known before time ran out. Who knew how things had gone down in the dream? He kept breathing, hoping he'd catch the faint scent of Sam's shampoo, a comforting mix of rose and lavender. If he could, he remembered thinking, he'd know that all hope was not lost. He would make his choice and make it boldly. He'd known he had to do something, but his mind had been spinning. Finally, her books were collected, and he grabbed Sam's hand and pulled her out into the rain as she'd cried, "What's with you, Jerk!" He didn't speak as the came to a covered portico between old brick buildings. He didn't speak as he pressed her against a smooth spot in the wall. He didn't speak, and neither did she, as his head came down and their lips met after years of wondering, years of waiting. Jake had muttered, awestruck, as they kissed for what seemed like ages, "Sam..." over and over, like a litany, until she'd shut him up by raising up on her toes and pressing her mouth to his more firmly. Their first kiss had tasted like rain and the electricity of the lightning that floated in the air, of the thunder that shook the trees around them. Even today, he'd been known to pull her into the rain.
Moments later, he'd pulled back, and Sam had asked, "What the hell was that?"
"Uh." He'd nearly fainted, mind spinning. "I'm sorry."
She'd pushed him back, away from her, asking waspishly. "For what?"
"Lots of things." He said, and he had been. He was sorry that his dream hadn't really been one after all. Maybe it had just been a coincidence. They happened all the time, he'd asserted. That girl could have been anybody, and anyway, he'd thought then, Sam knew now. Whatever happen next, he could resign himself to his fate knowing he wouldn't spend his life wondering what could have been, if he'd only acted.
"For kissing me?" She'd frowned.
"No." He grinned as her hair started to frizz, "For waiting so long."
There was a soft banging on the door that shook him from the memory. "Daddy!" Annie called, "Mama says you be late for work."
He shut off the water. "Thank you, Annie."
"I go to see my chickens now." She bellowed, as though the water was still running.
"You just saw them, Anna Marie." He said, drying off. "Why don't you go find the letter of the day?"
"Okay! Come on Siger!" She said, demanding the compliance of her canine minion. Moments later, Jake walked into the kitchen past a million stuffed bookcases, and stood silently. He watched as Sam spun around the kitchen, light on her feet as she avoided tripping over Mackenzie and Cougar, whom the young child was petting. The cat accepted the treatment, as he'd been trained by a bevy of toddlers since Cody was born. Poor Cougar had been terrorized by the twins. Heck, Jake had been terrorized by them. He knew that the twin's arrival shortly after Grandfather had announced his retirement from ranching and desire to travel, and handed the ranch over to them, had been their baptism by fire. There they'd been, dealing with their own operation, two fussy daughters who wanted to do everything but sleep, and his hiring by the Darton County Sheriff's Office. He had no idea how Sam had managed. He'd managed with lots of coffee and the occasional beer, but she'd been nursing. She tended to shy away from food like that when pregnant or nursing, or both, tending towards lots of whole foods. While carrying Kitty and Katie, she'd eaten enough strawberries and grapes that he almost wished that he was a fruit farmer in Florida. With Annie, she ate carrots until she nearly turned as orange as her hair in bad lighting. With Mackenzie, she'd split the difference and eaten tomatoes, both raw and cooked. He still blanched at tomato juice.
"Brat?" He asked, as she put breakfast out. "What's the letter of the day?"
"B." She replied, glancing at a giant board on the kitchen, one that served as her command station for school work, as Mackenzie intoned seriously, "Buh buh buh!"
"Yay, Kenzie! B does go buh buh buh!" Sam ignored him in favor of praising the toddler. The cat was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and bolted for parts unknown, or at least where he'd hidden his ball with the bell in it. Perhaps Cougar had some catnip stashed away. God knew the old fellow needed a vice of some kind, other than the mountains of brand name cat food he ate.
Mackenzie ran on pudgy legs and collected her stuffed bear from his perch in her reading chair, and called to her sisters in the loudest voice she could muster, "Eat! Eat!"
The wooden floors reverberated with pairs of feet as they gathered in the kitchen. During that window of thirty seconds, they discussed the lessons for the day. Sam added, "Kitty could use some work on her fractions."
He nodded, grabbing spoons, knowing that that was code for: "Jake, you go over that for the millionth time, because she's not getting it, and you be the meanie who forces the issue." He'd stop on the way home from work and get a mega bag of M&M's. If he divided them by color, that should work, and then they'd all eat them.
Breakfast was a loud affair, but he was lost in his thoughts. He was lost in the past. After that kiss in Boston, they'd tried to go back to normal. And they had, their friendship was as strong as ever, as normal as ever. Except for the moments they spent breathing the air from each other's lungs, the moments that they'd spent in his tiny dorm room, or the photo darkroom. After a few months of pretending each and every embrace was an aberration, an accident, a one-time-I-swear-this-is-the-last-time thing, they stopped talking about that part of their relationship. Nevertheless, they'd spent so much time fused to the other, that they'd been hard pressed to keep it together once they were home for the summer. They'd never redefined their relationship, but looking back, it was clear that Boston had changed everything. It was as if, after years of not touching, that they couldn't stop. They never went far, but it was far enough.
Quinn had been the one to find them out. Sam had lost her head after yet another week of playing it cool, and had dragged him into the pantry at Three Ponies uncaring that Jen was going to be there any minute. She'd pushed him against the upright freezer, and kissed him until they were breathless. Some time after Sam's hair clip fell out and he'd let her curls wind around his hands, someone came into the kitchen. Jake had jumped, biting Sam's lip.
"Ow!" She'd cried, "You bit me!"
"Sorry." He'd said, making sure his tooth hadn't cut her.
She'd slapped ineffectually at his hand, glaring, "I'm not a horse, you don't need to inspect my gums." He'd rolled his eyes, and bent to kiss her again, hoping the noise he'd heard had been the dog.
Quinn had spoken, then, "If you're finished, can you pass me the Star Crunches?"
Sam had shrieked and bolted from the room. Quinn had laughed at Jake's expression stating he'd known for ages, but the summer had grown increasingly strained. Quinn had blabbed to Nate, who'd told Seth, who told Mom, who told Dad, who told Wyatt, thinking he knew. Wyatt had threatened him, and life had gone back to normal. Grace had been scarier, truth be told.
"Daddy!" Katie beseeched, studying the clock, "You have to go!"
Sam grinned as he shook away the dust of his trip down memory lane, knowing where his thoughts were, he supposed, as he gave and received a series of increasingly oatmeal encrusted hugs. "Bye, Brat. Don't drive the girls crazy, huh?"
She frowned at him, wiping up the table where one of the girls had made a mess. "Have fun riding your desk, Detective."
He drove into work, missing the old blue truck he kept in the garage at Three Ponies. There were too many memories in that truck to ever consider selling it. The two seater they had now was more family friendly, even if they had almost outgrown a mini-van. It was the twins that had made him come clean with Sam, even indirectly, about the dream.
They'd been living together for a year, while at school. He'd undertaken a master's degree, simply to buy them time together. Sam was a junior, he was a first year in grad school. They weren't dating, as such, or engaged, but damned if he was leaving her behind. She was his best friend, and at the time, he'd been doing what he thought best friends did. He came home to her at night, slept in his cold bed, and was warmed each morning by the coffee she pressed into his hands with a smile. One morning she'd said, "Jen's pregnant." She and Ryan had gotten married six months before, and Jen was planning on Vet school, a goal she eventually met. At the time, though, he'd been blindsided by the announcement.
"Oh?" He'd said, shoveling in eggs and toast before a seminar.
She'd looked up from her own breakfast, meeting his eyes with an intensity that, in hindsight, should have set him to running. "I want that, too."
He passed her the plate of toast. She shook her head, curls bouncing, "No, idiot. I want a baby."
"You want a baby?" He asked, "Did you just say...?" He recalled being baffled. Sam had never been one to keep quiet if she thought something was amiss or she wanted something, but it usually was...He'd sat there, staring at her over breakfast, watching as she hooked a bare foot over the rung of a kitchen chair.
"That I'd like to get pregnant." She spoke as if he really were an idiot, "Yes." She spoke, as if to herself, clarifying, "I think it's reasonable. I'm not getting any younger, you know."
"Reasonable?" He almost laughed hysterically, "A new dog might be reasonable. A cat, maybe." Though, really, she did not need another pet. He'd been baffled, "What are you going to do with a baby?"
"Uhm, love it." She'd stated calmly. "What do you think?"
And she loved them, more than anything. But his memory was racing ahead like cars on the interstate. He thought back. They'd gotten married in a church wedding after another ten months of actual dating, or whatever they did that came close to it. Sam refused dinner dates and things, but didn't too much mind working together on spring break at home, or things like letting him buy her an 89 cent iced tea and eating samples at the warehouse store when they did shopping orders. Their strange approach to dating made living together awkward, as Wyatt often showed up at their front door simply because he'd said he was in the area. Jake knew that he checked up on them more in those days than he did now, when he actually was in the area.
But it all came together, somehow. Sam had worn her mother's dress, and Jen had been her Matron of Honor. To avoid selecting any of his brothers, he'd given Cody the honor of being Best Man, though he knew Quinn and Darrell had done most of the legwork, such as organizing the bachelor party, where they'd played basketball and gotten drunk off their asses.
Sam had crashed that part of the party, and they'd ended up getting so drunk together that his head pounded even thinking about it. Sitting in the hayloft after they'd ditched the others, they drunkenly talked about everything from the absurdity that was the wedding planning to the difference between brands of ketchup, settling on Heinz as a family standard. She'd confessed her childhood crush on him, sheepishly, like he hadn't known, and told him she'd picked their wedding colors in the seventh grade. He'd laughed and begged her never to tell anyone that My Best Friend's Wedding made his heart hurt.
Jake stopped thinking about the wedding, as Guns N' Roses came on the radio. He jammed out, knowing that he was two minutes from work. Parking and getting out, he did a cursory check in the mirror to make sure neither Annie nor Mackenzie had gotten oatmeal on his jacket. Walking to his office, he threw his bag down and checked his inbox and email, waiting for Dwyer to get his city boy self in here. They mostly worked major investigations, which was Darton county's squad for anything but drugs, rapes, or kids. Mostly, they handled rural issues, but were called upon for missing persons/animals, hate crimes, threats, stalking, animal cruelty, pornography, and prostitution/human trafficking. Needless to say, there was never a slow day. Except for today, today seemed to be pretty slow.
As he reviewed case files, Jake's mind couldn't avoid thinking about the fight they'd had on their wedding night. Most couples spent it together, but he'd spent it explaining his dream to his wife, over and over. He couldn't start their marriage without her knowing, even though she'd exclaimed, "You married me because of a nightmare?" And burst into tears. It had, after all, she told him later, been a stressful day, and she hadn't eaten much at the reception.
He'd hadn't known what to do, until he said, "I'm sorry."
"What?" Her eyelashes had glittered, and he wished he could hold her, so he did, and she repeated herself, "What for, exactly?" Her hair had still been done from the wedding, and she'd been pulling out pins as he'd talked. One hit the floor as her hands shook.
"I'm sorry I didn't believe you, when you were thirteen, and told me your dreams were freaking you out." He said, recalling the time Sue had come to visit and insisted their horses could have an equine slumber party so the would be forced to talk it out. "This one did, Brat. I would have torn the earth apart ounce by ounce in that dream, to make you understand your place in my life." He had sighed, "I spent months afterwards, analyzing everything, even asking Grandfather what the sandwich had meant." He had, too. Somewhere in the attic in a cardboard box, there was a notebook with all of his thoughts in it.
Sam, unable to hide her interest, had asked, "What'd he say?"
Jake put on his Grandfather's Mid-Atlantic English accent, and said, "Jacob, sometimes a sandwich is just a sandwich." He'd never told Grandfather, but that sandwich had saved his marriage before it had even really started.
"You have a sandwich, buddy?" Dwyer interjected, interrupting his thoughts. He must have been muttering aloud. "No time to eat. We have a case."
"Yeah." Jake said, tossing a file towards his partner, "livestock theft south of here." Glad they weren't required to be at roll call, they loaded up in a department truck and headed out. "Some prized, purebred goats."
Dwyer said, "Destruction of property, too." He paused, confused, "Goats have a breed? Like dogs?"
Jake restrained himself from rolling his eyes, knowing that if Katie were here, she'd start lecturing. She was really good with the goats, from daily care to helping Sam with the cheese and lotions. She did a lot of goat exhibition for 4-H. Dwyer should count himself lucky. "Go back to Fresno, Meredith."
The man bristled at being called by his first name, and they spent the morning talking to Mrs. Henkman about her missing does. Riding back to the squad, Jake's personal phone rang. With a look of apology to Dwyer, he saw that it was Sam's phone on the other end. He answered, only to hear the scuffling of the cell phone that came when Mackenzie had it.
"Kenzie?" He asked.
"Daddy!" She cried, "I talk!"
"Alright, you go on then."
"No talk, Daddy! I talk." She began to tell him some wild story about her stuffed animals. "'ake, I dress. 'ake ate, too, and then rawr!" She growled, and giggled, dropping the phone. "Then books! Mama!" She exclaimed obviously talking to her mother, "I talk to Daddy. No..." She replied sternly to a question, "you not talk to Daddy too. My Daddy..." She stressed.
Sam came on the line, "Sorry. She got the phone while I was in the bathroom. I really have to go now. Combined second grade and Kindergarten science calls..."
He replied, "Don't blow up the kitchen..."
"That was totally Cougar's fault." She quipped.
"Uh huh." He said.
"If you're not going to be nice, I'm going to hang up. Goodbye." The line went dead, but he knew she was happy with him.
Dwyer asked, "Your kids call you Jake?"
Jake shook his head. He'd tried for Dad, but Katie had said Daddy first, and it had stuck. Now, every time he heard someone say Daddy, he turned his head. "That's her stuffed animals."
"She calls them Jake?" Dwyer laughed.
"Yes, every last one of them." Jake intoned, and Dwyer laughed.
The afternoon was taken up by paperwork, and Jake spent most of it thinking. Today was the day, the day mentioned in his dream. Today was the exact date Maya had mentioned. Reality was nothing like his dream world, and for that he was grateful. When Annie had been on the way, rather soon after the twins, it seemed, Jake had tugged lightly on Sam's braid and told her it was his life's ambition to be adored by many women. And in a way, it was true. He wouldn't trade any of them for a lifetime of the high profile existence he'd had in the dream.
Sam had made most of the sacrifices for their children, he knew, from giving them houseroom in her body, to nursing them without complaining to them or letting them know that it had changed her body in ways that sometimes left her feeling low. Sam gave up most of her career to work on a freelance basis, homeschooling all of them with as much as enthusiasm as she'd ever had for anything. She'd told him, at two o'clock in the morning, when Katie had a cold, and she was about five months along with Annie, that she was going to stay home with them permanently, and he could go hang if he didn't like it.
He was very involved, but he knew that she was in charge with the girls. They were her girls, and she was their mother. There was a bond there that he knew she'd missed out on her herself, and it was one he could never attempt to define. Every day that he saw Sam loving his children, not only because they were the most awesome people on the planet, but because they were his too, left Jake humbled and more in love with her everyday. It also made him love his mother more, if that were possible.
As he was walking through the store, his phone buzzed with a text from Sam. It read: "Since you're stopping for candy, get me some oranges. At least five. I need citrus. Also, your horse is a Witch." He paused in the candy aisle, trying to decide what size bag of M&Ms to buy, staring at the text. He settled quickly for the larger bag. How did she know he was stopping for M&Ms? Was he that predictable? Was she that predictable?
He quickly sent back a text that read: "? ? ? ? ?" and bagged half a dozen oranges. There was no reply to his text. She was probably busy, but his own mind was whirling. Grapes, strawberries, carrots, tomatoes... Did oranges come next? He chided himself. It was entirely possible she just wanted an orange. An orange did not mean she was pregnant. But...other things might, and knowing them, other things usually did. He walked towards the check out, glad to be out of there quickly.
On the way home, his father called, and they spoke for nearly the whole drive back about things on the ranches. Now that all three outfits were run by family, him, Wyatt, and Dad, there was a lot of coordination and cooperation that made things simpler. After the time he'd fallen through the roof, they'd had to work together to help while he recovered. His heart had been fine. They still tested it from time to time, but they'd assumed since then that it had been a reaction to the medications. Jake knew exactly what it had been. His body had been recovering from the terror that was his nightmare. He'd spent months thinking about it, asking people what had happened, and had come up with a timeline.
The moment he'd woken up in his dream had been the moment of impact. The times that scenes had faded, for lack of a better word, were longer in reality. Every time someone had said "Mama..." He'd been calling for his own mother. When someone asked him the date, his father, he thought, Maya had been questioned. The unbearable pressure in his arm was when his shoulder had been reset at the hospital. The buzzing and the light pen had been a doctor checking for responses and the monitors. Later, his mother had told him he'd called out for Witch, and Sam.
He'd been scared years ago, when he'd realized with sudden clarity that the moment he'd touched her in his dream had been the moment she'd appeared by his bedside, rushing when Seth called her, and taken his hand. When he'd said "No..." and begged her not to leave him in his dream, he had stopped breathing, and Sam was forced aside by the nurses. Later, she'd been whispering, begging him to come back to her, begging him to understand that she loved him, though she hadn't admitted that until nearly a decade later. It was always known to him that his mother's prayers had brought him back fully.
Jake parked the truck, somewhat surprised that a horde of girls wasn't swarming it by now. Walking slowly up the steps, he heard "Dancing with Myself" and saw Kenzie dancing with Katie, and Annie with Kitty. They were dancing around, being silly. Jake got it. When the girls got angry and frustrated with one another, sometimes Sam would pick a song and start dancing. Eventually, the girls would join in and three minutes later, they'd be happy with each other and would go back to their previous task. He joined in, setting the grocery bags on the counter, whispering in Sam's ear as Billy Idol sang, "Do we need to talk?'
She watched the girls spinning and giggling, "Make sure you ask about Annie's art project. Fractions were terrible, by the way."
"Brat..." He sighed.
She never replied, as the song ended and they sat down to dinner. He dogged her steps, but she wasn't talking. Not that she could, anyway, with the girls in the room. A moment later, there were boots coming up the steps. Cody's windblown self appeared in the room seconds after his voice called out hopefully, "Did I miss dinner?"
Jake shook his head. The kid was around daily, mostly after school, eating him out of house and home, helping on the ranch. Cody really was an awesome kid. Sam grinned, "No, go on and get yourself a plate, baby."
Cody flushed. He was nearly 16, as he liked to say, and still being called baby by his big sister. Jake knew that in many ways, Sam and Cody's relationship was very maternal. She treated him very much like she did the girls rather than how she treated his brothers. Cody, she had once said, was very much like who she'd thought a son of theirs might be, bright and hardworking. Cody sat down, and they began to eat, the girls talking a mile a minute about school and pestering Cody, who bore it with grace. He was pestered equally by his sister, who used every bit of her journalistic skill to get him to talk about school and his goings on. Randomly, if there was a lull, Sam would throw out a question, or Jake would, mainly for the twins, but sometimes for the others. Verb declensions, questions about their lessons, were tossed around the table, often in a silly way. After the twins and Annie ran off, simply because Cody needed their attention, Sam held Mackenzie on her lap. Cody said, "I need advice."
Jake nodded. He thought he knew what was coming. Cody began, "I...want to take Lissy to a concert."
Sam asked, "And..?"
"Will you smooth it over with Dad?" He began, "Connor is driving, and he's taking Hillary..."
Jake could have died as Sam blurted, "Is this a date?" Cody blushed, and Sam grinned, "Cody! Do you need a ride? I can totally drive you guys." She smiled wider as Mackenzie babbled about her dinner, and scrambled down from her mother's lap, calling, "Jake! I get Jake!" Being that her attention was elsewhere, Sam missed Cody's look of desperation he directed at Jake.
Jake said, as gently as possible, "He's got a ride."
"Yeah, but..." Sam began.
"Brat. He doesn't want somebody who changed his diapers around while he's..."
"You're vile." She said, without malice, but admitted to the truth behind his words, "I guess. It's alright, baby. I get it." Though she seemed sad about it, she smiled, saying, "I'll do what I can to smooth it over with Dad." Cody breathed a sigh of joy. Sam continued, her reporter's glint coming to her eye, "But we really should talk first. What kind of concert is it?"
"Uh, Indie Dance Pop. Sort of. It's..." Cody trailed off.
"Hip." Sam nodded, "Right. Well. I know how those things go. One time, in Vegas... Well, anyway, there was this concert, and we went...There was this...and uh, after..." Sam trailed off.
"Sam. Your point?" Cody asked, having no way of knowing that Sam was talking about a Western Underground concert they'd gone to while at school. Sam had gotten a beer spilled on her, and Jake forever associated the scent of cheap beer and LeDouxian music with the frenzied rush of emotion that had followed after.
Jake saved her brother from a permanent blush. "We'll help you out with Wyatt. But on two conditions. One is that you behave as a gentleman. The other is that you behave rationally."
Cody stammered, "Right. Course." He looked taken aback, soft spoken and shy as he was around girls. "What were you trying to say, Sam?"
She smiled, and put on an accent, "And this one time, at band camp..." Cody just looked confused at the reference, which made Sam glare, and open her mouth, only to be cut off.
Sam was cut off by a crash and a bellow, "Mama! Mama!"
Another voice joined Katie's "Come 'ere! Mama!"
Sam rose quickly, "Duty calls." She bounded up the stairs, "Who pulled over the small bookcase?"
"I wanted my Pony book, Mama..." He heard Annie reply.
Sam obviously handled it, and the girls trooped down after her. She nodded at Jake, "You need to bolt that shelf in Annie's room to the wall." She looked to Cody, "Look after them, please?"
Cody nodded, "Do they need to do anything?"
"Uh, not perish in the next hour..." Sam said, smoothing Annie's soft brown hair.
Cody nodded, "Right."
Sam informed the girls, "Your father and I have to go check on some things. Cody is going to stay with you and do a read aloud." She passed Mackenzie over to her brother, asking, "Whose turn is it to pick?"
Annie said, "Kitty's today."
Kitty said, "Can we do the next chapter of Homer Price?"
Sam nodded, "That's great!" and herded the girls into the living room. Jake smiled, as Katie wrapped her arms about his waist. It still amazed him that he and Sam, two of the most reticent, closed off people he knew, had raised such vibrant and affectionate daughters, who were as kind and intuitive as they were outspoken and stubborn. Sam was still such a brat, and had gotten exactly what she wanted with tonight's read aloud. Katie whispered, "Can I come, Daddy?"
He shook his head. "Tell you what, though. Tomorrow." He tucked a wave behind her ear, as it had been stuck in her glasses frames. "We'll do something."
She grinned, so much like her mother, "Can I help you look at the well pump?"
He'd been thinking of letting her and Kitty help with their latest case, a horse owned by a high profile politician that needed some TLC after a bomb scare at a rally. He'd let her decide tomorrow. With a nod, he followed Sam out to the barn after collecting Witch, watching in silence as she tacked up Tempest, obviously having exercised Ace earlier in the day when the girls were out with her. He almost hated having to work, leaving her to manage the day to day logistics of the ranch, even as he loved his job. He watched as she glittered, so alive in the moment. Sam turned her head after Tempest alerted her to his presence, and she met his eyes. All he could think in that second was "Oranges."
Sam snorted, a small laugh, "Huh?"
He'd spoken aloud. "Brat." He pulled his hat down, "You know exactly what I'm asking you."
"Uh huh." She nodded he began to tack up. "How are you feeling?"
God, she expected him to talk about his feelings. "About what?"
She spoke as they rode out in the evening sunlight, heading out to check on the cattle and check their water. "Today being the day."
He paused, thinking, as she opened a gate, they went through, and he closed it. "I'm glad I didn't wake up in an alternate universe."
She said, "Sort of felt like we did. Kenzie woke everyone so early."
He thought, "Maybe we should delay her bedtime if she needs less sleep or something."
Sam spoke as they rode along, looking towards the horizon. "Probably the change in the time of year."
"Maybe." He paused, knowing how exciting the weeks in early spring, before the cattle drive, could be. "Sam?"
"Huh?" She asked.
He had no clue what to say. No way of knowing how to express all of the emotions he was feeling, ones that had built up as this day approached, only to find that it was a somewhat more sedate than normal Tuesday in the Forester-Ely house. Sam wasn't working a story, hadn't run with the wild horses in at least a week or two. He'd had a dull day at work, which had left him lots of time to think. He didn't know if his dream had been a dream or a peek into an alternate path he might have taken. He never found out if that girl had been Perdita, nor had he seen her since. From time to time he wondered what it all had meant, but sometime over the last few years, he'd realized that it didn't matter, because he was where he was supposed to be. He was who he was always supposed to be.
He tried to speak, "You know I..." He trailed off. He wanted to say a million things. You know I love you, love them, wouldn't trade all of this for anything. I'm not the person I was at five, at twelve. That Jake Ely didn't know what he had but I...
Sam replied, "I know." She grinned, "Guess what else I know?"
Witch's ears niggled as he tensed slightly, "What?"
"Oranges." She smiled.
"When?" He asked, summarizing all of the questions he had, all of the thoughts rushing through him. He'd figured out that Kenzie was coming before Sam had, buying an EPT and a can of V8 at the same time, pressing into her hands as she told him there was no way. With Annie, they'd figured it out together, sitting on the couch, folding the piles of laundry they thought were huge then. The twins had been a surprise to him, even though they'd been planned by their mother, over eggs and toast, at least two years before their existence, even on a cellular level.
She replied softly, "Around my mother's birthday..."
"She's going to be Louise, then?" Jake asked, knowing that there was a reason they'd waited to use the name. It had never felt right, Sam had said. She didn't want her girls to be considered a copy, a replacement, for anybody.
She nodded, even as he statement was negative, "This one's a boy."
He asked as they neared their destination, "How do you figure?"
She replied, "I'm hardly sick at all. And we have four girls. Five would just..."
Five would just be perfect. In fact, five was perfect. In two minutes, their world had shifted again. It had grown, expanded, in some way. Of course there were risks, this early, though he did not voice his concerns about her health or ask about doctor's appointments. Rather, he sent a up a prayer that this baby would be a girl, because really, the gender neutral baby stuff Sam had collected over the years had slowly morphed into an explosion of pepto-bismal pink, most through gifts from people, who did not get that Sam was serious when she'd gone for a gender neutral palate of cream and mint green. Naturally, they said, pink was the perfect complement to her choices.
And really, his mind added, a boy named Louise was worse than a boy named Sue. Thank God they homeschooled, or else poor Lou would get his teeth kicked in on the playground. Although...with lots of big sisters to watch his back... No, he amended, this baby was a girl. Unless, a thought hit him, it was twins. Again.
As Sam dismounted and he followed, he wrapped his arms about her in the middle of a huge pasture filled with bovine onlookers.
Yes, today had been the day, and it was better than any dream his brain could have cooked up.
So, you've just witnessed one of the greatest failures as a writer. I'm unable to write only children. I come from a large family, what can I say?
I tried very hard to make "the day" Maya mentioned a boring, average day for them. Except for, you know, Oranges.
Apologies if my math doesn't add up. I'm worse at math than the twins.
Please Review, as this story is now complete.