Chapter 20

Amanda toured the house Lee had found and then they sat down to talk about it.

"Five bedrooms, three and a half baths – check," Lee said.

"Two sinks in the master bath so you can keep your watch on your sink and I can pretend it's not there – check."

'Finished basement we can turn into a rec room for our horde- check."

"Dining room big enough for a table that will seat twelve people - check."

"Twelve? How do you figure twelve?" Lee asked.

"The two of us, Mother and Curt, our three, plus a significant other for each of them."

"Significant other?"

"Lee, Leeanne is a young adult, and my boys aren't far behind her. They're going to grow up and get married, and I want all my children at my table for Thanksgiving. We do plan on living in this house for several decades, don't we?"

"Yes, but that only brings us up to ten."

"True, but we need to allow for a couple of extras – your uncle, for example, and whoever he wants to bring."

"Like Francine?"

"I wouldn't rule it out. Have you ever known him to drop everything and take a woman on a tour of West Point, even if he had to borrow an airplane and a car to do it?"

"No, but we weren't exactly close for all those years; he could have been doing that all the time for all I know."

"How likely is that? Seriously?"

"Not very likely," he admitted.

"I'm not suggesting that they're going to announce their engagement next week, Lee, but we're planning for the future here."

"Yes, all right."

"And speaking of the future, did you ever see an old movie with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda called Yours, Mine and Ours?"

"No. When did it come out?"

"In '68. It was a romantic comedy. She was a navy widow with eight kids and he was a widowed navy officer with ten. They fell in love and got married, and then they had another baby, so…yours, mine and ours."

"Amanda, in 1968, if the movie didn't star Clint Eastwood, I probably didn't see it. I certainly didn't watch a movie about a family of nineteen children."

"No, I don't suppose you did. Your education was sadly lacking in many areas, after all."

"Why are we talking about a twenty- year- old movie about a …. Amanda, are you trying to tell me that you're pregnant?"

"No, I'm not. Not pregnant, I mean. However, I'm not getting any younger, Lee, so if we decide we want an 'ours' baby to go with the 'yours' and 'mine', we probably ought to discuss it seriously sometime in the next year or so."

"Not now, though. I can't…. I'm not ready to be a parent."

"I have news for you, Stetson; you already are."

"You know what I mean!"

"Yes, I know what you mean. Anyway, that's why we need a dining room big enough for a table that will seat that many people. We don't need the table right now, but we do need to think ahead."

"If you put the leaf in, my table will seat eight, and most nights, we'll only need space for five."

"I like your table. I like all your furniture, really. Moving on… large yard, big enough for family cookouts – check."

"Two-car garage – check."

"Eat-in kitchen with updated appliances – check."

Amanda made the last check against their list of requirements for the blended Stetson-King family and said, "It's a go, Stetson. Let's sit down with Hugh and write up an offer before somebody else buys this place right out from under our noses."

The realtor Curt Weller had recommended, Hugh Phillips, had the paperwork ready. He guided them through the process and said, " I understand from Curt that he's buying your current house, Amanda, and paying cash for it."

"Yes, that's right. Lee has enough in savings to make up the difference, so this will be an all-cash offer."

"That should make things go faster, since you won't have to wait for mortgage approval. I'll get this offer to the seller's agent ASAP; you might hear something as early as this afternoon."

The house was vacant, the sellers having moved to a smaller home in Alexandria when the last of their adult children left the nest. It had only been on the market for four days, and competition was fierce, so Lee and Amanda hoped their offer would be good enough to beat any other offers that had come in.

They went back to the house on Maplewood and started packing, since it needed to be done and would give them something to do while they waited anxiously for word from Phillips.

"With five bedrooms to furnish, we're going to need to ship a lot of the furniture in the Denton house up here," Amanda said. "Some of this stuff is mine from when Joe and I were married, but some of it is Mother's, things she brought with her when we cleared out the old house after Daddy died."

"What was it you said about yours, mine and ours?"

At two that afternoon, Phillips called back. Lee answered the phone, because Amanda was sitting on the den floor, going through the bookshelves. The house they'd chosen had a fireplace and built-in bookshelves on both sides, but some of the books in her collection were left over from her college courses and she really needed to decide if she wanted to keep them.

"Stetson."

"Good news, Lee; your offer has been accepted. The sellers would like to close by the end of the month. Can you do that?"

"Yes; in fact, we should be able to close within the next two weeks. I'll need to check with Curt, but my money is readily accessible, and we really need to get everyone moved in before school starts right after Labor Day."