Chapter 2

When Victoria went back inside, she found her son and his wife sitting together on the sofa, Jarrod with his arm around his wife. He looked back at his mother coming in the door. "So what was all the secret talk about?" he asked.

Victoria was able to smile and tell him only half of it. "Oh, well, we were discussing a housewarming gift for you."

Jarrod laughed. "The gift was the house!"

"Well, partly maybe," Victoria said and sat down in the armchair. "But we want you to have the buggy and Clara, too."

Jarrod's and Maggie's eyes went wide.

"You're going to need a buggy," Victoria said. "Maggie's horseback riding days are over for a while. And neither Jingo nor Candy is much of a draft horse, while Clara is not much good with any other buggy."

"That's lovely, Victoria," Maggie said. "Thank you so much. You've given us much, I don't know what to say."

"You've said it," Victoria said. "Now, may I make some coffee for us?"

Jarrod popped up. "No, that's my job today," he said and went into the kitchen.

And then stopped.

"Something wrong?" Maggie asked.

Jarrod turned around. "I don't know where anything is, do you?"

Maggie began to laugh. "Actually, no."

"Well, I guess I'll have to hunt," Jarrod said.

Victoria's eyes sparkled as she settled into the armchair and looked at her son and his wife settling into their new home. "After some coffee, I'll need to be getting back to the house. Audra is coming over later and we're going to work on more of those thank you notes for her wedding gifts."

"There must be scores of them," Maggie said.

"There are," Victoria said, "and Audra is the procrastinator in the family."

"I've always tried to break her of that," Jarrod said, finally finding the coffee and now in search of the pot. Then he saw it on the stove, where he realized he should have looked in the first place. He began to make coffee.

"We can't all be as punctual and organized as a lawyer," Victoria said.

"Well, this organized lawyer can't find the cups," Jarrod said.

Maggie laughed. "Keep looking. They're in there somewhere."

XXXXXXX

Nick and Heath were working on repairing part of a barbed wire fence that had come down when a tree fell on it. It was becoming late morning, and they had finished up and were reloading the wire and tools into the wagon they'd brought out, when Heath rested his arms on the wagon and Nick took a drink of water from the canteen.

They hadn't talked much all morning. Something about what their mother had said before they left The Grove had them both reflecting quietly, but now Heath said, "You know, we got a lot of things to think about – about the future, about Jarrod."

"Things I don't want to think about," Nick said.

"Things we have to think about," Heath said. "Mother is going to be too torn up to think about them when it happens, and we don't know when it's gonna happen. We need to be ready, you and me."

Nick looked over at him. "Do we need to be ready right now?"

"No, I don't think so, but I'm not sure. I know Mother started me thinking about things. I suspect she started you thinking about things, too."

"Yeah," Nick finally agreed and slammed the canteen down in the wagon. "I just don't want to." The anger began to rise up inside him. It hadn't done that before, but now he wanted it to. He was angry about a future without his older brother. He wanted to be angry and stay angry.

Heath saw it. "Look, I don't mean we have to plan for everything, just maybe get it set between the two of us, who's gonna handle what, or who. Mother's gonna need somebody, Maggie's gonna need somebody. You and me need to know how we're gonna take care of them."

Nick heaved a sigh. "We could pretty much toss a coin to decide that."

Heath immediately pulled out a coin and tossed it. "Call it."

"Heads," Nick said.

"It's heads. Who will you look after most?"

Nick thought about it. "Mother, I guess."

"Then I'll look after Maggie. Carl can look after Audra."

"Well, yeah. Look, I don't want to talk about this anymore today. We just decided enough."

"Okay," Heath said.

They both put their shirts back on and climbed into the wagon. Nick was set to drive, but he hesitated. He had calmed down a bit. He had begun to understand that Heath was right, they had to be ready for the future. "You know," he said, "there's gonna come a time Jarrod's gonna want to talk about this. He's gonna need to know we got the family taken care of. So he doesn't worry."

"I know," Heath said. "I expect we oughtta let him tell us when it's time."

"But you were right. We oughtta get it settled between us, how we're gonna handle this. I'm not sure he needs to know who's gonna take care of who, but he needs to know enough to settle his mind some."

They looked at each other.

Heath said, "If he took us aside today and said he wanted to be sure his family would be taken care of, what would we say?"

Nick thought about it. "I'd say Heath and I have talked about it, and we've talked to Mother about it, and whatever Maggie wants, she'll have. Whatever she needs, we'll provide it. Whatever his child needs, his uncles with give it."

Heath smiled a little. "That's a pretty good thing to say, Nick."

"Enough of this," Nick abruptly said and slapped the reins, and they didn't talk about it anymore.

XXXXXXX

Jarrod and Maggie spent the first night after dinner on the porch swing, enjoying the cool breeze and listening to it rustle through the trees down in the grove. They didn't even say much, just held hands, Maggie's head on Jarrod's shoulder. Until suddenly Maggie said, "Oop!"

"What?" Jarrod asked.

Maggie had sat up straight. "Wow, what a kick!"

Jarrod put his hand on her swollen belly, and he felt another kick. "He is a strong one, isn't he?"

"I just hope he's not too eager to get out," Maggie said. "I'm not really ready for him to show up yet."

"You're not due for another three months or so. I doubt he's doing anything other than rearranging the furniture."

Maggie laughed and settled back again. "He'll be here before you know it, and our lives will be turned all around again."

Jarrod thought about that – and he thought ahead, to more children, or maybe not. He kissed Maggie's forehead and brought her head to rest on his shoulder. "Can we talk honestly?"

"Always," Maggie said. "What's troubling you?"

"Not exactly troubling. I've just been thinking how lucky I've been, but I have a bigger responsibility coming. I can't just depend on luck."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I have to – WE have to start thinking ahead. I have to make sure that everything is settled for you and the baby – for after I'm gone."

He hesitated, but Maggie knew better than to cut him off. Even though she wasn't sure she wanted to talk about what he wanted to talk about right now, he needed to. And he was right. It was wise to have this conversation now, before she was too uncomfortable with the baby inside her, before he was born and took all of their time and attention.

Jarrod knew her silence was an invitation to keep talking. "I want you to give some thought about what you'll want to do after I'm gone," he said, keeping his emotions in check. "I know we've talked about it a little before now, and we'll talk about it more in the future, but the more we can plan for that time now, the more at ease I'll be with what's got to happen."

Maggie was still quiet.

Jarrod went on. "Money won't be a problem. We've got quite a lot in the bank, what with the sale of my practice and the house in San Francisco. You'll be able to take care of yourself and little Jarrod Junior and any brothers or sisters he might end up having. But will you want to stay here? Will you want to go back to San Francisco? Have you thought about that sort of thing at all?"

"Yes, I've thought about it. I haven't talked about it because – well, I suppose whether we stay here or not depends a lot on what your family has to say."

"I know they'll want you to stay, if you want to."

"They haven't said."

"I suppose they don't want to think about it anymore than we do. But we have to, you know."

"I know. We're having a child, and it's the sensible thing to do. I guess we better start looking for the right time to talk to your family."

"Would you like to stay here?"

"Yes, I think I would, but I don't really know for sure. I've only been here for a few months. If something happened before I'd been here for very long – well, I don't know, Jarrod."

"Would you like me to talk to my mother soon?"

Maggie was quiet for a long time. She finally said, "If the moment appears and it seems like it's the right thing to do – I suppose so. Or would it be best to see if she brings it up?"

"I'm not sure," Jarrod said. "It's been a lot tougher to talk to the rest of my family about my situation than it has been to talk to you."

"Mmm," Maggie said, understanding. "They're still grappling with it, maybe even more than we are."

"I've always been the take charge man in the family," Jarrod said with a little chuckle. "Kind of stepped in when my father died. Even helped raise Audra and Gene. I've been trying to keep Nick in line since the day he was born."

They both chuckled at that.

"I don't think they've been able to look to the day I'm no longer here," Jarrod said, "or at least they haven't been able to talk to me about it. We might have to prod them into it."

Maggie rubbed Jarrod's arm. "Let's let it brew a bit longer, unless the time comes they bring it up, or an opening appears. I'm certain you're not going anywhere anytime soon, and I'm not comfortable with the idea of prodding any of them yet."

Jarrod smiled. "I'm very definitely planning on being around for a while – especially to have time to roughhouse around a little bit with Jarrod Jr."

"Boy, I don't know. He's awfully strong already. He might be able to tackle you before he walks."

Jarrod laughed. "Then I'll send in Nick to rescue me. I can just picture Nick rolling on the floor with our little boy."

"I think we're both going to be startled if it's a girl."

"If it's a girl, she'll be the most beautiful girl ever born, and she will be spoiled rotten by her father and her uncles." Jarrod kissed Maggie on her forehead and rubbed her abdomen. "Whoever this little person turns out to be, we'll make sure there's plenty of love around, forever."

Jarrod lifted his wife's chin, and they kissed, and then they listened to the rustling of the leave again for a long time.