Wes lifted a hand to look at the barn. “Holy shit, I totally forgot. I was here for Aspen and Hank’s wedding a couple years back.” Then Wes eyed Max. “Dude, we’ve met before.”
Maxwell laughed and nodded. “Yep, at the wedding, briefly. Come on in. Let me reintroduce you to my wife, Cyndi.” He started up the steps, but Wes stopped him.
“What about the land over there?” He pointed to a long wide expanse of tall grass and trees galore.
“Own that, too. The land on the side of the Jensen farm I sold to Aspen and Hank when they got married. They swore not sell to land munchers. I also own the acres surrounding my property. There’s a couple vacant farm houses that I’m not sure whether to break down or keep in the family.”
Wes pursed his lips and gripped Max on the shoulder. “I reckon you should keep it in the family.” Wes’s voice dipped into a lousy imitation of a southern drawl, mimicking Max’s.
“I reckon you got that right,” Max said, something crossing over his face as he silently communicated with Wes. “Houses will need some work, some serious elbow grease,” he said randomly.
I was totally starting to lose the conversation and moved ahead of the guys talking houses and land. Boring.
“No stranger to hard work,” was the last thing I heard Wes say. It probably should have worried me, but frankly, I was too interested in meeting my nephew to care about ranches and land.
“Come on, guys. I want to meet baby Jack!”
* * *
It was official. There was nothing sweeter than holding a baby only weeks old. The really cool part was that his eyes seemed like they were green, just like mine, Maddy’s, and Max’s. His hair even had brown tufts at the crown of his powdery-smelling head.
“I think he could end up a brunette,” I said out loud to no one in particular.
Cyndi plopped down next to me. “Really?” She smoothed her hand over his head. The second Jack felt or smelled his mamma, his lips puckered and his mouth started working in a sucking motion. Next came the head rooting around. “Oh, someone’s hungry,” she cooed at Jack.
Instead of going out of the room, Cyndi grabbed the blanket hanging over the couch, covered her shoulder and arm, wiggled something under the blanket, and I could hear Jack nursing. Life of a super mom.
“Does it hurt?” I asked, glancing down to where she was feeding her child.
“Not gonna lie, Mia. It hurts like hell the first few days, and your nipples can end up cracking and bleeding, but the connection you feel to your child, the nourishment he gets from your milk gets you past those first few days of torture.
“Torture?” I gulped.
She smiled. “Promise it’s worth it. Speaking of, congratulations are in order, I see,” she said, looking down toward my left hand.
I frowned. “Max didn’t tell you?”
Cyndi shook her head. “Sure he did. Are you kidding? That man waited all of two seconds to tell me. Basically the time it took for him to hang up the phone before he was screaming my name through the house to tell me that both his sisters were getting married. He woke up Jack and Isabel from their naps."
Glancing around the room, I made sure nobody was around. “If my Pops doesn’t wake up, I’m going to ask Max if he’ll walk me down the aisle.”
Cyndi’s eyes filled with tears, and she started to sniff. “You don’t know how much that will mean to him.” A tear fell down her cheek, and she swiped it away.
“Don’t cry.” I cringed, worried I shouldn’t have said anything.
“Honey, its hormones. I cry over everything. Hell, yesterday I was watching TV, and a commercial for Tums came on. The pregnant woman was pressing her hand to her heart. Yeah, that made me cry. Remembering the heartburn I had with Jack and I was a bundle of tears. Really, I’m fine.” She laughed.
Wow. Pregnancy jacks up a woman. Big time.
How would I handle it? Did I even want to? I thought of Weston holding our own son or daughter and decided, yeah, I’d go through just about anything to have a child with Wes's eyes staring up at me one day.
“Are you guys done? Having kids?” I asked as she pulled a sleepy Jackson out from under the blanket, readjusted her shirt, and put the blanket back over the couch as if nothing had happened. Yep, super mom.
“Nope. I think we’ll have another two children.”
My eyes widened to the size of Olympic pools. “Four kids!”
She grinned. “Max wants six! I compromised at four. He wants a big family around him at all times. Says it makes working hard worth it, and he loves coming home after a full day’s work to the sound of children. Plans to name one of them after you and Maddy, too. And I agreed.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Cyndi, you already did that with adding Saunders as Jackson’s middle name. You don’t have to do that. At all. Really.”