We tell the crew at lunch.
Maisie has been sitting on this information for four hours with the focused restraint of someone sitting on the most exciting news of their life.
I respect the effort even though I can see it costing her considerably by eleven o'clock when she starts appearing at doorways and then disappearing again with the contained energy of a pressure cooker approaching capacity.
At noon I call everyone to the tailgate.
Remy arrives with his sandwich, his hat, and the unsuspecting ease of a man who thinks this is a regular lunch.
Silas arrives with his thermos. Both of them sit down and look at the food and then at Beckett and me standing rather than sitting and then at Maisie who is vibrating slightly beside us.
Remy looks at Maisie, then looks back at us.
Sets his sandwich down.
"Something's happening," he says.
"Something's happening," Beckett confirms.
I look at the two people who have been here for all of it. Who watched a moving truck get stuck in the mud and a billionaire flood an east field and a city man slowly become someone who belongs on a ranch.
Who teased, supported, protected, who showed up and stayed.
Who became family without anyone calling a meeting about it.
"We're having a baby," I say.
The tailgate is quiet for exactly two seconds.
Maisie releases everything she's been holding for four hours in one sound that carries across the ranch yard and probably reaches Silver Ridge.
Remy stands up, sits back down, then stands up again.
Points at Beckett. Points at me. Points at the general situation. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks at Silas.
Silas looks at me. Nods once.
The nod is, exactly as Maisie predicted, extremely meaningful.
"I knew it," Remy says finally. Finding his voice somewhere in the vicinity of overwhelmed. "I knew something was going on last night. June kept looking at her jacket pocket and Pearl had that face." He points at me again. "You had that face."
"What face," I say.
"The face you get when something is too big to fit in your expression." He sits back down. Picks up his sandwich. Sets it down again. "We're having a baby," he says to nobody specifically. Like he's testing how it sounds out loud.
"We're having a baby," Beckett confirms.
Remy looks at Maisie. "You knew this morning."
"Since breakfast," she says with tremendous satisfaction.
"You kept that in for four hours."
"It was very hard," she says honestly.
Remy looks at her with genuine respect. "That's impressive."
Silas refills his thermos cup. Looks at Beckett across the tailgate. "Good," he says.
