Page 118 of Bailey

Hilde: Oh, my heart! What great news!

Luke: Wow, wow, wow, that’s great, Lynnie.

Lynnie: Yep, I can’t wait for Nora to have more snuggles with Grandma and Grandpa!

Bailey’s stomach swooped, and her heart ached to be able to take her own child up to Whiskey Mountain Lodge for cuddles with her momma and daddy.

The texting ebbed for a moment, and Bailey rested her phone on her chest as she gazed out onto Reeves’s farm. The breeze blew, but nothing too bad this afternoon. The world turned slowly, and a keen sense of missing flowed through her.

She’d been sitting with the idea of being Reeves’s wife for a while now. The mother of his children. She’d been slowly imagining a life with him, and she honestly couldn’t stop building it in her mind.

So what if he was famous? He could handle it—and so could she.

Her phone buzzed again, and Bailey sighed a wistful sound out of her mouth as she lifted the device again.

This is Cecily Young, a new text said. I just wanted to thank everyone for their love and support and all the prayers for Jerry. His blood work has come back normal—that’s right, normal!—and it’s a complete miracle.

Tex: Well, he’s still in kidney failure, Momma.

Cecily: Yes, but we have a plan for that. Through all the tests and hospital stays, and that one surgery, we’ve finally found the true cause of it, and I’m grateful for that too.

That is good news, someone said, and others piled on, some of whom Bailey could identify, and some she couldn’t.

Part of her wanted to add every number to her contacts list, and another part of her shrank back from the idea in horror.

Let them love you. The words entered her mind, and she knew she needed to answer all their good news and try to come up with some of her own.

Cecily: They’re going to start prepping him for dialysis, so that if and when that becomes necessary, he’ll be ready.

Joey: Yay, Gramps! So glad the blood work is normal.

Her appearance on the Good News Thread caused a Young family uproar, and Bailey giggled through every message from her aunts and uncles, all of them wishing her the best and telling her to get off her phone and enjoy her newborn.

This is Bailey McAllister, she typed out, her arms starting to ache from how she held her phone above her body. The hammock swayed gently in the breeze, and she’d need to get home soon to let Hydrangea out. Then they’d come back here to feed the chickens and goats, and Bailey would then need to figure out dinner too.

She wanted to tell them all that she was in love with Reeves, but she didn’t want him to find out via text. No, she just wanted him to hurry home to her, where she’d tell him face-to-face. Where she could look him in the eye and express that she’d be at his side whenever someone tried to follow him home. Where she could kiss him and assure him that she knew she belonged with him, and that he’d protect her by turning off the camera anytime she wanted him to.

She couldn’t believe it had taken over two hundred texts from the Youngs of all people for her to find her way through her complicated feelings about Reeves.

And yet, it had.

This is Bailey McAllister, she read, and then she continued typing. And I love your big family. My good news is that I found and applied for a rural animal outreach grant, which if I get it, will fund large-animal emergency supplies and better equipment. I’ll take any prayers that I can get it, and if I do, I’ll start the Good News Thread next time.

She grinned at the message, and though her emotions quaked at the thought of actually sending it, she dropped her thumb to the arrow button and off it went.

I’ll pray for you, Bay, Bryce said, and her heart filled with love.

Same, same, Harry said.

Luke: I’ll get my whole family on it. The boys love praying about animals.

OJ: Bailey, you’re so going to get it! Your clinic is the best.

She hadn’t even realized the boy was on this thread, but she shouldn’t have been surprised.

We love you too, Tex said. Abby and I and the kids will pray you’ll get the grant.

This is Wade Ingalls, and I’ll pray for that grant. I need you to come look at my cattle, because they need all the help they can get.