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“I’ll cook.”
His eyebrows went up. “Is that so?” He wasn’t sure he wanted boxed macaroni and cheese. They’d finally gotten through all of the leftovers from the huge Independence Day celebration at the farmhouse, and Trav was secretly glad. He couldn’t eat another bite of potato salad, even if his mama’s had won a Texas State Fair blue ribbon seven times.
“Okay,” he said anyway, straightening and heading for the door.
He turned back and watched Shay snuggle in deeper into her pillow and closed her eyes. He envied her with a powerful jolt, but he couldn’t join her. The farm never slept. It didn’t rest. The cows had to be milked, and Travis turned and walked out before he lost a battle to his desire to go back to bed with his wife.
* * *
Hours later,Travis arrived back at his house, this time in his pick-up truck. Shay’s SUV still sat in front of the cabin, and he reached over to the passenger seat to get the folder of floorplans that had arrived at the farmhouse today.
His excitement shot off the charts, and he hurried toward the house in much the same manner as he had that morning. He’d texted everyone for Shay that he’d said he would, and he’d talked to Lee and Will just before the second milking had gotten started.
Will had said he’d go check on Shay, as he was going to be out this way to check on some leaking sprinklers in the fields behind the two cabins out here.
“Travis,” someone called, and Travis looked right, finding Rissa coming down the front steps of the cabin next door.
“Heya, sissy.” He detoured toward her, smiling at the way she held tightly to the railing, her front-heavy belly making her more unstable the closer her due date came.
“How’s baby Trav?” he asked, his favorite joke for Rissa.
“He’s great,” Rissa said. “We’re not naming him Travis.”
“Come on,” Travis said, embracing his sister in a hug. “Maybe just a middle name.”
“We’re using Spencer as a middle name.” She smiled at him as she stepped back.
“So what’s his first name?”
“We haven’t decided,” Rissa said, but Travis didn’t believe her any more now than he had the first time she’d said that.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m so good at keeping a secret.”
Rissa laughed and slapped at his chest. “You’re literally the worst secret-keeper there is.”
“Worse than Lee?” Travis grinned and danced away from his sister’s reach.
“Fine, I’ll give you Lee.”
Travis looked over his shoulder to his cabin. It was still standing, with no smoke rising from the corner where the kitchen sat. Shay wasn’t the best cook in the world, but Travis didn’t really think she’d burn the place down.
“Did you need me?” he asked his sister.
“I was hoping to do something fun for Ford’s birthday,” she said. “Will and Gretchen are going to help. Mama and Daddy are on-board. I’ve even talked to Rosalie. You and Shay are the only ones I haven’t talked to yet.”
“Thanks for coming right next door and running things by us first,” he said dryly. Travis already hated being the last son in the Cooper family, and he strongly disliked being left out in any way.
“You and Shay work so much,” Rissa said, frowning. “I didn’t leave you out on purpose. I just talked to Rosalie on the phone this morning.”
Travis swallowed back his hurt feelings. “All right,” he said. “What’s the plan?”
“Is Shay home?” She nodded toward the SUV in front of Travis’s cabin.
“Yeah, she fell on her run this morning.”
Alarm passed through Rissa’s expression. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She whapped his bicep. “I could’ve taken her some lunch.”
He flinched away from her. “Ow. Will checked on her, andshesaid she was makin’ lunch for us today.”
