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“Can we start?” Henry asked. “Please-oh-please-oh-please?”
“Easy, buds,” I said, getting up and scooping Hen off the ground and planting a kiss on the top of his head. “You know how we do this – pass out the presents one at a time.”
My stomach tingled as I mentioned the gifts. There were tons of presents under the tree for everyone but the one gift I was interested in most was the small one right near the edge for Aubrey.
We went to work passing out the gifts, making our little piles. I sipped my coffee, putting my slippered feet up on the coffee table, Mom smacking them off with a scold, of course. As we unwrapped, I thought about the last few weeks, how much had happened.
The gunfight had been the talk of the town. It had also blown the lid off any privacy that we’d hoped to have here at Thousand Acres. Janet, the reporter in town, pounced on the whole thing, using it as fodder for her article. She even got Seth to throw in an unkind word or two before he turned tail and headed back to whatever rock he’d crawled out from under. We hadn’t heard from him since.
Wasn’t long before everyone knew about our situation. At first, I was worried—more for Aubrey than anything else. To our pleasant surprise, however, she didn’t care. She didn’t run like Tiffany had. In fact, she’d found the attention more amusing than anything else.
On top of it all, the news getting out pushed her to make a decision on moving in with us. We’d drawn up plans for expansions to the farms, a few buildings between here and Downing where Aggie would be in charge of her own crew with long-term intentions of connecting the lands into one big farming kingdom.
That was all down the road, however. For now, I had bigger things on my mind.
The kids went wild opening their gifts, not wasting any time playing with their new toys as the rest of us opened our presents. In the middle of it all, Aubrey rose and hurried over to the tree, snatching up four, identical, fist-sized boxes.
“Here you guys,” she said. “A little something for all of you.”
The guys and I shared the same look of confusion.
“But you have to open them in order.”
“In order?” Mac asked, looking at the underside of the box as if it might hold some clue to what it contained.
“Yeah. So, Mac goes first, then Adam, then the twins. Marcus first, since he’s a little older.”
Adam smirked. “So, it’s a seniority thing?”
“You’ll see. Open them!”
The guys and I shared a look before Mac opened his box, all of us craning our necks to get a look inside. There was nothing but a small, folded up piece of paper. Mac picked it up and opened it.
“I’m.”
“‘I’m’?” I asked. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Adam, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, opened his next.
“Having.”
My stomach jumped. I had a sense of what was coming.
Marcus opened his. “A.”
Ho-ly shit. I looked over at Mom and Dad, who seemed about ready to explode from excitement.
“Open yours, baby brother!” Marcus said, giving me a shove.
“Alright, hold on!”
My hands practically shaking with eagerness, I opened the package.
“Baby.”
The celebration started right away, all of us yelling out with happiness. Hugs went all around.
