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Charlie and his family didn’t come to the dinner at the church, so it was the first part of the day Talulah was able to enjoy. She’d worked so hard to make the meal; her heart felt lighter just watching everyone appreciate it. The pleasure good food brought was part of the reason she liked to cook.
Maybe she’d gotten that from Phoebe, because her mother hadn’t been a particularly good cook...
As soon as people began to finish their meal, Talulah moved from helping serve the lasagna to slicing the triple-layer carrot cake and was gratified by how many of her great aunt’s friends exclaimed about the taste. Handling the funeral had turned out to be worth the extra effort, she decided. She’d given Phoebe a nice sendoff—one Talulah felt would meet even Phoebe’s stringent standards.
“Are you really smiling?” Brant said, feigning shock as he came over to get a slice of cake.
“All of this is almost over. That makes me euphoric,” she admitted. She had other problems waiting in the wings—problems seemed to be piling up there—but at least the funeral was nearly done.
“Charlie and Averil missed the best part,” he said. “This dinner was better than any funeral dinner I’ve ever had.”
He’d made the day so much easier for her—had been willing to stand by her even if it meant risking his relationship with the Gerharts. He was intensely loyal and a person who stuck to his ideals. But his support surprised her, considering that when she first bumped into him at the café last week she would’ve put him firmly in the enemy camp.
During the graveside service, when she’d felt so much hostility coming from Charlie and Averil, she’d seen Brant raise his eyebrows at Charlie whenever Charlie made a move toward her and knew Brant was the reason Charlie hadn’t attempted to speak to her. She was thankful for that, because anything Charlie had to say wouldn’t be nice. “Thanks for coming. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
He raised his dessert plate with the slice of cake she’d given him. “I’ve been well-rewarded.”
“I’ll send whatever’s left home with you for your brothers.”
“I’m sure they’d appreciate it. Sometimes I think that, pound for pound, they eat more than the cattle on the ranch.”
Her phone went off, startling her. She’d silenced the ringer except for calls coming from her sister’s number, so she knew who it had to be. “It’s Debbie,” she told him as she put down the knife she’d been using to cut the cake and dug her phone out of the small clutch she’d left on the table beside her.
“Do you think the baby’s coming today?” Brant asked.
Talulah shrugged. “Maybe she just wants to hear about the funeral,” she said. But as soon as she hit the talk button, there was no more doubt. Her sister yelled, “Hurry! It’s time!”
Talulah couldn’t keep her eyes open. After all the late nights with Brant, the stress of the funeral and the constant worry over the diner, especially now that Paul wasn’t taking care of it or responding to her, the relief of her nine-pound niece being born whole and healthy, and Debbie coming through the delivery without a problem, made it almost impossible to stay awake. Hospital personnel scurried up and down the corridor outside, talking, laughing and calling out information, and a nurse frequently came into the room to take Debbie’s blood pressure or try to get the baby to nurse. But none of that disturbed Talulah. It didn’t even faze her that she was in a rather uncomfortable chair.
“Hey, would you like to go to the house?” Scott asked, jiggling her shoulder to wake her.
She managed to lift her heavy eyelids. The proud father was holding his tightly bundled newborn in the crook of his arm like a football. “Um...sure. Why? Does your mom need to bring the kids home? I can watch them for you.”
“We don’t need you to babysit.” He kept his voice down so that he wouldn’t wake Debbie, who was sleeping in her hospital bed a few feet away. “They’re staying with my mother for a couple of days. I just thought you’d be more comfortable.”
Debbie stirred. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” her husband told her. “I’m just telling Talulah she can have our bed at home if she wants it.”
“Yeah. Feel free to go to the house, Lu,” her sister mumbled. “You’ll sleep better there.” After adjusting the blankets, Debbie drifted off again. She was obviously even more exhausted than Talulah was, and for good reason.
Talulah covered a yawn as she checked the time on her phone. It was nearly one in the morning. Debbie had been in the final stage of labor when she arrived, so it’d taken only another forty minutes for the baby to be born. “I’m not ready to leave yet—unless you’d like me to go so you can have some privacy with your wife and little Abby.”
“No,” Scott assured her. “We like having you here with us. We hardly get to see you these days.”
She gave him a sleepy smile. “I’m glad I could make it. I’d never seen anyone have a baby before.” She’d been so far away when Debbie had had her other children that by the time she’d arrived at the hospital, the deliveries were already over. “It was an incredible thing to witness.” It’d also made her keenly aware of what she had and didn’t have in her own life. Would she ever get married and have a child? Would she regret it later if she didn’t?
She’d believed she was slowly moving in the direction of marriage and family with Paul. And yet now...who could say? She cared about him, but was she capable of feeling anything stronger? That had always been the problem. She liked all the men she’d had relationships with, but never seemed to fall as hard as she should. At least settling down with Paul meant the diner would remain on solid ground.
Still, that wasn’t any reason to marry someone—or not therightreason, anyway. She remembered how appalled Brant had been when she’d said Paul was a nice guy.
She tried texting Paul one more time.Are you done giving me the silent treatment?She was beginning to lose patience with him. While she felt bad that he was upset, she’d never promised him her fidelity. They’d had many long talks about her inability to make a commitment to him. She hadn’t wanted to risk ruining the friendship they already had by creating expectations—which was exactly what had happened.
She’d given up waiting for a response and dropped her phone in her lap so she could nod off again when her screen lit up. Someone had sent her a text. But it wasn’t Paul. It was Brant.
Is everything okay?
He’d asked her to let him know when she’d arrived safely in Billings, but the whole baby thing had overwhelmed her and somehow the idea of sharing it with him had made her feel...strange—as though she was getting too close to him and needed to back away.
