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Another couple of weeks passed,and Lee stood at the kitchen sink in the farmhouse, washing his hands when the front door opened.
“Hey-ho!” Will yelled. “We’re here.” His boots clomped on the floor, and he entered the kitchen a couple of moments later, laden with tray upon tray of chocolates.
Lee stepped away from the sink and took a towel from the handle of the oven. “Wow,” he said, eyeing the sweets. “What have we got here?”
“These are the truffle choices,” Gretchen said, following her fiancé into the back big room of the house with a single tray in her hands. “I made eight flavors, but I really only want to serve four at the wedding.”
Will slid his trays onto the counter, and as they were stacked perpendicularly, they didn’t smash the candies below them. “Trav said he was almost here.”
“Yep.” Lee re-hung the towel. “He went to get Shay, and he picked up Rose at her office too.” Things with Rosalie had been better over the past dozen days. Lee had kept all of his promises, and when he went to town to pick up Ford, he saw her. When he dropped Ford back at his mother’s, he then swung by Rosalie’s.
He still hadn’t met her daughter, but Lee hadn’t brought it up again. He was all-in with Rose, and if she needed extra time to be sure about him, he’d let her have it. He probably wouldn’t have introduced her to Ford so early in the relationship had it not been for Travis’s wedding, and he didn’t worry about meeting Autumn. He had supreme confidence that he would when the time was right.
“How are things with you and Rose?” Gretchen asked. She didn’t look at him as she started moving chocolates around according to some pattern Lee couldn’t follow.
“Great,” he said. He and Will exchanged a glance, wherein his brother smiled at him. Lee wasn’t sure what to do with a conversation where he wasn’t growling at someone about some problem around the farm, so he didn’t say anything else.
“Where’s Mama?” Will said into the silence.
“She and Daddy went for a walk,” Lee said. “They said they’d be back in time for the tasting.”
The door that led into the garage opened, and Daddy came up the last step and into the house. He held the door with his foot and reached back to help Mama. She’d been doing well since her time in the hospital. The doctors had released her on Sunday morning as Lee had predicted. He, Rissa, Will, and Trav had taken an around-the-clock vigil for the first three or four days, just to make sure their parents had someone here should they need anything at all.
“Mama,” Rissa said, and Lee’s attention swung back to the arched entrance from the front door. “Daddy, where’s her oxygen?”
“We were just out in the oxygen,” he said, frowning at his youngest daughter.
“The tank is too cumbersome,” Mama said, though she did look a bit pale. With the way the sun beat down these days, that shouldn’t be the case.
“Rissa,” he said, moving around the island. “It’s right here.” He latched onto Mama and steadied her over to the couch, where her oxygen tank waited. “Sit down, Mama.” He whispered those words as Rissa and Will started to argue behind him. He blocked them with his body and helped his mother onto the couch.
He handed her the tubes, and she fitted them into her nose and around her ears. “Thank you, dear.” She patted Lee’s hand, but he didn’t straighten.
“You’re okay? Thirsty?”
“Daddy’s getting me a drink,” she said. “The pond is lovely.” She gave him a smile, and Lee couldn’t help his soft, loving smile in return.
“Ford said the same thing over the weekend,” he said.
“Dad!”
Lee twisted to see his son as he heard his voice. He got to his feet as Ford came running around his uncle Will, and the joy on Ford’s face brought whole new life to Lee’s chest. “Heya, buddy.” He scooped him up into a hug. “I didn’t think you were comin’ until tomorrow. Your mom said you had a practice tonight.” Piano or swimming or something. Lee couldn’t keep up with all the things Martha enrolled Ford in during the summer months. She still had to work as a dental hygienist, and Ford often spent the whole summer at the farm.
This week, he’d been at Martha’s for a swim meet. That was right. Swimming.
“The meet got canceled.” Ford’s whole face was one big sunbeam. “The pool had to close because of some chemical issue.”
“Too much chlorine,” Travis offered from across the kitchen island. “People were goin’ home with burns.”
“Wow,” Lee said, looking back at his son. “But you’re okay?”
“Yep.” Ford squirmed, and Lee put the child down. “Uncle Trav said there was gonna be a lot of chocolate.” He catapulted himself onto a barstool while Lee looked for Rosalie.
She stood back by the arch, neither in the conversation but not out of it either. She wore a smile as she watched Ford, and when she lifted her eyes to meet Lee’s, she seemed angelic to him too.
“Hey, baby.” He went past everyone else to take her into his arms. She smelled like cardboard and vanilla, and Lee loved it. “Travis didn’t kill you on the way in. That’s good.”
“I’m a good driver,” Travis said.
