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“Yes it is,” she said. “To think we get to claim them.”
“Not bad for a pair of lost kids who had no idea what they were getting into, hmm?”
“Not bad at all.” She tipped her face up to find his turned down to her. The love in his eyes warmed her clean through, and she moved to kiss his lips. “I’d do it all again. Hands down, no reserve. I’d say yes to you again in a heartbeat.”
“Would you?” He brushed her nose with his. “I might just hold you to that one of these days.”
“We go every time we come. I’d like for you to come. It’s really okay.”
Helen heard Connor’s low voice drifting from the hallway and knew she’d stumbled into a private conversation. Even so, she paused.
“I feel like that would be terribly invasive,” Jade whispered back. “Maybe the kids and I will just . . . I don’t know what. We’ll stay here. It might be good for Kellen to take a bit of a time-out anyway. We both know what would happen if he got too overwhelmed.”
“Kellen is having fun.” A mild rebuke carried in Connor’s voice, and then it softened again. “They would like to meet you, Jade. I’m sure of it.”
Ah. The Allens.
Helen’s heart squeezed for the difficult place Jade must feel she was in. Connor and Reid always visited Sadie’s parents when they were in town. On more than one occasion, Reid would stay with them—as that had been the normal place all three had stayed when Sadie was still alive. Helen had little doubt, in fact, that if it was just Connor and Reid on this trip and the Allens were still in their old home rather than the retirement village in town, the pair would still stay with them. And that would have been perfectly okay, because Reid was all Samuel and Eleanor had left of Sadie. That was sacred to Connor. It was sacred to all of them.
Such hard things.
Helen shut her eyes and lifted a quick prayer for Connor and Jade, as well as for the Allens. But especially for Jade. What a whirlwind holiday this was turning out to be for her. So much so that part of Helen hoped that Connorwouldn’tpropose.
Not in front of everyone, son, she silently pressed to him.
Then Helen sent up a quick prayer for guidance—and grace from both Connor and Jade as she inserted herself into a conversation in which she didn’t belong.
Clutching her hands, she strode forward anyway. “I’m sorry.”
Connor looked up, and Jade turned to face her. By the wide look in her brown eyes, the younger woman was terribly uncomfortable.
Helen reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Forgive me for being a nosy mom. I just overheard part of your conversation.”
Connor furrowed his brow and aimed dark eyes on her. Helen felt keenly her son’s irritation. Even so, she plunged ahead.
“I am certain, Jade, that Samuel and Eleanor Allen would like to meet you. At some point, anyway.” She looked up at Connor and held a meaningfulmomstare on him. “But I can also understand why you wouldn’t be ready for that on this trip. So I just thought I’d tell you that Kevin and I are taking the rest of the grands to the sledding hill for a few hours. We’d love it if you and Lily and Kellen came with us.” Helen gave Jade a small grin she hoped was only encouraging and then glanced again at her son. “I’m done interfering now. Carry on.”
Connor’s frown relaxed, and a hint of gratitude even filtered into his gaze as he nodded. Turning, Helen scurried away, leaving the awkward silence at her back.
“Go!” Little Isaac waved his hands as he sat in Lily’s lap, the pair of them folded onto a disk sled. Brayden gave them a hardy shove, and the air was rent with a three-year-old’s delighted squeal.
“I’m beating you!” Helene, Fiona’s little sister, yelled, though she was not. Alone on her disk on another path beside them, she trailed behind a good five feet.
At the bottom the older kids waved and cheered. Bobbie Joy bounced up and down, her ginger curls swinging from beneath her teal stocking cap. Beside her, Kellen also cheered. Helen smiled at that budding friendship. It seemed like a confirmation, a nod from heaven, that this shift in Connor’s life was blessed by God.
“You’re not winning, Helene!” Fiona, always the big sister and usually the boss, corrected from her spot on the other side of Bobbie Joy.
Helen chuckled as she watched from the bench near the pond. She scanned the area around the pond, simultaneously checking to make sure the kids stayed off the unstable ice and looking for the girls’ mothers, because likely Lauren was due a break from her youngest little storm cloud. Hopefully, baby Ainsley would outgrow her clingy neediness soon.
The pond was clear, but though she spotted Megan and Audrey chatting and laughing with Jade, and Becca and Kate at the top of the hill with Jackson and Jacob, distributing turns on sleds with as much fairness as possible, she didn’t spot Lauren and Kenzie. Come to think of it, where was Matt, Tyler, and Brandon?
Helen turned to Kevin, who begrudgingly sat at her side when he wanted to go and wrestle in the snow with some grandkids. “We’re missing some.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re missing some kids.”
Using his gloved hand, Kevin counted grandchildren. “Nope. All there but Reid, and he’s with his dad.”
