Page 25 of Redbird

He cringes. “Sorry.”

I give Gerard a look and he sighs, leaning on the counter. “Don’t swear like the men do, alright, son? You can swear when you’re older.”

Cash nods, twisting his hands. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

Gerard ruffles his hair and straightens. “Your mother and I want to talk to you.”

Immediately, Cash knows something big is coming. He narrows his pale eyes and they bounce from me to Gerard.

“You’re getting a brother or sister,” my husband says.

Cash’s brows shoot up. He sits there for a moment, the gears in his head working.

“Okay, where are they?” he asks.

I want to speak, but I feel like this is a significant moment for Gerard and Cash. So I stay quiet.

“Your mother is pregnant,” Gerard says. “The baby is growing right now, but in the spring, you’ll have a sibling. Just like when the cows were born last spring.”

This time, it’s my brows that shoot to my hairline.

“It’s not just like that,” I say. “I do not give birth like a cow.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Gerard. “It’s the general idea of it. Anyway, that’s all you need to know about it, son.”

We both wait, breath bated. I’m worried that Gerard opened a can of worms bringing up the birthing season as a comparison. Cash sits and thinks hard, his brow creased. Then he jumps off the counter and goes to the door.

“Okay, I guess I can wait that long,” he says.

I sigh with relief. “Can you go find your chair and set it up on the porch?”

He nods, heading down the hall. The front door slams.

“Do you think he knows about the cows?” I ask, worrying my lower lip. “Like, how the little cows get there?”

“No,” Gerard says, shaking his head.

He pulls me to his side and kisses the top of my head. I melt into him, listening to the bacon crackle on the stove.

“I don’t want him growing up too fast,” I whisper. “He’s only going to be my little boy once.”

‘”I know, redbird,” he says.

He goes to set the table up on the porch and I bring the food out. The air is balmy and the chirrup of frogs from the pond is peaceful.

Cash insists on eating on the porch step, his plate in his lap. We’re on the bench against the house. Gerard leans back, his knees spread, taking up half the bench. I lean against him, curling up in the bend of his arm.

I see everything laid out before us.

Gerard and I will grow older. Our children will become adults. I see Cash, as tall and big as his father, on a horse like Shadow. And from the corner of my mind’s eye, I see a woman with red hair. Riding a painted mare, like the wind.

All the pain of my past broke the day he met me in my first husband’s office. It took time and patience to pick up the pieces. But we pushed through and someday our children will be adults without the same burdens, because of what we did.

They’ll be free and safe on Sovereign Mountain. In the place that saved us both.

CHAPTER TEN

KEIRA

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