Page 50 of The Cowboy Who Looked Again

Fine, Alex and Henry were technically family, but they were the same age as Finn and Edith, and they didn’t work with them. It wasn’t a couples’ event, and Finn would’ve invited Mitch Glover too, if the cowboy hadn’t moved to Virginia literally a day ago.

He tossed the towel back onto the stove and headed for the master bedroom in the back of the house. “Hey, sweetheart, the horses want you to come out and see their new stalls.” He went through the open door, but didn’t see Edith getting dressed.

They had a teeny tiny master closet, mostly filled with her clothes, but only one person could stand in it at a time, and they didn’t get dressed in there.

“Edith?” He kept going and found her standing in the bathroom. She lowered the mascara wand and looked at him.

Finn knew instantly that she’d been crying. One, she’d already done her makeup for tonight’s party. She’d sent him a picture an hour ago. Two, her eyes held a little bit of puffiness around them, which she’d tried to hide with a watery smile.

Oh, and the tears leaking down both sides of her face totally clued him in. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked. She hadn’t sounded upset a minute ago when she’d called to him. He immediately took her into his arms, not caring if she smudged black on his shirt. It would wash out.

“Why are you crying? What’s going on?”

Her dachshunds, along with Gumbo, sat on the floor with her, seemingly unconcerned.

“I want that mini dachshund,” she whispered in a tinny voice.

“Okay,” he said. “No problem.”

“Silvy has two left, and I just need to call her.”

“I’ll call her,” Finn said. “It’s fine. Are you really crying over a third dog?”

“No.” She sniffled and pulled back. “Now I have to do my makeup for a third time, and your mama’s gonna be here in ten minutes.”

“My mama?” Finn peered at her, but Edith seemed to have other places to look. “Why is she coming over? We need to leave to get the food in about thirty minutes. Right?”

Edith nodded and reached for the washcloth she’d obviously already used to clean her face and start again. She ran the water in her bathroom sink and nodded over to his sink while she wetted her washcloth. “Look over there.”

Finn looked, but he didn’t see anything of note. His razor. A cup he used after he brushed his teeth. And something he didn’t recognize. He looked at Edith, but she had her face buried in the washcloth.

He walked around her, moving closer. All at once, he realized what she’d laid there for him to see.

A pregnancy test.

He picked it up, his pulse suddenly hacking through his body the way a lumberjack chopped at a tree trunk. “Is this…?”

The test held two lines, and it was dummy-proof, because it had the results printed right on the stick. Two lines = pregnant.

His brain caught up with his eyes, and he huffed out his breath. “You’re pregnant.” Shock and delight mixed into a delicious cocktail in his veins, and he turned to face his wife, his best friend, his everything.

“You’re pregnant,” he said again, his voice louder and more excited.

Edith looked at him, her smile wide but her tears still flowing down her face. “I’m pregnant.”

Finn laughed and reached for his wife. He swung her around while she laughed too, and when they both settled back on their feet, he pressed his smile to hers. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

He pulled back, keeping one hand on her back while his other moved to her flat belly. “We’re going to have a baby.”

“We’re going to have a baby,” Edith repeated in just as reverent a whisper. She looked up at him, and Finn pulled her into his chest.

“We can do this.” He and Edith had decided to try for a baby right away, and they’d only been married for three months. “How far along do you think you are? I want to go to your first doctor’s appointment with you.”

“Maybe five or six weeks,” she said. “And Finny.” She stepped back and picked up the washcloth again. “I don’t know who to go see here. I’m going to ask your mom about it.”

“Oh-ho.” Finn shook his head. “You tell my mama about the baby, and she’ll be over here doing your chores every morning.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Ask JoJo. She just had a baby.”

“You don’t get it, do you, Shortstop?”

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