Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

ROSE

J oe was in the living room with Hope on his lap when Muffy and I walked in through the front door, and Joe’s face lit up when he saw me. Muffy made a beeline for the sofa and jumped up, taking turns covering first Joe’s then Hope’s faces in kisses. Hope burst into giggles and put her arm around Muffy’s neck.

“We missed you too, Muffy,” Joe said, then rubbed her ear for several seconds before he stood, holding Hope’s back to his front, his arm around her chest and tucked under her armpit. He closed the distance and leaned in to give me a quick kiss.

“Want to trade?” he asked, reaching for the pizza box.

I let him take the pizza and scooped Hope into my arms. She smiled at me and babbled as her hand patted my face.

“There’s my sweet baby.” I kissed her forehead and held her close. My heart swelled when she leaned into me and patted my chest.

Joe gave Muffy one more head rub before he headed into the kitchen.

I followed, and Muffy jumped off the sofa and trotted behind me.

“Has Hope eaten yet?”

“Nope,” he said. “We were waiting for you. I knew you’d probably want to feed her.”

As he put the pizza box on the table, I noticed a jar of baby food carrots and a small spoon on the highchair tray. A couple of plates were already on the table along with a small stack of napkins.

I gave Hope another kiss, then set her in her highchair and put her bib over her clothes. I twisted the lid off the baby food jar as Joe opened the box and put a slice of pizza on a plate, then set it in front of me.

Muffy settled into her dog bed underneath the window looking over the barn and field behind the house.

The house felt quiet and unsettling without Ashley and Mikey there, but I stuffed the thought down and focused on my baby.

I gave Hope a spoonful of carrots, some of which got smeared on her lips. “How did the Ferrimen job go?” Since most people didn’t need landscaping done in November and December, Bruce Wayne had come up with the idea to install Christmas lights, and since Joe was working for Bruce Wayne, he installed them too.

“Pretty good,” he said, grabbing his own slice. “We got two more jobs out of it.”

I shot him a quick glance. “That’s awesome.” I wasn’t surprised. Most of the work they’d done had come from referrals or people noticing the signs they put out in the yards of the houses they’d installed. It was two weeks before Christmas, but they had more jobs than they’d had two weeks before. “Installing Christmas lights was a great idea.”

“Bruce Wayne gets all the credit,” he said before he took a bite of his pizza.

“True, but you got the deal on Christmas lights.”

“Speaking of,” he said before he swallowed. “We’re gonna need more lights, which means I need to head down to Shreveport bright and early on Monday.”

I nodded in acknowledgment. “Do you think you’ll get the same deal?”

“I’m gonna try.”

I cast another glance over my shoulder. “How are you doin’ with all of this?” I asked quietly.

His brow lifted in confusion. “Drivin’ to Shreveport?”

“No, workin’ for Bruce Wayne.” I made a face then turned back to Hope, whose mouth was open, waiting for her next spoonful of carrots. “Workin’ for me.”

“Rose,” he said tenderly, “we’ve discussed this. I’m good with it. It’s fine.”

He’d quit his job as the chief deputy sheriff last spring when I’d faced down Denny Carmichael, a county drug czar, as well as the international cartel, Hardshaw Group, so he could protect me. I was dealing with criminals, and his duty as a sheriff deputy obligated him to report what he encountered. By quitting, he freed his conscience, but I’d worried he’d regret it in the long run. While Joe was good at landscaping, I was pretty sure he didn’t love it. Still, he liked working on home repair and remodeling projects, and he was considering buying a home to flip after Christmas.

I bit my bottom lip. “If you change your mind…”

“Maybe I will in the future, but for now, I’m enjoying havin’ more time with you and the kids. I would have never been able to pick Hope up from daycare at three o’clock if I still had my old job.” He winked. “And I wouldn’t have had time for the incredibly hard job of setting out the plates for pizza.”

I laughed as I shook my head. “Very true.”

“Change of subject.” He leaned forward and made a face at Hope. A huge grin spread across her face. “Are we still on to go to the Christmas tree farm tomorrow?”

“Of course. Neely Kate’s gotten her and Daisy and Jed matching outfits to have their photo taken in and everything.”

He chuckled. “And Jed’s goin’ along with this?”

“You know that man would walk on water if Neely Kate asked him to.”

“True, but I’m struggling to picture him in an ugly sweater.”

“I’m pretty sure she was picking up a red flannel shirt for him on the way home today, so prepare to be disappointed.”

“There’s always Christmas,” he said. “Maybe he’ll wear one then.”

I laughed, which made Hope giggle.

“What’s so funny, little miss?” I asked as I scooped carrots off her face then put the spoon in her mouth.

“Are we dressin’ up tomorrow?” Joe asked, and I heard the hesitation in his voice.

I glanced back at him. “Scared I’m gonna make you wear an ugly sweater?”

“Sort of,” he admitted.

I laughed again. “No worries. I don’t plan on makin’ a big deal of this excursion. I mean, we’ve both seen the tree lot. If I had my way, I’d already have a tree up while the kids were here to help decorate, but this was so important to Neely Kate, so…”

“You’re a good friend and sister-in-law.”

“She’s done a heck of a lot more for me than go to a Christmas tree farm. Besides, maybe it’ll be fun. I just wish Ashley and Mikey could come.” I hesitated. “Maybe I should try again to see if Mike’s parents will let us pick up the kids for a couple hours to go to the tree farm.”

“I already tried, Rose,” he said quietly. “Mike’s dad hung up on me.”

My heart sunk. “Why do they have to be so nasty? They’re just hurtin’ the kids.”

“I think they’re scared Mike’s gonna go to prison and the judge is gonna give them to us.”

“Holdin’ onto them like this isn’t gonna help their case.”

“You and I both know that. Too bad their attorney isn’t tryin’ to drive that point home.” Our attorney had told us that the more amenable we were, the better our chances would be to get full custody. She said the judge we’d been assigned placed a lot of weight on flexibility and accountability.

“At least we have them for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning,” Joe said. “You know they’ll love havin’ everyone here for Christmas Eve dinner.”

Bruce Wayne and Anna didn’t have any family, and Maeve was planning to drive up to her son’s house in Little Rock on Christmas Day. Jonah Pruitt, my friend and the pastor of the New Living Hope Revival Church, and his girlfriend were coming over after we all attended Christmas Eve service. Neely Kate and Jed had been invited to a big gathering at her granny’s, but when Jed had heard one of her aunts was bringing roasted raccoons for the main course, he suggested they skip the family dinner, eat with us, then go over later.

“They are excited about it.” I hesitated. “Are you still okay with hostin’ this dinner? We can always cancel if it’s too much.” It was a lot of people, and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe he’d just agreed to it because I’d been so excited about it. He was a lot like Jed in giving me pretty much anything I wanted, and I tried my best not to take advantage of it. Still, sometimes I wasn’t entirely sure he was as happy about my plans as I was.

“I’m lookin’ forward to it too, Rose,” he assured me. “We’ll have Christmas morning with the kids until Mike’s parents pick them up at noon, and then we’ll go over to Jed and Neely Kate’s for dinner.” He winked. “ Although I was thinkin’ about tryin’ to score an invite to Granny Rivers’s Christmas Eve dinner. I’ve never had roasted raccoon before.”

“If you’re lucky, they might have leftovers, and Jed can bring you some.”

He licked his top lip. “Lucky me.” Only the way he was looking at me made me think he wasn’t thinking of roasted raccoon. “What do you say after Hope goes to bed, we Netflix and chill? If we’re gonna be kid-free, we might as well take advantage of it.”

I laughed. “I suspect that doesn’t mean what you think it does.”

His eyes danced with mischief. “I know exactly what it means.”